I Understand The Appeal Of Publishing "fic With The Serial Numbers Filed Off" As Original Work But I

the fact that even all these years later, people are still arguing over Aang’s choice to not kill Ozai suggests that A. ATLA is the goddamn best and you just can’t recapture the lightning in a bottle that it was and, B. it’s really kind of disturbing how many people are obsessed with the idea that Aang should have committed murder.

You see a lot of this in the fandom. Constant debates about how Katara and Zuko’s quest for revenge was correct in the Southern Raiders (despite the narrative painting Katara’s choice at the end as a correct one), advocating for greater violence on Aang’s part, and so on. But a biggest, disturbing trend is for people to claim that Aang’s decision to not violate the most sacred principle of his people as being immature.

There’s a tendency nowadays to see violence as not just a solution, but the only solution. That the only way to resolve a problem is to end life; to hurt people. It’s called a cop out when Aang chooses to put his own existence on the line.

The implication, therefore, is that the people advocating this sincerely believe that the mature thing to do is to kill.

Similar in nature to posts talking about how superheroes not killing is weak.

And the idea here, of the willingness to kill as a sign of strength, and as the only real solution to anything, is a deeply disturbing and unsettling one.

If Aang had killed Ozai, it truly would have been the end of the Air Nomads, their most sacred spiritual law broken by their only surviving member. Because Aang would have sunk to the level of the man who had ordered his people killed in the first place, and that of the nation which carried it out.

But when he Energybent, he knew that if he failed, he would have died in the process, and Ozai with him. Not only was Aang willing to put his life on the line for his beliefs, he was genuinely willing to die rather than sacrifice who he was, and the last lingering remnant of the Air Nomads.

Cassandra has a blinding, powerful crush on Aveline and that’s just fact, the reason Cullen’s leading the Inquisition forces instead of Aveline is because the first time Cassandra tried to say a sentence to Aveline, she instead just laughed nervously and excused herself. The second time Aveline beat her in an arm wrestling match and told her to get the hell out of her office. The third time Aveline said she wasn’t interested in running some ragtag army, thank you, not while Kirkwall is still half rubble. The fourth time, Cassandra tried to arrest her. She panicked. It’s what she does when she panics. Aveline rolled her eyes and said after seven years of friendship with Hawke, she’s not scared of some Chantry brute on a crusade, and Cassandra tried to say something insulting back but just ended up stammering something about not needing to take this kind of lip from handsome women with bright red hair and big strong arms and a smile as wonderful as her loyalty to her friends, and at that point Cassandra just cut her losses and fled. 

Varric doesn’t know any of this because Aveline doesn’t gossip. The moment Varric learns, Cassandra has already decided she’ll need to leave the Inquisition or murder a dwarf. Fifty-fifty. 

And so they stood on the walls of the City of Gondor, and a great wind rose and blew, and their hair, raven and golden, streamed out mingling in the air. And the Shadow departed, and the Sun was unveiled, and light leaped forth.

Another Faramir/Eowyn scene from the booksss

mass effect mom headcanons

Ashley: “I’m calling the principal” when you tell her your teacher embarrassed you. Made you take karate until you broke your wrist. Gives bear hugs and reads you bedtime stories until you complain you're too old. Has a picture of you as her phone background. Wants to speak to the manager.

Liara: Definitely the leaves notes in your lunchbox with pintrest quotes and kisses you on the forehead in front of all your friends. Bought you “Baby’s first archaeology set″ and liked playing with it just as much as you did. Always making you try her new quinoa recipes. Always up to date on the Tea™ “I think you need to take some time to meditate”

Samantha: Goes to the pet fair 'just to look' but comes back with 3 dogs and a hamster. Sends you funny pictures of them while you're at school. Only has a minivan ironically and never lets you win at checkers. "I'm totally a cool mum"

Miranda: Privately interviews all of your friends (she means the best). Gets your prom outfit professionally tailored. Her relationship advice is always “dump them”. 100% waited for you in the living room sipping wine when you tried to sneak back in after curfew.

Jack: “You’re not allowed to fucking swear” KNOWS for a fact you're better than everyone else’s stupid kids, but sometimes gets a little too competitive (translation: banned from PTA for the next 6 weeks) Shovel talks everyone you bring home. Probably cried after she dropped you off for your first day of school. It can be hard when your mom just loves you so much.

Chakwas: Argues with your school nurse when they won't give you an Advil. She gets more excited about action movies than you. All she had to do was glare at those kids who were bothering you and you never saw them again. Generally laid back because she trusts you, but its hard not to notice her rolling her eyes when you do something against her advice.

journeys end in lovers meeting, every wise man’s son doth know

edit: credit

My kid cousin, all of 11 years old, called me up sobbing today. I had about 50 horrifying reasons popping up in my head when he stopped crying enough to ask one question

“Cap’s not Hydra, right?”

A bit of background on why this made sense to me: My cousin was 3 when me and my brother bought him a cute Captain America hoodie. He was 5 when he first caught sight of his dad’s comic collection. He was 8 when he insisted on dressing up as Captain America for a contest at school. He was 9 when he first got bullied and his mom used Captain America as a symbol to tell him to always be kind in strength, to know that he was a better person. He got his Marvel encyclopedia last year for his birthday and every time we meet, me and him have hours long discussions on the characters. His favorite Avenger is Iron Man but he has always been and will always be a Cap’s boy. Steve Rogers has helped him appreciate his own strengths, has helped him understand that being a good person is much more important than being perfect. He got strength from Cap’s stand against bullying, inspiration from Steve’s ability to be kind and caring about the world even in the worst of situations, and most of all motivation to appreciate his own goodness. To him, he was just like Steve Rogers and I’ve seen that kid be so proud of that.

And today he calls me up, shattered and heartbroken, because his ideals, his dreams and convictions of years have been ripped apart. He felt betrayed and lost, because if Cap, his Cap, could be Hydra, a Nazi organization, then did it mean that he was drawing strength from evil all these years? 

An eleven year old is questioning his life choices. Nick, still think you’re funny?

the thing about being nonbinary is that you really do start to forget that other people have such strict walls around what is and isn’t allowed for genders. i thought we all agreed that we made that up. could you climb out of the cave real quick and feel the sunshine for a minute.

nona the ninth will always be one of the most beautiful and most painful books in the world to me because. it is about love in its every possible form. it's about the love you have for someone who takes care of you and the love you have for those you care for. it's about loving someone after seeing all their rough edges and ugly sides and choosing to love someone even if it hurts and even if you know it might doom you. it's about not choosing to love someone, but loving them anyway because sometimes it's not up to you to choose. it's about loving the dogs on the street and the stranger you met at the park and the child that never speaks to anyone in class. it's about loving the creases in someone's face when they laugh and the way their hips sway and how they can't stand still. it's about your love for the sea and the pang of grief at the tought that it is being poisoned. it's about the immense pain that comes with the loss of someone you loved. it's about bearing that loss, it's about letting that cut burn because its presence means that there was love. and that cannot be taken away. you have loved, you have been loved, and you always will. and the fact that it hurts and it ends doesn't erase the fact that at the end of the day, it's always love at the core of it all. in its every form and expression, by turning into rage, or kindness, or utterly destructive force, it all starts and ends in love. you can't remove that. you can't take loved away.

thinking about atla thematics as usual and fascinated by how many fans insist they wanted aang to “grow up” more at the end of the series without considering how one of the show’s major themes is the terrible ways war and imperialism rob people of their childhoods. one of aang’s major gifts to every single character is restoring a piece of their lost or stolen or brutalized childhood. aang reminds katara there’s still joy in the world, and fuels her hope.

he brings wonder to sokka’s life with his flying bison. he sees zuko not as a terrifying enemy but as a boy he might have been friends with and had fun with, he offers toph a way out of her repressive home to have the adventures she’d been longing for, and all these characters rise to fulfill their destinies through honoring their inner child - the parts of themselves that are hopeful, kind, gentle, fierce, innocent, deserving of protection - and breaking the cycles of violence and abuse that interrupted their childhoods. azula was convinced she had no need for her inner child, and killed aang in cold blood in ba sing se, after which she slowly but surely lost everything she cared about, including her sense of self.

and finally, aang shows ozai mercy, thematically reminding the latter that the children he tried to kill and brutalize are a force capable of rising above petty violence, and reshaping the world. you could even argue that the original rupture in the mythos was when both sozin and the air nation sought to rob a child of their right to childhood - sozin by hunting a child, the air nomads by hastening aang out of his childhood so he could help them - and that balance is restored when aang, who represents the world’s lost gentleness and mercy, and upholds values that a war torn world regards as “childish” and “immature”, manages to end the war with a gesture that honors those values and affirms everyone’s right to a safe and loving childhood, to a life free of violence.

The CABINETS ONE. I am CRYINg

BBC Class + The Onion Headlines (1/?)