#but it connects with the rest of the episode

[wilcze-kudly]

Katara and the fear of loss (aka why she waited)

I think one aspect of Katara's storyline I don't see explored nearly enough the fact that she is terrified of losing others, especially those whom she cares for. This makes sense, especially looking to her background, how the death of her mother affected her and the fact that war has been a very large part of her life since she was a small child. Not to mention, she is actively a huge part of said war, along with her brother and friends, at the tender age of 14.

Now, some of you may ask "quill what the hell does Aang have to do with Katara's mother?"

Yes, on the surface, there isn't that much connecting Katara's dead, grown ass mother to Katara's alive 12 year old goofball bf but the parallels between Kya and Aang are planted even at the beginning of the show, in the first few episodes.

When Zuko and the Fire Nation attack the Southern Watertribe, they are looking for Aang, the last airbender, not dissimilar to the Southern Raiders looking for the last Southern waterbender. Furthermore, both Kya and Aang willingly give themselves up to the Fire Nation in order to protect the village, particularly Katara.

Throughout the show, we see Katara's interest and endearment towards Aang grow, and we see them create a genuine friendship. But I'd argue that Aang being the Avatar is, to some degree, a problem to their relationship. Aang's duty as the Avatar, and the risks and decisions he is faced with due to it, often create a rift between him and Katara.

Be it due to Aang's responsibilities leading him to make decisions she doesn't agree with, like in the Avatar State, where Aang feels the pressure to force the Avatar State due to the suffering of the soldiers he feels responsible for.

Or, more poignantly, in the Awakening, where Aang is once again compared to one of the parents Katara lost due to the war, though Hakoda's 'loss' was not due to death, but a need to fight. I think this also shows how much Katara values Aang not just as the Avatar, but as a person.

Katara: Aang. He just took his glider and disappeared. He has this ridiculous notion that he has to save the world alone, that it's all his responsibility. Hakoda : Maybe that's his way of being brave. Katara: It's not brave; it's selfish and stupid! We could be helping him, and I know the world needs him, but doesn't he know how much we need him, too? How can he just leave us behind? Hakoda : You're talking about me too, aren't you?

This is twice Aang has been directly paralleled to one of Katara's parents, whose repsective losses have clearly affected her greatly. This is also extremely poignant, since we've been explicitly told that Aang's love for his own lost family, the Air Nomads, was reborn into Katara. For Aang and Katara, the ways they deal with their losses influences how they pursue each other romantically.

Of course, there's also the ✨️ immediate threat of death and physical injury✨️. Aang and the rest of the Gaang, but particularly Aang is constantly being chased and tracked and endangered by the Fire Nation and he is meant to face the Firelord and defeat him. There are a lot of possibilities for something to go horrifically wrong here.

From Aang being half dead when Katara found him, then almost immediately getting kidnapped by the prince of the goddamn Fire Nation, to almost every villain of the week shenanigan, Katara already has good reason to worry for Aang.

But then the reach Ba Sing Se and things get even worse. Jet, Katara's only other canonically confirmed love interest dies, and Katara is helpless to do anything about it. This is already enough to make someone reconsider future romantic endeavours, but surely it can't get any worse, right?

Oh yeah, Aang FUCKING DIES

He gets blasted in the back with lighting, right as he enters the avatar state, right before Katara's eyes. The saviour of the world, but more importantly, her dear friend, brutally cut down before her very eyes. And Katara, a child, is the only person with even a sliver of hope of bringing him back.

So is it really any surprise that Katara, having experienced loss before multiple times over, and almosf having lost Aang himself, would be hesitant to enter a romantic relationship with someone being actively hunted by the greatest military in the world, someone obligated to take on the leader of said military?

Katara is afraid. She's afraid of opening her heart up to loving Aang and then losing him after that. This is the main reason why she hesitates in initiating her and Aang's relationship. Whenever Aang tries to brooch the subject, she brings up the war and the Firelord, but due to being a child, she struggles in communicating her exact feelings, which leaves Aang confused and of kilter. Katara often gives Aang romantic attention, and clearly feels rather possessive of him, however, she is not ready to enter a romantic relationship due to the threat of the war looming above their heads. But due to being 14, she doesn't know how to explain these feelings, which is what leads to the minor conflict between her and Aang. Because, you know, they're both children in a situation that children aren't built to deal with.

Katara : Aang, I don't know. Aang: Why don't you know? Katara : Because, we're in the middle of a war, and, we have other things to worry about. This isn't the right time.

It's important to note that Aang isn't exactly a bad person for wanting this relationship to be made tangible. He does push boundaries, and kissing Katara without her consent in the Ember Island episode is obviously a horrendous misstep (which he acknowledged), but I think you can at least understand his motives. He may soon die, after all, and he wants to love Katara and wants to express that love before he possibly loses his entire goddamn life. I think this can also be traced back to how Aang deals with the genocide of the Air Nomads and vs how Katara deals with the death of her mother.

Aang certainly blames himself for the death of the Air Nomads, although this guilt is unfounded. Perhaps part of him believes that if he'd just stayed with them, spent a little more time with Gyatso, he could've helped them. It wouldn't be a leap to imagine that Aang wanting to spend more time with those he loves, including Katara is a coping mechanism surrpunding that loss.

Now juxtapose this to Katara, who's entire encounter with Yon Rha is permeated by helplessness and fear, an 8 year old Katara being unable to do anything but run away and try to get help, sadly not in time for Kya to survive. So Katara trying to assert some control over her relationships, maintaining a certain distance to Aang while the war that robbed her of her mother is still in full swing isn't an improbable concept. She's trying to not feel that helplessness again.

(Katara probably blames herself for her mother's death too, but it has less to do with Katara's actions and more to fo with what Katara was; a waterbender, something she hasno bearing on)

This is why she initiates the kiss with Aang at the end of the show. Not because she feels the need to give in to his advances due to him being the hero of the world. Not because she's caving to his insistence or because she's pressured. But because the possibility of Aang getting fucking murked by glorified pyromancers are significantly lower than they were during the war.

This is not a 'taking one for the team bcs I feel like I have to due to Aang saving the world' type of smooch. This is a 'finally I feel safe to express my feelings' type of smooch.

To be completely honest, I don't like how Kataang was handled post day of black sun, I think it was an unnecessary addition of a redundant "will they, won't they?" aspect to the relationship. Teasing Zutara in the last few episodes was also just unnecessary, because it was obviously never a viable endgame relationship and it only served to give kid zutara shippers false hope. This is especially fucked up looking at how the same zutara fans were later mocked by the creators, which, no matter what you think if the ship, is a horrible thing to do to a bunch of teenage girls and I think has contributed to those teenage girls growing into bitter, aggressive adult zutara shippers.

But, as much as I dislike this storyline, it does make sense for Katara's character and is an interesting and touching 'silent arc' for her to have. We often see characters fall in love in the midst of a conflict, but we aren't always shown how that conflict would affect the way they look at their relationship, so I appreciate this storyline for what it was.

[dropoutconfessions]

it really bugs me when people say dropout doesn't have representation or "enough" representation. there's lots of women, poc, queer people, trans people, trans women, drag queens, neurodivergent people, stutters and (afaik one) physically disabled person just counting who shows up on screen, let alone the rest of the crew. they give every demographic a voice, a job, the ability to take risks with shows and to come up with ideas and to do something they love all at a relatively cheap subscription price with multiple weekly uploads. yes there could be more but you could be saying that forever. i'm not saying to sit down and shut up and not fight for representation, but some of the language people use really makes it seem like they're arguing that dropout has little to no rep which is just false. dropout shouldn't hire just to tick diversity boxes, the cast doesn't owe you their coming out or diagnoses. a lot of the cast are very open about their identity, sexuality and disabilities/illnesses/struggles and 90% of every single episode of any show on dropout is filled to the brim with queer people and characters. they know their audience is full of queer people. they've created a safe space both online and in real life at an affordable price and they're letting queer people experiment and take risks and do what they love. some of yous need respect. yes sam is a cis white man but what ever happened to "cis white people need to uplift the voices of the marginalised" and mismag is good, actually because jkr doesn't own the genre but we're at a place where it's good to talk about her when creating stories in said genre using a public platform. which they do. the show's both parodying hp and its own deep narrative about dismantling oppression and segregation through community, connections and love and both of these themes are about combating jkr's influence and rhetoric. you don't know who wrote mismag or who they spoke to or who they love, and a trans person literally plays in it and their character QUITE LITERALLY transitions their identity to something that was always there but they were hiding away in an effort to fit in and look cool, which is very trans of them to do. playing with the wizard boarding school genre should be un-terfed and that's the point of mismag and tumblr people shoot first and ask questions later media literacy is a sisyphusian task you need to constantly learn and check and re-check and adjust and learn you don't just "have it" because you can think past surface level on your favourite shows. context matters sometimes and this is one of those times.

anyway sorry for the rant reading this blog's posts make my blood vessels burst

-

[xtraordinaryfangrl]

I’m halfway through TUA S4 and honestly?

…

…

…

…

IT IS THAT BAD. I'm not so sure it's GOT S8 bad and yet, it may just end up being a tie once I finish the whole season.

I can count the things I like on one hand, but the rest is just trash for me to recycle and make into something genuinely entertaining (like my Really Random Thoughts series, episodes 3 and 4 to be posted soon 😉) because disrespectfully - what am I watching?

Why are Diego and Lila suddenly bad at communicating with each other?

Where did Dolores - Five’s true love - go?

When did Viktor find the time to learn firebending in between building up his “body count” and running a successful bar?

How is Sparrow!Ben's personality so easily becoming Umbrella!Ben's?

How did Klaus maintain his sobriety for 6 years?

When did Ray walk out on Allison and Claire?

Where is Sloan?

Why did they give the special dance sequence to Gene and Jean - TWO NEW CHARACTERS 90% of the fandom doesn’t give TWO SHITS about?

(side-note: if any of y’all have a connection for weed or something stronger, I would gladly appreciate the referral because I R E F U S E to watch episode 5 with a clear conscious… Just kidding! Or amI???)

[gayhenrycreel]

i hate that "adult" animation is.... like that. dont get me wrong, i like rick n morty, its mindless and silly, but adult cartoons deserve to tell complex stories with themes and good writing. there are many mature childrens cartoons but i cant name a single mature adult cartoon. imagine if something as good as adventure time was allowed to be for adults. the new fiona and cake show is sorta for older audiences and thats as close to mature adult animation as there is. western adult animation i should specify, because anime is great at being both mature and adult. beastars and dungeon meshi are the sort of thing we could have more of if adult animation wasnt always trying to rip off south park.

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[lafilleestmorte]

I have been thinking about Q.

Falling in love with the person leaving him notes at the cafe throws him completely off balance. It's his final year of high school, his world must revolve around his art and getting into college. But he's sitting thinking about this person he has never met and how natural it feels to love them and how deep this feeling has settled into his chest and how little he knows how to deal with it.

So he leaves. He goes to university. He spends a year making friends, dating around, drinking. His art surrounds him again and if he ignores the memory of that milk frappe boy whom he left behind then he can return to the person he understands. He loathes that he is able to live with having left him behind. He draws and fools around some more. And so the year ends, and, walking into a new semester, he meets Toey.

Q's mentee is. strange. For a fine arts major, he has the most peculiar relationship to art. He doesn't have the faintest clue of the skills that, to q, are simple as breathing. Armed with blunt pencils and a conviction like none other, Toey paints beauty into the world around him

It's like I'm sitting in a vast grassy field, with a gentle breeze under a bright sky. It's like I'm watching a masterpiece of art.

Q recognizes the way he's starting to care about Toey, but he's still trying to learn how to show it. Small gestures, little invitations. Quite moments with just the two of them. He remembers the milk frappe boy and regrets what he didn't do then. But he likes the person Toey is showing him how to be.

You said I didn't take care of you at all, so I'm treating you to some desserts.

It occurs to Q all at once that Toey might just as easily slip away. Because of a love beyond his hands or someone else who gets there faster or his own lack of action. Q refuses to lose the person he loves ever again. He's never been in love with a boy. He doesn't even know if Toey has a reason to like him back. But he doesn't have the time to give thought to his feelings or his fears. He needs to run towards Toey, faster than he himself thought it possible.

So when he finds out the truth, the feeling of betrayal is difficult to describe. The love that he had kept concealed - from everyone and from himself - out on display for all of his friends. A boy who made him want to reach out and hold onto his own genuine feelings, working behind him to catch him off guard.

The boy he has been in love with loves him back. He has always loved him back.

But the person he has been becoming now feels like he might slip away. How easy it would be to let him go. How easily he had left him in pain and silence, two years ago.

[insistonyourcupofstars]

Once Upon a Time was so right for basically saying that the most miserable thing you can be is lonely

[aq2003]

i saw a post saying boom was good bc it feels like it could be done with any doctor/companion duo and honestly that was one of the things i felt was wrong with it

[qserasera]

i know it would have been absolutely a different genre for joy of life in an AU where fan xian Was raised in the palace with the princes (def more horror story feel in some of it, increasingly 6D levels of chess, more insanity), but the concept has a certain Fascinating appeal

(it's that one screenshot in the festival where he's just. walking with the rest of the princes in the center of a group as if he belongs there!! with the emperor talking about the flowers etc etc)

[hauntoblogical]

Watching Gunbuster for the first time, and I love how the show uses its sci-fi elements to examine the "traumatized soldier's return to a home they no longer recognize" trope from a new angle. Plays a similar role in the broader themes of the Horrors of War, but the relativistic space combat shifts the site of that change: the soldiers are stuck in their moment of trauma and the rest of the world has moved past them. A shift in reference frames, if you will. Instead of soldiers returning with forced maturity to an unchanged civilian world that only has space for lives they've outgrown, the solders return with extremely-recent unprocessed trauma to a world that has already forgotten the cost of their service. Whatever the extent people back home feared the alien threat before, they've long since known about each victory, had time to move forward with ordinary lives, while our protagonists lack even old ill-fitting lives to return to after giving their lives up to the space military more literally than normal.

[microcroft]

going full pepe silvia mode on my theory that ruby sunday is the doctor and rose's daughter

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

someone talk 2 me about the winters family torment nexus. or nhw. or danny phantom

[kingdomoftyto]

Rotating Simon Petrikov in my mind again...........

Right now I can only envision the F&C series ending in one of two ways for him:

Simon is persuaded to permanently move to Fionna's magic-free world--a chance to live the peaceful, scholarly life he was denied by the war and the Crown. We see that he can't relate to the humans in Ooo because they're so far removed from what humans were like back in his time that they might as well be aliens, but this alternate world would be just like he remembered his old life to be, and thus more comfortable for him to settle down in. Even if it meant leaving Marceline and the others behind in Ooo, I could see this being a real possibility if Betty somehow finds a way to go with him. It would require moving on irrevocably from one part of his life, but they'd get their simple, mundane--yet happy--ending.

Simon is forced to reconcile with the fact that reuniting with Betty is either impossible or not worth some terrible price. Maybe he realizes he's not willing to cut himself off from his Marceline and the little ragtag family they've built, even for a life with Betty. Or maybe accepting the mundane life for himself would also doom Fionna and Cake to a life of misery and broken dreams, and he can't bring himself to betray his new friends for such a selfish reward. Either way the result is that he returns to Ooo, to basically the same situation he was in at the start of the season, but finally free from all the regret and guilt and grief that was stopping him from moving forward and finally embracing the second chance that Betty gave him back in "Come Along with Me".

I honestly don't know which I think is more likely at this point OR necessarily which one I would prefer, because they both have pros and cons. I maybe lean toward the second one because I tend to hate "the magic is gone, and that's good!"-type endings, but depending on the buildup I could still see it working. Ultimately it'll depend on wherever Fionna and Cake themselves end up, and I have NO idea where that's going lmao

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

finally getting my ass up to note down the last thirty episodes i basically binged without ever opening my notebook and wow mag181 really was a rest. for them. for me. for me now that, for one single episode, i can fall back into the shape of the first 160 episodes i noted down. like i've been doing this specific format for so long, even after 20 apocalypse statements that still felt wrong, a constant reminder of how horrid everything is. but not now. not for this episode. not for this one episode. surrounded by wrongness for a second i can pretend it's fine

[narcissusbrokenmirror]

missing jatp everyday but missing it harder today!!

I'm always thinking of how jatp would've kept going, so lets dive into those thoughts today.

Julie is supposed to grow up. and the boys aren't. That's awkward for them i suppose lol. my idea is that they wouldn't make the inside universe of jatp last five years, i guess they could last like two, at best. I do think they have potential plots for 4+ seasons, what i would've like seeing would be:

Julie's friendship with Flynn getting even more screentime

giving Flynn more background

a redemption arc to Carrie

a closure for Trevor and the phantoms (idk man just erase him from my sight) along w some more insight into Sunset Curve and its dynamics. (I want the angst of luke calling his childhood best friend a traitor to his face)

Caleb's past and destruction.

A bigger villain. to also get destroyed. (like having villains is not their biggest problem here)

More ghost powers!!!

A rival band (who could also be read as a villain)

Willie's past

A girl ghost (bonus if she becomes a regular character.)

Alex getting another boyfriend and having drama with Willie (owen said it'd be cool and i agree) but Willex endgame.

Alex's sister. (I really dont care abt his parents, they can just be dead)

Reggie's family (how cool would be if Reggie found out his brother had a son?)

And last, but not least, Julie and The Phantoms as band. I want band tour, band interview, band shenanigans, more songs, alex and reggie singing more songs. (I need my reggie's country album)

As for the ending. I think alike Jeremy Shada when he said that the ending should go with all of them parting ways and here's how i think it should go.

For Luke, they should go with the ghost magic with no explanation and bring Luke back to life, no, i dont care if its tacky or cliche, i just want a happy ending. would also be really funny if julie and luke only got together at the final season when Luke comes back to life.

For Alex, i imagine him and Willie remaining together as ghosts and turning the old hgc club in a ghost community and look for new ghosts to help them through the after life. Alex once said the after life should come with instructions, what's better having a ghost commune where they can have ghost powers lessons, ghost therapy and support for unfinished business? it'd also be Alex and Willie's little happy never-ending.

For Reggie. Baby is crossing over. After watching his brother heal from the storm of their parents' relationship, spend some quality time being part of Julie's family, having at least one fling, playing with his one chosen family and becoming a legend, Reggie could decide to crossover. and come back as a puppy. (Bc it'd be funny)

For Julie, she's carries on being a star, plays with different bands through her career and if anyone asks her abt her mysterious band as a teen and where those guys went, she plays a joke of "oh, they don't even live here anymore."

[jazz-vampire]

Desert Island Discs is often weird and more often pleasant but kind of predictable?