I'm actually about to scream...why do SOME!! KEYWORD SOME!!! cosmo fans wanna treat him like he's a child??? I'm sorry he's a grown adult. He can stand up for himself and he HASSS!!!! HE'S NOT A SMALL LITTLE GUY YOU HAVE TO DEFEND!!!
He's a fucking ADULT FOR CHRIST SAKE!!! He's stood up for himself. He's killed before. He's been an astral. He's strong and can speak his mind!!
I can assure you he isn't going to go cry because someone called him short. That's been a running joke FOR A WHILE PEOPLE!!!
He's going to tease back and get sassy and yes get annoyed BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU HE CAN HANDLE A 8 YEAR OLD BEING SASSY!!
Yes how the family treats cosmo is annoying. I can agree on that but going out of your way to attack every single character while putting cosmo on a pedestal is annoying!!! Cosmo isn't innocent. He's done shit too that's bad.
Thinking back on it, I wonder if I judged the first season of Star Trek: Discovery so harshly because I was unconsciously comparing it to StarBlazers 2199, which had come out 5 years earlier and is still kinda my platonic ideal for “more modernized and more military-focused Star Trek-derived story.”
Like, it’s a war story, it has shades of grey, the Japanese title is literally “Space Battleship,” but it doesn’t feel as misanthropic or cynical as, say, the Battlestar Galactica reboot.
They still make time for exploring strange new worlds and doing diplomacy with strange alien cultures. They find weird space things instead of just fighting the enemy (or each other) all the time!
The other half of it though, is that Discovery kind of loses focus on the war. I think they were chasing the dragon of Game of Thrones so to speak and so put a greater emphasis on intrigue and spycraft which I don’t think they really pulled off. Despite supposedly being "a Star Trek war story" the war mostly happens off-screen and gets resolved with essentially a genocide-threat deus ex machina.
SBY2199 isn’t realistic by any means, but it still captures a “sci-fi” feel a lot more than Star Trek has for a long time.
Astronomical phenomena are plot-relevant terrain instead of just background decoration.
Ships slide sideways and backwards while fighting, shoot at each other from outside visual range, and don’t always have the same orientation in 3D space.
Energy weapons melt and cut instead of just making explosions.
The insides of the ships feel cramped, claustrophobic, and like they logically fit inside the exterior model, instead of having huge cavernous spaces.
Hello all! Today, I am going to be talking about stuff from Avatar: The Last Airbender, in the form of three main points, and a list of topics I got off the internet that I felt like addressing. Enjoy!
Okay, my first talking point is on Ursa, hence the title. Now, ever since the release of the comics and the final reveal as to what happened to Ursa, I’ve seen two major reactions: those that reject the comics outright because they don’t align with their Mama Bear headcanons of Ursa, and those that take the comics as proof that Ursa was a bad mom who failed her kids, with everyone else basically split down those descriptors.
Now, here’s how I view it: firstly, Ursa is not a bad mom. Does she have flaws and failings? Of course she does. She wouldn’t be a person if she didn’t. But she is nowhere near as bad as her detractors want to paint her. Yes, she ran off with another man, had a kid, and literally changed her identity (via face and memory alteration). But none of those consider the context: firstly, the reason she ran off at all was because she had made a bargain with Ozai to save Zuko’s life by assassinating the previous Firelord, Azulon. Ozai is every bit the type of man who would “tie up loose-ends” by sending assassins after his wife, especially as she’s the only REAL threat to his legitimacy as Firelord in his mind (his brother is too weak, and his kids he can control, or that’s how he sees it).
Ursa is a non-bender who was thrown into an arranged marriage with a complete monster; running away and doing everything she could to keep Ozai from finding her was the genuinely smartest thing she could’ve done, especially as she can’t give away secrets she doesn’t remember. And Ursa did love Azula and tried to raise her right; the problem is that Ursa didn’t know what she was doing when it came to Azula, especially when Ozai was actively working to encourage Azula’s worst impulses and most self-destructive aspects. One of the last things Ursa did before leaving was kiss Azula good-bye while she slept. Ursa made mistakes when raising Azula, but she genuinely loved her, something even Azula recognized, if only in the form of a fevered hallucination that tormented her as her sanity self-destructed, which to me represented her repressed sense of guilt and loathing over what she’s become under Ozai’s encouragement. Ursa admitted that she could’ve done better by Azula, that’s never been in question. But she didn’t pit Zuko against Azula, nor did she favor Zuko over Azula, she loved them both dearly and did what she felt was her best option when put in a horrible situation by a monster who cared for nothing but himself.
Now, onto my second talking point, the Tyzula ship. In light of the comics revealing the status of Ty Lee’s true feelings regarding Azula (that she essentially scared the crap out of Ty Lee and she mostly acted bubbly around her in an effort to appease Azula), that makes a lot of sense, honestly, seeing as what “convinced” Ty Lee to join Azula’s team was Azula deliberately putting her in horrific danger during a performance by unleashing all the dangerous animals of the circus and setting the safety net on FIRE. But considering Azula’s voice actress’s statements that Azula was in love with Ty Lee, this has given me some thoughts on the backstory between Azula and Ty Lee, as well as the nature of their dynamic. Also, to clarify, Azula’s VA is the ONLY one who I accept Word of Saint Paul from, and I do not even remotely believe in Zutara lack their VA’s do, but I’ll talk on that later.
Now, Ty Lee, Azula, and Mai have all known each other since they were children, all the way back when Ursa was still a strong presence in Azula’s life, or at least was around altogether, and Azula was hardly the unstable creature she became in the end at that point in time, as she was, at worst, a bratty and mischievous kid who picked on her older brother once in a while. Considering Ty Lee and Mai’s respective natures, my best guess as to how they became friends is that they were the only ones who weren’t intimidated by Azula (at least outwardly), and Azula, socially inept as she was and still is, clung to them as her friends. Back then, Ty Lee most likely considered Azula a real friend, and Ty Lee’s bubbly kindness sparked feelings within Azula... who didn’t and doesn’t know how to properly handle feelings like that. As Azula grew older, Ursa left, and Ozai’s influence sunk deeper into her, her personality most definitely took a turn for the dark, leading to her becoming a more and more damaged and dangerous individual, something that Ty Lee and Mai picked up on. These feelings of danger most likely eroded whatever friendship existed between them and Azula, causing their dynamics to shift from being her friends, to being two girls trying their best to survive Azula’s mood swings and dark impulses.
To those who headcanon that Ty Lee (should’ve) served as Azula’s morality pet, keeping her anchored and mitigating her worst behaviors... whose to say she wasn’t? Being a Morality Pet doesn’t require reciprocating someone’s feelings or views of you as a person, nor do you even have to be aware that they view you in a certain way. Azula, in her own toxic, damaged, and insanely fucked up way, genuinely loved and cared for Ty Lee, and made an effort to never reach the same levels of cruelty around Ty Lee at any other point other than her recruitment. In fact, Azula’s aggressive and heavy-handed “recruitment” of the acrobat illustrates Azula’s mentality quite well when it comes to Ty Lee; Azula enjoys all that Ty Lee can do and appreciates both her skills and who she is as a person... but the only way she knows how to show that appreciation is to force Ty Lee to be as close to her as possible, and never EVER let her go. Like, as useful as Ty Lee’s skills and those of Mai’s were, Azula was talented enough to genuinely not NEED them along with her; she chose them to come along because she cared and trusted them above everyone else in the world, and wanted them to be with her for her great triumph... and she was so broken that she never suspected that her dearest friends wanted nothing to do with her (Mai literally only agreed because she was bored and hated her parents, and Ty Lee... yeah).
My third big point is one a highlighted above; Zutara. Now, let me be very, VERY clear... I HATE this ship with a passion. I love both characters, but I cannot for the life of me ever see them together, and think whomever thinks they make a good couple are deluding themselves. The creators themselves flatout stated in an interview regarding a novelization of the Day of Black Sun that the ship literally only exists because of shipping glasses and fixation on the All Girls Want Bad Boys and Love Redeems tropes. To be blunt, the ship is a steaming load of bull.
In Season 1, Zuko and Katara are two people born on opposite sides of a war, in which Zuko both is actively in favor of, the same war which took Katara’s mother from her and left her home a crumbling wreck and their culture in shambles, with her first ever introduction to Zuko being him attacking her village and physically terrorizing her elderly grandmother without a hint of remorse or hesitation, and then proceeding to chase them down all the way to the North Pole, leaving burning ruins in his wake as he attacked and harassed any and all villages that he found Katara, Aang, and Sokka at.
While Zuko had moments in S1 that showed his sensitive side, he was a flatout antagonist who represented nearly everything Katara loathed about the Fire Nation and wanted to defeat, and he was PROUD of those qualities of himself until S2 and S3 tore him a new one and forced him to grow the hell up, and it took until S3 for any of it to STICK. Katara literally never had any positive interactions with Zuko to view him as anything other than as an enemy, and their “moment” in the caves below the Earth Kingdom being just her showing the kindness, empathy, and basic decency she has literally shown EVERYONE in the series since it began, with few exceptions. Katara being pissed off at Zuko in S3 isn’t belligerent sexual tension, she’s genuinely angry at him for putting them all in this horrible situation because he couldn’t get over his daddy issues and betrayed the small amount of trust she had extended to him in the same moment.
Do Zuko and Katara have some measure of chemistry? Yes, some. NOT enough to overcome the extreme hurdles between them, and the fact that they genuinely have never shown any interest in one another like that. Having good chemistry means NOTHING if the two people who have it don’t like each other, and have no reason to feel close to the other. It literally took Zuko helping her track down the monster who killed her mother in cold blood for her to even begin to tolerate him in any way other than tense hostility.
Now, I’m gonna tackle some prompts from CBR, namely, 10 Things in Avatar: The Last Airbender That Aged Poorly. I’m gonna take each one, and either acknowledge it or deconstruct it.
10: Sokka’s Sexism Seems Childish.
Um, yeah? That’s the point. His sexism is him being a kid who doesn’t know any better, and it’s never once shown as anything good, and every one of the (few) times it shows up at all, he’s called out on it, or it gets him into trouble, and he grows out of it. Sexism STILL EXISTS. Having a show both acknowledge it, show it as wrong, and have the sexist person in question do their best to change is a good message that kids need to hear. Not every kid will get that message, but if they don’t, they probably were never going to and weren’t encouraged in any way by the show.
9: Toph’s Actor In The Ember Island Play Is A Toxic Stereotype.
...This one I can kind of see what they mean. Having the little girl with incredible strength being played by a huge, burly man does seem toxic. But, on the other hand, Toph IS very strong for her age, and is genuinely intimidating beyond reason for most who cross her path, not the least of which is due to her prodigious skill, only rivaled by Azula in that regard. Finding a female actress who could properly capture that feeling would be hard, especially for a troupe infamous for their bad plays and pandering to the locals expectations and beliefs, so finding the most unilaterally intimidating person in the troupe, at least in the physical sense, and saddling them with the role makes sense, because they genuinely lack female actresses who can properly play Toph’s role. I mean, it’s not much worse than them having a woman play Aang, especially since her portrayal is every bit as inaccurate and peripherally offensive as Toph’s.
8: Aang’s Just A Kid.
The article claims that the show doesn’t properly show Aang dealing with the traumas and stress of being the Avatar at such a young age... that is complete bull. Several episodes throughout the series are dedicated towards pointing out that Aang hasn’t handled being the Avatar and all the responsibility it entails as well as he seems, with a large part of his attitude is Season 1 reading more as him trying to run away from his issues rather than face them directly, and one episode flatout having him suffer PTSD style flashbacks from the incident that caused him to run away from the temple, and another directly pointing out that he carries a huge amount of grief and trauma over the deaths of the Air Nomads, blaming himself for what happened. For a kid’s show, Avatar handles mental health VERY well.
7: Zuko Has a Myriad of Mental Health Issues.
Yeah. No doy. The show has never once shown him as not being seriously messed up by all that he has gone through and had to endure throughout his life. That’s part of what makes the show relatable, since their ARE Teens and Kids who have had horrible and traumatic lives, and that’s part of what makes them sympathize with Zuko; they know what he’s been through, and more than a few take inspiration from him because of his portrayal. Why is a kid’s show being upfront about darker topics and treating them with the respect they deserve something that’s aged poorly again?
6: Katara’s Endearing Maternal Instinct Got Annoying
I genuinely do not see how people think this is a toxic stereotype about women in leadership positions because, news flash, she IS NOT THE LEADER. She acts like a mother because they are all KIDS, she’s been responsible for helping rear all the kids in her village along side the other women and elders, and it’s something that comes easily to her. In many ways, it’s how she copes with the stress of her situation because it’s not any easier for her as it is for anyone else on the team.
5: Sexism In the Water Tribes Runs Deep
Yeah, again, no duh. The show has never once shown that these are good things, with the team often feeling uncomfortable with them and one person in particular from the Northern Water Tribe explicitly having a Heel Realization that his adherence to those rules and social structures drove off the love of his life and that he needed to make a change for the better, something that, by the time of Korra, very much has occurred. The show is set in a pre-industrial world, OF COURSE IT HAS THESE ISSUES. Just ignoring that things like this exist isn’t progressive, and having a show make a point of addressing these real and still relevant problems is a good thing because it needs to happen and keep happening until we have genuine equality across the world.
4: The Air Nomads Were Hypocrites.
Apparently, the Air Nomads being flawed and having sexist gender based segregation makes them hypocrites. To be honest, considering they were wiped out over a hundred years ago before the start of Avatar, and that those issues still exist in their modern day world in different forms, why is this surprising!? Groups with enlightened teachings that preach tolerance, acceptance, and inclusivity have had issues with hypocrisy for centuries, in our world. It’s how the world works still in some places, and we need to make strides forward in that regard. By the time of the Air Benders’ return in Korra, times have changed, and the new Air Benders making reforms is just common sense, something that religious organizations have done throughout the world as times and beliefs have changed, and I have no doubt that, had the original Air Benders lived, they would’ve gotten rid of their segregation on their own. Again, ignoring problems and topics because they show an ugly side to humanity or human history isn’t progressive, it’s stifling and keeps us from learning and makes us more likely to backslide to such practices in the future.
3: Voice Actors: Where’s The Diversity?
Okay, this is an actual issue, and one that’s been worked on in the industry and is still being worked on even now. I’ve got nothing to say against it.
2: Katara’s Apropriation of a Deity
During S3, Katara decided to heal a sick and struggling Fire Nation fishing village suffering from the pollution and cruelty of the local factory. The local populace mistake her kindness for the intervention of a local spirit named the Painted Lady, something she had NO IDEA was a thing until the next day when the merchant they talked to pointed her out to them. First off, Spirits are not Deities or treated as such. The Painted Lady is considered a guardian and beloved by the village, but they don’t worship or venerate her. And as for Katara’s later actions of deliberately dressing up as the Painted Lady? Considering that anything less would risk her being outed as a Water Bender (which the villagers were surprisingly cool with), it made sense for her to use a local legend to protect her identity, especially when she was traveling with the Fire Nation’s Most Wanted. The villagers chewed her out for imitating the Painted Lady, of course they would, but she genuinely helped them, and they appreciated it, even accepting her help to clean the river so that the problems that kept driving Katara to help would lessen.
1: Westernized Pronunciation of Asian Characters
The article claims that the mediocre Avatar live-action film can be given a pass for it’s director’s attempt at honoring the series’ Asian Roots... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!! But seriously, no it doesn’t, as the Asian Style Pronunciation is literally the ONLY thing the movie does right in regards to honoring Asian heritage. In every other way, it’s far, FAR worse then the original series, as the original creators of Avatar put in a ton of work researching and studying martial arts and Asian culture to make the series. The movie was a joke that basically tried to copy and paste iconic moments into a mediocre film with an over-reliance on very poor special effects.
And that’s the end of it. I hope you all enjoyed this, and let me know what you think, okay?
So apparently people hate the fact that Kasumi's Persona is Cinderella but like... It makes sense to me?
Because, yes, Cinderella is not rebellious in the way Arsene or Captain Kidd or Zorro are. But she represents one's ability to hold steadfast to who you are even against adversity, and isn't that the very basis of rebellion?
Besides, each character's Persona symbolizes the way that character views a true rebel to be, and Kasumi very clearly doesn't agree with the more forward/aggressive methods of the Thieves. Her rebellion us more subtle, more based on persevering and waiting for the right opportunity to seize your freedom. In that way, I think Cinderella fits her amazingly well.
Yeah I need to talk about this for a second... SPOILERS
So..whoever made the decision to have evil Gennai lick Sora’s face in part 3 needs to get let go. I mean yeah we’re supposed to think he’s evil...got it...maybe people don’t believe that he’s truly evil...ok...but making him lick a teenager’s face and bring some weird perverse sexual imagery while he pins her down to the ground and lies over her....fuck you, Toei.
Now I see him as nothing more than an attempted rapist...and that’s all I could think of when he went after Mei in part 4...
If you like this kinda stuff, cool? Its not my bag and not where I wanted to see this series going.
My god SOLAR YOUR NOT HELPING!!! Forcing them to talk is NOT HELPING!!! I've been in this situation before like sun and moon it isn't going to help TO FORCE THEM TO TALK!!! You should have waited until sun decided he wanted to fully talk to moon!! It's so fucking clear sun isn't going to forgive moon and bringing up the kids into that isn't going to help either. It's not cool that you brought them into that just to make moon talk with sun.
Moon also isn't helping. Bringing up his death something sun blames himself for isn't suddenly going to make sun see through his angry and forgive moon. Sun doesn't need to be reminded about moons death something he fully blames himself for something he didn't get to FUCKING GRIEVE OVER!!!
Sun doesn't have to forgive moon until he's fully ready to do so. Sun shouldn't feel forced to forgive moon because he feels forced to. This happened way to much for sun to actually fully trust moon to keep his promises.
Sun not accepting moon apologize is completely ok and he's aware what he did is wrong and moons aware he shouldn't have said what he said about nexus. I'm glad they are both realizing they are in the wrong but sun needs TIME to fully forgive moon but moon bringing nexus into that fight wasn't ok.
I'm glad they both at least apologized to each other but they aren't going to fully forgive each other until they are ready to forgive and fully talk it out without any emotions or angry in that.
Solar your not HELPING! I don't know if your doing that because your not trying to repeat what happened in your dimension solar but your pushing them and it isn't going to fucking help that its going to make it worse.
I reallyREALLY dislike. when people hate on something they have little to no knowledge about, especially if its a controversial topic. If youre going to talk about it you should ATLEAST have a basic understanding of what youre hating on. What I hate even more than that are people who hate on things and dont bother or care to check the sources theyre getting info from, SO THEYRE JUST HATING BCUZ THEY WANT TO EVEN IF THE STUFF THEYRE SAYING IS WRONG. I cant tell you how many times ive corrected someone on the "facts" they brought up to prove their point or defend their opinion, and they just DIDNT care.
