#i can't get over the fact that ultimately

[lukeynewtssimp]

was reading comments on gossip blogs ( not dm page ) about the new nic pap pics & was surprised by how some of her fans are using that opportunity to shit & hate on luke I hate it so much the dude does nothing & get hate for no reason & I hate to say this but all the past few months made me just annoyed & I really don't want him & nic to interact ever again like her fans already harass & hate on him when he does & I'm just tired of it. I still like polin & they are amazing Penelope & Colin but I really can't act like seeing the endless hate he gets doesn't make me so upset btw this has nothing to do with shipping but I'm just tired of big part of nic fanbase & I feel the same about Jonny fanbase they have been weirdly racist towards Cynthia & I can't handle seeing stuff like this anymore. call me weak or whatever but I'm so over it being fan of people & have to pretend that I'm not affected nor upset by fans of their costars

I get the sentiment Anon. While I am a big fan of Lukey Newts, I am also a fan of Nic. I love them and wish them both all of the best.

But I do see what you’re saying, a lot of Nic solo stans unfortunately take any opportunity to hate on Luke and make every conversation about him. We could get into the psychology of that but I’d rather not as it’ll take the whole day lol.

I get your frustration and your feelings are completely valid. But it would be such a shame not seeing them interact or work together again. I love their friendship! In fact their beautiful friendship was the gateway drug that made me fall in love with both of them individually. We’ve already seen something similar happen with the To All The Boys I Loved Before fandom. Lana and Noah were subjected to some of the most toxic shipping there ever was, all while Lana was in a very serious relationship with her now husband. They both at some point admitted they had crushes on each other, and while it was cute, the shipping has now completely ruined their friendship and working relationship to the point where Lana said she would never work with Noah again because of that. And to be completely honest, it was really disappointing not seeing her with Noah in Xo Kitty. But I digress…

While the hate that both Luke and Nic are subjected to is now coming from their “solo stans”, it is all ultimately rooted in disappointed former shippers. And I would hate to see something like what happened with Lana and Noah to happen to Luke and Nic.

Xx

[wisteriasymphony]

Smudges - HPAU!Claudrien Ficlet

(This was voted on by the lovely people over in the Claudrien Nation community! Thanks guys :3 )

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

There had really only ever been two people that Claudia felt like she clicked with here at this stupid fucking wizard school.

 ...Well, 'people' was generous. 

She knew she had to take what she could get—Decent Slytherins were few and far between, and the ones that she might've had an actual chance at tolerating were scared away by the fact she'd tried to burn someone's face off within the first week. Claudia didn't particularly mind being known as 'the smuggler' or 'the firebrand', either, so long as it kept the wrong people from trying to fuck with her. 

Unfortunately, her first friend seemed drawn to these qualities like a moth to a flame—Adrien Agreste. Ravenclaw, with blood supposedly as pure as freshly fallen snow. He paid absurd amounts of money for muggle ballpoint pens, and somehow decided that was enough to make her his closest confidant. He was constantly scribbling down formulas and made-up incantations on whatever rolls of parchment he could carry ("Aren't they all just made up?" she asked once. "Exactly!" was the only answer she ever got). At first, Claudia was worried that he didn't realize socializing with her would make him a pariah, but it seemed like he had always been that way despite being pureblooded and actually quite pretty. Adrien was always mumbling to himself, always distracted with the latest experiments, and he couldn't approach a girl to save his life. 

Plus, he was always—ALWAYS—covered in ink. 

Safe to say, he wasn't nearly as much of a jackpot as his attractiveness would make him out to be. No larger friend group, no greater connections, just another fellow outcast. 

It was only a few weeks later, though, that Claudia gained her second friend. She didn't have the slightest idea how that cat had gotten into her room, but he had. Skinny, black, with bright green eyes that could probably stop a deer in its tracks. He lingered on her windowsill for a moment, simply watching her, before slowly creeping inside. 

"I didn't know you got a cat," Maya Kapoor had asked, once the cat had found its way into Claudia's lap. "What's his name?" 

Claudia squished the kitty's head between her hands, watching his ears flatten out. "I asked, but he didn't tell me." 

The Slytherin girls had a special way of giggling when Claudia said something that only a muggleborn would think. Wheezy and whispery, like they were only pretending to operate on the idea that she couldn't hear them. All behind hands or over shoulders. 

"Cats can't talk, Perreault," Maya replied, giving her a smile with too much gum and not enough sincerity. "Seriously, when has an animal ever talked to you?" 

As if it wasn't unreasonable for her to think animals could talk when there was shit like flying broomsticks and living chocolate animals running around. But shouting about it wasn't worth it. 

"I just assumed I wasn't worth talking to."

Maya shrugged, reaching in to touch a finger to the cat's back. Despite acting so friendly to Claudia, he froze, crumpling up further into her lap. Maya frowned, but ultimately ignored the slight.

"So you're gonna name him, right?"

The cat's head is cradled in her hands, and she stares into his eyes, pursing her lips as she thought of a name. Kitty? No. Cat? No. Blacky? Absolutely the worst possible idea. Maybe it'll sound less stupid if it's French, she thinks. Hopefully nobody will notice. 

"Chat Noir," she said, biting her lip so she wouldn't add an "..I think" to the end. Chat Noir's eyes seem to sparkle as she said this, burrowing his chin deeper into Claudia's hands. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

"Hey, Claudia! You're not busy right now, right?" 

Adrien had another one of his contraband pens held between his pointer and middle fingers, shaking it in a way that kept the barrel of the pen hitting against the joint in his thumb with an erratic clack-clack-clack-clack. In any other case, Claudia would be worried about his pens getting confiscated if he used them so openly, but Adrien had a habit of using them too quickly for it to even matter. 

("κᾰρπός Πασιθές" was one of the first spells he'd crafted, finding that Ancient Greek was better for softer, longer-lasting charms. Still, not a day went by without him pointing his wand at his wrists and whispering that phrase to stave off the inevitable carpal tunnel he'd spend the rest of his life fighting.) 

"I mean, I have class in a few minutes, so yes," she lied. –It was true that she had class, but Madam Capitval had a grudge against Claudia for her tendency to set things on fire, so she had no intention of going. "...What the hell do you have on your face?" 

Adrien smudged one of the shaky lines of ink on his cheek with his thumb, and the sight of the ink on his hand turned his face that usual bright shade of red. He shuffled all of his scrolls of parchment into one arm and began to viciously rub off the marks, turning away before Claudia could possibly decode what he had fallen asleep on—A love letter. It would be sent to her soon enough anyway. He couldn't bear to not send them himself, just because half of the joy was watching her read it. 

"I-it's nothing! Just, uh— More of those– M-more notes on Casting Language Reforms, nothing you'd want to- you'd be interested in." 

Claudia didn't believe him for a second, but she also didn't entirely care. She continued to walk in the opposite direction of her next class, and even still Adrien continued to follow her. 

"What spell do you need help with this time?" she finally asked, letting a smirk peek through. Adrien took a rather deep breath as he finally let himself speak about it to someone. 

"I looked over that textbook you disguised as an Herbology tome. I think, with the proper tests, I can create a spell that alters the—what was it called—'fructose' and 'glucose' levels in fruits and vegetables.”

"Couldn't you just make up a spell that makes things sweeter?" 

"That's the thing- It's too broad!" Adrien grabbed Claudia by the shoulders, a rather wild look in his eyes as he continued to ramble. "The beauty of this experimental magic is that I can change just the tiniest component rather than the whole. Imagine the kind of possibilities that opens up. For years—for centuries we've merely taught magic, but never before have we deconstructed it this thoroughly!" 

Claudia was glad she didn't have to worry about sharing any Magical Theory classes with Adrien. 

“—Besides," he added, "I was hoping that I'd be able to use the experience to do things like make potions easier to digest. Stuff you can't normally sweeten." 

...It was getting close to the full moon anyways, now that he'd made her think about potions. Claudia had been hoping to try and brew some Wolfsbane herself, if she could actually focus long enough to figure out what she needed to do to make it. Potions were the hardest thing to wrap her head around, even more so than the boring lectures and bullshit systems. It didn’t help that she wasn’t exactly the most well-liked Slytherin. 

Claudia sighed, finally stopping in her place. 

“Okay, I’ll do it. But you have to help me get mandrake leaves for my next potions project.” 

Adrien had more than enough—He’d been trying to automate brewing Wolfsbane for weeks—but he bit his lip before he would admit that out loud. It wasn’t him who was going to supply the potions, after all: It was Chat Noir. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Claudia let the side of her head dig further into the forest floor. She’d gotten far enough away to not worry about anyone seeing her, and likely not worry about hurting anyone else either. Not like felt she would want to even if she could—any bloodlust would have to fight against the pain she was already in. It hurt to move, it hurt to think, it hurt to breathe. Her clawed, furred hands clutched her twisting stomach as she stared out into the gaps between the trees.

There were times where she wondered if the Wolfsbane worked at all. Maybe it was supposed to make it totally painless instead of just a little. Maybe it was supposed to give you enough energy to help you get away from people right before the transformation happened, instead of having to sneak out hours before and just wait in the woods until you felt the tingling of fur growing on your back and whiskers sprouting on your face. Hell, as far as she knew, maybe Wolfsbane was meant to stop the transformation entirely. Nobody had ever told her.

The loneliness was the worst part. Claudia had nothing to really do but talk to herself, imagine what the rest of her life would be like if she had to skip town every full moon. She didn’t know any other werewolves, and she’d been sent off to school because her parents didn’t know how to handle it. The hope had been that she’d at least be able to tell somebody, but… nobody wanted to talk to her as it was anyways. Maybe even less so if they found out.

A small noise echoed out in the silence of the dark. Claudia lifted her head to take a better look. The noise happened again.

A thin black cat broke a branch as it made its way towards her.

It was ridiculous to think that Chat Noir had somehow been looking for her. Maybe the cat had just found her by accident or something of the sort. Still, Chat Noir trotted up to her with wide green eyes, somehow able to perfectly recognize her despite her monstrous form.

Chat Noir bonked his forehead against Claudia’s snout. She wished she could talk or pet him, but the fatigue was too strong. Still, Chat Noir didn’t seem to mind, and just curled up beside her like they were back in her room on her bed again.

It would make for a very embarrassing story down the line, Adrien thought to himself, but he supposed it was worth the trouble.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

[fonteyn]

watching ppl rage about house of the dragon character writing feels like opening tumblr and having war flashbacks to the game of thrones fiasco all over again

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

tbh i think that even unwinnable fights should be winnable. some of the BEST fights i've ever run as a dm were ones i built kill the players (in a fun way. I had some cutscenes prepped so even the loss would be a different flavour of win)- but then they were clever bastards and managed to either win the fights or pull themselves out of trouble. I think it's perfectly fine to plan for a fight that players aren't supposed to win, but you need to let them. if they can't win, they can't lose, and the meaning of that encounter is diminished. do that too many times, and they stop trusting you to give them roleplay prompts and start expecting to sit there waiting while you drive the story for them.

but if they can win... if there is always the chance to win, no matter how impossible the odds, then they ALWAYS have hope. they always get invested. they feel the big emotions of success or the big emotions of failure, and you fucking Win as a dm/roleplay prompter/lead bastard.

[wonder-worker]

"It is too easy to dismiss [Leonor of Navarre] as an overambitious schemer who would do anything to obtain a crown, shedding the blood of her own siblings and her subjects in order to attain the throne. However, a deeper investigation of her long lieutenancy and ephemeral reign shows a woman who fought tenaciously to preserve her place but also worked tirelessly to administer a realm which was crippled by internal conflict and the center of the political schemes of France, Aragon, and Castile. She tried to broker peace, fight off those who opposed her, repair the wounds caused by conflict, protect the sovereignty of the realm, and keep the wheels of governance turning. Leonor was not always successful in achieving all of these aims but given the background of conflict and the lack of cooperation she received from all of her family members, bar her loyal husband, it is a huge achievement that she survived to wear the crown at all. Many writers have argued that Leonor deserved the troubled lieutenancy, personal tragedies, an ephemeral reign, and a blackened reputation, basing their assumption that she committed a crime that cannot be [conclusively] proven. However, a more fitting description of her would be that of a resolute ruler who successfully overcame a multitude of challenges in order to survive in a difficult political landscape and gain a hard-fought throne.”

— Elena Woodacre, "Leonor of Navarre: The Price of Ambition", Queenship, Gender and Reputation in the Medieval and Early Modern West, 1060-1600 (Edited by Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

The Billions Showrunners Go To See Bway Bmc like lgw "the problem has always been me" and they look at each other approvingly and nod like now he's getting it :) and then the squip's deactivated and everyone's embracing the realities of being a person and rejecting the idea there can be, should be, and is a set of standards to meet to get everything you want and preclude yourself from being mistreated and they're like nooo what a powerful tragedy :(

[cacaitos]

see for the thing ive observed abt the way the female-to-male predation types of portrayals happen to go, that imo for some reason use like extra stablished power dynamics to like. *justify themselves happening in the first place (like ex mothers that are yk. v straighforward menaces in a kid/teen's inmediacy), is that i will give fujimoto the acknowledgement of partially avoiding doing so by virtue of him not having much respect or shame for himself and his story analogues.

[llycaons]

ig my 'unpopular opinion' (hate that term) is that lwj Should feel bad about how he treated wwx, and I'm glad he does, because that pushes him to grow as a character and make difference choices in the future. he should feel bad that he sided with the passive and corrupt clans instead of trusting wwx and being more proactive in protecting all those people. on the flipside jc's grief and misery surrounding wwx never seems to include regrets about what HE could have done differently, so he doesn't undergo any of that positive character growth, he just blames everyone around him and lashes out and sinks deeper into bitterness and contempt and fury. if he had thought about the consequences of his choices a little more, maybe he could have taken some responsibility for how it all went down too and like. acted differently when wwx returned.

but despite him going on about how family/clan is more important than anything, he doesn't even try to trust wwx, he just assumes the worst of him. and ik he's being manipulated and he's got trauma related to being abandoned, and wwx wasn't the most communicative about what was happening, but clearly he was trying to protect a group of innocent people and a child, so why couldn't jc extend to wwx an iota of good faith and like. back him up since this was clearly so important to him and also there are literal farmers and a toddler being threatened with murder? jc isn't to blame for wen chao or jgy or su she's actions, but he did have a certain amount of power in his role and he seemed determined not to use it. he publicly cut ties with wwx, allowing public sentiment to build against him, and he folded easily to demands that he kill wen ning despite having an actual argument against that. obviously being attached to the burial mounds community is politically disastrous, but lwj was speaking for wwx at the time too so it's not like jc was entirely alone. if he was a great political mind like I've seen people claim he was, he also could have curried favor with jzx through jyl's connection...idk it was important to wwx and I wish jc had been able to stand up for him or at least was capable of critically analyzing his own actions after the fact

[butchdomesticwhore]

why is it so hard to recognize that all this info about bills and such is something you can acquire via googling and making phone calls to people who work in these departments and--yes!--asking them questions on what your best next step is? how does making this about systemic oppression help you or anyone else complete practical, adult tasks? when you point at a paper bill from a medical institution and declare it fundamentally classist, does the bill magically crumple into the dust, the issue dealt with and over because you aptly named the systemic issue at play? no!

do you get angry at mechanics when they tell you they have an idea regarding how your car could be fixed, also? how does that help you? what have you learned from deciding to be angry as opposed to using the information dealt to you? perhaps you should not be told by cashiers either about when the sales happen or how items are put on clearance lest their Insider Knowledge tell you something you don't know and--gasp--come from a place of privilege.

the point of my info and OP's is practical use. "if you have this problem, [x] might solve it." privilege or no, how the info is acquired doesn't matter as much as whether or not it's accurate and helps people. and despite your daftness, i very much hope any of this info helps YOU. or if not you, then someone you know. or someone completely random, i don't give a damn.

Ok so my kid had an ear infection, right? As kids often do.

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

May this knowledge find its way to someone else who can use it.

[webism]

Virgin!Nanami is hesitant the first time you go down on him, because as he's nearing his (blinding, world shattering) orgasm, you aren't pulling off of him.

He's played the scene a million times in his head before, late at night as he palmed his cock through his boxers and tried to will his mind away from such lewd thoughts of you. In every fantasy he had of you on your knees like you are now, you serve him with your mouth until he's close, and then pull off to stroke him through his orgasm.

But your lips are still wrapped around him. His ragged breath, the gentle buck of his hips up into your mouth... is it not indication enough that he's about to unravel? Kento has to lick his lips to try and save his dry mouth before he speaks, though it comes out as more of a broken moan. "Sweetheart, I'm... so close."

And you hum around his cock, send a vibration up his spine that has his eyes rolling back. You hollow out your cheeks and increase your pace, desperate for a taste.

It's too much, he's never felt so boneless. His vision is already going, he's right on the edge of the strongest orgasm he's had in his life when he gently tugs back on your hair. "Stop, stop."

Of course, you're off of him instantly, wiping your spit-sheened lips dry and watching Kento wide eyes. "Are you okay? Too much?"

Kento is breathless, his cresting orgasm quickly fading out of reach. "You didn't pull away. I was going to..."

"I know," you nod, a gentle hand on his knee something soothing. "What, you don't want to cum?"

He blinks. "No, I... not in your mouth. I respect you, and I don't want you to sacrifice your comfort for me."

And you can't help but grin at the serious look strewn across his face. You lean down and press a kiss to his knee, and then higher up on his thigh, and another just above the patch of hair that bases his leaky cock.

"Kento Nanami," you look up at him, and press a feather-light kiss to his tip. "If you don't cum in my mouth, I will cry. I wanna taste more of you."

Your words alone are enough to relight that fire licking at his insides. He watches you for a moment, tries to discern whether or not you're speaking only to please him, but ultimately nods.

When you take him back into your mouth, all the way down to the base, Kento swears he must've been a saint in his previous life to deserve such pleasure in this one. You trace the vein that runs under his length with your tongue, and then suck on his cock as if you're trying to milk him dry.

When he cums, it's with a loud and uncharacteristically whiney moan that makes you wonder how he sounds begging. You taste his cum on your tongue, feel as he shoots it into your mouth, his dick throbbing and balls tightening in the same regard.

He's already overstimulated, panicking a little at the new subtle pain of more, and although he thinks he likes it, you know it'll be too much for his first time. You pull off of him, careful to spill as little of his release as possible, and sit back on your heels.

And Kento is a mess, lips parted as he watches your pull into a greedy smile. He's eager to watch you spit him out, perhaps a testament to the fact he was inside of you. But you meet his eyes, let him sit on your tongue a moment longer, and then swallow.

He's hard all over again, he wonders how he'll ever lead a normal life again after a sight like that. His mouth is dry, cock still wet with your spit, heart beating near out of his chest.

Still, he manages to stop you when you move to get up and start on his aftercare. "Wait," his voice is small, he's nervous.

You raise your eyebrows, "yes, Ken?"

"I want to taste you, too."

hi @angxlsatvrn

[imblocking-you]

Therapy Game

[gregrulzok]

This is something I love SO much about Kuro, and about Dunmeshi's portrayal of Bilingualism.

Like ... When we first meet Kuro it's so easy to assume he's a dummy. He's a big doofy-looking dog man that only talks about food, and his sentences are disjointed and broken, so you think oh, haha, token dumb character.

But then we swap to speaking Kobold and it hits you like a truck - Kuro is a person, and he has a full and complete train of thought that he can articulate. This is a grown ass man, and in his native language he speaks just as well as anybody - not only that, but here we see that Kabru, who is usually so good with words, speaks Kobold just as poorly as Kuro does common.

It's such an easy, obvious, and common trope to depict broken speech in a characters non-native language as a funny gag at the expense of their intelligence - not even just in fiction! Making fun of non-native English-speakers for their broken English is so fucking common and normalized - and here you have such a clear and simple portrayal that, no, in fact, Kuro isn't stupid.

And the thing is, common is common for a reason, right. In general high fantasy, "Common" means "Language that is effortless for everyone to speak". But in Dunmeshi, it's explicit that Kobolds can't fully learn Common - Common is designed for Humans, but Kobolds are demi-humans with different mouths and throats that don't allow them to enunciate in the same way.

And yet Kuro is doing his best to study it. He's going out of his way to master a skill most others don't even have to think about. Speaking of which ...

We get this exchange between him and Kabru, which I also wanted to focus on.

Because when we first see Kuro, then portrayed as a simple-minded dummy, it's easy to think that Mickbell is taking advantage of him and Kuro is unaware. Here, Kabru even assumes they can't truly be friends unless they speak the same language perfectly.

But that's not really the case - Mickbell isn't taking advantage of Kuro, not in the way we (and the rest of the party) assume - because Kuro isn't as stupid as we assume. He's thankful to Mickbell, he wants to repay him, and the food is a nice perk - but ultimately he cares about Mickbell enough to put this much effort into learning a whole language for him (while Mickbell cares about him in his own way, though since Mickbell grew up without a family or friends, it usually just manifest in over protectiveness and a fear of losing him. His goal in life is to buy a house for them to live in together. Cmon.)

I think generalising Kuro and Mickbell's relationship as unhealthy (whether you perceive it as romantic or not) is doing a massive disservice to Kuro's intelligence due to his speech - something Kui goes out of the way to disprove.

I love these idiots.

[artbyblastweave]

What I like about New Vegas is that out of all the Fallout games, it feels like it's the most aware of the fact that everyone is doing a bit of some kind from the fifties and is much more attentive and thoughtful than some of the other games to the implications of the fact that everyone is doing some kind of bit from the fifties.

The Kings are a salient example of this. The surface level gag, of course, is that they're a militant gang of Elvis impersonators, having adopted the aesthetic after their leader mistook a training facility for Elvis impersonators as some kind of religious site. Stock Future-imperfect stuff, oh-those-silly-wastelanders, elevating our pop-culture to the level of organizing-societal-principle.

Until, of course, you take into account the (singular) King's actual project- the fact that his gang is the defacto governing body of Freeside, the accompanying fact that he's got his anarchist predilections and thus would like to maintain that governing position without having to constantly kick people around to get them to listen. And here you've come across a guy from before the war who was apparently so incredibly charismatic that people came from all over the country to see him, so charismatic that they built an entire school to train people how to imitate his mannerisms. No shit they're gonna check if there's any gas left in that can! There might be some real practical power on the table if they can walk that walk! Even if the quick-and-dirty pitch for the gang is "Elvis Cult," there isn't really a spiritual component, they aren't morons who're mistaking this guy for a literal god, they just recognize that there might be some unreclaimed social capital here for them to tap into. And there absolutely is, in-universe and out- have you ever encountered a Fallout fan who didn't love The Kings?

Compare this, by the way, with the Three Families, who aren't in a situation where they're scrambling for a symbol they can rally populist support around. These guys are on top of the world. They aren't doing a bit because they're pursuing the social power that bit would provide them- there ultimately is some, but that's not why they started doing it and it isn't strictly something that they needed to do, given their combined force of arms. They're doing their respective bits because the guy with the robot army told them to. They're theme-park employees, working to brute-force back into existence the halcyon youth of a guy who can't even go outside to enjoy it.

[go-fornicate-yourself]

Every day I am in the trenches fighting for my life defending this poor man. He was going through so much and people online demonize him and say he's as bad as his abuser

(I've got a lot of thoughts about this so I'll make sure to separate things to make it easier to look at lol)

Curly is a victim of abuse. Jimmy is his abuser. This is something that I feel a lot of people tend to brush over or don't acknowledge it often.

And I'm not just talking about post-crash. Jimmy's abuse of Curly is there pre-crash too. The party scene where the crew learns about the company going under is a huge example of this. Jimmy verbally abuses him, he gaslights him, he blames him for their (his) misfortune. Jimmy accuses Curly of thinking he's better than everyone (better than him), that he doesn't care about them (about him). That he's going leave them (leave him). Which is not true. Curly tries to explain himself but Jimmy shuts him down and he just takes it.

The fact that he just allows this to happen makes it seem like he's used to this... That this kind of behavior is a recurring thing with Jimmy. And the fact that nobody else tries to defend him or stands up to Jimmy just normalizes it for him. When Anya tells Curly what Jimmy did it catches him off guard. Bc he genuinely didn't think that his friend was capable of that. It wasn't something that was obvious to him. There were absolutely many red flags in the past but they were subtle enough for him to not see them bc he cares for Jimmy, he trusts him. Jimmy's the only one he feels he can open up to, who he can let his guard down with. Jimmy's his home. That's how close they are.

Because of this deep love for his friend and the subtlety of Jimmy's cruelty, he doesn't see the constant verbal and emotional abuse as what it is: abuse. Which is why he finds Jimmy's abuse towards Anya so shocking and jarring.

He isn't a man covering for his rapist friend bc of the 'bro code'. It does look like that from a certain angle and it's understandable why people see it that way but that's not what his character is really about as much as it makes sense otherwise.

He's essentially a battered housewife who's still in love with her husband but is realizing for the first time that the man she loves is a monster. That the man she loves and devoted her life to has been hurting her this whole time and she didn't even realize it. That the man she loves and spent so much of her life caring for has gone and hurt someone else. That he's most likely hurt others before and she's been utterly unaware of it the entire time she defended him and made excuses for him when he wasn't the best or the fairest or the most responsible or when he screwed up yet again solely bc of how much she loved and cared for him.

And Curly barely had any time to process ANY of that before Jimmy decided to try and kill them all to avoid the consequences of his actions. It was ultimately a selfish act even if he thought he wasn't just doing it for himself. Jimmy is selfish and needs to be in control or he loses it. He cares for Curly. He loves him. Curly's done so much for him. Curly's the only one who understands him, who doesn't hate him. Curly's his home. He resents how 'successful' he is but that's only bc he thinks so highly of him. He constantly puts himself down and put Curly on a pedestal and worships him while simultaneously mistreating him.

He treats his best friend like shit, he's awful to him. But he's not aware that this is the case or maybe he's in denial about it. He can't or just refuses to see how he's doing all of what he does for himself in the end. He justifies his attempt to kill them all (to himself and to Curly) by claiming he's doing this for them both. That if they were to get back to earth it would all be Curly's fault, that it'll ruin his life and career... despite the fact he had basically nothing to do with Anya's abuse. Jimmy's shifting the blame on him while acting like he cares for him. Well, he does genuinely care for him but clearly not nearly enough to not mistreat him or use him as a scapegoat for his own guilt.

Jimmy is the rapist, Jimmy is the one who does all of these horrible things. And yet it's highly likely that Curly would just blame all of it on himself bc that's exactly what Jimmy did to him. He's in so deep he can't see the facts of the situation.

It takes abuse victims so long to come to terms with their abuse. It takes time and reflection to see things with an unbiased and healthy perspective. Abuse (especially years of it) isn't just something you can just escape. It consumes you and can twist your reality. Curly had about a week or less to process all of it and then take action in a way that protected his crew and abided by Pony Express' guidelines. Dealing with something this serious in a setting that makes resolving it extremely difficult in a practical sense is already hard.

There were no locks on any of the doors except for medical and the cockpit. They couldn't just kill him. There was nowhere they could detain Jimmy that wouldn't involve corporate potentially penalizing the entire group. They could have used the cryopods but then there'd only be three available for any actual emergency and there were already five crew members and four pods in total. Also, I doubt corporate would be 'okay' with them using the cryopods for anything other than their intended purpose. Hell, even if they were able to make it back to earth without any incidents there's a good chance that corporate would consider the situation 'poor team synergy' and collectively punish the entire crew for Jimmy's actions.

So on top of having to deal with an already difficult situation, Curly has to grapple with the realization that Jimmy a: abused Anya, b: has been abusing him as well (for a very long time too), and c: has probably abused others before Anya and he had no idea about it. He needed to act but he didn't and it doomed all of them.

But it's so unrealistic (maybe even cruel) to put that much pressure on someone, force them through an utterly earth-shattering realization, and then expect them to do the correct/right/responsible thing in that moment. It's a little ironic how people vilify him for that when other characters do the same thing that nobody blames for it.

Anya is the ship's nurse. Curly is the ship's captain. They both have duties and responsibilities on board the Tulpar. She has to keep the crew healthy and safe and is the only one with enough medical knowledge to do so. He has to make sure that everything goes well and goes according to procedure. He's responsible for the crew, the cargo, and even the ship itself. Both positions are integral and require a lot of responsibility to do properly

They're both put through distressing and traumatic situations where due to them being human people with emotions and fears that make them essentially avoid their responsibility/doing what's required of them.

Curly has a freeze response and doesn't act when he should have when it was crucial to have done so. Anya has a fawn response and essentially puts her patient in danger and harm's way. She knew full well what Jimmy was capable of. She experienced it herself and she witnessed it happening to Curly as well. And yet she allows Jimmy to be alone with Curly while being fully aware of how dangerous he is. Which she shouldn't have, that wasn't the 'right' thing to do. Keeping him safe was her responsibility.

But Anya's human. She's going through a lot at the moment. She's terrified of Jimmy and she's trying to appease him so he doesn't hurt her again. It's a natural very understandable thing to do even if it's not the 'right' or 'responsible' thing. They failed each other when they needed each other most and I think that's the most tragic part of it. If anything, all of them failed each other in some way, shape, or form.

So it's incredibly frustrating to see people give Anya so much sympathy and grace for doing something so human yet still 'wrong' but then turn around and give Curly none of that for doing essentially the same thing she does.

I don't know for sure if it's actually because Curly is a man or if it's only part of it or maybe some people just lack that sense of awareness but it's depressing and frustrating as fuck as a male victim of sexual violence and abuse to see this kind of behavior and this much victim blaming towards a character who is undeniably a victim of abuse like I am.

[tobiasdrake]

*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.

I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.

But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.

Katara

So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.

They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.

And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.

Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.

This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."

"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.

Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.

In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.

But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?

No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.

And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.

In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.

Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.

Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.

The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.

Suki

Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.

They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.

Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.

Yue

Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.

"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."

Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.

They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.

Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?

June

June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.

Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.

She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.

Kyoshi

And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"

She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.

Azula

Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.

There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.

This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.

They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.

This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.

Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.

Conclusion

The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.

Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.

But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.

The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.

"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."

The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.

[anemia-rp]