#how could that ever be bad?

[umeboshi--bones]

dont imagine ink? :)

Don't imagine Ink popping half his head out of a puddle of paint that spilled in your art space, eyesockets big and blinking his mismatched eyes up at you, eyebrows are raised.

'Hey!' He would exclaim, seeing a clenched fist of frustration in one hand, a drawing implement in the other.

'Oh...oh oh!' In one fluid movement he leaps out of the paint, Broomie strapped loyally to his back, and peers onto your canvas, tilting his head to and from, seemingly in thought. No thoughts head empty

Don't imagine his sudden exclamations of praise for how far you've gotten, look at your color choice! The shading! THE PERSPECTIVE AAAAAAA LOOK AT YOU GO!

Don't imagine his eye lights match up suddenly with bright yellow stars and he grabs you into a hug and spins you around.

'See what you can do, when you try? Even just putting pen to paper, when you create, a new unique beauty enters the world. YOU did that! Don't beat yourself down, I'd miss your talent, your emotion that rises from your creations!!'

Don't imagine he gathers you into a hug and peppers your face with little kisses until you Starr to giggle. Perfect! Goal achieved!

Oh, please don't imagine him sitting himself on the ground near you, to chatter away brightly as you find the resolve to keep drawing, putting your words together, creating. Because some people just need company. He'll keep quiet or try to if need be, drawing on some paper he pulled from seemingly nowhere, concentrating with a rainbow colored tongue poking from his mouth.

Don't imagine that he stays there and stays there with you, until the piece is finished. He takes it in, eyesockets widening and a grin splitting his ink splattered face.

'YOU DID IT! See it was in you the whole time! What else is in there you think? Hey let's draw together! Whaddaya say?'

#ink sans #ink!sans #answered asks #undertale #utmv #idiot boy #silly man #we love a positive king #create anyway you can #itll always be YOUR voice #YOUR style #and it is beautiful and it is you #how could that ever be bad? #ink x reader #ink sans x reader #sans x reader

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

#almost wrote the champagne line as ''effervescent'' but legit could not write it without saying ''effervescent like a snail'' #ah tumblr... #writeblr #warm up #idk . having trouble writing rn #ps i don't like to talk about it . it is my medical information. but before you ask. yes this is about being on the spectrum #i really don't like when ppl make my writing about how im [whatever ID]. i want it to ring true for the people who it rings true for #i don't want it to be like ''awwwww look at this person!!! she's the EXCEPTION!!! :)" ..... #no.... not really..... #idk something gross happens whenever i admit to certain conditions and i turn into like inspiration p*rnography #like yes they actually let us use keyboards these days #furthermore i just... dont feel comfortable talking about this part of me. i had too bad of a childhood. adhd is one thing... #this one im like. still coming to terms with. which is like. my own journey. #idk. just please be kind. some things are more private than others. this one feels private to me. #i do not know how to help others w/this . and i do not know how to help myself. i will talk about it if im ever ready. idk if that will #actually ever happen #ty in advance i love u im kissing you we are kissing somewhere on the spectrum

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

#the truman show #sbs rambles #I keep thinking about how children on popular youtube channels should probably have laws to protect them #social workers assigned to them maybe #I dunno #they did not sign up to have their lives sold for profit #but here we are #tho #I guess none of us signed up for it #and our data is harvested more than ever #god #high-tech capitalism sucks turns out #OH WAIT because tumblr is bad at getting context sometimes #let me specify: #I am not saying that the movie The Truman Show is bad or that it normalizes this #like all good sci-fi (because it is kind of sci-fi) it's there to warn us of what the future could hold #and it did that in a very good way - it's a beautiful movie #I could see someone with a bad faith take assuming I meant that it was part of the problem #it absolutely wasn't. it didn't normalize this; we did #youtube did and social media #it's us that's the problem #or more specifically: big corporations and a lack of regulation #that's the origin of most modern problems

[twinstxrs]

so much happened in this whole episode but i’m still on fig infiltrating ruben’s dream, making it look like the place where his friend was murdered, and then disguising herself as kipperlilly & repeatedly saying different variants of “somebody needs to take the fall for this, and it’s not going to be me. it’s going to be you.” while adaine as the elven oracle shows up next to her. can you imagine waking up from that, the idea of a horrible truth being pinned on you by your friend to save her own skin while the personification of fate and destiny stands there, almost as a promise that this is GOING to happen to you. we don’t even know if this kid is guilty. my god.

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #fantasy high junior year #fig faeth #ruben hopclap #lucy frostblade #the rat grinders #adaine abernant #kipperlilly copperkettle #watching fig terrorize him like girl!!! we don’t even know if he’s guilty!!!! #this might just be for me but i do not think 5 teenagers willingly brutally killed their friend idk #like there just has to be some other element to it and i am very scared to find out what that was #what if they were put in a position where they felt there was/there was no other choice… like oh my god #my comedy brain is having fun but my ‘this is a teenager’ brain is in such deep distress all the time this season #the rat grinders i trust brennan to not make u cartoonishly evil so i am holding u as gently as i can in my confused shaky hands #also with the devil’s nectar i’ve been wondering why they all seem so well-adjusted & now i’m curious if they’ve been intentionally- #changing their memories in a way so that either the trauma is lesser or they think they aren’t guilty. idk #but it seems like from how gertie was talking she was making it more recently so the well adjustedness from early jy doesn’t quite add up #they could have another source maybe??? idk i’m just low stakes 4 a.m. spitballing here #there’s also the strong possibility that they’re aware of what happened but they weren’t the ones who killed lucy. idk who knows #the way you could probably devil’s nectar yourself into believing it wasn’t your fault someone died… CRAZY IMPLICATIONS!!! CRAZY IDEA!!! #anyways the bad kids & the rat grinders don’t ever have to like each other but i do wonder if at least some of those kids deserve a chance

[varilien]

wednesday was the 1000th day since the fateful afternoon my roommate asked to see the space cowboy show i apparently used to talk about a lot and i wanted to do a big illustrated piece to celebrate but my job keeps me from drawing anything at all !!!!!!!

anyways i've been missing vash so so so so so bad u guys can anybody hear me it's so dark in here.

lines also cuz i really like how his hair turned out :3 reminds me of the couple shoujo manga i read as a kid teehee

#trigun #trigun anime #trigun fanart #vash #vash the stampede #this is just extra details over an old doodle i posted before i haven't had time for anything else #i'm losing my mind <3 it is all so bad you guys <3 #okay but really i could NOT remember ever talking about trigun at all but i can even look back through old dms #and see how many times 2018 forward id just randomly bring it up to ppl fhdjdjjd #even with insane memory loss problems apparently trigun keeps its hold on me For Ever lol

[rinisdrawing]

cozy summer afternoons

#fnaf #fnaf security breach #fnaf sb #fnaf ruin #five nights at freddy's #fnaf fanart #glamrock freddy #gregory fnaf #fnaf gregory #vanessa fnaf #fnaf vanessa #3 star family #ever since it was confirmed that the 3 star family ending was canon i’ve been itching to draw these guys again #i wanted to set this sometime after sb and before ruin! #i imagine that theres peaceful moments where greg is making comics and fred is talking to him and ness is developing code for mxes #also for mobile users i’m terribly sorry if the quality is super bad.. this got compressed bc of how large of a canvas it was </3 #i tried encapsulating as much of gregory’s personality and interests as i could bc i rlly wanted this to feel like his room #(peep the lil mario and luigi statues above greg’s bed hehe) #and yes i did reuse the photo booth pic i drew a few months back.. just a personal lil easter egg :) #rin’s artchive

[muzzleroars]

danse macabre

#ultrakill #gabriel #v1 #gabv1el #doodle tag #rise and fall au #fallen gabriel #love thinking about gabriel losing his mind for a minute after becoming a full fallen angel #where he just really indulges in his anger and pent up violence all for himself #he rebels against everything he ever was and how stifled he has been his entire achingly long existence #no more rules. no more grace. he's goring demons and tearing machines apart limb from limb #needless to say. v1 is NO moderating force lol #it loves running around like this with him far more reckless than it could afford to be before #and finding a love that engages in its cruelty with it to its full extent makes it just as bad #he does eventually come back to himself as this just isn't him #but i love them having a full villain era where they become actively avoided #(but hell won't let their prey get away...sad!)

[black-and-yellow]

#Saw a man bite straight through a chicken bone on YouTube. #I was gripped. In awe. #A jaw strength rivaled only by - I thought to myself - Present Mic #can't even remember how I got onto the video but it's stuck with me ever since #he had a captivating positive vibe. I would enjoy a meal with him. The chicken looked a little underdone though #bnha #mha #shouta aizawa #hizashi yamada #present mic #bnha comic #not even technically a comic this bad boy is two slides #always thinking about the rooftop gang naming Sushi like 'whats everyones favourite food?' #and Yamada says 'fried chicken' like that would be the best name for a cat- actually. you know what. that is a pretty good name for a cat #Might call my next tarantula Fried Chicken. Who knows? #Edited the last panel to take out the speech bubble cause it looked like I was implying it was weird to eat bone marrow #But I meant the entire bone itself like the crunchy bit #But apparently they do that in some places so I thought that it might come across as a bit insensitive and I didnt wanna get cancelled. #eat bones if you want I would love to eat bones but I'm a coward #It's not really a thing in the UK I don't think. I've never seen anyone do it. I guess we just produce a lot of food waste. #so nobody was going to tell me you could eat bones? I just had to find out myself on Youtube?

[bakudekublogblog]

the way katsuki just IS izuku's first love drives me nutty. like he just had a big ole crush on him with his huge-ass heart eyes and he chased him around with maximum puppy-love smitten energy

#bkdk #bakudeku #izuku chasing after katsuki with the biggest wettest heartiest heart eyes ever and katsuki is like FUCKER IS LOOKING DOWN ON ME HOW DARE YO #like no bby so close he's down BAD for you i can see where there could be some confusion #it just drives me nutty!!! that's his pookie bear bitty baby boy #it just makes every other ship feel so irrelevant bc katsuki is izuku's first love and fiercest #like fr do we think izuku is getting over katsuki especially now #especially after all bakugou has done for him #how many times has bakugou saved him and in so many ways #my headcanon is that izuku's baby puppy love crush faded but never really died #it was always there #and then they're thrust into each other's lives and katsuki starts growing and training with him and izuku is like fuck fuck FUCK FUCK FUCK #and he just keeps falling for him over and over again #izuku sees him standing on the UA island and is like yeah ok i'm never getting over him he's it for me #he's always been it he's always been the one

[doodlebloo]

C!clingyduo should have ended up together. I don't mean this in a romantic sense in the slightest I mean that we deserved an ending where they were living in the same house and cooking each other dinner. After it all they deserved their ending to be one where they're together

#i will never ever everrrrr get over how they tried so many times to live together again after lmanberg #and none of those panned out. their desire to return to the closeness they once had was present in every action they took #as was the deep repressed knowledge that they could never return there again. they wanted it back so bad but knew deep down they would #never get it back and were too scared to see what their New dynamic would be after everything. couldnt handle a disruption of such a #constant. #doodle.txt

[leroibobo]

really do not think people understand the extent to which palestinian sites/landmarks (especially muslim ones) were destroyed, beginning in 1948 until now, even in cities. the oldest extant mosque in jaffa (al-bahr mosque) was built in 1675, even though islam came there in the 7th century

#not to mention that many mosques that /were/ restored but are in 'jewish areas' r heavily guarded & prayer is hardly if ever allowed #to anyone thinking ''you can say the same thing abt jewish sites in mena countries''. you can't have one repaired w/o the other #and ultimately the root of the problem is both the colonization of palestine + antisemitism. advocating for palestine + against #antisemitism are far from mutually exclusive #(and for the love of god please stop using mena jews as a political gotcha i swear to god #and it's not like a regime that forced everyone to integrate into the ''new jewish'' culture is any less genocidal) #as someone who comes from one of the jewish groups who was affected by that to arguably one of the highest degrees & who's also a staunch #antizionist even i know that. politics re: cultural site preservation are stupid but that doesn't make it any less stomach-wrenching #it really is just Luck. al-bahr mosque just so Happens to be in a ''mixed city'' so destroying it'd be a ''bad look'' #the tomb of nahum just so Happens to be in an autonomous kurdish territory so restoring it isnt as big a deal #and then people have the gall to wonder how i could ever ever ever sympathize with those ''savage arabs''. seriously?? #btw im muting notificaions on this post so if you have a problem with me just dm me or block me whatever idc

[cor-lapis]

cue concurrent breakdowns in Avidya Forest

collei redesign by najmaviper (tumblr)

my other quest sketches :)

#I DID IT #how could I ever forsake my favourite bit* (apart from sword labelled sword) #*dain's stupid cloak collar getting longer and longer #anyway haha i sure hope nothing bad happened to caribert! (caribert) #genshin impact #jean gunnhildr #kaeya #lisa minci #dainsleif #traveler #aether #lumine #paimon #crepus #clothar alberich #diluc #caribert #shenhe i guess??? #my art #dw kaeya's just having a kraesis #3.5 spoilers #genshin spoilers #quest summary

[try-set-me-on-fire]

I got him. I got him.

#buck #evan buckley #bobby nash #911 fox #my art #do you ever think about that’s his boy #that’s his boy that’s his son #do you ever think about? #dad and boy #? #all the damn fool things buck does and it’s a random act of god that kills him in the end #it could have been anyone on that ladder #it was chance it was bad luck #how is bobby supposed to deal with that #cradling his son’s body in a rain storm for no good reason #I got him. c’mere kid. I got you.

[redbean-nom]

my cody theory for tbb s3

the legendary "boba fett" is actually like twenty different clones (including the real Boba). anyone at risk of being recognized (usually officers/arcs) can go into bounty hunting as "boba fett". it soon becomes the clone equivalent of like john doe. they share a bounty guild account (bc it uses biometric id and they're close enough to register as the same person).

"boba fett" soon develops a reputation for getting missions done 1) incredibly well and 2) incredibly fast. the fast part is because there are at least eight people all doing different bounties at any given time. the well part is because "boba fett" is an informal collective of escaped clones of particular distinction in battle.

by the time the real Boba is an adult, the "boba fett" clones have built up his bounty hunter credit score so much that he can pretty much take whatever job he wants for max rates.

#star wars #tbb #the bad batch #tbb s3 #commander cody #boba fett #redbean art #predictions #why is cody a bounty hunter? well #he still hasnt gotten dechipped yet but he can choose to accept bounties that send him after important imperial targets #so this is his way of circumventing his very-deteriorated chip #bc he is still following orders from /somebody/ #and its not like the emperor ever explicitly ordered him to never take bounties on imperial admirals... #vader can tell the bobas apart #hes worked w enough clones to figure out how to differentiate them solely from force signature #(palpatine could absolutely learn to if he ever bothered. but. he doesn't) #but only the real boba works for him anyways so it doesn't really matter to him #(after all anything keeping cody from joining rebellion leadership is good in vader's books) #to be clear its not a formal group or anything. it's just twentysome escaped clones who all decided to impersonate boba

[soaked-ghost]

sooooo I had the idea of nightmare being a merchant and I have a lot to say about it hihi (see tags)

(comic under cut cuz it was getting too long)

#okay so I thought about how would nightmare interact with the main cast of heros and I thought him selling stuff made the most sense! #idk but the silly merchant that has been selling u trash for the entire game actually being the big bad of the story is funny to me #and it also gives him something to do instead of staying in his castle. torturing people.... or whatever.... #and it also ironic for his character because he keeps talking about being king but he literally sells trash lolz #He does sell food but he mainly sells very dangerous weapons to humans so they could do no mercy runs #and all he has to do is sit back and enjoy as the human is doing the job for him! #he also doesn't risk ending up like flowey who gets killed ever after helping the human. cuz he's a shopkeeper! #and humans can't harm shopkeepers! #also he does this in many different aus. and when the no mercy run is done in that timeline (or not) he moves on to the next #nightmare sans #sans au #frisk undertale #utmv #art #myart

[comradekatara]

notes on “the runaway”

the more i see people discuss how strangely sokka’s character is portrayed in “the runaway” the more i cannot help but feel that all my ad hoc rationalizations and justifications as to why he would contradict himself so greatly might actually be meaningless. why would he allow the gaang to endanger themselves for foolish reasons when he is the overly paranoid voice of caution in literally every other episode? why would he be so easily swayed by toph’s manipulative promise of buying him a fancy atlas when he’s literally holding her wanted poster? and most crucially, why would he say that he sees katara as his mother when no other episode in the show indicates that this is remotely the case?

this episode is great for katara and toph, whose hangups are compellingly explored here. i won’t get into the common misconceptions about katara being “motherly” or why they’re even at loggerheads to begin with, as i’ve discussed this at length in the past, but it’s actually undeniable that the assumption that katara is the de facto “mom friend” stems primarily from this episode, where toph all but outright accuses her of fancying herself their collective mother. however, katara becoming “the mother” of the group is very much a post-toph shift in her character, and you see her femininity being accentuated in contrast with toph’s deliberate lack of femininity also being linked to this sort of maternal role that she occasionally adopts, especially around toph. but i don’t actually think the issue is one of katara being a smothering, maternal figure towards toph, but rather a miscommunication regarding power, gender, class, and community vs independence. when katara and toph fight, it is for far more complex and nuanced reasons than the notion that katara is simply too overbearing. if anything, it’s the way in which she is overbearing that irks toph, just as toph’s rudeness is not the central issue, but rather that toph’s values (those of total independence and freedom) are misinterpreted as malice by katara (who values community and collaboration), and vice versa.

something very crucial to understand about this episode is that katara is not actually mad that toph endangered their group by pulling fun scams. katara has endangered their group countless times in the past to satisfy her own impulsive desires (and yes, she wants justice, but toph similarly rationalizes her scams through the lens of achieving moral vindication). katara would be all over toph’s scammery, would come up with scams of her own, would be having more fun than anyone—had she been included from the start. which is exactly the point. it is her exclusion that foments her critique, not the subject of their act itself (and the reason that you could not replace katara with sokka in this scenario is simply because toph would never exclude sokka in the first place). but katara would never admit that she is hurt by toph’s exclusion aloud, because katara is an extremely proud person. and a prideful, wounded fourteen year old is not going to thoughtfully use “i statements” as if in a group therapy session with the equally prideful twelve year old who deliberately excluded her; no, she is going to lash out. (lest we forget that in their first real episode establishing their group dynamic, katara literally mocks toph’s blindness. hardly an okay thing to do, in my opinion!) their conflict stems from their differences, but also from their similarities. they are both proud, angry, powerful, stubborn, and must assert their dominance at all times. it’s clear they both want to be friends with each other, and at times they are, but it is really only in this episode where they are able to cross a threshold that allows them to be truly honest about more meaningful insecurities than simply their looks (although i do of course find their exchange in “tales” beautiful as well). and you know who is instrumental (albeit reluctant to interfere) in facilitating that growth? sokka.

i’ve gone more in depth in the past analyzing why sokka’s speech in this episode regarding his mother and katara isn’t exactly as it sounds. i personally interpret his admission, that katara has always been there for him and that her face is all he sees when he tries to picture his mother, as an illustration of his codependent attachment to her, as she is the very locus of his identity. this interpretation is compounded by the fact that when kya’s face is finally revealed later in the season, she does bear an uncanny resemblance to sokka, which to me signifies the way in which sokka sublimates his own face for katara’s—which is also deeply unhealthy, but in a different way than an older brother parentifying his younger sister would be.

the fact is that there is simply no indication throughout the entire show (including this episode) that sokka views or treats katara as a parent. there are of course moments wherein she supports him emotionally or materially, but most of the time she is in fact teasing, tormenting, undermining, yelling at, or otherwise making life harder for him, at which point he is far more likely to act as her guardian figure and admonish her while simultaneously helping her get out of whatever mess she’s caused. and considering that sokka’s defining moment is when hakoda stakes his identity to protecting his (ontologically special) sister (which, as we know, as the bearer of kya’s face, in fact means dying for her), this dynamic makes far more sense than the other way around. i know that people commonly portray katara as the voice of reason who cleans up sokka’s messes, but besides a couple examples, it’s consistently the other way around. yes, it’s very easy to assume that sokka’s speech indicates that he sees katara as his replacement mother, but we cannot take this speech at face value if we are also to take the rest of the text into account, which we must.

but then there’s also the other glaring question that must be taken into account: why would sokka even allow all this? considering the first thing toph bartered was the sword he has painstakingly crafted just an episode prior, why didn’t sokka just pull the plug then and there? it really doesn’t make sense that sokka wouldn’t take katara’s side just for practical, logistical reasons. even if she doesn’t really care about the own point she’s making (as demonstrated by the fact that the scam she devises literally lands her in jail), sokka would see the logic in it. but... he does. he is the one to first discover the wanted poster, and he immediately points out to toph that their scams are drawing undue attention to her, and that they should put an end to it now that's it's putting them at risk. and yet, toph successfully bribes him, and so he continues to participate. why? what about the prospect of having money is so appealing to sokka that he’s willing to risk his precious rationality and caution for the potential of acquiring more of it? well, it’s actually quite simple.

toph is scamming for the thrill of the game. she loves proving the kind of men who undermined and demeaned her all her life wrong. she loves humiliating the people of the world who had once humiliated her. she’s not someone who values earthly possessions or really even understands that money is a finite resource. to her, these scams are a matter of ego. aang is also scamming for the thrill of the game. he loves a prank, a bit of mischief, getting into some tomfoolery. he loves spending time pulling hijinks with his friends. it’s funny, it’s fun, and it’s lucrative on top of that. but it’s clear that he views it as a game. now, sokka similarly enjoys pulling these scams. he adores toph and clearly finds it nearly as satisfying as she does to watch her destroy the egos of men thrice her size. but even more potent than his adoration for toph, is his appreciation for money.

when katara put them all in danger countless times in the past, it may have been to enact righteous justice, but it was never materially beneficial to sokka. sokka is a very practical person, and growing up in a state of colonial abjection taking on the role of provider for a couple dozen people mostly comprised of elderly women and small children makes you appreciate the value of goods and resources in a way that an aristocrat and a monk do not. you may be asking, "are you really arguing that sokka would undermine his own values and endanger himself and his friends so readily for the prospect of financial security?" to which i would argue that you underestimate how truly cynical sokka is. of course he loves money and food he doesn’t have to catch or forage – see: his appreciation for the immediate luxury of ba sing se that everyone else finds so stifling. he is not spiritual; he is attached to earthly possessions and the immediate physical needs of those around him. so of course he loves a material object. in his own words: “i do believe in the power of stuff.” because even when sokka is supposedly being uncharacteristically foolish or naive, he is in fact nonetheless promoting the cynic’s agenda every step of the way.

“the runaway” is a good episode, perhaps even a great one. however, it has also lent to some of the fundamental misinterpretations i see of katara, sokka, and toph that are constantly thrown around (including the occasional citing of this episode to justify that aang apparently “sees katara as his mother”). so in some ways, i do resent this episode for begetting those strange and incorrect takes, even if i think that in a vacuum, it is well-executed. it is an episode that complicates our characters, adds nuances and shades of grey to their pre-established characterizations, but does not actually rewrite them. sure, if this was the only episode of the show i had ever seen, i too might assume that katara was the maternal and responsible figure of the group, toph was a careless and rude little bitch, and aang and sokka were idiots who relied solely on katara’s infinite well of long-suffering guidance. but even within this episode, that is clearly not established to be the case, and if that notion is not sufficiently undermined by the episode’s conclusion, it is quite clearly by the episodes bracketing it, which provide crucial context through which to inform our understandings of the choices made in this episode, and why they are indeed interesting, but nonetheless do not reflect the characterizations established in the series as a whole.

#id in alt text #analysis #katara #toph #sokka #aang #katara&toph #katara&sokka #this episode is sooo #well. i like it #but the things it has done to how this fandom reads the gaang dynamic #is just. goddawful #so here are my 2 cents on why it IS in fact in character #but simply. no one is reading is correctly #feel free to disagree tho you can just straight up think its a bad episode thats okay too #i love katara and toph fighting in the mud sm tho #how could you ever hate that. i ask of you. how