#The Observation Room

[magicianapprenticelyra]

WIP(s) Update #I

A/N: Hello everybody! As promised, this post is a little peek into what I’ve been working on as of late.

It’ll be divided into two parts: drafts I’ve been intermittently working on from 2022 and earlier (some may be all the way back from 2020 as well, YIKES), and then more recent works that have popped up within the last five to six months.

More under the cut because this got . . . very long.

Old(er) Works/WIP(s) [from 2022 and before]:

Fics I owe/want to give people [three to five in total]

Expansion of AUs Written / Noted

Modern

possible modern AU of Bảo being a gamer as a teenager like some Youtubers, but he’s small-time indie kinda guy

Reversal [within my cast of OCs] (i.e. Apprentice!Bảo and Auntie!Liên)

Celestial Sanctum

Actor AU(?) [at least Lucio’s part]

Apprenticember—DAY(s) II & III (Part II)

Main 6 LI route stories with Apprentice and/or Librarian Lyra

Maybe??? Even??? Librarian Lyra Route???

Expansion on time spent with the various in-laws for both Apprentice / Librarian Lyra and her LI(s)

All Apprentice!Lyras interacting with one another [The Observation Room]

May be a series, or it may be a set of one-shots that interconnect somehow

Finish Devil!Lyra’s Ascension [lucio x apprentice]

OC Backstories

Lyra [slight reboot/rewriting of her past, present and future within the world of The Arcana

Lyra’s extended family

Rồngkarst (village)/Leysương (country) aesthetics [parts of Fantasyland Vietnam]

specific details and whatnot

Sekani/Walt/James/Bảo/Neha

Walterine’s Parents

How Walt is related to Sekani

James’s Parents [two] and Siblings [five of them]

The Banbha [James’s tribe in The South]

The Olde Deer God

Connections / Interactions with the Heart of the Forest

Tarot [Major and/or Minor] Card Associations

Annnnnnnnd just THIS chunk is written out in about 60 or so one sentence ideas in a notebook of mine that I’ll need to break down or combine in order to make any coherence.

[Oof]

WIP(s) [from Jan 2023 to now]:

Ceci and Thomas

Details how they’re connected to Lyra and her family

May or may not tie in with The Observation Room shenanigans

Also Ceci and Thomas’s siren / mermaid / undine(?) background / lineage

More stories about the fan kids

Tarot [Major and/or Minor] Card Associations

Familiars

Whether or not they’re aware of the canon / in-game events that their family and loved ones have gone through.

Whether or not they’re aware of THOMAS’s background as not being entirely human

Pictures of Crochet!Nook [thanks go to @fire-fira for this bit. I’m still overjoyed this could happen]

In Conclusion:

This writer’s brain is very full of ideas and I wish I had more time in the day to work on all of these.

If you made it this far, thank you so, so much for your time and patience to read all of this.

Have a good rest of your day / night!

#The Arcana #fan apprentice #magicianapprenticelyra #blog update #the scribe speaks #ask to tag #The Observation Room #OCs #OC x OC #OC x OC x OC #The Mind: Hải #The Heart: Noor #The Singer: Thomas #The Fighter: Shiloh #The Forthright: Iris #The Lioness: Avery #The Seeker: Junior

[zoe-oneesama]

She transformed and everything you guys!

Episode 49 Part 3 First < Previous > Next Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5 Ep 41, Ep 42, Ep 43, Ep 44 Ep 45, Ep 46, Ep 47, Ep 48, Intermission

Ko-fi | Patreon

#alix continues to be the smartest most observant person in the room #scarlet lady #scarlet lady au #malediktator #andre #andre bourgeois #episode 49 part 3 #scarlet lady comic

[stromblessed]

Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise

In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.

Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.

I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!

Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.

In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:

I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."

Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.

I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.

This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.

There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:

When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!

By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.

It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:

(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)

If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.

Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:

Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:

No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol

So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.

And yet no one spots that she's female.

Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.

Let me explain.

She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.

But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:

I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."

Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.

Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.

One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:

Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)

And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:

Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.

Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol

There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:

After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.

So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.

May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.

Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."

#blue eye samurai #mizu #racism #bes #I am truly disappointed that we didnt get absolute confirmation that Taigen saw Mizus bound chest and just didnt think it was a big deal #but I still think that scene is making a point #again I dont think most people take the glasses jokes seriously #but its been bothering me ever since I first saw them #I really dont think Mizu just looks like a 100 percent Japanese person...... with blue eyes #and I bet that will be made even more obvious when she goes to London where Im sure she will meet plenty of people #who are more than happy to point out their observations to her #also I ran out of room in this post to go into it but this is also what made Mizus marriage an absolutely doomed prospect #Mikio talks about wanting to find the right creature for his lord and well... a mixed race woman is the right creature huh #he just needed a little push imo #getting kind of sad at the thought that Ringo is the only person in Mizus life who knows her whole identity AND accepts it wholly

[edwardbonnets]

#he can't even LOOK at aziraphale ohhhhh i am chewing on rocks

because the moment he does, he completely falls apart. the love he feels is so strong that it literally overwhelms him :)))))))

MONY. MONY PLEASE I AM UNWELL AND THIS IS ONLY MAKING ME EVEN MORE UNWELL I AM SOBBING

oh god now i'm thinking about how they SHOW crowley looking at aziraphale right before, from outside the window, and the way crowley looks when aziraphale doesn't know that he's looking

vs. crowley having to confront his feelings and look aziraphale in the eye

and he CAN'T because his whole life he's been gazing at aziraphale from a distance, with literal and metaphorical sunglasses on to shield his true feelings—im a MESS

#good omens #aziracrow #give me a second i need to bang my head against the wall this show is DESTROYING ME #mony i am losing my mind thank you for letting my brain spiral into this observation #i will never get enough of david tennants acting here like he GENUINELY cannot look aziraphale in the eye #i will go sob in the corner of my room again :'))))))) #ems got mail #queerbuck #mutuals tag 💛✨

[princessstevemunson]

All this talk about shovel talks and nothing about Claudia Henderson. Like where’s her giving steddie shovel talks?

Claudia is eternally grateful to Eddie for saving her Dusty’s life, but she sees the pain her boys were both in after his sacrifice. She hears the screams at night from Dustin’s room. She watches as he either radios whoever was sitting with Eddie—usually Steve—or calls if the person doesn’t have a radio. Always asking for updates in the morning. Making sure the other boy is still there. Still alive.

Steve on the other hand is hiding his pain as he always does. She still sees Steve sitting vigil at the young man’s bed when she comes to bring real food and good coffee to Steve, Wanye and occasionally Dustin’s middle school science teacher Mr. Clarke. She sees the way Steve took extra care washing the other’s vest. All under a guise of being a good friend and not wanting Eddie to wake up alone.

When Eddie starts tagging along with Steve to their dinners occasionally she slowly watches as the two go from friends to pining to something else entirely. It’s when she’s certain that Eddie and Steve have become EddieandSteve that she starts doing it.

She would never give a shovel talk to Eddie. Steve’s a grown man, and can protect his own heart, but she’s already seen the pain Eddie had unwilling caused him. She’s seen the way Steve held the metalhead’s vest as it was his anchor to this world. She knew Eddie would never cause him pain like that again, but that doesn’t mean she can’t have a little fun scaring Eddie.

It starts innocently enough, she’s just sharing fun facts.

“Did you know,” she says to Eddie while Steve and Dustin are clearing the table, “that pigs can eat a human body. It can take some time, but sixteen pigs can do it in about eight minutes actually.”

She hides her smile as the younger squirms uncomfortably and replies “um, no I didn’t know that.”

She didn’t think anyone else but Eddie heard her, but she was wrong. Dustin says something about remembering going to Claudia’s cousin’s farm shortly after his dad left them, and thinking it had pigs. She had an even harder hiding her smile after Eddie went as white as a ghost with that information.

She continues to give Eddie little fun facts like that, and one time confirming that Eddie is in fact allergic to cinnamon, because she’d hate to forget that when baking him something.

She’d never ever be the cause of Dustin and Steve’s pain, or give her new found friends Wayne and Scott the panic she had in spring break not knowing where her Dusty was, but she does like seeing Eddie squirm on occasion.

#Claudia henderson absolutely adopted Steve and is far more observant than the kids #she’d never give an actual shovel talk to Eddie but she’d have fun scaring him #eddie thinks she hates him #Steve who’s partially deaf and somehow is never in the room when she drops tidbits is very confused #He’s like ‘what? Ma loves you’ #claudia henderson #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #dustin henderson #I’m totally not pushing my Claudia killed her husband hc into this #my writing #blurb #steddie blurb #steddie fanfic #clarkson if you squint

[meruz]

another heavyjan dump... some i like and some that i did way too quickly just to get it out of the way LOL

#another self portrait i dont got anything else interesting to paint in my room #meruzart #heavyjan #observational #heavypaint #original

[ctl-yuejie]

a taste

#only friends #only friends the series #ofts #mark pakin #papang phromphiriya #i am obsessed with how good papang is #trust me to read too much into it but to me he clearly has an idea who 30 sth year old Dan is #seemingly out of the dating scene since at least his graduation so doesn't know the current lingo #feeling a bit too old but also unsure how he likes being called old but hot #very charmed by this junior but not used anymore to getting butterflies in a club #lowkey knows that the boss thing might be a bit hmm... #(listen: i love that again the show doesn't give us a clear line of 'dan is a creep' because there is a lot of room for him to essentially #be a good option for nick as well as the possibility of accidentally acting unethical) especially within the community it is worth to #observe whether the power imbalance on its own speaks against the person #he's also a bit shy wondering whether this cute guy would actually be interested in him because he is sweet and obviously aquainted with #going to bars so surely he must have options #and mark is also so wonderful ;A; even before he spots boston you can see that there is still some heartbreak lingering #but also that he liked the kiss but it was a very different feel to boston #also: somehow papang in mlc and papang here kisses absolutely differently and it makes so much sense to me that he at this point in his #life would kiss like this?? idk how to explain it better #this show continues to bring out the best acting out of everyone #(to derail: maybe why i want the writing for top to be that he's still in the grey so badly because i think that is the kind of difficult #acting force is actually mastering in this series)

[comradekatara]

sokka, katara, and the paradox of “the gifted child”

something i’ve noticed is a tendency to (mis)characterize sokka as someone who is dismissed due to being a nonbender, when that’s only partially true. sokka is certainly dismissed by some for not being a bender (namely, by benders), but i think there’s a key difference between being dismissed and not being valued in one specific way. katara was valued by her tribe for being a waterbender for the very crucial reason that she was the last one left. had she been a dime a dozen in her tribe, which would have been the case were it not for the systemic extermination of her people, she would not be valued as highly for possessing this skill. that said, while sokka clearly does hold some resentment over his lack of bending ability, calling himself “the guy in the group who’s regular,” i think it’s folly to assume that this means that sokka was dismissed and discarded as “average” while katara was put on a pedestal for being special. because while katara obviously was considered special, sokka is also clearly considered special by his family, merely in different ways. and if anything, sokka embodies the archetypal struggle of the so-called "gifted child” far more than katara does.

while sokka clearly believes himself to be disposable and intrinsically worthless, i don’t think that he was actively neglected by his family. even if katara was clearly marked by her bending as embodying the last hope of their tribe, that doesn’t mean that she was seen as more gifted than he was or was designated as her family’s obvious favorite. for example, the way hakoda talks about sokka (saying he trusted him with leading and protecting the tribe when he was thirteen, calling him a genius, and other such insanely high praises to heap on a child) shows that he clearly views his son as particularly exceptional and has never been shy about showing that. sokka is distinctly insecure around his father for assumptions he makes regarding hakoda's faith in his abilities and his insecurities when it comes to his perceived failure in not measuring up as a man, but from the second we meet hakoda, it's evident that these insecurities are entirely internal and completely unfounded, at least in terms of his father's perception of him. hakoda is nothing but incredibly proud of sokka, constantly emphasizing just how capable and brilliant he believes him to be. whether or not sokka is capable of internalizing it is another story, but it's clear that hakoda is not stingy in his praise and affection, not even a little bit.

moreover, while katara is clearly kanna’s favorite on an emotional level, she nonetheless affords sokka far more respect. she admonishes katara and tells her to do her chores, and notably, she also impresses the importance of “listening to her brother,” and backs up sokka’s decision to banish aang from the village. you can claim that sexism plays a factor in how sokka views his own supposed position of authority, but kanna is a woman who traveled the entire globe as a teenager because she wanted to escape patriarchal impositions dictating her life. she’s simply far too smart to treat sokka as any sort of authority within their village if she did not fully entrust him with that responsibility. she treats sokka almost like a peer, as if she is legitimately co-running the village with a fifteen year old boy.

katara is only a couple years younger than sokka at most, but her dynamic with kanna is very different. on one hand, kanna clearly sees more of herself in katara, can identify with her sense of adventure and rebellious spirit, but on the other hand, it means that she views katara as a child to be taken care of, who needs to be reminded to do her chores and bailed out when she gets herself into trouble. sokka doesn't want to be viewed as a child, and so he does everything in his power to position himself as kanna's equal rather than her grandson. he takes his duties and responsibilities very seriously, and is obedient to a fault whenever he is submitting to any authority he actually respects, especially his father and grandmother. to be honest, a lot of what katara considers coddling is probably just sokka never being bossed around by their grandmother because she never actually has to tell him to do his chores. because despite katara's claim that he simply faffs about "playing soldier," sokka's problem is actually that he takes himself too seriously for her liking. and with the exception of kanna saying "be nice to your sister," which is the kind of teasing a parent says to their child, she clearly respects sokka's position in the village. when katara tries to run away with aang, kanna takes sokka's side and forbids her from acting impulsively, but when sokka is the one who packs supplies and plans to save aang, kanna gives them both her blessing.

katara is the only person who takes umbrage with the notion of sokka running the village and telling her what to do all day. and those frustrations have likely accumulated up from a lifetime of being told to “do as her brother says” and “why can’t she be smarter and more responsible and levelheaded blah blah blah.” she clearly thinks that she’s punching up when she yells at or mocks him, which may seem crazy to anyone who understands that sokka’s entire identity and existence revolves around being katara’s protector, but katara doesn’t actually know this. in her mind sokka is merely the perfect child who has always represented this impossible standard of “genius.” and what's more, he's absolutely insufferable about it.

and to be clear, this isn’t to say that katara herself isn’t highly intelligent, capable, competent, and skilled. she’s not only an incredibly talented waterbender, but also clever, quick, witty, creative, resourceful, practical, mature, and thoughtful in other ways. at one point, toph calls her a genius (“a stinky, sweaty genius”). and she is, indeed, an extremely powerful and innovative waterbender, both due to her hard work, but also because she is genuinely brilliant. that said, she’s smart in the realistic way that a kid is smart; she works hard to be good at what she cares about (and she has an existentially devastating reason to care about being a good waterbender, mind you), and she’s also good at thinking on the fly when she needs to. however, unlike sokka, or even toph, her intellect may be impressive, but it isn’t astonishing. sokka’s mind functions completely anomalously. i wouldn't say he's unrealistically intelligent, because i do know some people in real life who are similarly adept at processing all kinds of different information with the ability to deftly apply it near-immediately, but it is certainly abnormal, both for real world standards and within his universe.

i normally bristle at this term and its applications (for multiple reasons), but since it is explicitly stated multiple times across the show, it is important to acknowledge that sokka is referred to as a genius multiple times, including by his father. katara is referred to as being a genius by toph for using her own sweat to waterbend (which, as hama points out an episode later, isn't even that clever because you can literally bend water from the air around you); conversely, sokka is referred to as a genius for helping to invent hot air balloons and for figuring out multiple escape routes from the world's most secure prison in less than a day. we don't know the exact timeframe under which katara trained with pakku and earned the title of master, but she clearly worked incredibly hard to earn that title, not only as a master, but as the greatest waterbender in the entire world. i assume it was any time between a few weeks and a little over a month in which zhao would organize a fleet to arrive at the north pole, which is, of course, extremely impressive in itself and a testament to her passion and determination. however, on the other hand, piandao claims that sokka has basically mastered the sword and is ready to make his own within less than a day. it's important to remember that katara is also brilliant in her own way, and possesses great skills that sokka lacks: not only bending, but also midwifery, and an ability to locate her own emotions and allow herself to be vulnerable with others, two skills which should never be looked down upon for their association with womanhood and femininity, and are also particularly impressive considering just how young katara is. she is brilliant in her own right, and in any other family, katara would easily have been "the smart one." and yet, sokka is simply in a league of his own.

so, yeah, he can stand to get thrown around and yelled at; everyone her entire childhood just kept on impressing how special and perfect and brilliant he is, he can handle it. she has no idea that he is depressed, depersonalizes, loathes himself, and thinks he’ll never be good enough, because he never actually communicates any of that to her. the closest he ever comes is admitting that he’s jealous due to not having bending abilities, and even that shocks katara, even though it’s such a small and obvious admission in the scheme of things. she has no idea what’s going on with him psychologically, how he views himself in relation to others, and specifically in relation to her, so she kind of just assumes he’s entitled because surely he must know how special he is and thus feels owed accolades by the world at every turn. he deserves to be humbled, and she is in fact righteous for humbling him.

when she makes fun of him for being stupid or miserable or paranoid or cynical, she thinks she’s owning him the way a righteous underdog fights against an oppressor. it's similar to how zuko wants to "put azula in her place." in katara and zuko's minds, they are both the valiant underdog siblings who had to fight and struggle against the siblings for whom everything came so easily. and in katara’s mind especially, she is always punching up, and she always has a moral justification in lashing out at anyone she pleases. so she couldn’t fathom that the reason sokka puts up with her antagonism without complaint isn’t because he’s so above her that he can simply ignore her taunts and gibes without a care (if that were the case, he wouldn't bother to taunt and gibe in return), but rather that he feels so detached from his own personhood that he would never think to actually explain his feelings to the person whom he has defined himself through since childhood. and if he did ever, somehow, communicate that to her, she’d have to reevaluate their whole entire lives and dynamic. but he never will communicate that to her, so she’ll never actually have to do that.

moreover, even though katara often does tease sokka and cast doubt upon his competence and abilities in low-stakes situations constantly, whenever they are actually facing a real problem that requires an immediate solution, katara seems to forget that sokka is supposedly an unhelpful, lazy, immature idiot because she immediately turns to him to fix all their issues. and then once that issue is resolved, katara goes back to finding his existence bothersome. sokka, on the other hand, falls into this role of problem solver instinctually, with the one exception that when they actually name him as the idea guy, he jokingly complains that it’s a lot of pressure to be one who is always expected to come up with solutions. and while he is joking during that conversation in “the drill,” he’s being honest to an extent, because his perfectionism and fear of failure is truly dire.

when katara is faced with failure, whether as the consequences for her own actions or otherwise, she simply gets back up and tries again. she can’t be knocked down, she can’t be deterred from achieving her goals. she has a very healthy approach to making mistakes, and while she doesn’t always learn from them in the longterm, she does always try her best to fix them and amend the situation as immediately as possible. katara is someone who is incredibly resilient and is constantly demonstrating the sheer magnitude of her inner strength, especially in particularly difficult moments. she has the ability to fail as many times as it takes without letting that failure affect her own self-esteem or desire to keep striving for what she believes in.

sokka, on the other hand, is very physically resilient (he gets beat up a lot), but his emotional resilience is actually quite pathetic. he has no tools for coping with failure. from even the slightest mistake, like not actually being able to open the doors at the fire temple with his makeshift explosives, to a catastrophic one, like his failed invasion, sokka immediately retreats inward. in “the boiling rock,” sokka demonstrates how his first ever real failure that rests squarely on his own shoulders is so devastating to him that he becomes totally irrational and suicidal in an attempt to “rectify” the situation. he does not know how to cope with failure, because he expects himself to be perfect at all times. and it’s not because sokka is overly proud, but rather that his guilt complex is so profound that he blames himself for every single thing that goes awry at all times, even when it isn’t actually his fault whatsoever. so that guilt and shame is magnified a thousand fold when sokka is actually culpable for those losses.

one of many ways in which it is evident that sokka is the older sibling is that he clearly lives with the mentality that if katara messes up or gets herself in danger due to her own impulsive inclinations, it’s always actually sokka’s fault for not being a better, more attentive brother. when she sets off the booby trap in the banned ship, sokka banishes aang from the village so as to protect katara from herself. when katara experiences the consequences of heedlessly blowing up a factory, sokka gets mad at her for her recklessness, but also immediately finds a way to help her fix this situation, because that’s his job, and in fact, his primary purpose on this earth. this is a dynamic sokka has probably internalized even before he was assigned the role of her sworn protector, because that’s just how being the eldest is.

sokka’s tendency to take responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes and his desire to shoulder everyone else’s pain at all times, coupled with his implicit belief that he, uniquely, cannot afford to mess up ever (if other people make mistakes it’s fine and he can help them fix it, but if he makes mistakes he no longer has a purpose on this planet, goodbye cruel world), definitely indicates that he was held to an incredibly high standard all his life. he expects himself to be able to handle a lot of responsibility with perfect ease because he always has. he isn’t used to making mistakes of any kind. if he puts his mind into learning a new skill, he always masters it within a couple of days, whatever that skill happens to be. unlike katara, sokka is used to things coming easily to him, and what he isn’t used to is failure.

katara and sokka are both exceptional, of course, but in very different ways, and for very different reasons. katara grew up with a lot of external pressure to excel as a waterbender, because she needs to embody her cultural legacy and prove that her mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. it’s an unfathomable burden to place on a child, and the rate at which she improves her waterbending once she is actually given the resources to hone her skills is a testament to her perseverance and untiring dedication. katara becomes the greatest waterbender in the world not because she is a natural prodigy (which is something she bristles at when aang does display prodigious skill), but because she is incredibly determined and no one can outmatch the strength of her heart and unshakable commitment when she is pursuing a goal. as pakku even says, raw talent isn’t everything, and katara’s abilities prove that despite not being “naturally gifted,” hard work and determination is far more important when it comes to excelling in any given domain.

however, if katara’s motivation to be excellent is externally imposed by the tragic circumstances of her life, sokka’s motivations are, at the very least, internally maintained. as aforementioned, i have no doubt that he received a lot of external validation and praise from the adults in his life as a child with a dazzling, brilliant mind. as has been established, sokka is constantly displaying an ability to synthesize new information at a staggering rate, which likely means that before katara had even discovered her ability to waterbend, sokka was probably being fawned over for the impressive rate at which he was picking up new skills as a baby. since pretty much everything (cerebral, at least) comes easily to sokka, i can only imagine that hakoda, who never hesitates to express to his children how proud he is of them, would constantly affirm sokka’s intellect. and by boasting that sokka takes after himself (hakoda also refers to himself as a genius, completely sincerely), he unwittingly plants the first seeds in fostering sokka’s belief that he must be exactly like his father in every way, and that any deviation from hakoda’s image would prove him unworthy. but he will never be the spitting image of hakoda the way that katara is "the spitting image of kanna" because sokka is already the spitting image of kya, if not – perish the thought – his own person entirely.

unlike katara, who spent her whole childhood trying to waterbend by herself with little success (beyond, of course, isolated instances demonstrating her sheer raw power when her bending was being influenced by her incredibly strong and passionate emotions), sokka always felt like he could handle the amount of responsibility he was given, because everything came easily to him. until the day that his life changed forever, and suddenly the stakes were no longer abstract, but tangible and personally devastating. sokka had never learned that it was okay to fail as a child because he never had a reason to, and then suddenly, he could not afford to fail under any circumstances. failure of any kind went from being a (purely hypothetical) blow to the ego, to being something that could directly endanger the lives of his loved ones. and so sokka decides that the only way to not be culpable for his potential failures is to be a martyr.

of course, there are instances in which sokka is proven to be inept, such as on kyoshi island or with piandao, wherein his humility and open-mindedness are put on display and sokka puts aside his own standards of perfection to learn from a master, but i don't think these instances qualify as failures. for one thing, sokka happens to master the forms he is being taught in less than a day, at an unprecedented rate, and thus these initially humiliating blindspots in his knowledge become victories as sokka absorbs new knowledge. sokka is always eager to learn, and willing to acknowledge his lack of expertise in area, humbling himself to learn from others any chance he gets. no, what i mean by "failure" as it relates to sokka's self-perception and ego is not a lack of knowledge, but an inability to protect another. to sokka, his existence is defined by his ability to provide and protect, and thus, a failure is, specifically, when someone gets hurt under his watch. that is what it means to not be able to afford to fail. he is not overly proud (if anything he is overly insecure), but he also understands that the stakes of failure – real failure – are tangible.

so when it comes to failure that carries grave consequences, he would rather be dead than fallible (or, responsible for not adequately protecting his loved ones), one million times over. and so every time someone makes a sacrifice for him, he feels as if he has failed on a fundamental level, because simply being exceptional is not enough, he must also bear the entire world’s suffering alone – as (in his mind) hakoda instructed him to when he left him behind to protect and provide for the village. otherwise he has failed in his promise to be needed, which is his raison d’être. sokka’s complex is very obviously not informed solely by his upbringing as a “gifted kid,” and in fact largely informed by the dehumanizing logic of war as it necessitates sacrifice, but his inability to accept his own fallibility as a product of his self-dehumanization is, at the very least, compounded by his debilitating perfectionism.

thus, katara and sokka's dynamic within their family isn’t “gifted kid and neglected kid,” but rather “two gifted kids who are gifted in different ways, one of those ways being valued more on a cultural level due to its scarcity as a byproduct of genocide.” while katara was put on a pedestal her entire life due to her ability to waterbend, it doesn’t mean that sokka wasn’t put on a pedestal in other ways. if anything, the reason hakoda entrusted a child with the burdens he did was specifically because he put his son on a pedestal. sokka assumes that hakoda didn't think he was capable enough to join his army, but that couldn't be further from the truth. hakoda trusted his thirteen year old son so much that he genuinely thought it best to leave him alone with this duty to defend his village and protect katara at all costs. he didn't leave a single man behind, not even the other teenage boys, because that's how much faith he had in a child to take his responsibilities seriously and perform them competently. and if that decision gave sokka one million different complexes and fucked him up for life, it wasn’t because he wasn’t valued for his abilities, it’s because he was overvalued and given too much responsibility at too young an age.

both he and katara struggled to live up to the expectations placed on them, forced to fulfill the roles of their parents instead of being allowed to exist as children. but crucially, katara sees the injustice in that, and clings to her childhood even as she strives for greatness, and sokka simply doesn't. he's long accepted that injustice, and in fact feels guilty that he cannot better live up to the impossible portrait of an idolized father, an idealized masculinity, an illusory model of the infallible, unshakeable warrior. despite all his achievements and natural giftedness, he nonetheless feels totally inadequate, deeply flawed, and ontologically worthless. perhaps, in a world beyond the pressures of war and its dehumanizing logic, sokka would have internalized the praise he was constantly receiving his whole life for his gifts. but since he was only ever a prodigy in ways that didn’t matter (within that colonized paradigm), he doesn’t actually care about how clever and brilliant and creative and talented and unique and special he is, because that would first require him to see himself as fully human, and he can’t even do that.

#analysis #sokka #katara #katara&sokka #hakoda #kanna #kya #hakoda&sokka #kanna&sokka #kya&sokka #kanna&katara #whew...! 20+ paragraphs about sokka and katara’s childhood. it’s more likely than u think (highly likely at all times) #see but this is why sokka is so clearly a mirror to azula to me #like not just in terms of crippling perfectionism and devastating fear of failure and being a child prodigy who is put on a pedestal #but simultaneously dehumanized etc etc #but also the fact that like. zuko treats her the same way katara treats sokka #he clearly thinks his immediate hostility and aggression towards her is like. him nobly fighting the battle against his tormentor #when that is literally his little sister and she is struggling so much and desperate for support from LITERALLY ANYONE #katara and zuko are like ‘let’s put azula in her place’ and high five #and that’s just so fucking apt because they truly do believe that it’s their duty to put their perfect prodigy siblings ‘in their place’ #but those are truly two of the most miserable people on the planet #so to any outside observers it’s just like………. why are you being mean to them they’re literally suicidal and shaking like a leaf #but also everyone already knows that azula is the prodigious gifted sibling bc zuko says it like one million times #so there’s rly no need to argue that #whereas katara loves calling sokka an idiot so i do believe that some clarification is in order #but like. yeah there’s no way sokka was dismissed or neglected as a child #he’s dismissed and neglected by the world at large #but within his tribe he’s like a mini celebrity . he’s their young sheldon (sorry) #anyway im running out of room to write tags but um. perfectionism is a disease get well soon xoxo bye

[givehimthemedicine]

ok so Satan's Baby (the explosives) killed the flesh monster by giving Eleven ("Satan's" baby) time to kill the flesh monster by giving Joyce time to use the keys to explode the machine (aka "the key") that was keeping the gate open and the flesh monster alive so Lucas and Max were both right [waterbed water guy voice]

and El is a key/explosive device with which someone was pregnant after being cracked open and glued ba[gets shot]

bonus: you are like Papa

#observation room. head in hands. call 911 they're killing me #mothergate is just a crack theory right. right?? #can i be pregananant??? #👹👶🧨🫃 #we're mixing analogies like ammonia and bleach but so are they kinda #truly where does one end a post like this when everything relates to everything else #me obsessively rearranging the order of these screenshots as if there's a way it's coherent to more than 4 people #analysis #givehimthemedicine analysis

[magicianapprenticelyra]

Apprenticember—DAY(s) II & III (Part I)

Event created by: @ghoulfriendfangs​

Prompt(s): The LIs and your MC’s relationship with them.

The short of it: Lyra is paired with all the LIs of The Arcana. It’s just split into twelve different timelines. For the sake of readability/not wanting to put readers through thorough essays about each and every bit of said timelines, I’ll do my best to condense each bit into small paragraphs.

Asra—

Overall/In Other Routes: Lyra sees Asra as one of her closest, dearest friends. She’ll always find ways to keep in touch: be it keeping consistent correspondence while out of Vesuvia to finding time in her busy schedule to meet up with them. In Muriel’s route, Asra even officiates the wedding! There is, however, one timeline where their friendship is strained to its limit . . .

Upright (TOR: Compass Rose): He’s been there since the beginning of it all. Even if she can’t remember six of the nine years she’s actually known Asra, she wants nothing more than to make new memories with him. Be it in Vesuvia or some far-flung place on the continent over, she’s always found a home wherever Asra is.

Reversed (TOR: Songbird): Asra’s everything to her. He’s everything she’s ever known. He's also the only thing that she remembers.

[more under the cut!]

***

Nadia—

Overall/In Other Routes: Depending whether Lyra’s in an Upright or Reversed timeline, Lyra can be anywhere between having the utmost of respect for the Countess, to being totally neutral/indifferent. As a woman in her position, Nadia has a lot of responsibilities; Lyra doesn’t envy her in the slightest. If they’re friends, Lyra’s a visitor that Nadia looks forward to see. If they’re estranged or on hostile/unfriendly terms, at best it is awkward. At worst, it’s bitter and angry.

Upright (TOR: Emerald): Initially, Lyra only knew her as the widowed Countess. As she learned more about Nadia, she found a kindred spirit. While busy with their duties, they find each other—and their friends/loved ones—to lean on. The pair push each other to be better, and to do their best with whatever energies they have on a day to day basis.

Reversed (TOR: Ruby): With the new Devil being her significant other, Lyra’s found herself having many freedoms. Said freedoms, however, are at that the end of a very, very long leash. With the slightest sign of her Devil needing her presence, Lyra’s instantly transported back to the seat of Nadia’s throne. While free to do as she wishes, Lyra’s internal turmoil isn’t quelled in the least.

***

Julian—

Overall/In Other Routes: At best, she gets along with the fellow pun-loving doctor. At worst, interactions between the two of them can be either awkward or leave one or both of them completely and utterly exasperated. Julian isn’t the easiest person to be around, whether or not he does it intentionally. Lyra knows the man means well 89% of the time, but his flair for the dramatics makes her shake her head.

Upright (TOR: Voyager): Their relationship starts off not unlike a roller coaster. He’s wanted for murder, yet he doesn’t remember much from his time in the Red Plague. Lyra knows there’s more to the doctor than he lets on, especially when time and time again it seems like he’s a death seeker. After things are resolved, Lyra and Julian learn each other’s styles of affection. While Lyra is the more ‘serious’ of the pair, she’s not uptight to the point Julian’s shenanigans feel grating. Despite their very obvious differences, deep down beneath, they both care for the same things. They just go about it differently, especially when magic gets involved.

Reversed (TOR: Undertaker): They both have nightmares that feel endless. Both their bodies have changed, and they’re both doing their best to cope with it. Julian’s become something of a raven-based harpy, and Lyra’s shifting into a black sheep of sorts. Travelling together, Julian doesn’t pry much into what Lyra’s seen en route to finding him. It only comes up when Scout and Julian assist Lyra in sheering the excess amount of wool off of her skin and face. Despite it all, they’re together, and looking for their loved ones in their changed world. So long as they’re together, they can do anything.

A/N: It’s been taking longer than I would’ve liked to finish this, so I’m splitting this into two parts instead. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Part 2 should be coming along soon enough.

PART 2: [TBA]

#apprenticember #The Arcana #fan apprentice #ghoulfriendfangs #magicianapprenticelyra #Asra Alnazar #Asra #Nadia Satrinava #Julian Devorak #the scribe speaks #the scribe writes #The Observation Room #TOR: Compass Rose #TOR: Songbird #TOR: Voyager #TOR: Undertaker #TOR: Ruby #TOR: Emerald

[frownyalfred]

on naming the third fic: i just think, a room full of coral. A sky full of honey. ...a sea full of seamen u_u

that sounds exactly like a Kate Bush lyric so honestly, I’ll take it at this point

#asks #anon #a room full of coral #Kate bush #keen observers will note that all titles in the series are from the album Aerial #and god damn it I want to find one more title in that album somewhere #Kate bush why did you have to make bird noises for half that album #I need WORDS

[somecunttookmyurl]

all the while society conflates "being an adult" with "having a proper job" and "having money to make arbitrary Adult Purchases" disabled people who can't work - or can only work part time or can only do entry level baby jobs - will never be 'allowed' to be adults

you can say "being an adult is looking after yourself you don't have to have a job!!!" all you want but most people who say that will still assume anybody who doesn't either can't or won't 'look after themselves' actually. and every 'marker' of 'adulthood' that's observable and thus actually counts or whatever loops back around to... having a job and 'contributing' something

#yeah i have netflix on all day #i am quite literally signed off of work for the -rest of my life- #what the fuck else would you like me to do with my time when most people are in fact at work #or did you think i can't have the tv on and put laundry away at the same time or something #must i work on commissions on silence in a dour room to be perceived as an adult #anyway 'looking after yourself/your home/your pet' is not observable #to anybody who doesn't like ACTUALLY live in your house #unless you are extremely obviously NOT doing it #if a tree falls in a forest etc #owning a house? job. like not even 'in this economy? lol' #disabled people LITERALLY can't because we aren't allowed to have enough savings for a deposit #car? would you honestly trust me with a vehicle lol but also: job #you mostly cannot buy a car without one it's a requirement for the lease #otherwise you aren't 'trusted' to pay it on time #incidentally most landlords will also - perfectly legally - refuse to rent to you because you are going to be unreliable with the rent #which is being paid directly by the gov anyway like take your trust issues up with them bro #a family? if i get married or cohabit with a partner my income gets sliced in half #so to support even myself let alone a child would require. drumroll please. employment #savings? adults have savings right? yeah but unlike you i have a gov enforced cap on mine #'good furniture not shit from ikea' (someone has remarked that ikea furniture is 'college dorm-y' it's going here) #i mean do i have to say it

[16woodsequ]

Me: *introduces a new element into the story that ~ surprisingly ~ hasn’t been mentioned at all before now*

Character: How??? Did I??? Not noticed this??? Before????

Me, the author, who hadn’t thought of it until now: *sweating* Yeah..... so weird how you didn’t notice it..... before......

#foreshadowing only works if you know what is happening next #sometimes #you just gotta add a whole room your characters have never seen before because you didn't know you needed it at the beginning of the story #it isn't *your* fault your characters role a nat 1 on their observational skills #writing #writer #fanfic #fanfiction #writer problems #funny #writing meme #writing funny #fanfic meme

[moregraceful]

folks tonight we discovered what hitting my breaking point looks like and it is: impulse three day vacation in palm desert for ahl hockey in february by myself. does anyone have any recommendations for stuff to do in coachella valley?? like restaurants or hikes or museums or anything. i don't drink and i love museums and i will have a car and my only two commitments are evening hockey games. i should probably buy my lesbian parents alcohol, snacks, and/or spices for looking after my dog and i would like to buy local. also love a local ice cream shop or creamery. literally any recs you have would be great!! no recommendation too great or too small!!

(also podcast recs that aren't true crime or horror since i have two 7+ hour drives and if i listen to my sports podcasts the entire time i will become a worse version of myself than we started with, which is already bad lmfao)

#i'm so excited i have not been on vacation since 2021 and i have never been on vacation by myself ever #we will not discuss the circumstances that led to me making this decision in 15 mins and having a room booked and the tickets bought #within an hour and a half tonight but. know that it has been very very very bad for at least a month. lol. lmao #also i am so sorry to firebirds fans where the fresh hell does your team get off charging you $30+ dollars for ahl hockey #obviously i went apeshit and bought $80 tickets close to the bench for observation purposes but like. $30 for ahl hockey?? #not even sitting close to the glass??? that's insane. i hope i get to see someone beat brisson's ass for no reason #OH FIREBIRDS FANS ALSO. WHICH LITTLE GUY SHOULD I ROOT FOR #big fan of going to minor leagues games choosing a guy at random and throwing all my emotional energy in to his game narrative #but i feel like i have. at least two firebirds fans following me maybe one of you can choose a guy for me #fresno oilers.txt #IS THE BOTANICAL GARDEN FUN

[meruz]

me and my cousin drawn on video call 2day

#meruzart #heavypaint #observational #weird that this is turning into a year of self portraits for me #i think its bc the apt i moved into has a room length mirror LOL

[abandoned-quiche]

I don't think enough people talk about YOU TWO. People are always attributing various things to gaster, but there were two other people in the room with him when it happened. They could be the ones doing these things. I always felt like a lot of the things attributed to him seem to contradict each other personality-wise. Maybe one of them is going around giving random short guys new, never-before-seen complexes while the other is handing out eggs, or making fountains.

On deltarune.com/chair there's dialogue that appears in the tab name: "But what if it could get... ...darker than dark?" This seems like it was said surrounding one of Gaster's dark experiments, but notably, it is not in all capital letters, like Gaster always speaks in. This was someone else talking. They use capitalization the normal way, just like the voice that discards the vessel, so they could be the same person. I know just about everyone uses capitalization the normal way, the connecting thread here is both being in relation to Gaster, the capitalization just means that them being the same person is allowed.

#what if W D and Gaster are all separate people #Ok now my personal headcanon: #the one who connects you to DELTARUNE at the beginning of the game is gaster (obviously). the one handing out eggs is also gaster. #since he's shattered across time and space. that's why his existence is so... debatable lol. #+ you can find him in the light world which would seem to imply he's a lightner. but when you seal the fountain there isn't someone extra #in the room with you. #no matter what you do in the dark world #he isn't there by the time you seal the fountain #if you take the egg he isn't yhere #if you don't take the egg he was not there #if you don't enter that room. he exists in a state of superposition. and when you turn on the lights (observe him) he collapses into #nonexistence. #does that make sense? #anyway. second headcanon: #the guy who fucked up jevil and spamton #is also the one who discarded the vessel #and is one of 'you two'. #and the other person.. no clue #and alphys is the knight and dess sings don't forget which is the song from the water #deltarune #deltarune lore #deltarune theory