Watching Avatar I Found Myself Always Forgetting That Sokka Is An Underated Genius. He's Such A Doofus

what don’t people get about the fact that “sokka raised katara” and “katara raised sokka” are not contradictory statements! they raised each other! sokka relies on katara’s support as equally as katara relies on sokka’s support. they both have a mentality of “ugh I have to do everything around here” born of frustration with the fact that they are kids with too many responsibilities, but in truth, they share responsibility, supporting each other both physically and emotionally. sokka raised katara, and katara raised sokka, because that’s what loving siblings who had to grow up without parents do.

Mom isn’t coming home.

sokka and azula have a fascinating dynamic because they are both insufferable perfectionists, due to the need they feel to be perfect carbon copies of their fathers, whom they hero-worship and believe can do no wrong. and they’re also the only person in the war who can outsmart the other, which leads to….. problems. sokka decided he wanted to die after azula sabotaged his invasion plan, and azula decided she wanted to die after sokka beat her at the boiling rock. so it’s just like. imagine them playing scrabble together. zuko walks in the room to find azula shaving her head because sokka spelled “dimethylpentane,” meanwhile sokka is calling his dealer because there wasn’t enough room left on the board to add an s that could have doubled his score. zuko’s just like what the fuck is a dimethylpentane, and sokka and azula both stare at him as if he is an idiot.

what was sokka’s relationship with his mother like? did she, like ursa with zuko, encourage him to feel safe transgressing gender norms? did she patiently coax him into talking out his problems, letting him know that it is safe and healthy to express himself? did she marvel at his drawings just as much as she did at his handcrafted fishhooks and harpoons? did she tell him stories from her childhood in the north pole, sparking sokka’s interest in other lands even before he knew she was talking about another land? did she read to him? 

when he started to become a leader among the kids his age, did she take care to watch his mood to make sure he wasn’t burning out from the responsibility? when he devoted himself to protecting katara, did she make sure he knew that he was equally important? did she say it with enough conviction that he believed it in spite of the evidence to the contrary? 

when she bandaged his scrapes, did she stop him from brimming with pride over the injury? did she make certain he understood that violence and defending others weren’t what made him strong? 

when he lost her, did sokka try to keep her lessons in mind even as the mounting need for a strong military defense began to take over their village? what was it like the day sokka resolved in his mind that it wasn’t appropriate for a warrior to draw or read or feel?

Aang and Sokka’s friendship is proof that vegetarians and meat-eaters can still be buddies

I know you said you weren’t planning on being friendly, but I like you. You’re totally a future hero.

things jesse pinkman is probably doing in alaska right now:

petting his new dog yeah he definitely got a dog

taking his new dog on a brisk walk

baking a pie

sipping hot tea while wrapped in a turtleneck

staring peacefully at the beautiful mountains

sketching said mountains 

coming up with new ideas for superheroes 

drawing them

taking up woodworking again

listening to music and grooving around his lil workshop

living a clean and sober happy life

making snow angels 

reading a nice book

sitting by a warm cozy fire

falling asleep in his very own bed with his pupper at his feet

taking a nice long soak in the bath with candles and incense 

living his goddamn best life far away from all the bullshit :))))

I was trying to talk about those other forms, all the different ways you can love, some of which are sexual, some of which are romantic, and some of which are platonic,” she says. “None are necessarily better than any other, but all of them have the capacities to help shape who we are and hopefully set us on the path to become the people we really want to be.

THE HALF OF IT (2020, dir. Alice Wu)

tbh, i never thought lars and sadie were going to end up together. 

like. the writing was always on the wall that they don’t work, even if they care about each other / want the other to be happy. they’re better as friends. sadie was never what it took (nor should be made responsible) to push lars in a better direction. even when they were together, lars didn’t become the emotionally open person sadie needed. and i never got the sense that you should just mash them together once lars had grown a bit. that’s not who they are now.

there was never a strong throughline of sadie obsessing over lars in space, because it wasn’t about her or their relationship - it was about his growth. sadie needed to try to move on and live her own damn life (even if that made lars initially upset). her growing separately, into someone who is primarily concerned with what she wants & needs, always felt like the right move. and from there… they’re friends, yeah, but they don’t have the basis for a real relationship. sadie should never be lars’ prize for his growth. 

there may have been a time she was happy to put herself in that position - always waiting for him, passively hoping for him to get better… but going off on a tour of self-discovery, with new interests and a new partner? that seems to be a much better message - she deserves a life not dependent on his growth. agency in her own story. all without making lars a shallow ex-boyfriend stereotype, who can’t accept change. once? yes. but not now. he’s got his own life. of course he’s going back to space, that’s where he found himself. he’s got every incentive to go - and sadie has every incentive to stay on earth. 

so having her always be looking up, waiting for him to return, maybe even growing old like that… felt wrong. acknowledging that “growing apart” can sometimes be a good thing for both parties seems, to me, like a much more mature conclusion. it respects the characters they’ve become. they aren’t right for each other, without that being either’s loss. 

and of course, steven feels like that’s another instance of him failing to fix something… but this was never his to fix. it’s about them, not him. it’s private.

dead girl walking reprise x atla