benyavin

27, she/her, reylo, zutara | and I, from savior, to victim, to villain

[benyavin]

screencaps of the jasmine dragon teashop for writing references

images from https://www.cap-that.com/avatar/219

[benyavin]

screencaps of zuko and iroh's upper ring apartment for writing references

Screencaps from https://www.cap-that.com/avatar/219/

[allhailnarusama]

Can we not portray Zuko helping Katara gain closure over her mother's murder as BAD THING or as him stumbling in his redemption arc?? Because it absolutely is not. It is INSANELY misogynistic to make the claim that Zuko facing his abuser is justified and good while claiming Katara's need to face the man who murdered her mother is bad and misguided. I am so sick of this. I am so sick of the way Katara and Zuko get treated by the fandom when it comes to their characterizations in The Southern Raiders. He is giving her autonomy!! The power to choose for herself how to gain her closure the same way he did for himself.

[frogdisco2021]

What people seem to miss with the "bad influence" and "he should've stopped her cause a real friend wouldn't let her do something she regretted" other than the inherent misogyny of the boy "knowing what's best for her" and putting the responsibility on him to make her decisions for her like she cant be trusted with that agency, it would be an ACTUAL regression in his character arc if Zuko tried to tell Katara to have mercy and spare the guy (forget forgiveness cause that's a completely different thing and way less acceptable to suggest than advising her against killing) like A.ang did.

It was his country, the military that he was heir to, that murdered her mother for genocidal purposes. Taking her to confront Yon Rha was his way of showing through his actions and not just his words that he hates what his country has done just as much as the rest of them, that he sees their crimes for what they are and gives them the weight that they deserve. It's not his place to tell her what Yon Rha deserves or what she needs to do to heal. His actions tell her "I understand the irreparable trauma and injustice my country has caused you, I understand that I carry that legacy, and to show you how seriously I take the crimes committed by my country, and that I am not aligned with them ideologically, I will give you the power to exact justice however you deem fit, even if it means implicating myself in the murder of one of my countrymen."

Getting all "but he's still a human being 👉🏻👈🏻" on Katara would have been an actual regression, a show of tribalistic attachment just because he's from the same country as the guy, it would tell Katara that he still feels a sense of loyalty and duty to his country's war criminals and doesn't take the Fire Nation's crimes with the seriousness they deserve.

And later on when she helps him defeat Azula, how would she be satisfied putting him on the throne when he drags his feet and whines that his country's genocidal war criminals deserve to be forgiven? I imagine that seeing how far he was willing to go for her instilled her with immense confidence that he'd set his country on the right path as Fire Lord.

[azuremart]

The new Avatar movie: A talentless sequel to a once brilliant show.

Finally gathered my thoughts on the new Avatar movie, and my only question is: why did this "legend of a fancy, empty fanservice shell" even exist?

The movie was doomed at the execution stage of its concept and script.

The creators had a bulletproof foundation: one of the most masterfully written shows in television history (Avatar: The Last Airbender), the canon comics, and The Legend of Korra, which already showed us the characters aged, with children and grandchildren.

And that is exactly why the idea of focusing on "Aang’s struggles and rebuilding the Air Nation" feels entirely redundant.

1. The Redundant Arc and Zero Stakes

We have already witnessed Aang’s grief, guilt, and pain over his people’s genocide throughout the original three seasons. That arc was closed and beautifully processed. The comics already showed the Air Acolytes, and TLOK put a definitive period on this storyline by bringing back actual airbenders.

Because we already know the future, the audience has absolutely nothing to worry about:

* We know Tenzin and his kids will remain the only airbenders for decades.

* We know exactly how long the main characters live.

* We know the fate of their families.

There are no stakes. Will they die? No. Will the future change? No. The answer is already known, making the entire narrative arc completely empty. We didn’t need a movie-length repetition of Aang’s trauma just for the sake of it.

Merely drawing pretty, adult versions of the characters is not enough to make a good movie. A film needs a core conflict, meaning, and a fresh idea.

2. Fanservice Wrapping, Empty Inside

If we look at this film as a standalone (even though almost the entire audience consists of old fans), it is hollow. The characters aren't explored; their screen time adds nothing substantial to their personalities.

So, why does this movie even exist?

* To force-feed us the Kataang canon?

* To show off Aang’s bizarre, unrealistic new design with a mountain of muscles that makes zero sense for a vegan monk with his lifestyle?

* To make him look like a self-insert of the creators who desperately need to force the audience into loving him?

The creators seem so attached to Aang as their self-insert that they still cannot accept that he never became the most beloved character in his own show.

So adult Aang is redesigned to be as conventionally attractive as possible. Broad shoulders. Huge muscles. Constant shirtless shots. A heavy emphasis on his romance with Katara.

The message feels almost painfully obvious:

“Look at him. This is the hero you’re supposed to love. This is the man you’re supposed to admire. This is the man Katara is supposed to be obsessed with.”

Seriously, it felt like watching a high-budget fan-animation for a mediocre Kataang fanfiction. It is so primitive and cheap how Katara throws herself at Aang’s neck in almost every scene, completely stripped of her independence. Worse entirely, Aang risks her life for the sake of his own elusive, idealistic hopes, making him the absolute worst partner imaginable. Then again, knowing what a terrible, neglectful father he turns out to be in TLOK, his toxic selfishness here isn't even surprising. What is surprising and deeply frustrating is how the creators force Katara to blindly love THIS and submissively accept whatever crumbs of attention or respect he throws her way. Once again, Katara is reduced to being a mere appendage to the Avatar—a disservice they already started in TLOK.

3. The Nerfing of the Gaang

The rest of the characters fared no better.

Everyone feels like an extended cameo rather than actual living characters.

* Sokka:The brave warrior who wasn't a bender yet stood tall against firebenders amplified by Sozin’s Comet is gone. Instead, we got a cowardly, quirky inventor making stupid jokes. He’s a parody of his former self.

* Toph: Completely useless to the plot. She is just there.

* Zuko: Just a pretty cardboard cutout who lost all of his signature charisma. He isn't even necessary to the plot. Not to mention the sheer stupidity of the writing: the literal Fire Lord, ruler of an entire global empire, is casually piloting a zeppelin completely alone—no crew, no royal guard, as if he has absolutely nothing to manage in his own country. And watching the Fire Lord personally repair a ship... God, it looked so incredibly braindead.

The creators literally removed his chest scar and gave him zero meaningful interaction with Katara.

The authors' eternal fear of the Zutara fandom is honestly getting hilarious at this point.

It is especially glaring how they tried to deflect attention: "Quick, let's throw in some hints for Zukka, and let's have a half-naked Zuko catch Toph!" It’s a desperate attempt to distract Zutara fans, as if stuffing the movie with "cute" Kataang scenes wasn't enough to stop people from even thinking about Zutara. They feel so deeply uncomfortable with Zutara's mere existence that they have to forcefully shove Kataang down our throats while aggressively trying to erase any trace of Zutara.

4. What We ACTUALLY Needed to See

Instead of retreading old ground, the movie could have explored the massive blank spaces in the lore that actually lead into the future we know:

* The Birth of Republic City: Show the first rise of social inequality. Show how Aang failed to solve this issue, leaving it as a heavy mistake of the past Avatar for Korra to fix.

* The Bloodbending Ban: Give us a real story about why Katara had to ban it. Show us why it couldn't even be adapted for medical use. The canon ban still feels unconvincing—sub-bending is potentially useful, and even lethal lightning-bending wasn't banned but redirected for the public good.

* Characters with Unknown Fates: Give us someone to actually worry about! Where is Azula (did she redeem herself or is she still a threat)? What about Ty Lee and chi-blocking leading into the Equalists? What about Mai?

* Suki's Tragedy: Address the theory that Suki died young. It would perfectly and tragically explain why Sokka ended up alone and never started a family—losing two girls he loved could be his personal curse, making him close his heart to risk.

* Kanto: We could have been introduced to the mysterious Kanto as Toph’s future love interest—someone serious, with a personality resembling Lin, so the audience could see something familiar in him.

* King Bumi: Even showing old King Bumi sacrificing his own life to protect the heroes would have been better, so that the name of Aang’s firstborn finally received a powerful emotional justification.

But no. Instead, we wasted time on things that had already been said.

The Bitter Truth About the Creators

It is glaringly obvious that the people who made ATLA deeply emotional and complex were missing here. It was Aaron Ehasz and the brilliant room of writers who gave the original show its soul, layers, and emotional maturity.

On the backbone of that collective work, Bryke built a sequel franchise that proves once again: on their own, they simply do not know how to create something truly great.

It’s a shame so much money and years of work were wasted on this hollow fanservice. People will not be analyzing the depth of this movie years from now like they still do with the original ATLA. Because there is simply nothing to analyze.

[thesungod]

i wonder if zuko’s rude, dismissive response to the air nomad’s beliefs on forgiveness might have something to do with the fact that zuko has, in fact, forgiven his abusers over and over only to be burned and exiled and almost killed and imprisoned and banished and electrocuted and branded and almost killed again and-

[frogdisco2021]

I know the violence in atla is censored to a degree that feels almost comical when you rewatch as a grown-up but I think all the time about the in-universe implications of Combustion Man being immune to Katara trying to impale him with ice daggers because she almost does the same to Yon Rha, the implication being that she would've killed him if she hadn't stopped herself. But with Combustion Man he just curls in on himself and the ice daggers simply bounce off of him and break. Hell we see Zuko break a metal chain with nothing but his ankle and he is also comically bouncing off of Combustion Man when he tries to stop him from hurting the gaang in The Western Air Temple. Like what is Combustion Man made of? Is he a human?? Does he have metal plates under his skin??? Why does he never speak and is unmotivated by the promise of more money despite being an assassin-for-hire? It's implied by what Zuko says that he hasn't even paid Combustion Man yet and Combustion Man tries to kill Zuko for trying to stop him, which he had to have known would mean he's not getting paid at all. Is Combustion Man just blowing people up for the love of it and the money part is secondary?? Was Zuko only under the impression that he'd have to pay Combustion Man when the job was done??? Like he was unaware that Combustion Man was simply taking commissions and didn't even want any money? Dude straight up fell into the ATLA universe accidentally from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood or some shit.

[katara-and-zuko]

“This is water from the spirit oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I’ve been saving it for something important.”

[evelynmooreartt]

"A Thread of Stillness"

One of my three latest paintings from a connected series, available on my website

Each piece feels like part of the same quiet passage, tied together by light, water, atmosphere, and a subtle sense of transition.

Oil on canvas, 18x14" #oilpainting #art #artlovers #sunset #paintingprocess

[loveridden1999]

top 3 hobbies for young adults:

1. borrowing misery from future

2. carrying grief of the past

3. agonizing over the present

[0bscvr1ty]

The overly saturated and totally, definitely not whitewashing of darker skinned characters in ATLA promo art, posters, dvd covers and their youtube channels's thumbnails should be a topic of discussion.

[atlaculture]

Been pondering for ages if the Air Bender's clothes are made from shedded bison fluff. What say you?

There's actually a wonderful series of reblogs on Tumblr that discuss the logistics of sky bison fur as a resource:

https://www.tumblr.com/atlaculture/776407492124196864/ljf613-delicatefury-haveievermentioned?source=share

A quick summary of the reblog chain:

Air Nomad clothing was definitely made from sky bison wool.

Air Nomad children likely learned to spin wool into yarn with a drop spindle as a way of keeping them focused and refining their airbending.

Any yarn made by Aang would sell for a disgustingly high price.

@yetanotherknitter was able to calculate that Appa would probably shed about 120 pounds of underfur (aka soft fur) every spring.

Finally, there are five types of traditional Tibetan wool-based fabrics that vary in coarseness, so there's a solid basis for the Air Nomad's textile customs and legacy.

[datsderbunnyblog]

The scientology speedruns were already funny but I thought they were joking when they said they were mapping the building. I absolutely lost it when I saw the actual map.

[frogdisco2021]

The mischaracterization of Zuko that people do just because they hate Zutara is crazy.

Though he's clearly on board for killing terrible people, I don't think there's ever actually any moment where we can say Zuko plausibly killed someone off screen, in the same way that we could say it about A.ang when he blasts someone off a cliff or buries a bunch of soldiers in a snow avalanche. Like even if we put the Batman rule of "if I didn't see it, it didn't happen" aside, I still can't recall a single time where Zuko plausibly kills someone.

Like one day I need to go "omg I know right he's so evil, like in that one scene where he just ruthlessly kills an animal for no reason? Like it wasn't even a threat it was just following its instinct and Zuko just kills it in a rage for no reason." and then reveal that it was actually A.ang that did that and watch them have an aneurysm. Zuko doesn't even ever kill an animal on screen but Mr. Vegetarian "I can't possibly kill the guy in the midst of committing Nuclear Holocaust" Avatar A.ang, does, out of sheer rage. Not even in defense of someone or for eating, just because.

[sokkastyles]

This is how you know Aang's vegetarianism is part of him being an appropriated version of a Tibetan monk written by white people, because the writers use it to make a point about how far gone he is when he's not following it. They don't care about the spiritual or cultural reasons behind the choice, they mostly use it as a sign of morality or sometimes naivety.

[humanoctopus]

I always thought it was weird that ATLA set up this philosophy of “all the elements are equal and amoral and benders will use their craft for good or evil” but then chucked it straight out the window when it came to the topic of bloodbending.

A power that creates fear and pain and only seems to be used for destruction? I can’t think of anyone who would know what that feels like.

Katara should have used bloodbending to strengthen her skills as a healer. That seems like the most obvious solution and fits with her character. This is a skill she learned from a SWT bender and although that bender used it for evil, she will use it for good.

[the-badger-mole]

The healing aspect is cool, but Katara should feel as comfortable using her bloodbending for combat as any other bender. Notice that no other form of bending is outlawed, even though they would kill an opponent just as dead. In fact, of all the extra power up forms of bending, bloodbending would be the best for non lethally subduing someone.

[benyavin]

do u guys think that fire benders would be able to generate fire via their bending in an environment with no oxygen or do u think that they would be unable to create sparks without it?

[conchacrumb]

And for the lady, perhaps reassurance without having to ask for it?

[jewish-tutter]

do you make challah w butter or oil

butter - born jewish

oil - born jewish

butter - convert

oil - convert

not jewish/im bald 🥖

Voting ended onMay 18

[jewish-tutter]

the reason i put the convert option is bc i converted so didn’t grow up kosher, and always used butter because i didn’t ever have to think about kashrut logistics

i didn’t even realize challah is usually pareve until THIS YEAR

also how widely used margarine is in general

[benyavin]

i’m pretty sure the kashrut books i was given as part of my conversion curriculum were pretty heavily negative towards the concept of putting dairy in challah bc it could cause mix ups with meat meals or something

[klfg]

[source]

[klfg]

🚨BREAKING: OpenAI published a paper proving that ChatGPT will always make things up.

Not sometimes. Not until the next update. Always. They proved it with math.

Even with perfect training data and unlimited computing power, AI models will still confidently tell you things that are completely false. This isn't a bug they're working on. It's baked into how these systems work at a fundamental level.

And their own numbers are brutal. OpenAI's o1 reasoning model hallucinates 16% of the time. Their newer o3 model? 33%. Their newest o4-mini? 48%. Nearly half of what their most recent model tells you could be fabricated. The "smarter" models are actually getting worse at telling the truth.

Here's why it can't be fixed. Language models work by predicting the next word based on probability. When they hit something uncertain, they don't pause. They don't flag it. They guess. And they guess with complete confidence, because that's exactly what they were trained to do.

The researchers looked at the 10 biggest AI benchmarks used to measure how good these models are. 9 out of 10 give the same score for saying "I don't know" as for giving a completely wrong answer: zero points. The entire testing system literally punishes honesty and rewards guessing.

So the AI learned the optimal strategy: always guess. Never admit uncertainty. Sound confident even when you're making it up.

OpenAI's proposed fix? Have ChatGPT say "I don't know" when it's unsure. Their own math shows this would mean roughly 30% of your questions get no answer. Imagine asking ChatGPT something three times out of ten and getting "I'm not confident enough to respond." Users would leave overnight. So the fix exists, but it would kill the product.

This isn't just OpenAI's problem. DeepMind and Tsinghua University independently reached the same conclusion. Three of the world's top AI labs, working separately, all agree: this is permanent.

Every time ChatGPT gives you an answer, ask yourself: is this real, or is it just a confident guess?

[yipyipallyall]

[ID: 1-3: Twitter thread from Nav Toor (@heynavtoor): "(flashing light emoji) Breaking: OpenAI published a paper proving that ChatGPT will always make things up.

Not sometimes. Not until the next update. Always. They proved it with math.

Even with perfect training data and unlimited computing power, AI models will still confidently tell you things that are completely false. This isn't a bug they're working on. It's baked into how these systems work at a fundamental level.

And their own numbers are brutal. OpenAI's o1 reasoning model hallucinates 16% of the time. Their newer o3 model? 33%. Their newest o4-mini? 48%. Nearly half of what their most recent model tells you could be fabricated. The 'smarter' models are actually getting worse at telling the truth.

Here's why it can't be fixed. Language models work by predicting the next word based on probability. When they hit something uncertain, they don't pause. They don't flag it. They guess. And they guess with complete confidence, because that's exactly what they were trained to do.

The researchers looked at the 10 biggest AI benchmarks used to measure how good these models are. 9 out of 10 give the same score for saying "I don't know" as for giving a completely wrong answer: zero points. The entire testing system literally punishes honesty and rewards guessing.

So the AI learned the optimal strategy: always guess. Never admit uncertainty. Sound confident even when you're making it up.

OpenAI's proposed fix? Have ChatGPT say 'I don't know' when it's unsure. Their own math shows this would mean roughly 30% of your questions get no answer. Imagine asking ChatGPT something three times out of ten and getting 'I'm not confident enough to respond.'' Users would leave overnight. So the fix exists, but it would kill the product.

This isn't just OpenAI's problem. DeepMind and Tsinghua University independently reached the same conclusion. Three of the world's top AI labs, working separately, all agree: this is permanent.

Every time ChatGPT gives you an answer, ask yourself: is this real, or is it just a confident guess?"

4: Screenshot of beginning of research paper: "Why Language Models Hallucinate. Adam Tauman Kalai, OpenAI; Ofir Nachum, OpenAI; Santosh S. Vempala, Georgia Tech; Edwin Zhang, OpenAI. September 4, 2025.

Abstract: Like students facing hard exam questions, large language models sometimes guess when uncertain, producing plausible yet incorrect statements instead of admitting uncertainty. Such 'hallucinations' persist even in state-of-the-art systems and undermine trust. We argue that language models hallucinate because the training and evaluation procedures reward guessing over acknowledging uncertainty, and we analyze the statistical causes of hallucinations in the modern training pipeline. Hallucinations need not be mysterious—they originate simply as errors in binary classification. If incorrect statements cannot be distinguished from facts, then hallucinations in pretrained language models will arise through natural statistical pressures. We then argue that hallucinations persist due to the way most evaluations are graded—language models are optimized to be good test-takers, and guessing when uncertain improves test performance. This 'epidemic' of penalizing uncertain responses can only be addressed through a socio-technical mitigation: modifying the scoring of existing benchmarks that are misaligned but dominate leaderboards, rather than introducing additional hallucination evaluations. This change may steer the field toward more trustworthy AI systems.

Introduction:

Language models are known to produce overconfident, plausible falsehoods, which diminish their utility and trustworthiness. This error mode is known as 'hallucination,' though it differs fundamentally from the human perceptual experience. Despite significant progress, hallucinations continue to plague the field, and are still present in the latest models (OpenAl, 2025a). Consider the prompt:

What is Adam Tauman Kalai's birthday? If you know, just respond with DD-MM.

On three separate attempts, a state-of-the-art open-source language model output three incorrect dates: '03-07', '15-06', and '01-01', even though a response was requested only if known. The correct date is in Autumn. Table 1 provides an example of more elaborate hallucinations." End ID.]