truemetis

[truemetis]

You know what, I don't actually know that murder is bad. I know that it's unlawful, by definition. But all that means is that the government doesn't want you to do it. And we've seen the governments in ATLA, they suck. Not sure why I'd take cues from them.

But hey, if we want to talk about how killing is bad, then we need to have a talk about Aangs actions and how he's given a pass. Because this is either a show that honestly deals with killin,g and people actually think Katara might have killed that guy, or it's not. Can't have it both ways.

This is what I mean when I say that ATLA ended up being liberal propaganda, despite the show using the aesthetics of revolution.

“you guys know that murder is like....a bad thing....right? especially for a 14 year old? you guys know that revenge murder isn't a healthy strategy?” They are saying this about a genocide survivor seeking retribution against the genocidal colonizer who burned her mother alive. The show forces the audience to root for said genocidal colonizer to be forgiven because that’s what the main character advocates for.

This is because liberals believe that the oppressed can’t ever retaliate against their oppressor, they have to fight back peacefully and without causing any damage. An oppressed person wanting to use revolutionary violence is immediately labelled as “revenge” and demonized.

I’m going to be very forward, in a time where the biggest superpower in the world is funding a genocide, it’s dangerous to approach media that deals with themes of imperialism through this liberal reductionism.

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Love how Azula stans can ignore her orchestrating a genocide. Jesus. Like she's not only the one to suggest it, she wanted to participate. What the fuck people?

I know quite a few people have pointed out how Ozai sees himself and Iroh in Zuko and Azula - the soft cowardly first born and the more deserving second born - but I think something that’s neat is that it seems Iroh does the exact same thing.

Iroh loves Zuko and sees him as his own son, saying that he is a troubled young man and acknowledges all the terrible things he went through. Iroh gave Zuko constant support and acted as a guiding light, a pillar to lean on. Zuko makes numerous mistakes, life ruining ones, but Iroh is always there.

Iroh did not give that same consideration to Azula, but instead said that  “she’s crazy and needs to go down.”

Iroh would tell Zuko not to give in to Azula’s deceit and selfishness, and that he must fight her in an agni kai to take his rightful place. He sees in her his brother, a tyrant, a monster - not a fourteen year old girl shaped by surroundings. A fourteen year old who, to my knowledge, has caused less problems than Zuko in the general world. 

Iroh remembers the mistakes of his past and sees Zuko repeat the same, and tries to help him off that path before it can go too far, that he is a Nice Young Man who is simply misguided. 

He sees what Azula in the future is capable of and decides that this is what her future will be. This is all Azula will amount to. Azula will be nothing more than another cruel member of the family. Azula needs to go. 

[truemetis]

(◡‿◡✿)

(ʘ‿ʘ✿) “what you say ‘bout me”

(ʘ‿ʘ)ノ✿ “hold my flower”

[truemetis]

"Katara needs confrontation" I hope none of the people making this argument are KA shippers, cause Aang rather famously really doesn't like confrontation.

"Communication between Zuko and Katara would break down fast. Katara needs confrontation - "

*insert clip of Zuko apologizing to Katara when she's confronting him in the catacombs, or Zuko confronting Katara in TSR when even her brother was clueless about her pain, and waiting outside her tent all night so he could confront her first thing in the morning.*

"-while Zuko needs time to process things."

*clip of Katara helping Zuko process his feelings about his scar in the catacombs, listening to him talk about his feelings about the play, and talking through his fear about confronting Iroh.*

Oh, wait.

[truemetis]

Given how many people don't like when Katara talks about her mother, accusing her of trauma dumping or constantly bringing her up, It shouldn't be a surprise people don't like when two character talk about their trauma. This is basically just another way of saying she should have shut up. (I'm sure some people wanted Zuko to shut up too, but quite frankly people treat Katara way worse about this)

it’s really funny seeing people say that zutara would be toxic because they “trauma bonded” when a) insert obligatory inigo montoya you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means and b) relationships predicated on and/or strengthened by a connection over shared trauma are actually a pretty common staple in fiction, and especially in YA/children’s fantasy fiction (see: katniss/peeta, percy/annabeth) because what this trope really comes down to is the need to be seen and understood.

trauma can be incredibly alienating — let alone the trauma of something incredibly specific like losing a parent to imperialist aggression — and so it’s no wonder that the narrative of finding someone who knows what you went through, who reminds you that you aren’t alone, immediately lends itself to emotional intimacy. and it’s also easy to see why that could be extrapolated to romance, but that doesn’t make the act of connection sinister or unhealthy on its own.

zuko and katara being able to openly discuss their grief and trauma with each other is actually a hell of a lot healthier than whatever the show does with kat.aang, where anything mildly unsavoury or unpleasant in their relationship, especially in regards to katara’s more “negative” emotions, is promptly and neatly swept under the rug, never to be taken out again.

and i suspect that’s also where this dichotomy of kat.aang as wholesome and zutara as dark and toxic comes from, because seeing the raw, unadulterated reality of survivors actually reckoning with their trauma, rather than just repressing it with a smile, is much more discomfiting to audiences that have been conditioned to see the latter as the morally superior means of coping.

in being less palatable, however, zutara also gets to be unflinchingly authentic, and it’s this quality that ultimately works in their favour — giving their relationship, even if not explicitly romantic in nature, all the emotional weight and resonance that kat.aang lacks even at its best.

[truemetis]

The projection is real isn't it?

One post about spotting manipulative arguments was itself incredibly manipulative, and now a post about how they hit an nerve that really shows off one very raw one.

Why My Post Hit a Nerve: When Critique Feels Like Exposure

Sometimes, a critique doesn’t just get pushback it rattles. It spirals people. It makes them lash out. And it’s not because the critique was mean. It’s because it hit something real.

Here’s why my post about a fictional ship, no less hit a nerve.

I didn’t insult. I exposed.

I didn’t say Zutara fans were delusional.

I said the pairing, while popular in fanon, wasn’t emotionally compatible or supported by canon.

That kind of calm analysis is more threatening than insults because it’s harder to dismiss.

People couldn’t play the victim, so they called me manipulative instead.

I challenged a deeper fantasy.

Zutara isn’t just a ship it’s a romanticization of emotional intensity, healing through pain, and being chosen after conflict.

My post said:

“That’s not intimacy. That’s trauma-colored projection.”

To someone who ties their identity to that narrative? That feels personal.

I said the past mattered.

I said Zuko being the heir to Katara’s colonizers isn’t just background noise. It’s baked into their power dynamic.

I said forgiveness ≠ romance.

I said Katara didn’t need to kiss the Fire Nation to complete her arc.

That’s uncomfortable. It disrupts the fairytale.

So instead of examining that discomfort, they attacked the person holding up the mirror.

I refused to center a man’s redemption over a woman’s peace.

Zuko’s redemption is valid.

Katara’s forgiveness is powerful.

But I said:

Katara doesn’t owe him her heart to prove she’s healed.

That’s a threat to anyone who thinks a “good man who changed” deserves the girl. And they called that misogyny. Think about that.

I stayed calm, and they lost control.

I didn’t yell. I didn’t name call.

I responded point-by-point, clearly, confidently.

And when people can’t win with logic or receipts, they fall back on:

-Tone policing

-Fake feminism

-Guilt tactics

-Character assassination

Because if they can’t discredit your argument, they’ll try to discredit you.

The truth? It hit.

This wasn’t about ships.

It was about the emotional stories people use to feel seen. And I critiqued one of those stories and stayed standing.

That’s why they deleted comments.

That’s why they reblogged to spiral.

That’s why they called critique manipulation.

Not because I was wrong.

But because they weren’t ready to hear it.

[truemetis]

God the tides thing. Like some harbours it doesn't matter what the tide is at or how fast it's moving. All you'll lose is time. Others? At low tide rocks or sand bars can be exposed or nearly exposed. If the current is high you might be at risk of being pushed into rocks or shoals. And if the captain of the ship is talking about not being able to go in because of the tides one or more of these things is in play. Granted I don't think the writer knew that, they'd already shown they don't really understand sailing before, but still. She got damn lucky. Best case she runs the ship aground and has to wait for high tide.

But also think about the drill? What exactly was the plan if it made it through? She didn't appear to have a bunch of soldiers waiting, so she gets into Be Sing Se and then what? Hell even if they're a couple divisions waiting just off screen that's a tiny little choke point to go through easily resealed. This will not end well.

And finally the conquest of Be Sing Se itself. If literally a single Dai Li agent had said anything, she's screwed. And without plot contrivance that's what happens. I don't care how scary she is, one Dai Li would have been more loyal to Long Feng, or the Earth King, or the Earth Kingdom, or even just their own safety.

"Do the tides command this ship?"

[truemetis]

Never seem to see this point made with Zuko, Aang, or Sokka. The expectation they had to be fighters messed them all up, yet I rarely see "oh Sokka being expected to live up to his society's expectations to be a warrior did so much harm to him." Like does anyone actually think Aang wouldn't have been perfectly happy to never fight if he had been given the chance?

Can we PLEASE not start with the "being a fighter at a young age isn't empowering, it's a TRAGEDY" bullshit with Katara? It's soooo transparent when and how this is applied to female characters, and female characters only. Even in shows like ATLA where the entire show has a pretty heavy element of escapism and all characters, including Katara, are depicted as having the time of their lives fighting. It's misogynistic bullshit when it's applied to grimdark shows and it's even more obviously misogynistic bullshit in this show.

Especially since Katara didn't just have to assert herself as a fighter because of her gender. She also had to fight to regain combat bending for the Southern Water Tribe. She had to learn with a scroll that she stole from pirates, who first stole it from her people, who had been systematically kidnapped and murdered to prevent them from fighting.

This is without even getting into how female characters are historically portrayed in media and how none of the characters' choices, from Katara just "happening" to lose interest in fighting once she marries Aang to Toph saying she's too old and that she should have done what Katara (the Good Woman) did, exist in a vacuum.

"But all the male characters love fighting more than Katara!"

Really?

You sure about that? Cuz I seem to recall several episodes where the others actually had to hold Katara back from throwing down, and failed to do so.

"But she didn't really WANT to-"

No. Shut up.

[truemetis]

That's just really fucking sad.

Honestly the more I see of these guys the more I realize what a god damn miracle the show was.

i totally lost it at Dante’s face—he was trying so hard not to react, but deep down I know he was thinking, “OMG why did you guys do this???” LMAO i love him so much!

[finallyyy the new season of braving the elements is out on youtube https://youtu.be/Rm9IQQ3WxN8?si=ZCzyAti53ISq3_B1]

[truemetis]

“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[truemetis]

It's like the people who want the stories which feature magical kingdoms with a just ruler want them to become democracies at the end. Misses the entire point.

Those "modern fairy tales where the princess saves herself" types of books not only misrepresent the gender roles in fairy tales (there are tons of stories where girls get to save the day), but they fundamentally misunderstand the entire genre.

Fairy tales aren't about saving yourself.

These aren't epic myths or heroic legends about the great warriors who slay every monster in their path because they're so awesome. Fairy tales are almost always about ordinary, even incompetent, people who get thrown into strange situations where they only succeed because of the help of others.

It's not a gendered thing. The boy who goes off to seek his fortune is usually the dim-witted third son whose older brothers are the strong, smart ones. The third son succeeds because he is kind to the magical helpers who then complete the tasks for him--and the exact same thing happens when a girl is the main character.

The characters in a fairy tale rarely succeed because they embrace their own strength and take their own path. Much more often, they are told step-by-step what to do, and they succeed because they obey--respecting the wisdom of others.

The core virtue of a fairy tale is not pride, but humility. It's not a story about the strong, but those who are weak, small, helpless. The people who can't do it all on their own, but can recognize the worth and wisdom of others.

Turning this story into a "girl power" (or even a "boy power") story warps it into something that is fundamentally the opposite of a fairy tale, and it has nothing to do with the gender of the main character.

[truemetis]

Or because she ran when he burned her.

To this very day she's running from him.

The way some antis talk about zutara as if Katara continued to hate Zuko for the rest of her days is like if I argued that Katara could never be with Aang because he's in an iceberg and pretended that nothing ever happened after Aang was frozen in the iceberg. Like wdym they got marrried, he's an iceberg.

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Keep in mind Metro Man isn't just leaving knowing Megamind won't actually hurt anyone, he was a big part of why Megamind felt like he needed to become a villain in the first place. By removing himself from the situation he frees Megamind to start acting as he wants not just as he's expected to as well.

the genius of megamind (beyond the obvious genius ofc) is that it's superman parody actually presents a genuinely unsettling depiction of the "hero" that I like wayyy better than "what if superman was evil" or "what if superman was wrong"... it's "what if superman didn't care"

[truemetis]

Remember someone (can't recall who) saying a while ago that this was Aang's "Luke goes to Bespin" moment, where he ignores his mentor and goes off on his own, only to actually make things worse and gets hurt in the process. Except unlike Luke who learns from what happens, Aang very much does not. The only question is is whether this was a deliberate invocation of this trope and then they decided not to have Aang learn from it, or not. Given the vision he has isn't even what actually happens I'm not sure.

not to sound like a clown but i really thought they were building up to the lesson that aang’s love for katara was a selfish love which is why he needed to let her go………….only for them to literally let katara be his prize for saving the world at the end of it like thanks i hate it??? 

[truemetis]

If they explored it these changes would actually be pretty neat. Like if you compared them to how the Old Republic Mando's operated. Modern Mando's are a diaspora, and like a lot of diaspora's, especially fractured ones, they feel the need to increase their identification with their culture. To signify who they are as a people. Hence things like the creed that require you to speak the language and emphasizing symbolic connection like the Mandalorian homeworld and the dark saber.

Compare this to the SWTOR Mandalorians, hell despite being put into a similar position due to having been pushed out with the rise of Zakuul they remained a unified culture and don't feel the need to put on airs about it. The Mask the Mandalore exists as a historical artifact but none of the Mandalore's we see mention or possess it, most of the Mando's we see don't speak the language, though they probably know it, and when the Bounty Hunter character is adopted into Mandalorian culture he certainly doesn't know the language but no one really seems to care. Mandalore the planet is never even mentioned.

It's a culture wide version of being confident in yourself vs not. And it's interesting to think how these two very different versions of each other would react to seeing each other. Like imagine being an Old Republic Mando, having fought multiple different types of force users, not just Jedi and Sith but the Zakuul Knight and that group of Selkath force users Revan created, not to mention the Revanites, and then finding out your culture not considers a lightsaber to be a holy artifact? Sure you might respect the Jedi, but what the hell?

replacing the mandalore's mask with the darksaber (a very Jedi symbol btw) was SOOOO weird of filoni to do. where is the other ancestral item of leadership

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Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

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The thing that enrages me is that the trans woman, who's name I'm actively avoiding learning cause I don't think the poor woman deserves to be put in the spotlight like this, was apparently removed from her fencing team. Because universities are staffed by cowards. I've heard no such thing about Turner, who I think should be fired into the sun. Baring that she should be ostracized from any club she fences at.

I'm sorry I'm going fucking insane over trans people in sports issues the anti trans crowd has lost the fucking plot and then has the audacity to act like its the trannies who are ridiculous

I used to be of the "well the sports issue isn't really important to me its w/e I just don't want it to be a gateway into other transphobia" but oh my fucking god we are so far gone. The fencing shit is sending me over the edge. What the fuck.