I don't. Love the ending of the Dr who episode.

I just read your rant about zukka and it made me think what if zuko’s obsession with sokka has to do with the fact that sokka in some ways encompasses some of the traits that have been forced on Zuko since he was young like the whole killing without mercy or remorse and the need for control and the strategic thinking. But Sokka uses these skills no to try and rule the world but to help aang stop Ozai. I haven’t watched atla in a while but your analyses help me realize a lot of details that I missed about it was he characters

yeah i’ve talked before about how sokka and azula being so similar must be kind of a mindfuck for zuko because sokka has “a killer instinct that’s just so fire nation” but also he’s literally friends with the bald baby pacifist monk avatar who says shit like “do you think we could’ve been friends too?” and so zuko clearly has no idea what to think. like he and azula were both indoctrinated into this world that valued certain traits and dogmas over others (ie, sokka’s over aang’s) and so azula sees sokka as more of a threat.

it’s funny because obviously sokka and zuko’s first encounter is sokka getting his ass handed to him by a guy who doesn’t even care that he’s in his way, but also that scheme is pretty immediately disrupted by sokka’s boomerang. and then the next time they meet, sokka has actually spent time training under someone (instead of fumbling around in the dark by himself) and can now hold his own far better. and every single encounter after that sees sokka not only rising to zuko’s level, but surpassing him, fighting him, foiling his plans, advocating to leave him for dead, ignoring him, dismissing him.

even at the western air temple, sokka is the liaison who welcomes him into the group (the designated “leadership” role comes with more responsibilities than simply assassinating assassins), but he also makes it pretty clear that he doesn’t care for or trust zuko throughout “the firebending masters,” even if his manner of bullying is far less overtly malicious than katara’s. and yet, zuko cannot discount him. zuko saw him kill combustion man. zuko understands his value to the group. zuko recognizes that quality he and azula share. zuko may have had an advantage over him the first time they met, but it sure didn’t last long. if azula and zuko have anything in common, it’s a mutual respect for sokka.

like, sokka is the only member of the gaang’s name azula actually says (aang is “the avatar,” katara is “peasant,” toph is [insert blind joke here], and suki is “my favorite prisoner”) and on the day of black sun, she elects to distract sokka first and foremost knowing that he’s their “leader.” and she does clearly respect him more than most people do because she can see herself in him (at least to some extent, i don’t think either of them are actually insightful enough to realize how deep that connection truly goes) and thus can recognize his worth as someone who is in a similar position, albeit on the opposite side.

zuko does say and aang and katara’s names (and appa’s), but sokka’s name is the first he says, and it’s really the only name he uses as a mode of address. and the matter of naming is clearly important to royal heirs, who are defined by their names and titles. we see that especially when zuko confuses ursa’s “remember who you are” with “remember your ancestry,” declaring who he is not as internal identity, but as title. to afford someone the respect of addressing them by name is to implicitly demonstrate respect for them.

this is further demonstrated by the fact that unlike “you just had to pick up the glowing egg” zuko of just an episode prior, zuko really does follow sokka’s leadership and places his complete faith in his abilities. there’s no complaining or backseat driving or undermining of his intentions, which is genuinely anomalous for zuko, who generally refuses to listen to anyone about anything (unless he’s being actively scared into submission, and even then he’s stood up to ozai multiple times). he’s not outspoken in these episodes, however. he is downright docile. and it’s because he genuinely believes sokka to be his superior. which isn’t to say that sokka isn’t better than he is, but like. aang is too and he doesn’t take his knowledge into account! because aang doesn’t represent the values that zuko strove to embody his entire life.

what’s more, i would imagine there’s something kind of satisfying, if not downright intriguing, about knowing someone who basically is what you aspire to be, who you were told you must be your entire life, and seeing that he is just. absolutely fucking miserable. like azula is also miserable, but zuko doesn’t know that (yet), because she hides it better. but sokka is genuinely suicidal (especially in these episodes). meeting this idealized standard of perfection you have always failed to reach and realizing that whatever standards you once (recently) held yourself to are actually deeply unfulfilling. that sokka isn’t “perfect,” that he actually considers himself a failure. and the fact that when he does fail, he considers it the end of the world because he never built up the resilience one gets from being a normal person who doesn’t always succeed on their first try. and zuko’s like “finally, something i have that he doesn’t: intimate knowledge of what it’s like to constantly fail and underperform and disappoint people!”

zuko is really perfectly equipped to support sokka in this situation, because he idolizes him enough to provide him with the unconditional support sokka feels fundamentally undeserving of, and also understands sokka’s misery enough to give him actually meaningful advice when it matters. what’s interesting about how zuko feels about sokka is that it’s not just about uncritically putting him on a pedestal for being Nice Azula or whatever, it’s also about zuko’s genuine desire to help sokka and protect him.

yue inhabits the martyr role that sokka has always envisioned himself in, suki establishes herself as someone who is equally capable of protecting him and he can her, and zuko risks his life to support sokka on his crazy suicide mission, when sokka was so intent on going it alone because he wasn’t thinking clearly didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. sokka doesn’t need someone who treats him like an irreproachable god. in fact, i think sokka would hate nothing more than having a sycophant. he needs someone who understands that he is fallible and vulnerable and needs help like any human being does, and respects and trusts and admires him anyway.

zuko doesn’t have the capacity to recognize azula’s insecurities and shortcomings, or the desire to help her, but he does for sokka. because he never felt like he was in a position where he had to compete for something against him. he’s not trying to usurp sokka’s role as “leader” (except for whatever was going on in “sozin’s comet,” but that’s for another post) and is happy to simply follow him, in a way that is genuinely uncharacteristic for him.

and you can say that it’s because zuko is gay and stupid (which wouldn’t be wrong, per se), but it’s also because sokka embodies everything zuko ever thought he had to be. and it’s because sokka doesn’t even care. it’s the recognition that one person’s idealized model of behavior is another’s burden. that if zuko had been “perfect” like sokka, he never would’ve gained the wisdom to accept defeat and not let it deter him. perfect like azula, who, like sokka, shatters in the face of failure.

zuko says as much in “the siege of the north,” and again in “the western air temple.” the fact that he isn’t a prodigy, the fact that he “had to struggle and fight” to achieve what little he has, is “what made me who i am.” so he’ll respect sokka, of course, because sokka is who he wished for so long that he could be. but he’ll also support sokka, because he has just enough distance from the situation to recognize that he’s not an island (even if sokka himself is convinced that he must be). so it’s not obsession, per se, nor is it simply uncritical admiration that confuses excellence for infallibility. it’s unconditional support born of understanding, a sort of empathy. it’s devotion.

Something something Gortash calling Durge divine

having the hc that minato is ace is incredibly funny sometimes when you think about how ryoji is oh so very bi because it's like. "ah. death stole my ability to be attracted to people," in the same way that ryoji stole minato's eye color and energy level. like wow, thanks ryoji, you just keep finding things to steal from minato!

I had a dream that taylor swift released a new album that employed her most despicable marketing move yet: she promised that new joanna newsom songs were buried as hidden easter eggs within the ends of her other songs, but every time a new jnew song was about to play, it would simply skip to her next track. a disgusting display of capitalist trickery. naturally, i had no choice but to listen.

now, this album of hers, like most of her creative output, played it extremely safe to appeal to the widest possible commercial audience, wherein she deployed inane similes such as “clear like crystal” and “red like a rose.”

however, one song that was clearly controversial, but only in ways taylor herself was too obtuse and tone deaf to realize, was her ballad “sleep in the middle east,” which argued that being with her “middle eastern” lover signified an act of decentralization of global imperialist powers that locationally designate the region as being “the middle east” within a complex political/geographic framework, as when they are together, their love is what becomes central to our cosmological paradigms.

the title comes from her line in the chorus “I get no sleep in the middle east,” to imply that she is either wide awake tossing and turning over her lover, or that they are too busy staying up all night having freasknasty dominatrix and/or tame vanilla sex (I can only assume that with t-swift it’s only one or the other).

aside from the obvious glaring problematics of composing such a song in the first place, some other lines are also suspect in subtler ways. for example, her opening line, “why does bombay feel so different from mumbai” is clearly her gesturing towards the idea that every city in the middle east feels so locationally specific due to the nature of experiencing it with her lover, whereas she feels “no different going to france or congo.”

the keen-eared listener will immediately notice many issues here. first of all, she is listing cities in india, a country that is not part of the middle east in even the most generous estimation. secondly, bombay cannot possibly feel “so different” from mumbai, as they are, in fact, the same city. i also have a hard time believing that taylor did not notice a difference between “france and congo” (a line she rhymes with “let’s go to a place that only we know”), or, frankly, that she has ever set foot in the drc.

it was clear by the nature of this song that taylor did not expect to receive any flak for this harmless tune, and in fact i believe she expected to receive praise for finally (alluding to) dating her first ethnic. however, as you can imagine, her detractors had a field day tearing apart this song, myself included, which is why i am now reporting back from my dream world to deliver my somnial findings to all of you.

sometimes you'll see a post about autistic-allistic social thinking mismatch and you'll be like, this would be such a scintillating observation of how human society works, if it weren't for the fact that I have to add an asterisk and a note that the poster's background is probably most letters of W.E.I.R.D. (White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) to the whole thing

as an American poc, I am always and forever shaking hands with my non-American acquaintances here on tunglr.hell and embodying that one gif of the Asian man going "your experiences are not universal"

tumblr no nuance site as always is finding itself with a fascinating new position here. “no opinion you hold or thought you have tells us anything about your morality” im not so sure thats true “many thoughts are unwanted or are uncomfortable but realistically harmless so stop equating complete mental purity with being Good” this we cannot possible refute but its not the one thats being said lately

Why do you think Roier and Missa are easiest to understand? I found the same thing as someone who's just learning Spanish, and I wasnt sure if it was because I've watched so much Roier content that it influenced my ability to understand him, or if there's a deeper reason due to some regional accent differences being easier for non-native speakers to understand. I'm curious about your thoughts since you have really good insights into linguistics, but ignore this if it's too much for tumblr lol!

neither of them talk super fast, and imo their accents are fairly easy to understand-- for me, missa is easy to understand bc he's from the north and that region has accents i'm more familiar with, and roier's accent is somewhat neutral although obviously still clearly mexican and he uses a lot of slang. i think that also helps-- roier uses a lot of the same vocab, so if you're still learning spanish, you can pick up that slang and then understand quite a bit of what he's saying because he swears literally five times in a single sentence. they both speak pretty clearly and, additionally, i think most non-native spanish speakers, especially U.S. americans, are most familiar with mexican spanish rather than other dialects. so that's why someone like rubius or spreen is harder for nonnative speakers to understand, unless they're more familiar with spanish or argentine dialects specifically.

for me it's hard to parse bc i understand most of what they all say regardless since i've spoken spanish for so long, but i think rivers is just difficult because she speaks very fast. mariana is pretty easily to understand as well, there's just less for me to say about him tbh idr where he's from and i don't really have a hard time understanding him, i just watch him less than anyone else really.

for quackity, his accent is more noticeable, and his spanish is a little weirder, in that he is so bilingual and if you're not familiar with that way of speaking it can be hard to pick up what he's saying sometimes. this is partially why i wish there were a few more latino americans on the server so people get more familiar with that type of bilinguality-- i think quackity is in a unique position that he doesn't full share with other server members (aside from mouse, in that she is also a latino who lives in the states, although from a content perspective she doesn't do the same kind of bilingual split that q does nor does she stream in spanish), and i would be interested to see more of that kind of diasporic latino experience on the server. that's me rambling and doesn't have to do with accents i've just been thinking about it for a while and i think it would be cool. but yeah q phrases things funny sometimes because he's thinking of the english way of saying something or vice versa, and he is by far one of the most fluently bilingual members of the server, so it's an interesting dynamic for people watching him who aren't super familiar with spanish nor the kinds of calques and things that end up happening with bilingual speakers.

anyway back to your actual questions i do also think exposure does tip the scales lol most of us watch more roier than anyone else and esp for people just learning spanish, you're gonna understand him better than anyone else because of that. which is nice in some ways bc you learn a lot of slang but also if you're going to speak spanish in any kind of non-casual setting please do not talk like roier he is a fucking crazy person who swears so much it's actually unreal

The only thing better than writing horny stuff you like is writing horny stuff you know others like and lazer targeting them so you get yelling feedback. Also it doesn't nerf you by making you too 😳 to write and you can hold it up and study the horny like which part of this really gets your target's goat and you can add it to your repertoire.

Brno 2014: Valentino Rossi talks about the race. Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, and Rossi are then asked what is sweeter: to be on the podium or to beat Marc Marquez

i feel like my headaches have been getting worse :/

well. I finished the first draft of the novel I have been working on since circa March 2022.

it is.

it is, um.

it is 292,432 words long.

is it good? not yet! is it consistent? absolutely not! I was figuring a lot out as I went so there are entire characters and key worldbuilding elements that pop up midway through (or even in the final chapter) who I need to go back and put in starting in chapter 1.

but that's how the (my) process works; that's the whole thing about "shitty rough drafts" (ty anne lamott); that's what revisions are for. so it's gonna be ok. and in the meantime I can celebrate that I wrote an average of 14.6K words per month during a period of my life that included burnout, medication issues, illness, and some time-consuming (but very happy) life events. I did not used to be able to do that!! and now I know that I can!

shoutout to nanowrimo 2022 for changing the game for me; shoutout to nanowrimo 2023 for getting me to the end of the first draft; and shoutout to my beloved favorite coffee shop, where I wrote probably about 200K of those words.

(the second draft is going to end up being about 200K words, I would guess; the third draft will be shorter than that. it will all be okay.)

character opinion bingo!! rottmnt donnie, draxum, and cassandra 🥺

BESTIEEEE HELL YEAHHHHHH. my writting gets worse in my excitement please persue the alt for clarity. OUR FIRST TRIPPPPLEEE BINGOOOOOOO

[ALT] DONIIIIIEEEEEEEE MY BOYYYYY my special special shaped boyyyyyy. everyone is wrong i THINK ive disscussed. his autism doesnt present like urs or some other guy just cause u realise hes autistic. HE LOVESSSS HIS FAMILY. he has VARIED interest in hugs and textures and flavours and cleanliness. the fandom meanness isnt actually that bad MORE. they looooove to hit him with the angst hammer. well. by all means. scraped s2 and 3 EPSIODESSSSSS GUH. hessss a botantist hessss going on a journey with his mystics hissss ARCSSSSS. WAH. best donnie design we all know this. u can like other ones (I DO!!) but we all know hes best. look at his eyebrows. groovying donnie still my discord icon <3. I WANT EP WERE HE PASS AWAY. the sacred text. IS LITERALLY ABOUT HIM. DID i cry at rise movie i think so. ALSO. famously. well i never know if any of u know. BUT bnf super popular au comic. I DEF CRIED.

HAVE I MENTIONED. how much of a perfect addition he was to turtles character villian/ally roster. HESSSS SOOOOO GOOD.

[ALT] HES THE HOT VILLAIN REDEEMED BABY TRAPPING GOAT MAN!!!!!!! he was evil and scary and evil and scary and used and then pathetic and wet and then running this lunch room like the navy and then PROTECTIVE COOL DAD. in a hot robe. actually maybe the au evil draxys have calmed down now. or i just check the tag less..... HE WAS. suppose to HELP HIS KIDS. with their MAGICS. there was an EP he was supposed to help RAPH they were supposed to BUILD UP as a FAMIBLY. CRIES FOREVER. hessss so silly hes such a perfect fun cartoon villian i have EVEN more opinions than previously about the laws of cartoon villians. which is that if their fun they can do whatever they want. this is not a contradiction. its the purpose of a cartoon. sorrrrrry sorrrry mr cena sorrrrry i really want to hear his villian song with the second va. think he woulda had the range. tho i dont know. silly bastard man.

(sung like sweeny todd joana) I SEEEE U, CASSANDRA.

[ALT] HER NAME IS CASEY JONES SHELL BUST UR BONES

broooooo. BROOOOOOOOOO. THEY MADE CASEY A CRAZYYYYYY 18 year old GIRL DUDEEEEEEEEEEE. and then REPLACED HER IN THE MOVIE. forrrr normiessss. WITH SORA???? shes a great turtles character fake out moment shes a great CHARACTER. its GREAT that she gets added to the group by being mentored by splints cause he sees a upset child hes like. well no thats not good. DO U KNOW? what ususally happens with caseys and aprils in TURTLES?? U GET ME??? crazy girl 4 crazy girl. she issss SO silly. shes drawn and written and VOICED soooo fucking spectacularly so perfectly executed. frankly. where the hell else are u getting a female cartoon character this buck wild. es arcee... maybe. kdjfgnjdf. WE SHOULDA GOTTEN MOREEEEE. she and raph were gonna be the best of fucking bros U_U. they would fucking BREAK. EVERYTHING <3. her fucking gay dads and their cupcake shop. etc

.👇

lol grew up thinking being queer didn’t affect me much, only to realize that I can’t give my friends compliments or physical touch without thinking they’ll think I’m trying to get with them

I see a lot of people being like 'Bill was born an Irregular/Bill was born with uneven sides/etc' and while I can absolutely see that as a plausible theory, my autism brain goes 'But what if his irregularities weren't so much physical as they were mental? Something that a Flatland or Flatland-esque kind of dimension couldn't simply just 'fix' at birth and be done with it?'

Like yes, him having a physical defect would parallel someone like Ford and his postaxial polydactyly but I just like the idea of a lot of his quote-unquote 'irregularities' being more mental. I also use that term loosely and from the perspective of a shit ass dimension who believes in eugenics and the idea that people need to conform or perish. Because I mean, in their eyes, physical imperfections can be ''''''fixed'''''. But how do you fix something 'imperfect' when it's not something that can be seen/felt/etc?

Of course I also have other ideas for why Bill didn't fit in outside of that, but I do enjoy dabbling in ways that Bill could've been 'othered' in his dimension outside of physical appearances.