No Babe I Love Your Fingerless Gloves And Your Fuckass Bob, But Maybe You Should Stop Hiding Behind Columns

 Okay we don’t talk about Ty Lee and Mai betraying Azula enough. Specifically how it contrasts so directly with their introduction in season 2. 

Azula never expected them to betray her. She thought Mai and Ty Lee feared her too much to betray her. She got them to join her out of fear: Ty Lee by using her political position to get the circus master to put Ty Lee in danger for her entertainment. She sent the message to Ty Lee that “you can and will be in as much danger as I choose you to be” and expected that message to stick. And Ty Lee was scared. She feared for her own life, which was why she did everything Azula wanted. Azula made it clear that with any hesitation or hint of betrayal, she wouldn’t hesitate to do away with her. Ty Lee knew the second she wasn’t useful, there was no telling what Azula would do. Her happiness and safety wasn’t a priority for anyone. 

With Mai, she interrupted the hostage trade off in Return to Omashu by asking why they were trading a two-year-old (Mai’s brother) for King Bumi. And she did it at the right moment to put Mai on the spot, making it very clear what decision Mai should choose if she didn’t want to face consequences. Azula knew that Mai wasn’t the type to step out of line, not even for someone she loved. She sent Mai the message that “who you care about is not as important as what I want”. And she expected that to stick. 

But then in Boiling Rock, there’s a hostage situation again and while Azula was about to let Zuko get dropped into a boiling lake, Mai decided that, no, this time she wasn’t going to let Azula choose for her. She knew Azula was wrong when she told her to not trade for her brother, but she was scared then. Mai has so much love not just for Zuko, but for her family and Ty Lee. She always cared but was afraid to show it. She was afraid to step out of line, of the consequences. That goes back to how her parents treated her and how she was taught to be complacent and quiet or else. After a life of acting in a way that would make others happy, Mai get this moment where she steps out of line and chooses for herself. 

They both get this moment where they choose love and it’s so good not just because of the unconditional aspect of their friendship, but because they both get to push past their insecurities and fears to save the people they love. They get this moment of strength after being put down for so long. 

Mai decides that who she loves is more important than what Azula wants. Ty Lee decides that what she wants, for Mai to be safe, is more important than what Azula wants. These two spent most of the series under Azula’s thumb, having their insecurities and fatal flaws exploited and pushed to do things they didn’t want to do to make Azula happy. But they overcame their internal struggles and get to chose love in the end. 

People often wonder why writers are intricate in describing feelings and sentiments in words. It's because we've experienced the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and everything in between. This is one of the reasons I can only write about melancholy feelings - I never had an adequate number of happy recollections to expound on, which thus is the motivation behind why I can't portray happiness in words.

the idealized version of my tomorrow self will fix this

never related to authors being like "childhood is such a blessed innocent time", catch me with that jane eyre shit like "such dread as children only can feel" and "I then sat with my doll on my knee til the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room"

*blood warning*

The Song of Achilles - color keys

I’m trying to work on my coloring/framing, so I thought it’d be fun to try some color key type drawings with a whole book!

ok but dostoevsky literally went off when he said “do you know that one day i’ll kill you? i won’t do it because i’m no longer in love with you, or because i’m jealous, but—i’ll just kill you for no better reason that i sometimes long to devour you.”

Happiness Will Come To You.

aos jim js a stealth nerd. someone will ask him what his favorite book is and he'll put on a condescending jock-laugh and say he's never read a book outside of school at the same time that he has literal bookshelves full of olde fashioned bound paper books in his quarters

subs? dubs?

or a secret third thing: watching media originally from language A (which you do not speak) dubbed into language B (which you do) and subbed in language C (which you also do) and, whenever there is a greater-than-expected discrepancy between the two, pausing to scroll through the subs in languages D-G (where available) in a trigonometry.meme attempt to triangulate the Truth based on consensus, language family, and likelihood of translation from an intermediate language (and also to see which languages are Cheating).