I’m About To Save You Thousands Of Dollars In Therapy By Teaching You What I Learned Paying Thousands

me at 13: My family and friends can never know the extreme fixations I have. I enjoy this thing the casual amount. No more, no less.

Me at 20: … And thats why Zuko and Katara should have ended up with each other. They perfectly reflected the shows themes of Yin and Yang. Foils yet parallels: Fire and Water. Sun and Moon. Opposite sibling dynamics. Respective royalty of their homelands. Complex relationships regarding their absent mothers. Taking on parental roles in the gaang. They were literally paired together for the final battle of the show because they were complimentary equals. It could have been the perfect execution of the enemies to friends to lovers trope. I mean how do you even ignore the blatant symbolism in the color coding of - Mom? Mom, are you listening to me? They were supposed-

The grief I feel for both rhaenyra and healana is soul shattering. They both lost their babies. Luke was so pure and he deserved better. Healana should’ve married Jace. He would’ve looked at her spiders :(

"unlikable protagonist" and it's just a woman who's a regular human being with flaws

2.07: Zuko Alone

“My name is Zuko. Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Prince of the Fire Nation, and heir to the throne.“ “Liar! I heard of you! You’re not a prince, you’re an outcast! His own father burned and disowned him!”

[Zuko offers the knife to Lee.] “It’s yours. You should have it.” “No! I hate you!”

3.08: The Puppetmaster

“Then you should understand what I’m talking about! We’re the last two waterbenders of the Southern Tribe. We have to fight these people whenever we can, wherever they are, with any means necessary!”

“I won’t! I won’t use bloodbending and I won’t allow you to keep terrorizing this town!” “Congratulations, Katara. You’re a bloodbender.”

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I’ve always felt that Zuko Alone and The Puppetmaster are similar in the role they play in Zuko and Katara’s respective character journeys. 

In Zuko Alone, Zuko learns the consequences of war and begins to question what he was taught about the war from the Fire Nation. He realizes that even actions of kindness aren’t enough to undo decades of oppression from the Fire Nation. 

Likewise, The Puppetmaster shows Katara the complexities of war and how it forced Hama to invent bloodbending, and turn to hurting innocent people for revenge. Katara - who has always believed in the absolute goodness of her people in the war - realizes it’s not always that simple. 

Both episodes also examine themes of identity and what it means to each character - Zuko’s identity as Prince of the Fire Nation and Katara’s identity as a waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. 

Even though Zuko has spent most of the episode hiding his identity, when he’s put in a position where he has to reveal it, he proudly declares himself as Prince of the Fire Nation - and quickly gets a reality check from the townspeople, who reject him because of his status. In contrast, Katara has spent most of her time embracing her identity and connecting with Hama over it. But Hama turns her identity against her - she tries to use Katara’s heritage as leverage to convince Katara to turn against her ideals. In the end though, Katara stays true to her principles and refuses to harm innocent people. 

Despite this, by the end of the episode, the identity of bloodbender is forced onto Katara - a title she has never wanted. Similarly, Zuko is forced to confront the reality that he is no longer seen as a prince, but as an outcast from his family (and from the town).

Neither of these episodes have a happy ending, but Katara and Zuko have each gained a new perspective on the war and the events that transpire in these episodes have ramifications for their future actions. 

(Of course, there’s also the obvious sun and moon parallelism and similarities in scene framing used in these episodes, which just further ties them together).

Eyes have a language of their own.

Anne Sexton, from a letter featured in Anne Sexton; A Self-Portrait In Letters

the funeral (a grotesque display of two queens’ grief, forced on them against their will) being interjected by images of aegon beating blood into a bloody ruin says something about how women’s grief is exploited and paraded around as a virtue while male grief is only allowed to exist in conjunction with violence.

female sorrow is expected to be public, dignified, and even noble, it serves as a symbol of quiet strength and resilience. otto uses it as a tool to gain sympathy for their cause. notice how he forced alicent and helaena into it, while he allowed aegon not to participate. wouldn‘t the king being at the funeral send a powerful message? yes, it would. but otto looks at aegon with contempt, the other councilmen and alicent do not know what to do with his tears. the realm cannot be allowed to see the king grieve. not like this.

male grief is denied its own space and validity unless it manifests in aggressive or destructive acts. aegon realizes this to some degree too— he lashes out publicly by killing the rat catchers. he shows his grief by being violent, by spilling blood.

the toxicity of it all is very effectively shown at the end when aegon is crying by himself. did he retreat there to be alone and finally let it all out? his mother is either letting him have that moment alone or she’s deeply uncomfortable with it and chooses to leave. no matter what motivated alicent in acting the way she did— the moment still reveals how male vulnerability is something people fear. it shows that even the most human expressions of pain are not acceptable for some.

Asa and Denji cycle updated

grwm to forgive myself