WHEDON HOW CAN YOU SAY HE HAS AN EGO DO YOU NOT SEE THIS SHIT. DO YOU NOT SEE HIM LOOKING PHYSICALLY UNCOMFORTABLE BECAUSE OF THE CAMERA DO YOU NOT SEE THE REST OF THE COMMANDOS NOT GIVING TWO SHITS ABOUT THE CAMERA BECAUSE THEY HAVE BIGGER THINGS TO THINK ABOUT AND STEVE IS THERE THINKING “SHIT SHIT DON’T LOOK AT ME DON’T TRACK ME I DON’T WANT TO BE THE ARMY’S DANCING MONKEY I WANT TO DO SOME GOOD, QUIT FOLLOWING ME”
“A MATCH OF EGOS” WITH TONY STARK WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL
Headcanon where Bucky used to “accidentally” damage newsreel cameras to make Steve feel better.
I love you all and I love this analysis but i think y’all are mistaking two different kind of ego. This is a hot take that will probably get me in trouble, but
Tony’s got a very performative kind of ego. A kind of “Oh look at me look how amazing I am” ego.
You know, the kind that often goes hand in hand with those pesky self-esteem issues that Tony has in spades. Genius Billionaire Playboy Attention-Seeker. If you scratch that shiny surface, he’s a hot mess, always second-guessing himself.
Oh but Steve (god love him) Steve’s just so sure, you know? This is Right and that is Wrong and yeah, he’s a smart guy and understands the complexity in a situation but Red Skull wasn’t all that far off the mark when he said that Steve-o does arrogance better than anyone. It just looks different when he does it.
Put it this way: can you imagine Tony delivering a line like this:
… with that level of confidence? No. Tony would be all tortured and angsty about it, but not Steve. And that’s its own kind of confidence, it’s own kind of ego.
Steve might not be comfortable in front of a camera (sing me the song of Steve Rogers’ body dysmorphia I am here for that shit) but Steven “tree by the river of truth” Rogers consults his own moral compass (aka his opinion of what is right and what is wrong) first and last and always. Yeah, it’s admirable. It’s also egotistical as fuck. Who died and made him king of right and wrong, huh?
In Sum: If ego is “a sense of self-esteem or self-importance” Steve got all the self-esteem (at least in terms of morality) and Tony got all the self-importance (at least in terms of who should be the center of attention At All Times) but they’re both egotistical af.
Tony’s ego is about being seen, Steve’s ego is about being right. They’re both struggling against their own egos, with varying levels of success.
I introduced a friend to ATLA a few nights ago, and they had only
known two things about the entire show: the cabbage meme, and that Aang
apparently wants to ride every large and dangerous animal he can
possibly find. We got through the first five or so episodes, and my
friend noted that Aang is exactly what a 12-year-old would be like if
given godlike powers, and that this is literally just what he
could do with airbending. He can’t even wield any of the other elements,
and he’s one of the most powerful people on the planet, because he’s an
airbender.
And that got me thinking.
This snippet from Bitter Work is one of the few pieces of concrete information we get about the airbenders, at least in ATLA. Iroh is explaining to Zuko how all four of the elements connect to the world and to each other.
Fire is the element of power, of desire and will, of ambition and the ability to see it through. Power is crucial to the world; without it, there’s no drive, no momentum, no push. But fire can easily grow out of control and become dangerous; it can become unpredictable, unless it is nurtured and watched and structured.
Earth is the element of substance, persistence, and enduring. Earth is strong, consistent, and blunt. It can construct things with a sense of permanence; a house, a town, a walled city. But earth is also stubborn; it’s liable to get stuck, dig in, and stay put even when it’s best to move on.
Water is the element of change, of adaptation, of movement. Water is incredibly powerful both as a liquid and a solid; it will flow and redirect. But it also will change, even when you don’t want it to; ice will melt, liquid will evaporate. A life dedicated to change necessarily involves constant movement, never putting down roots, never letting yourself become too comfortable.
We see only a few flashbacks to Aang’s life in the temples, and we get a sense of who he was and what kind of upbringing he had.
This is a preteen with the power to fucking fly. He’s got no fear of falling, and a much reduced fear of death. There’s a reason why the sages avoid telling the new avatar their status until they turn sixteen; could you imagine a firebender, at twelve years old, learning that they were going to be the most powerful person in the whole world? Depending on that child, that could go so badly.
But the thing about Aang, and the thing about the Air Nomads, is that they were part of the world too. They contributed to the balance, and then they were all but wiped out by Sozin. What was lost, there? Was it freedom? Yes, but I think there’s something else too, and it’s just yet another piece of the utter brilliance of the worldbuilding of ATLA.
To recap: we have power to push us forward; we have stability to keep us strong; we have change to keep us moving.
And then we have this guy.
The air nomads brought fun to the world. They brought a very literal sense of lightheartedness.
Sozin saw this as a weakness. I think a lot of the world did, in ATLA. Why do the Air Nomads bother, right? They’re just up there in their temples, playing games, baking pies in order to throw them as a gag. As Iroh said above, they had pretty great senses of humour, and they didn’t take themselves too seriously.
But that’s a huge part of having a world of balance and peace.
It’s not just about power, or might, or the ability to adapt. You can have all of those, but you also need fun. You need the ability to be vulnerable, to have no ambitions beyond just having a good day. You need to be able to embrace silliness, to nurture play, to have that space where a very specific kind of emotional growth can occur. Fun makes a hard life a little easier. Fun makes your own mortality a little less frightening to grasp. Fun is the spaces in between, that can’t be measured by money or military might. Fun is what nurtures imagination, allows you to see a situation in a whole new light, to find new solutions to problems previously considered impossible.
Fun is what makes a stranger into a friend, rather than an enemy.
Guide to Figuring out the Age of an Undated World Map.
No but take the time to actually read it because I lost like 15 minutes.
I have a friend who is really good at this type of thing. He once found an old globe at a garage sale and he was able to pin the date of it’s making down to like a 6 month window, because it only would’ve been correct during a specific point in WWII.
I was mad impressed, because I have no mind for geography. I can barely remember my own state’s capitol.
THIS IS GOLD 😂😂😂
This is amazing. Take the time to actually read it.
Holy shit the super specific things towards the end
Oh wow!
I didn’t know anything about the giant lake in California being created by accident?!
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