reeseironi

[reeseironi]

[reeseironi]

"Is Discord okay? Perhaps someone should check on him." -Said no one in G5

[reeseironi]

She told him he was beautiful 😌💖

[reeseironi]

rare moment of subtlety from Shannon, respect

i haven't been able to stop thinking about how keefe noted that everything is flower-patterned in humanland. and ik sophie explained it away by implying that the hotel he was staying in had it esp bad, but the thing is.. he was totally right. esp from an elven pov. why do we have flowers on everything? why don't the elves? they decorate with stones and jewels, sparkles. things that are immutable, long lasting, things that reflect light. while humans decorate with that which is fleeting, merely a single iteration of a short and ever-changing life, specifically the iteration that actively absorbs light.

however trivial, this difference feels so indicative of all that separates elves and humans in terms of ideology. and it only makes sense considering how long elven lives are, that they wouldn't know to appreciate the cycle of life and death and the beauty to be found at their intersection. on the flip side, you see that because of their truncated existence, humans have grown used to taking. they're hungry because of how little time they have to grow and thrive, whereas elves have an abundance of life and light, so much that the only real solution is to send it back out in a way that should be primarily altruistic, but that has the ability to cause real pain.

[reeseironi]

if i was a priest my homilys would be lit

[reeseironi]

[reeseironi]

the reason why i'll never take the argument that "fire lady katara disempowers katara" seriously is because in canon she is reduced to being aang's wife and the mother of his children, which actively disempowers her and a lot of the fics i've read with the fire lady katara headcanon have her being involved in politics which demonstrates that for the most part, zutara shippers care more about empowering katara than -GUNSHOTS.

[reeseironi]

Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident

I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.

For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 

We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 

And we saw ourselves in Katara. 

Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 

Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 

Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.

Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?

Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 

After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 

And do better he does not.

The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.

Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.

Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.

The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 

Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.

I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.

I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.

[reeseironi]

People say “I don’t ship Zutara because if Zuko and Katara got married, Katara would end up like this” and then they describe exactly how Katara ended up after she married Aang

[reeseironi]

you guys just say sentences

[reeseironi]

take ur heart ❤️

[reeseironi]

whats his problem

[reeseironi]

"we need more morally grey character" please you couldnt even handle fitz vacker

[reeseironi]

only 6 more cards left to go and then the printing starts ⭐️

[reeseironi]

unprompted anti keefe post because i remembered this quote just now and got unnecessarily mad about it again. almost every reason i have to hate keefe can be seen in this quote from legacy btw:

“Isn’t this the epic showdown you’ve been planning where you order Tammy Boy to kill me? Thanks for the warning about that, by the way,” he told Tam. “As you can see, it worked super well.”

“keefe can keep a secret if it’s actually important” no the fuck he can not. this quote just proves how little he actually cares for other people. tam risked SO MUCH to pass along that warning to sophie, and keefe just casually mentions it in front of gisela. i can’t tell if he’s just really stupid or if he genuinely doesn’t care about the very REAL and very LIKELY possibility that gisela would literally kill tam for that. keefe casually decides to possibly condemn someone to death just to have a moment where he can tell his mom “i already knew what you were planning all along btw! lol! haha!” god he’s a fucking idiot.

then he has the nerve to say “as you can see, it worked super well” as if keefe didn’t SPECIFICALLY CHOOSE to ignore the message????? acting as if it’s tam’s fault that they’re in this position???

i get he uses humor as a coping mechanism, but all his comebacks to his mom just seem so stupid considering he is fully aware of what she is able to do. even if he knows she won’t hurt him, she is fully willing to hurt his friends. which he never seems to care about (unless it’s sophie, because for some reason sophie is the only person that matters to him. but clearly not even she really matters or else he would stop betraying her trust over and over and over again.)

reminder that the only reason they’re here is because sophie knew if she didn’t take keefe to london he would go by himself btw. which is just so. UGH. it’s not her job to be his fucking babysitter. how is that a healthy relationship

and then keefe has the nerve to be mad after tam escapes with gisela. like, you know, the literal exact same fucking thing he did with alvar in lodestar. except in keefe’s situation, he wasn’t a prisoner. he wasn’t wearing special bonds made of light that restricted his power. tam actually had a reason to go back with gisela. which keefe never did with alvar. but it’s ok! he’s allowed to be mad because it’s his mom! he’s allowed to be mad at everyone if they focus on the bigger picture instead of what will stop making him feel sad right this second! it’s ok for him to be mad because his mom is evil! but it’s not ok for fitz to be mad about them letting alvar go! because that’s different for some reason! trust me guys!!!!!!!!!!!

and don’t even get me STARTED on the final battle scene in loamnore. keefe is just so. oh my god. he’s so fucking aggravating. literally the whole group’s plan relied on the fact that keefe WASNT going to be there. he literally PROMISED he wouldn’t show up and try to take things over (like he always does). i seriously have no idea how sophie ever trusts him again after that. that would be my final straw. all he’s done is prove that no matter how much he swears he’s telling the truth, he’s just a manipulative liar 👍 it shouldn’t be sophie’s job to be constantly monitoring keefe to make sure he doesn’t do stupid shit like this. she shouldn’t have to be using her energy 24/7 worrying about what stupid thing he’s going to do next. that is not a healthy relationship.

and what do you know, keefe arriving at the scene was exactly what the neverseen wanted! gisela got to do what she was planning from the beginning!! and keefe acts like it wasn’t ENTIRELY PREVENTABLE.

god he’s just so stupid i don’t understand how any of these characters are able to remain friends with him. but whatever. keep glorifying his shitty behavior i guess.

[reeseironi]

sokeefe bingo

I mostly just think sokeefe is a SNOOZEFEST

I've read so many books where the main character falls in love with some dumb blond guy and they all wrote it way better (I hate this trope with a passion)

Unrelated note but when I first read the series my brain switched the hair colors of Fitz and keefe. so when Sophie got with Keefe I was excited that they both werent blond but then I realized my mistake and was so mad for a whole week

[reeseironi]

kotlcblr should shut the fuck up actually

Keefe is a mid character at best and people are allowed to be mad he's getting so much focus over the main damned character

Also everyone else has equal if not more potential for development than Keefe and yet constantly giving him plots has taken away any space for them. Its annoying and it sucks and people are allowed to be mad about it

That said Keefe is the most popular damned character in the whole series. Everyone complaining about widespread Keefe hate what invisible demons are you fighting

Dex isn't a cinnamon roll nor is he a bully. Stina regularly called him and his parents elf slurs and never changes her views throughout the entire series. He pulled a prank on her as revenge for something she did, and they live in a world where temporary body modification means nothing. The next scene we see her in she has her back, she's fine, AND she sneaks a live creature into Dex's locker - which requires DNA to get into

Alden sucks. However he does not mean to. Cassius on the other hand is a genuine asshole who knows he sucks and still abuses his son and I cannot believe people are defending him

Tiana and Dexiana are both mid and Biana is a boring character

Stina is barely developed, never really stopped being mean, and a bigot. People need to shut the fuck up about her

Christians are not oppressed especially not in this fandom and everyone should shut up about it.