Akwa245 - Untitled

> be zuko

> try desperately to ingratiate yourself within the avatar’s friend group (to no avail, of course, because you have terrible social skills, and previously tried to kill them, also)

> try to fight off the human wmd you previously hired to blow them all up

> fail miserably, because he is indestructible

> watch as sokka effortlessly kills him with a very precise boomerang throw to the brain

> suddenly recall every single time you got hit in the head by his boomerang

> feel immense gratitude for what you had previously dismissed as uncle’s obnoxiously stringent and paranoid over-emphasis on the importance of helmet safety

On the topic of Sokka and failure and suicide: I think that it is probably rooted in the possibility that his failures, as a hunter and as a protector, COULD (and maybe did???) lead to deaths in his village. If he failed to bring home food or furs then people died, if HE failed to properly train the toddlers or watch over them properly during training then they could also get hurt or die, or themselves fail to bring home food or keep their people safe (which is to him obviously his fault as their trainer) and HE was the one who was meant to lead and protect and keep everyone safe.... It's so easy to see how that could spiral out into his severe deterioration after real failures during ATLA. Like, he is unique among the early Gaang that he is intimately familiar with the link between his actions and death, whether it's of people he cares about, animals, or eventually enemies. He's so painfully aware of it.

And speculatively, those toddlers would've all been born within a year of the men leaving! Which also means Sokka The Protector and Provider would've had no men (BC he wouldn't believe anyone else, they'd just be trying to make him feel better about being a failure) to reassure him that any pregnancies or newborns who didn't make it WEREN'T his fault and that he DID provide enough to keep mother and babe healthy. Or worse, he actually didn't do a good enough job and it did lead to close calls or difficult pregnancies or deaths. Either scenario would've fucked him up So Deeply.

yeah i talked about sokka’s perfectionist complex recently and also the fact that sokka is very much implied to be a good hunter, so like. yes. the stakes for any kind of failure are very high due to the nature of his responsibilities and what he believes he must excel in. he considers himself a provider and protector above all else. if he fails to provide for others, people starve. if he fails to protect others, people die. to fail to fulfill that role in any way is to be culpable for causing harm. and sokka never once considers whether putting that burden on a 13 year old was kind of unfair, actually, because he’s always been capable of excelling and thus it’s squarely his fault if he falls short in any way. but presumably, he doesn’t fail??

like, we really have no way of knowing, because so much of their childhoods and life before finding aang is framed exclusively from katara’s pov (she’s the narrator), but even what we do see is sokka holding the lantern for katara, sokka and kanna functioning as a unit when making decisions for the village, kanna trusting sokka more and telling katara to listen to her brother, sokka preparing to die a martyr. even the kind of “goofier” stuff, like katara soaking sokka with her “magic water,” or sokka trying to train a bunch of toddlers, or sokka’s watchtower getting destroyed, are all indicative of who sokka is and how he sees the world, in really fascinating ways.

obviously sokka’s reaction to katara waterbending is a complex one that we cannot fully understand when the show begins because we don’t actually know why and how waterbenders were targeted, so it reads as simple disrespect for something sokka doesn’t understand. and maybe it’s also jealousy, because i think literally anyone would be jealous if their little sibling had magic powers and you didn’t. but there’s definitely also fear there, fear that whoever informed the fire nation of there being one last waterbender left is still out there, that katara is still a target. it’s a fear informed by trauma, by sokka’s need to protect katara, to “keep his promise to dad.” it’s never outright spoken (unless you’re live action shein go girl give us nothing katara, of course), but it’s pretty obvious in retrospect.

there’s also the fact that katara is there with him in the first place. there’s never any indication one way or another whether katara and sokka going fishing together is a common occurrence, but i tend towards thinking it’s uncommon simply because sokka seems particularly pissed off by her presence, like she’s disrupting his peace. and i bet kanna is just sitting at home like “maybe i shouldn’t have let katara go fishing…” and then of course she comes home with a ghost and his flying bison, and kanna’s just like “goddammit. i knew this would happen. …..sort of.”

and sokka trying to train a bunch of toddlers seems funny at first, but is actually incredibly tragic, because sokka never actually questions the idea that the notion of childhood innocence does not exist, that from the moment you are born you must be prepared to die. it looks silly because he’s wrong, but it’s also heartbreaking because it’s all he knows. that scene is very explicitly establishing him as a foil to aang, setting up that deeper tension that underpins their relationship. katara immediately aligns herself with aang, recognizes the value of fun and the value of retaining one’s childhood, while sokka is positioned in opposition to this values from the get go. and sokka does eventually come around and embraces the value of fun, but he also embodies the burden (both material and psychological) that aang carries, and he functions as a sort of warning to aang to maintain his values, untouched by war, before it is too late. before aang lets his own burden overtake him and becomes what sokka already is.

and his watchtower is something i think about a lot too. it’s literally his only enrichment in his enclosure… sokka only lets himself practice what he thinks is useful, despite his love for all different forms of art and knowledge. so he can perfectly apply warpaint without so much as a mirror, and he can build a fucking functioning watchtower out of snow, but only because it serves a practical function. like, katara calls it “playing soldier,” because there is something sort of aesthetically childish about sokka building a watchtower out of snow like a glorified snowman and thinking that this makes him some kind of hardened general (we all start somewhere i suppose), but also, he is doing the best he has with the tools at his disposal, and he is in a war, and he is right to constantly be preparing for existential threats to his people, even if it does admittedly make him look kinda pathetic simply because his resources are so limited and he lacks the necessary experience to actually be successful in his mission. but also, that fact in itself is deeply tragic. this is what their once flourishing tribe has been reduced to; this child who thinks himself an adult is the first and last line of defense in their tiny, decimated village.

he thinks his purpose on this planet is so protect his people and his sister from a genocidal empire with basically no support and no resources at his disposal, and then he feels actively guilty when that situation is understandably difficult for him. so he probably always has been a proficient hunter (even as a 13 year old?? maybe he had help, but idk) because his reaction to that kind of failure (to protect & to provide) is so catastrophic during the show whenever it happens (most notably in the boiling rock arc) that there’s no way he has any sort of prior experience with that kind of consequentially devastating failure.

and not for nothing, but i do think the reason katara assumes that he’s fucking around and not doing real work is because unlike katara, he never actually complains about it, doesn’t struggle to do it, and in fact takes pride in it, is even a little smug about it. to the point that katara is like “why do i have to be stuck here doing tedious domestic labor while sokka gets to have fun hunting and fishing???” even though obviously sokka has never had fun a day in his life and deep down katara also clearly knows that.

but like, he really enjoys hunting because it’s the most literal realization of his role as provider. he loves being “the meat guy” because it’s a symbol of how he is able to embody this ideal of manliness through a practice he is actually good at (unlike a lot of other standards of masculinity he otherwise struggles to embody). he likes being the provider, caring for others in concrete, tangible ways, protecting the people he cares about. “oh sokka you really do have a heart,” katara exclaims, meanwhile his heart is and has always been the thing that defines his entire identity at the deepest, most fundamental level: his desire to put other people before himself every time, his need to be needed, the love he has for humanity that is so different from katara’s but in no way less significant. sokka will care for people, or die trying.

He deserves an apology

yes, percy rose through the ranks of new rome disturbingly fast. no, jason did not do the same at camp half blood. yes, percy's rise to leadership at both camps took about two weeks and was completely unplanned. no, the same cannot be said for jason. his rise was carefully planned and took over a decade. they're both children of the big three, but where percy thrums with raw power, jason is a sword honed by zeus and hera. where percy is a survivor, jason is a weapon. where percy is a cycle breaker, jason can't get out. jason's fatal flaw was temptation to deliberate because he never managed to make his own choices. he was every classic definition of a hero rolled into one, and he never questioned it because his happiness came after the responsibility. jason was never going to ascend as fast as percy because jason was raised on hard work and discipline while percy, an abuse survivor and child of poverty, knew when to fight dirty. where jason was a transplant, percy was an invasive species. jason was always going to die because he was never more than a tool for the gods to throw away when he outlived his usefulness, or when he started to question his place. if someone as locked down as jason can question the system, anyone can. now that luke has put thoughts of overthrow in everyone's heads, zeus has to be very careful because while jason was expendable as his weapon, percy was unexpected in every way. zeus has no plan for him. when percy dies, he will become a martyr, so he can't die, except now everyone knows that percy doesn't want to be a god either. jason had to die, and now percy has to live.

Apparently Miles is a JJK fan (in the comics)

If you put these two in a room together I think the result would be adorable 🥺

does anyone else think if aang was in orv he would be the king of no killing or am i just going crazy watching the live action

if anakin didnt fall to the darkside, he would be that dad embrassing his kids and teliing embrassing stories about their childhood to Din and Han if he ever ends up accepting him

which is even more fun when u remember the skywalkers are the three most powerful force users in the galaxy

(donation doodles! // tip jar)

been watching mashle and oh my god, the eugenics???? the way lance's parents were so ready to give up their daughter??? no second thought???? just "why did this child have to be born to us?"???? um everyone talking in mash's face about how non-magic people are inherently worthless???? the triple line dude fucking making dolls out of people and somehow no one??? is??? checking him???? and then when questioned immediately jumping into "well humans are little more than mindless beasts and i will become a creator deity and reshape the world in my liking!"????? the, um, corruption in the government??? the way this story is so clearly "h*rry p*tter if it was actually funny"??? the slytherin coded characters are blood purists???? they took out hufflepuff??? one of the magia lupus' mage's powerset was just big shuriken???? another one is rip off kisame???? lance is a siscon and the first thing mash says is "that doesn't make it better"???? lemon is genuinely so fuckin funny??? dot is incel-coded but like in a funny way??? dot says that lance is playing life on "easy mode" cause lance has a good face??? dot likes tea??? dot has good manners??? everybody only has one spell they can use??? finn ames is like if you transported is regular human into this stupid ass world??? i think the old man and the cop have explored each others bodies.

me after saying i’d get tasks done but i’ve just been reading fanfiction for the past 3 hours: