Lilacs-and-stuff

oh I do love the Leverage Gloat when the mark has only met one or two of the leveragers. POV you are being arrested for corporate malfeasance and your company’s inept new IT guy, a european duchess, and three random weirdos are lined up with their arms folded smugly like a boyband

barbenheimer 💖💣

Listen to her. Please.

air 🍃

matching zuko, katara & toph:

The world just wasn’t ready for a Humphrey–Waldorf friendship.

idk why this gives off dair energy, it just does

(dair screencap from @senamarais)

some spider people <3

TLOK’s Healer Katara: Why does she fail so much?

In Korra, we are reintroduced to Katara as a dedicated healer who seemingly doesn’t care about politics or activism anymore, her focus is on her healing huts. But if Katara is “the greatest healer in the world”, as we are often reminded, why does she fail so much?

Season 1:

We never get any canon explanation as to how Amon’s power works but many fans have theorized that he uses bloodbending to break someone’s chakras and that’s how he takes people’s bending. (This explanation doesn’t make much sense because chakras are a spiritual thing, you can’t access someone’s soul simply by controlling their blood, but whatever)

If Amon can break Korra’s chakras using waterbending, why can’t Katara heal them using the exact same method? Seriously, what’s preventing her?

Narratively, Katara had to fail to heal Korra so that (1) the audience could gauge how dangerous Amon was, and (2) Deus ex machina Aang could save the day. There is no watsonian explanation as to why Katara failed, the writers simply needed her to.

Season 2:

Discussing book 2 of TLOK is complicated because that season is, without hyperbole, one of the most nonsensical pieces of fantasy media I’ve ever consumed. Regardless, Katara fails again this season. Jinora’s soul is trapped in the spirit world and Katara doesn’t manage to wake her from her coma, but she does manage to keep Jinora alive. However, this victory doesn’t really stand out because Kya also managed to keep Jinora alive and she did it for longer than Katara- so it seems that you don’t need to be the greatest healer in the world to accomplish this, it was just a trivial task.

Season 4:

In season 4, Katara fails for a third and final time.

Katara: (waterbends the liquid in the healing pool) The poison did a lot of internal damage.

Korra:  Can you fix it?

Katara:  I can help guide your healing process, but whether you get better or not is up to you.

Katara self-admittedly can’t heal Korra, she can only offer physical therapy. We even get a scene where Korra remarks on Katara’s failings:

Katara:  Whenever you're ready. 

Korra:  What's the point?  We've been at this for almost six months and (looks away from Katara) I can barely take a couple of steps without collapsing.

Katara:  I know you're frustrated, but-

Korra:  Of course I'm frustrated! A crazy man poisoned me,  and now I can't dress myself or cook for myself or do anything for myself, and this whole time my friends have been off helping the World while I'm stuck with you, and you can't even heal me! 

Ouch! This is particularly egregious because we saw Katara use waterbending to heal someone’s psychological trauma:

Katara: Maybe this will help. [Takes water and puts it around his ears, using healing to clear his mind.]

Jet: [looks up from the floor and sees an image of Long Feng standing above a lake. Long Feng stares at Jet, and Jet sinks down under the lake into an underground room. He sees an image of a Dai Li agent shining a spinning light in his face.]

Jet: They took me to a headquarters under the water. Like a lake!

But with Korra, she doesn’t even attempt this technique. Why? Did she forget that she has this ability?

Furthermore, considering that we saw Katara heal Zuko so thoroughly that he was able to stand up and walk after getting shot with lightning on the chest, I don’t understand why she’s unable to heal Korra’s poisoned-induced paralysis. Why can she restore Zuko’s mobility but not Korra’s?

Once again: narratively, Katara has to fail in order to prop up Toph, who will heal Korra’s body, and Zaheer, who will heal Korra’s mind and soul.

So what’s the point of all this?

A lot of people have talked about how Katara’s healing skills are used as a Worf Effect:

“The Worf Effect, from TVTropes:

Want a quick way to show how dangerous one of your unknown characters is? Simple, make them do well or win in a fight with a character that the audience already knows is tough. This establishes them as willing to fight and marks them as sufficiently dangerous.

In Legend of Korra, Katara’s healing abilities aren’t there to demonstrate how awesome a character she is, or that she is the master who taught Korra, because we never successfully see her heal anyone and we never see Korra learn waterbending from her. No, Katara’s so-called skills are only there to show us how much of a threat the villains are. Katara can’t heal Korra’s nightmares? Wow, Zaheer must have been a real threat. Jinora’s spirit is drifting away? Sounds like Harmonic Convergence is a big deal. Even Katara can’t undo Amon’s bloodbending? Oh, no, he must be a dangerous villain!” (source) (emphasis mine)

I’d like to add that Katara’s healing abilities aren’t undermined solely to establish the strength of the villains, they are also diminished to prop up the heroes:

- Katara fails to restore Korra’s bending so that Best Boy Aang can show off his cool energybending powers

- Katara fails to wake Jinora from her coma so that the audience can marvel at Jinora’s resilience when she saves herself

- And Katara fails to heal Korra’s poisoning trauma so that we get to admire Toph’s wisdom and semi-redeemed!Zaheer’s spirituality

Overall, it seems like despite the fact that her arc was about combat while healing was just an afterthought, ATLA!Katara is a better healer than TLOK!Katara whose’s whole story revolves around being a healer. Irregardless of Bryke’s intentions to portray Katara as the best healer of the world, what they’ve actually shown us is a massive regression of her skills.

PLEASE REBLOG THIS WARNING

HEY GUYS

The new Venom movie has a scene with intense flashing lights (the lab entry scene) and I received no warnings and had to leave (just for that scene) as I am epileptic!!! PLEASE share this since I’ve seen NO warnings being shared and this is very important and can prevent people from having seizures etc during the film.