Ok we should talk more about sokka and aang because these two dumbasses are adorable together! Underrated relationship
The gag with Katara and blind Toph in season 3 is still the funniest scene in the series lol
yeah their friendship very cute. i like how when they're left to their own devices their respective adhd tendencies combine, that feels very true to my relationships with my friends who also have adhd lol. it's also just really adorable how through aang's sheer lovability, sokka learns to loosen up a little and appreciate life (somewhat, sometimes) in a more relaxed, content way. aang is a really good and highly valuable influence on everyone around him, especially as he counteracts the logic of war and its necessity for violence, which is an ideology sokka not only heavily subscribes to, but to which he attaches his very personhood. aang reminds sokka that he is still a child (he reminds katara of this too, but it happens in the literal pilot, whereas sokka's journey to literally enjoying himself ever is far more gradual and grueling). aang reminds sokka that he is human.
that said, i do think that people tend to be reductive when talking about the value of their relationship. not to single you out specifically, but i do kind of take umbrage with the notion (perhaps unintentional) that all their dynamic is good for is being adorable and funny. calling them "dumbasses" because they can be silly and goofy sometimes, or scatterbrained and absent-minded. i genuinely think that aang and sokka constitute one of the most interesting foils in the entire show. normally when we talk about character foils, we talk about characters who are positioned in opposition to each other, but aang and sokka are fascinating because they're allies (and friends) who nonetheless approach the same problem with the same intentions and the same goals but from completely different angles.
in many ways, sokka is aang's most distinct opposite. but first, to address their similarities: they're both victims of a genocidal imperialist project that has burdened them with a responsibility to their people that they are too young and barely equipped to handle; they are both expected to shoulder this burden easily by those around them due to their nature as "gifted" child prodigies with distinctly unique skillset and an unprecedented ability to absorb and apply new information that they learn at a genuinely abnormal rate (remember that aang is not just the avatar, but an incredibly prodigious avatar at that; he mastered all four elements within less than a year by the age of twelve, whereas most avatars take at least another four years to master their elements); they are both the "leaders" of their small guerrilla militia of child soldiers, and they take turns giving each other guidance and trusting and following the other's lead; they both consider katara the central figure in their lives and love her with an almost obsessive devotion; they both repress their grief and other unpalatable emotions through humor and constant distraction, and sometimes even depersonalize entirely when they feel that their goal is more important than retaining their humanity (sokka does this more frequently, but when aang does it, it's more blatant); and of course, they both harbor massive guilt complexes for the devastating tragedies (largely beyond their control) that have shaped their lives, and are constantly replaying those moments of "failure" as that of acute shame to motivate themselves as they strive to rectify and "atone" for their past errors.
so, as you can see, reducing their friendship to "adorable dumbasses" is already not very interesting. to me, the best aang and sokka scenes aren't the ones wherein they are playing and goofing around together. those scenes are sweet and charming, of course, but the best aang and sokka scenes are the ones wherein sokka is positioned as the logical consequence of aang's grief. wherein present-day sokka becomes the worst case scenario for a hypothetical future aang. in many ways, their friendship is incredibly bittersweet, because it is also punctuated by moments wherein sokka threatens aang's entire value system and quote-unquote "innocence" through attempting to mold him into a Man Of War the way he does those hapless toddlers in his village. for all that sokka is remarkably open-minded and receptive to new ideas, he cannot see past the limits of the world he was born into and the mechanisms and assumptions of violence he was forced to internalize and embody. aang is, of course, totally unique in his ability to not only envision a world beyond the war (i would argue that katara has the ability to do this as well), but also to have actually experienced it. and so it is truly a testament to aang's resilience that he is almost entirely impervious to sokka's ruthless, militaristic logic, even as sokka constantly attempts to enforce it.
i have a much longer post in my drafts about how aang and sokka are positioned in "the serpent's pass" (one of their best episodes in terms of their dynamic, also just a highly underrated episode in general), so i'm not gonna get too much into it here, but katara's relationship to aang as paralleled with suki's relationship to sokka is really fascinating in this episode for the ways in which it also positions katara's grief over witnessing aang's attempt to detach himself from his grief to focus on his goals and aang slipping into "sokkahood," and the absolutely devastating implications of what that must mean for katara. i think there's a strong case, in general, for the reading of katara attempting to replace her lost childhood (with sokka) through aang as he represents a vehicle for her overly idealized nostalgia (much like how zuko projects onto aang and views him as a vehicle to return to that site of his overly idealized childhood), and thus, quite literally, replacing sokka with aang. to katara, aang possesses what sokka has since lost, or perhaps something he never got the chance to have in the first place. and that isn't to say that katara views aang as a brother, but rather that katara longs for companionship in any form, and what is aang if not the ideal companion? so aang's grief and rage scares her not only because it pains her to see someone she loves so deeply in so much pain, but also because it reflects her own pain back at her, as someone who has lost so much, including family members (also including kanna and hakoda) who are, ostensibly (at least physically), still alive.
one of the most fascinating scenes between sokka and aang in the entire show is when sokka straight up attacks aang for burning katara in "the deserter." katara is very clearly affected by this beyond simply the physical pain; being burned by the weapon that killed her mother is explicitly triggering for her, and she retreats into herself and sobs like a child (she is a child, but you know what i mean. an even younger child). and sokka in turn is triggered by katara being triggered, because his entire existence revolves around his oath to protect her, and she was just hurt by the one person to whom she stakes all her hope and pride and joy and affection above all. aang obviously understands the gravity of this accident immediately; it of course wasn't intentional, but he nonetheless takes full accountability and apologizes sincerely. but sokka only calms down somewhat once he knows for certain that katara is okay. and instead of going to find katara as she sobs, he spends all his focus on yelling at aang, throwing him to the ground, more furious than we have ever seen him. and in a way, it's clear that he's also furious at himself, for having let his guard down around and trusted aang, and for his failure to perform his primary duty, protecting his sister. the fulcrum of aang and sokka's relationship is, necessarily, katara. she is the force that brings them together, and the person who is most important to either of them, but she also person who connects them in her mind, and so our perceptions of them as the audience are primarily informed by her perception of them as the narrator.
moreover, sokka's advocacy for killing zuko (in "the siege of the north") and ozai (in "sozin's comet") constitute two more fascinating scenes with aang, for the way in which sokka does not even find the act of killing something to flinch at, let alone an absolute betrayal of core principles and values the way aang does. killing is simply not something sokka feels guilty about, despite the fact that he seems to carry guilt over simply existing a lot of the time. and that juxtaposition, between aang and sokka playing together, of sokka learning how to have fun and entertain his little friend, versus sokka chastising aang for refusing to commit murder, is what makes their relationship so compelling. when people reduce their dynamic to its most comedic and innocent mode, they are reducing their roles as they embody two opposing relationships to violence, and how that reflects their ideological positions as someone who has subscribed to imperialist logic insofar as his values have been shaped by war, as opposed to someone who knows through his own experiences to refute that logic by any means necessary. when we talk about aang helping sokka to regain his humanity, it is crucial to understand specifically how sokka lost his humanity in the first place, but also why aang specifically is so crucial in counterbalancing his logic in a way no one else alive actually can.
ultimately, if sokka represents the voluntary auto-dehumanization of the colonized subject, then aang represents the potential of preservation and even reclamation of humanity and the imaginative potential of a world[view] beyond those colonial limits. their ideological conflict is not simply one of what it means to be human within a colonized paradigm, but what it means to exist at all.
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mister laios dungeon meshi…. as an autistic person, i dont think ive ever related more to a character before.
like laios being so disinterested by the human world around him, unable to understand it and growing bitter towards humans because of how much and how easily they hurt. with monsters theres a Reason for what they do — its all survival, and that makes sense. humans, however, hurt just to hurt. all the suffering that he and falin went through have been because of humans. why would he like them? why would he ever be interested in them? he and falin have Never been afforded being seen as humans.
i feel like, with laios, he likes who he likes, and he doesnt really think about people he doesnt like. sure they exist, and he knows and acknowledges this, but theyre not his. the only humans that really matter to him are the ones that hes grown attached to. hes very compassionate but thats because its in his nature. if he wasnt a kind person at heart, i dont think he’d bother with people at all. that kindness is such a core part of him.
if he were in the modern world i just KNOW that guy wouldnt care about a career or school or even all these supposedly human aspirations that people have-- these long term goals, these big lofty ideals. he would just care about the day to day. working to ensure theres a roof over his head and food on the table. reading about monsters. having dinner with his friends. making sure his loved ones are all doing okay. and i can just imagine people being like "but dont you want... more?" and laios being so confused. why WOULD you ever want more? why would he ever want to give himself to the rat race? be exhausted constantly? work towards a goal that only other people view as worthy? why, when what he has right here is exactly what he wanted!! laios doesnt have these "human" desires and thats a core part of why he feels so alienated from other people. so different. like a monster himself. and as someone who is autistic, let me just say.….. me too buddy.
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do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up
i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.
she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.
never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-
i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:
okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.
the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page
she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later
so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions
"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"
"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"
Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.
I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.
On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.
Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.
And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.
Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.
Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it
and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks
And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.
(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)
The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.
And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)
I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.
and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured
In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.
(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)
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i believe in a world where when reginas on her lowest of lows, she kinda hesitates on calling janis the one person she knows who wont sugarcoat any shit from her but she doesnt because of what happened to them.
and when the day comes where shes really desperate, she finally dials the number, hands shaking as she hears the line ring, actually afraid of getting rejected.
when janis picks up the phone in the middle of the night, sleep obvious in the tone of her voice as she greets a small 'hello?' and all regina could utter was "come over… please." in the smallest voice possible.
suddenly janis is up and running, confused as hell but all the hatred she has for the blonde slips away in that moment when she heard regina's voice.
a few minutes and a whole lot of running later, janis is standing in front of reginas doorway. she's hesitating to ring or knock, afraid to wake anybody else in the house. a beat passes and suddenly she hears a ping on her phone, a text which tells her the location of a spare key hidden near the pots, the same place it has always been all those years ago.
she reaches for the key and slides it into the lock, twisting the front door as quietly as she can. the scent of the home she frequents when they were younger hits her as memories come flooding in. she takes a moment and heads inside, closing the door gently before running upstairs.
she stood in front of the familiar wooden door, a million thoughts running on her mind. she knocks out of respect.
there was no answer for a few seconds until she hears a little bit of shuffling. the doorknob twists and reveals a very tired regina, her hair messy and unkempt tied in a messy bun, and her eyes swollen from crying, stray years still evident on her cheeks.
"you came," regina says, sadness and surprise laced in her voice.
"you called," was all janis could say as she stares at the blonde in front of her.
no other words were uttered and after a moment, regina steps aside and lets janis in, gently closing the door behind them.
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