#reducing her arc to that ONE moment with Zuko and ignoring all of her other development just to prop up a ship is nasty | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

firelxdykatara · 3 years

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Katara x Aang :3c

are you trying to get me in trouble

-cough-

no but in all honesty, my genuine feelings about kataang boil down to three major points: 1. it's boring, and does not jive thematically with either of their character arcs, to the point of, 2. actively hampering character development on both sides, and 3. katara deserved better.

points expanded under the cut. (please, if you're a kataang shipper and you see this, just keep scrolling. i've tagged it appropriately and put the bulk under a cut and at this point that's literally all i can do lmfao.)

send me a ship and get my (brutally) honest opinion!

1. It's Boring: This is the most subjective point on the list (I mean, in fairness, it's all subjective, but I have evidence from the show and post-canonical materials to support my other points; this one is just preference), but there's just... nothing to kataang. It's cute (when it's not actively aggravating), and... that's about it. It's not even that I dislike friends-to-lovers as a shipping trope (though it's not my overall preference), because there are a lot of friends-to-lovers couples that I do ship (kanej comes to mind, also will/elizabeth from potc, karolsen from supergirl, romione and hinny from hp, among others), but one thing that I think all of those couples have that kataang doesn't is that both sides of the pairing are teens or adults when they get together, with teen/adult dynamics and issues and stories to deal with, rather than one half being a teenager and the other being literally prepubescent.

And don't get me wrong, I have no problem with age gap ships in general. And as far as atla goes, Katara, at 14, has the same age difference from Zuko (16) as Aang has from her, and it's never stopped me--because both Katara and Zuko are well into puberty when they meet and I have no problem picturing them being into one another and growing together as they enter adulthood. Aang, on the other hand, is a child. And he acts like it. Which wouldn't be a problem, if the show weren't expecting me to believe he is a) ready for a romantic relationship, and b) ready for one specifically with Katara, who is not only older and far more mature but is specifically cast as his caretaker in a very maternal role for the entire show's run.

This show asks me to believe that a teenage girl well into adolescence is going to be attracted to and develop romantic feelings for a pre-adolescent child--and it asks me to believe this while showing us otherwise that Katara's type is actually older boys with fabulous hair and angsty pasts in all of her other potential romantic dalliances--and then enter into a relationship with him, all while ignoring the elephant in the room that is the fact that she was basically acting like his mother for the entire series to that point. (Something that is heavily lampshaded earlier in the very same season.) That just stretches the bounds of credulity way too far for me, especially when there's no evidence that Katara herself would get anything out of their romantic relationship.

There's nothing there for me to sink my teeth into. No delicious development, no parallels where they help each other grow, no internal conflicts that they have to work through together, nothing. Certainly no reason for me to actually believe Katara feels (or would grow to feel) anything for him other than the platonic affection of a caretaker. I can easily believe she loves him dearly, as a friend and quasi-little-brother, but I just can't see that developing naturally into romantic love--not the way it's presented in the show.

And even if they did manage to at least make the development of Katara's feelings believable, unless they changed something fundamental about the nature of their relationship, it'd still be boring, so.

2. It Actively Hampers Their Character Development--On Both Sides: I've written before (extensively lol im so sorry) about how kataang is actively detrimental to Katara and to Aang. In short (because ye gods this post is already getting long enough), Katara is narratively harmed by being shoved into a relationship that completely ignores her stated feelings--a relationship that had been presented as a one-sided puppylove crush for the vast majority of the series--and it inhibits her growth as a character in ways that become far more obvious in the comics and lok, where the very same creative forces that lead to her beginning a relationship with Aang in the first place reduce her to 'the Avatar's girl' and very little else, all the way through to the end of LoK (where she is a Healer and the Avatar's wife and, again, very little else).

As for Aang:

As to how this relationship is detrimental to Aang (other than the comics and LoK nonsense)? Just take a look at book 2, when he’s trying to learn Earthbending from Toph. Katara constantly coddles him. Much of the time, she’s afraid to be anything other than gentle and understanding with Aang--partly because of her fear that if she pushes him too far, he’ll run away. (Which he does, several times.) But sometimes, what Aang needs to grow is a sharp kick in the slats, which Toph was more than willing to provide--and which worked. Katara was great for teaching Aang to waterbend, but he needed more than that to grow as a person. And he can’t get that while he’s in a relationship with someone who will apologize for getting upset when he was very explicitly neglecting her.

In addition, it is pointed out by Guru Pathik at the end of Book 2 that one of Aang's chakras is blocked by his attachment to Katara. Aang takes this to mean (incorrectly) that he has to stop loving her in order to become fully realized as an Avatar, but this is actually part of the problem--because the issue isn't that he is in love with Katara, it's that he's possessively attached to her. He believes himself entitled to her love in return, rather than selflessly loving someone regardless of whether or not they return that affection. (This is obvious come the EIP episode, where Aang demands to know why he and Katara aren't in a relationship already--because he kissed her without asking [or even checking to see if she'd be ok with kissing him], which he phrases as mutual even though it very much was not, and he gets angry and violates her boundaries when she says that she is confused and doesn't want to think about it right then.)

It is his attachment to Katara--the need for her to return his love, the belief that she will and it is only a matter of time before he gets what he wants--that he was supposed to let go of, not his feelings for her in general. Unfortunately, while he pays lipservice to doing this (far too late for it to be useful--if he'd stayed with the Guru for five more minutes and unlocked his chakra there, that battle would've gone very differently), he almost immediately backtracks on that development come book 3, and there isn't another single whisper of Aang maybe growing up and moving past his one-sided and possessive crush and realizing that even if Katara doesn't feel the same way, it doesn't mean she loves him less or that their friendship is less important.

What really needed to happen, for Aang to grow as a person and become fully realized as an Avatar, was for him to grow up. To realize that his feelings were not of paramount importance, and that even if he was in love with Katara, he was not entitled to her love in return. He should have been able to move past his need for her to love him back, in order to get past that stumbling block, unlock his chakras, and regain the Avatar State in time to face the Firelord. But he didn't. As a result, they had to find some other way to just give him the Avatar State (a well-placed rock) and the means to defeat Ozai without killing him (the deus ex lionturtle) and his entire character arc just fell apart in the third act rather than reaching a satisfying conclusion.

3. Katara Deserved Better: This really ties into how her romantic relationship with Aang hampered her own development, but I'm still bitter enough about it that it gets its own bullet-point. And the biggest single reason I could never ship kataang--the thing that would've turned me off even if there were substance and a halfway decent storyline for them--is the fact that Aang kisses her without her consent (for the second time) in Ember Island Players, Katara gets angry at him and storms off, and then..... she walks out onto the balcony to make out with him.

With nothing to bridge that gap.

It's bad enough that a show aimed at children had a scene where the child protagonist kissed the object of his affections without her consent when she didn't want him to (made explicit by her angry reaction)--and this is absolutely an issue when the show is aimed at children and it may well be the first experience they've had with consent issues portrayed in media--but this moment is never addressed again. Katara just decides--completely off-screen--that she does love him Really and walks out to make out with him in the epilogue. There's no conversation, no apology for violating her boundaries, no discussion of why that was wrong or any indication that Aang understands what he did and why it upset her. They don't have a single one-on-one interaction between that kiss and the epilogue, and the only other time they are on screen together, Aang yells at her and storms off.

So, even leaving the comics and lok aside, Katara deserved much better from her own romantic plotline. In fact, she deserved to have one, rather than simply being the oblivious object of Aang's affections, given a couple moments where she blushes but otherwise remains completely ignorant of his feelings (she looks shocked and upset when he kisses her prior to the invasion, and then she completely forgets that even happened because she's confused as to what Aang is even talking about during EIP until he brings it up; that's not the behavior of a fourteen-year-old girl who was kissed by someone she was developing romantic feelings for), before the epilogue where it becomes clear that she figured all of that out off-screen and had feelings for him after all.

She's a main character, not a side-character written in solely to give one of the mains a love interest. She deserved a romantic plotline of her own. (She could have had one with someone else, with very few changes made to what was actually on-screen prior to the epilogue, but that's another conversation entirely.) She deserved to have her feelings considered at all important by the person she was going to be paired with in the end, rather than having him just assume she felt the same way and then get mad at her for never giving any indication of it when he'd never asked about her feelings to begin with. She deseserved agency in her own romantic narrative, and she just didn't get that with Aang.

So yeah, at the end of the day, my biggest issue with kataang is that it involved doing Katara dirty, and she's my favorite character and she deserved so much better damnit.

#atla #katara #aang salt #kataang salt #anti kataang #atla meta #katara deserved better #salt for ts #ask meme #invincibleweasel #asked

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ohmygodtheywereparabatai · 3 years

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Finally watched Hello Future Me’s video floating around my recommended feed, and halfway through his excellent analysis struck a spooky thought! Here’s a theory for the girl in red.

Sane at the Time of the Finale:

Azula’s Downfall Was in Spiritual Revenge

The poetic justice of Zhao drowned by the moon spirit’s other half, Ozai’s power stripped by a full-fledged Avatar... part of what makes Azula’s defeat so unique is her crumbling sense of self, an introspective enemy instead of an outside one. Katara, whose confidence and network of support are pointed out as the mirror image of what Azula could have had, finally gains the upper hand and pins her down.

From birth, the princess endures an environment that perfects and hones her nature to the shattering point. Plenty of signs point to her devolution: the betrayal of Mai and Ty Lee, getting sidelined by her own father at the literal crowning moment, and her irreversible childhood at the center of the snowball effect. But how ‘bout I do anyway, and tie in the mechanisms of the spirit world with Azula’s last moments? The connection is far from obvious, but well and present. The role of another world in weakening such an iron-fisted character visible in the first GIF itself.

I. “Taking you down is the Avatar’s destiny.”

The spirit world is one fundamental half of the Avatar. Its guidance and power are endowed to a messiah-like figure, who masters the four bending disciplines in order to restore and keep balance. It’s constantly reinforced that the Firelord is meant to be brought down by him, that a century of bloodshed is repaid when the warlord’s life is taken, and the end of his corrupt regime is the beginning of a fuller, more peaceful era.

“Aang, you must defeat the Firelord before the comet arrives.” (Roku)

“Your destiny! This is incredible. You will be involved in a great battle, an awesome conflict between the forces of good and evil.” (Aunt Wu)

“I should have seen this war coming and prevented it... But I believe you are destined to redeem me and save the world.” (Roku)

“Because I know my own destiny. Taking you down is the Avatar’s destiny.” (Zuko)

“Everyone, even my own past lives, are expecting me to end someone’s life.” (Aang)

A seemingly inconsequential detail is that the Firelord at the time of the final battle is not Ozai - it’s his daughter. By then, the title of Phoenix King is exchanged for her coronation. The nail on the head isn’t nitpicking terminology, but that Aang already suffered defeat at Azula’s hands. She herself plays a masterful and instrumental role in the war, literally her father’s will embodied. She’s there to hunt the Avatar, lead the massive drill against Ba Sing Se’s walls, orchestrate a coup, oversee the takeoff of the airship fleet, suggest the annihilation of Ba Sing Se in the first place. It’s a long time before we see Ozai at the warfront in the flesh, and even then, the damage dealt by Azula in Book Two and Book Three resonates. Keeping all this in mind, jump to Aang’s death.

“I went down! I didn’t just get hurt, did I? I was gone! But you brought me back.” (Aang, to Katara)

At the end of Book One, when a spirit is killed and revived, balance is reduced to moonless havoc, and all hell descends on the guilty party. The Avatar-slayer would be far from an exception to this counterbalance. So what we witness in “Into the Inferno” - Azula, gruesomely unmade - may just be the most brutal act of vengeance onscreen, and as a direct consequence of this:

While Aang is not directly responsible, it’s safe to assume the spirit world often acts of its own volition. Notable spirits possess harsh views on modernization, and lash out at humanity for its flaws: Wan Shi Tong’s disappearance, the ocean spirit’s wrath, the aye-aye spirit in LoK antagonizing any human presence, the Mother of Faces admonishing vanity and disrespect.

In this vein, the Avatar spirit remains a powerful source of Aang’s strength, weaved into the very outcome of greater forces such as fate and salvation. In the crystal catacombs, Azula threw a wrench into a universal narrative - for an instant, the world really was lost.

And, truth is, we’ve already watched as an entity descended from the Avatar’s power - one who Azula identifies repeatedly as her lifelong plague - haunts her to the point of systemic delusion. Ursa herself, granddaughter of Roku.

II. “You’ve turned my own mind against me...”

Time to reconcile show canon with the comics!

There’s no one who ties more into the tragedy of Azula than her mother. Hello Future Me dredges “The Search” and “Smoke and Shadow” for panels where her condition is exacerbated by fear and animosity. She’s obsessed with the idea that Ursa was pitted against her from day one, and even claims her influence strangled the loyalties of her friends and forced Ozai to “break free of her control.” The possibility of the slightest truth to Azula’s more elaborate fears raises a host of alarming implications. Especially when acknowledging her character is as sharp as a tack - a dulled edge when madness factors in, to be sure, but not negligible.

Is it logical to develop the belief that Ursa was an agent of evil in the royal court? The death of Azulon and her subsequent disappearance... It wouldn’t take long for Azula - aware of Zuko’s fate at the time, and her mother’s resignation to prevent it - to connect the dots. Ursa’s blood relation to the same Avatar that rivaled Firelord Sozin is another thorn in the side of trust. Whether Azula was aware of it or not, the strife born in Zuko, the eternally entangled red and blue dragons, exist to her biology as well. This makes it difficult to ignore a spiritual side to her illness, which draws primarily from Ursa’s “ill” intent.

Azula is also seen embracing the idea that spirits risen solely to take revenge can derail lives, legitimacy, and loyalty. The comics give us a chance to absorb the hidden subtext at face value.

The Kemurikage were born when robbed mothers abducted the children of others as punishment. Fear of the spirits crumbled the warlord Toz’s support and ended his cause. The masquerading dissenters in “Smoke and Shadow” are able to undermine Firelord Zuko’s authority, create a divide between Mai’s family and her father, and sow widespread fear. Curfew, searches, and interrogations shape the beginnings of a “ruthless” rule, eerily evocative of Azula’s much more rapid descent...

So how do Azula’s visions of Ursa, conjured unconsciously or from a little something more, and her steep debt to the world and Avatar link together - forge the ideal weapon and circumstances for retribution?

^ Just like that.

This only covers Ursa’s side of the family, the redoubling of spiritual balance after Aang’s fall like the snap of a rubber band. Azula’s complete undoing has to do with the lashing out of both families.

III. The blue dragon

Now, what was it about that first GIF?

Azula’s health begins to spiral right as she’s slated to become Firelord. Her identity is unraveled and called into question - Ursa made manifest slips through the chinks in her armor, prying at insecurities. Her inner turmoil admittedly makes her a poor candidate for ascension, and at the pinnacle of Fire Nation victory, - the crucial, final stages of the Hundred Year War - past rulers would look down on Ozai’s decision to usher her onto a seat of absolute power. Sozin’s Comet itself is an event that imbues firebenders with enhanced abilities, and it’s been theorized before that the “acting up” of royalty during the finale could be explained as such. The phenomenon may have also caused the reemergence of imperial spirits... and it isn’t too far of a fetch. More on that shortly.

It’s made clear that Azula’s destiny is far from holding royal court. The comics throw around that word, “destiny” a lot, but it’s a given signpost for any projected arc in the world of Avatar. And it ties in nicely with the will and workings of spirits.

Roping predestination with the probable dissatisfaction of the lineage, we finally have a whole picture. The combined force of an upended natural order, demanding the Avatar-slayer’s penance, and a royal bloodline destabilizing her reign in its infancy... planting mistrust and paranoia, and causing rash decisions. From a cherry pit to five minutes’ tardiness, Azula’s clarity and self-assurance are hacked away.

This is inviting the subversion that it wasn’t all in her head. That the Azula who readily accepts the Phoenix King’s declaration is rattled and isolated at best, but far from the composure that took just one afternoon to shatter. Zhao and Ozai face justice at the hands of the spiritual. The third main villain of ATLA might not have escaped due consequence either.

Finally, this scene. Azula, ensconced in blue flames. Is there any suggestion of the presence of spirits?

Azula’s fire is blue for purposes of flaunting her skill and sheer drive for perfection. The hottest temperature is blue in color, exactly her achievement. The technique isn’t bothered with because it saps extra effort, and so Azula’s signature symbol of power is hers alone. Fitting. But the fact remains: after leaving her hands, the fire quickly cools to orange. See below:

This color change isn’t seen in Azula’s throne room. The fire surrounding her is definitely detached from her body.

Now, it’s obvious why the animators didn’t suddenly decide to give the iconic blue a rest... but it’s incredibly intriguing from the imperial spirits angle. If Azula herself wasn’t keeping up the blue flame, then at the time of “Into the Inferno”, we’re staring into the faces of invisible devils on her shoulder, supplying the driving energy from the beyond. Onis whispering unseen evils down her ear that cause her, inevitably, to snap - the voices of Sozin and Azulon, a hundred sprawling generations. The cherry on the top is Ursa, descendant of the liaison between mortal and spirit that Azula personally killed, who torments her long after she’s relieved of the crown.

“Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way.”

Hello Future Me describes Azula’s personality as a Machiavellian type, named after the guy who coined “It’s better to be feared than loved.” Watching her escalation unfold, it’s sad to wonder how someone as fearsome as her responds to being the recipient of that fear - when her own weapon turned on its hilt cuts too deep.

IV. End!

I think the scene above - the girl who opens with this directly after the demise of an admiral who engaged the incarnate of the tides (and swiftly lost), is a bit telling of her fate.

*To clarify, my framing of Ursa’s appearance as spookier than just a figment of Azula’s imagination - *cough* possibly the personified revenge of the Avatar spirit - is NOT meant to demonize Ursa herself! It just offers up an alternative explanation to what Azula hears and sees. Their bond is a poignant standalone, and I don’t mean to hate on the real Ursa/Noriko. Neither does any part of this discredit the impact of Azula’s childhood and history of neglect on her future.

That is all. Thank you for entertaining my theory!

#atla #avatar the last airbender #azula #atla theory #it’s 3 am no regrets

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alectology-archive · 4 years

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Honestly I like Zutara, and I have done so since the show was still airing. However, I do not like the fandom's bias towards Aang and Katara now. That is, disliking Aang for not being a conventionally attractive "hot" boy or something like Zuko. And all the misogyny directed towards Katara and seemingly only her to ptop up other characters like Sokka and even Azula. It comes across as racist and misogynistic.

And the thing is: You can't blame the show for this. Because the show does give Aang his arc. It gives Katara her arc. It gives them great moments of growth and developtment and great dialogue and scenes that just won't leave you from how iconic they are. It's really the fandom's fault, 'cause they let shipping and personal preference get in the way of what the show and characters are actually like and what it's message is. Judging others based on appeareance is something the show goes agaisn't.

I think this might also be a problem of the newer fandom discovering ATLA but watching it pretty much all at once instead of seasonally. The old fandom had more respect and love for the characters of Aang and Katara, but that's because we had to watch them grow but seasonally. So when a character learned something or became stronger it was special because you had to wait months to see it. You had time to really appreciate it. Whereas with Netflix it was all at once, and that affects perception.

I have a lot of thoughts™ about the fandom at the moment, but you’ve accurately summarised a lot of what is wrong with it. I really dislike the amount of disdain that some people in the fandom have for Zutara and the way they thirst over a sixteen year old boy. I hate how they crack jokes that Katara is hOmOPhobiC and act like Azula is the ultimate lesbian (who, in fact, manipulated and really hurt her friends). I hate how they fetishise and sexualise Zukka, how they like to pretend that it’s any different from Zutara (but just gay), and how the fandom conveniently either chooses to ignore Katara or make fun of her for being the only responsible and level-headed person in the Gaang apart from Suki. It’s pretty clear that Katara being a woman of colour with dark skin is the reason she’s getting all the hate, and she absolutely does not deserve it.

I think you really do might have a point about how binge-watching shows affects our perception about the content. What takes twenty minutes in a binge watch can never actually match up to a week’s worth of building up, ruminating over the show’s content, and allowing the story to really sink in.

At the end of the day, fans just need to calm down and stop stanning ships so hard that you set off shipping wars. You need to respect why people like something, and not put them down for it. Don’t pull the “I don’t see what this ship has going for it” card either, because this is fiction, and there are tens of thousands of ways in which it can be interpreted, and a thing called “headcanon” exists. Don’t blame a character and hold them responsible for biases that the creators had. Don’t make a big thing out of a character making mistakes (which the characters eventually grow past). Don’t blatantly ignore canon evidence that a character grows.

Instead of getting involved in this sort of petty nonsense, you could be spending time discussing the interesting details in the show and actually having fun.

I’m bringing up the Zutara rant at the end, because I’m tired of the stans. I really love the ship itself and the set up for it was pretty great. We get a sun/moon, fire/water parallel and a blue spirit/painted lady parallel. We have an enemies-to-lovers trope going for it too. But despite how objectively good it is, I have some really negative thoughts about Zutara shippers because of how aggressive they are. Boy do they love to point out at random x thing Aang did in season 1 and say that this makes him insensitive and abusive. I can’t believe I have to say this, but this is wrong. Don’t go after a 12 year old kid and call him ‘abusive’ just because you’re upset with what happened in canon. You need help if you’re going to start piling hate on a kid. And as the show’s protagonist and a child, Aang is definitely bound to make mistakes, so that he can grow past them. There wouldn’t be a point to making him a protagonist otherwise.

(Yes, Zutara shippers are also to blame for the recent distaste I’ve developed for the ship and I dislike how they sexualise Zuko. I don’t like that they thirst after a boy just because he falls under some of the conventional “hot” and angsty guy tropes and sometimes reduce him to just that. It makes me wonder how many of them dislike Aang as a romantic love interest because people don’t seem to love sweet, kind and gentle boys in media as much as they like they angsty ones).

#atla #avatar the last airbender #aang #katara #zuko #zukka #zutara #azula #sokka #this is an old ask sorry for that #I was just looking for the 'right' time to publish it I don't know what it is #I finally got around to finishing it #and sorry it turned out to be such a long rant #I'm just tired about a lot of things

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zukkacore · 4 years

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i didn’t know people were being racist shits in their sokka depictions ?? Also why would people portray him as dumb did they even watch the show? ugh, i feel the same about lance from voltron (those two guys rlly remind me so much of each other) but in voltron the show itself treated lance like trash so i can at least see where the confusion comes from. i’ve only seen one season of atla but love sokka with all my heart and have heard he got a gr8 arc ahead of him

Yeah ngl my exposure to it has been thankfully minimal (I’m picky abt which Atla ppl I follow ngl) but I still see & hear abt it on Twitter and shit & here too. Idk ppl treat him purely as flat comic relief which is so dumb bc imo he has the second best arc in the show (like, after zuko) & has some of the most obvious growth? He’s clearly brilliant and necessary to the dynamic of the gaang bc he’s a strategist & an innovator and incredibly resourceful and creative. Sokka’s idea of a “vacation” was to go to the library! I literally have no idea where ppl get these horrible ideas abt him being useless and stupid are, I rly think they’re just buying into their own racist biases. Or they take the most offhand gags and assume that’s his entire personality and ignore any contributions he makes to the gaang. Like, he’s not the best artist, or he forgets Toph is blind sometimes & for some reason this gives ppl cart blanche to act like he’s an idiot.

(Actually I have a theory abt this bc I think ppl just have a lack of understanding or empathy for characters that display adhd traits whether coded or stated canonically, just look at the way everyone is HORRIBLE to Percy Jackson or Leo as an example & mischaracterize both of them as stupid when rly they’re both smart they’re just kinda out-of-sight-out of mind type ppl. Sokka can be selectively forgetful and he just can’t help that! He’s not always the best communicator, oh mood)

I’ve joked abt him being dense before but it’s with the caveat that he’s mostly just a dumbass in the way most teenage boys are dumbasses? Like, i call Zuko a dumbass too but they’re both smart, they’re literally just both teenagers and teenagers have some real brainrot moments. Really It’s nice when Sokka gets to be childish & silly honestly (bc ppl mischaracterize him as all sunshine too which is not the case like he’s cynical and snarky but he also paints rainbows into scenes when there aren’t any!)!He’s a 15 yr old traumatized by imperialism, he deserves moments of playfulness. But ppl take moments of him getting an actual childhood as signs that he’s “immature”.

(People treat Katara in a similar way, honestly they’re probably worse to her bc she’s also a girl & misogyny in fandom is nothing new they just depict her in the flattest way possible like she’s nothing more than a motherly figure.)

Also bring up the show that shall not be named to me omg. Bc I’ll have a chip on my shoulder abt the v-slur forever bc I ADORE Lance McClain (Lance 🤝 me = Latines w inexplicably white last names) but that show treated him like garbage and I am STILL heated abt it, but so did the fans. The show had no idea what to do w him but he was like weirdly important to me for a show that I now hold so much hostility for in my heart of hearts

Ppl just don’t know how to write or sympathize w (bisexual) brown boys & I would say idk why but I think we know the answer. All they do is get reduced to jokes and their intelligence gets diminished. But the think abt Sokka is that he IS a well written character and sadly that’s rare as hel. Ppl wanna fit zvkka into their fav cliche mlm conventions so bad but like they’re both PEOPLE, they’re both interesting people with rich characterization and I think they would have a genuine connection based on common interests & complimentary temperaments. The fact that Sokka and Zuko can both be grumps is actually something I rly like abt the pairing! The fact that they’re both nerds who have an appreciation for the arts! the fact that they have parallels in their arcs as they cope w feeling inferior to their prodigy sisters! And there ARE fans who I know treat the relationship w respect and nuance (lol, fans of color) but we have to get lumped in w ppl who I don’t feel like I any affiliation with & openly critique (& imo zvkka as a ship w a bad reputation isn’t comparable to a case like r*ylo bc even tho I didn’t see any chill r*ylos anyway, I think willfully ignoring Finn/John Boyega’s importance to the sequels trilogy & enabling or outright contribution to his harassment & willingly associating w a fandom like that is causing harm to an real black person irl. Zvkka has it’s problematic implications bc Zuko is a former colonizer but bc they’re fictional characters I think there’s a way it can be handled more ethically than others, but way too many ppl don’t give a shit abt that and just indulge in ya kno, racism)

#dont reblog djdkkdkd /#anon #jan.ask

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thetpot · 3 years

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I just read you 10 stories post and I never knew you wrote Once upon a play and inconveniences. For some reason I realy love Once Upon a Play since it is such a fun story! So I had a question, since I think that I can safely assume you won't finish any of your old work. How were all you old stories supposed to end? So inconvenieces, on the sands of time (which is also a good story but just never got that far), etc. And maybe even what happened with Aang and Zuko later in Once Upon a play, since being gay illegal was in the fire nation.

oh my god, i’m screaming that someone who read my old work found me. biting my fist and screaaaming.

first of all, i’m glad you enjoyed them :) all those stories have big (huge, gargantuan, unavoidable!!!) issues but writing them brought me joy too. once upon a play especially was such a shitshow lmaoo, i was hammering out like 4000 word chapters a day and then doing the whole shitty “comment for an update thing” in the a/n. ew lol, anway :)

yes, it’s safe to assume i’ll never finish them. maybe i’ll adapt the concept for once upon a play and revamp it with more of an understanding of how ember island players was imperialist propaganda rather than just a cutesy fun play. something like: what might it mean for certain earth kingdom political figures, who perhaps were doing better under the fire nation (currying the fire nation’s favour by weakening the earth kingdom’s infrastructure), to leverage something outrageous like a play claiming the scion of the fire nation and the last airbender are in an illicit affair, and use it to weaken specifically zuko’s position back home and threaten to destabilize the peace. something along those lines.

i also quite like on the sands of time, but i’m iffy now on divorcing the characters from the world of atla and dropping them in some ahistoric middle eastern setting. i’d have to think long and hard on what kind of cultural and religious influences i want to include and what i want to ignore. it’s unlikely but if i was to work on any of them again, i’d pick those two.

as for how they were going to finish (or at least what was planned next, because i did not used to entirely outline all my fics, i think that might be obvious on re-reading once upon a play especially lmaooo), some elements i wanted to explore in inconveniences was that toph and iroh had an existing friendship that aang and zuko didn't know about, big party at sokka and katara's house, shenanigans with jet at that party, zuko and jet finally ending their fling at some point. aang's central arc within that story was basically this (taken from an old zipped file in the depths of my google drive, i didn't even remember i had this anymore lol): aang is tired of the sheltered life has been forced to live under gyatso’s wing. dissatisfied with his life, he is convinced that the answer lies in the conventional teen life – in parties, girls and alcohol. almost everything he does throughout the course of the story is in an attempt to live life to the fullest, to find the key to making himself feel whole for the first time in his life. however, as the story progresses, aang realizes that the void in his life does not need alcohol or drugs or parties or girls to fill it. he realizes that the only thing lacking in his life may have been maturity on his part.

which is yaknow… some characterization? not sure how i feel about it now, but at least, it's something lol.

as for zuko, he comes to realize the full extent of his disillusionment from life and considers that aang may be the key to fixing it once and for all. as the story progresses, zuko tries to find with jet the connection he feels with aang but is disappointed when he realizes that jet is nothing like the person he imagined him to be.

even though jet initially appears to only be a conventional villain, he is later fleshed out as we see that zuko is his safe zone, the only person with whom he relaxes. this connection, however, is negated by the fact that jet constantly does things to sabotage his relationship with zuko.

the thing about jet is interesting because it's more nuance than i gave him within the story in the first 8 chapters. i'm not convinced how well i would have been able to execute those layers of his characterization but yaknow, i guess it's nice to know i wasn't just trying to demonize him? i can promise you that i had no intention 11 years ago of extending even an ounce of that same nuance to the female characters, sadly.

anyway, the story was intended to wind down with aang being really reckless with his freedom, gyatso returning and aang needing to reckon with the fact that his actions have consequences (probably something to do with accidentally outing zuko since he treated his relationship with jet with a lot of disregard in the story, as far as i remember), and aang needing to repair his relationship with gyatso once he returns.

i'm iffy on the characterization of aang, looking back, but i won't say much on it coz it's a characterization, i guess? just not the one i'd go for if i was writing aang today.

as for on the sands of time, the next phase of the story would have been zuko realizing that azula is hot on their heels and separating from the group, realizing he cannot best azula on his own and so deciding to play double-agent with azula and string her along long enough to allow aang a chance of survival. azula and zuko would then chase them to the edge of the desert and gyatso dies before he can tell aang he is the avatar. to escape azula (and zuko), aang ends up bending both water and air.

as per gyatso's instructions, aang, katara and sokka venture deeper into the desert and along the way run into suki and the kyoshi warriors (who guard the boundary deeper into the desert), jet and his pals (who guard a part of the desert with huge geoglyphs of animals in exchange for the spirits granting them reduced dependence on water and food) and also zuko as the blue spirit. as they progress through the desert, they are aided by two mysterious figures who seem to be aiding them (surprise, it’s zuko and azula because the ozai actually does want aang to end up at the spirit gathering, he just wants to engineer that arrival to exploit that spirit energy for... something?).

end of the story, zuko and azula finally catch up, big fight between azula, zuko, the gaang, the freedom fighters and the spirits, and zuko almost dies. aang goes into the avatar state for the first time. and apparently, according to my bizzare notes, that's the end of volume 1 (?!!!). i literally forgot until this very moment that it was supposed to be a multi-volume story (lmao what). basically volume 1 was supposed to build this attraction between zuko and aang which comes to a head at the end of volume 1, when aang's distress at seeing zuko hurt activates the avatar state, and zuko nearly gets aang killed by revealing his hand to azula.

and then there's volume 2 (?! i still can't get over 12 year old me's ambition lmao). after the gaang and zuko flee from azula, both he and aang acknowledge their feelings for one another but iroh back in the white lotus is well aware that zuko is endangering the avatar because of his feelings and assigns someone else to protect the gaang. zuko leaves without telling aang, but instead of recalling zuko back to the city where iroh is, he makes zuko stay in the same city where aang is. aang tracks him down and they run into each other constantly while aang masters earthbending, and tension builds between zuko and aang as they resist their feelings for one another. the major conflict of this volume is when iroh tries to assign someone else as aang's firebending teacher. shenanigans ensue, tension galore. meanwhile, azula moves in to attack the city and once again, zuko and the gaang run (definitely sensing some repetition here lmao).

and then i never outlined volume 3 because i was a moron - an adorably ambitious one, but alas, one lacking the discipline to write what i think was supposed to be a 150k+ saga (?!).

as for what comes after once upon a play, i can promise you i barely thought about what was going to happen next in that story, much less what would happen after it.

anywho, i hope that answers your question :). it was nice to pull out my decade old notebook and realize i still had all these notes squirreled away somewhere lol.

#asks #thanks for the ask anon #looking back now it's very galling to see how i depicted specifically katara and the misogyny and racism inherent in that depiction #not to mention the rampant homophobia in my actual depictions of zuko and aang #not gonna tag this with any ships just to be on the safe side #as joyful as the experience of writing them was #i still feel a distinct dread in revisiting those fics and especially mentioning them on this tumblr #just because of how huge my blind spots were in my own biases #it just reminds me that if i didn't see those blind spots back then #i could still be missing huge things today #it's a hell of a thing

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 4 years

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Femslash February Day 25

Prompt: Sword Fandom: Avatar Pair: Azula/Mai Summary: Mai gets stabbed and Azula has to help her.

It is only when the sword meets Mai’s chest that Azula realizes how much she cares for the woman. She throws a furious bolt of lightning into the main who’d delivered the blow. He drops in an instant.

“Mai…” Azula fives the woman’s cheeks a few light slaps, trying to rouse her into alertness. “Mai, don’t leave me again.”

Mai mumbles something incoherent. Azula cups Mai’s face in her hands. It seems that they had only just made amends.

“You were fine the first time.” Mai winced.

“I lost my mind, Mai.” She reminds quietly.

Mai sighs. “Yeah, well, you won't be alone this time. You’ll have TyLee and Zuko....”

“I want you.” Azula replies. “I need you, Mai.” She finds herself longing to be a waterbender so that she could mend Mai’s wounds.

“You’ll be fine.” Mai assures her. She reaches out and brushes Azula’s bangs aside.

But she doesn’t think that she will be. If Mai dies now she knows that the image will never leave her mind. The sword arcing through the air. She is unable to act quickly enough. That horrid wet squelch and a rush of blood. Even if she lives, Azula thinks that the memory will continue to replay itself in her dreams.

“You all think that I’m stronger than I am.”

Mai frowns, “don’t start doing that…”

“I couldn’t protect you.”

“If I can’t protect myself then I can’t expect you to.”

That is exactly how Azula imagines that it doesn’t work. “I should have been able.”

Mai draws a shuddering, struggled breath and Azula’s unease grows deeper. She coughs and a bubble of blood seeps through her lips. “Don’t leave me Mai. I…” she hesitates. “I love you.”

“Oh, spirits! Seriously?” She gives a choking laugh.

Azula’s cheeks burn.

“You waited until now to say that?”

Azula swallows, she should have mentioned sooner. Should have, should have. There are so many of those. And there will only be more if she can’t get herself together and allows herself to go weak and useless. Abruptly, she pulls her hand out of Mai’s and scans her surroundings.

“Do you have any darts that aren’t laced?” Her voice is much shakier than she would have liked.

“I have three that I didn’t get around to poisoning.” Mai responds weakly.

“Give them to me.”

Mai slips them from her sleeves.

Azula breaks the needle off and rips a seam from her robes. “Try not to move too much.”

Mai clenches her teeth at the needles first bite. Azula musters as much of her cold apathy as she can manage. By the eighth stitch, Mai is pleading with Azula to just stop and let her go. Seeing and hearing so much emotion and torment from someone so normally deadpan has Azula tensing further. She focuses on the moment that Mai had left her for Zuko. Left her alone, abandoned, and with the sting of betrayal. Dwelling on it until she has reduced Mai to nothing but that one moment. Allows herself to simmer in her former hatred. She, for a time, can ignore the woman’s pained requests.

“There’s something wrong with you!” Mai accuses.

She almost drops the needle.

.oOo.

Azula keeps her distance. Mai had looked at her with such rage and hatred. Maybe she had no right to force her to endure that. I WIas it not her right to choose death over suffering?

But Azula likes to think that, that had been the pain talking. Still she can’t put aside her guilt. This is what she has been reduced to; an awkward, guilt-riddled mess. She rakes her hand through her hairline.

“Mai wants to talk to you.” TyLee says.

Azula wanders into the infirmary.

“I’m the one who got impaled, so why are you the one who looks so rough?”

“I haven’t slept since it happened.” Azula admits. “It comes back in my dreams, just like I thought it would.” It among other memories that she can’t seem to suppress.

“At least you didn’t just sit there and cry about it.” Mai shrugs. “You did something.”

But she had come close to just giving up. Precariously close. “You’re angry with me.” She says flatly.

“Why do you think that?”

“You asked me what was wrong with me.”

Mai cringes, she knows that she had it a raw spot. “I wasn’t thinking straight.” She pauses. “You weren’t either; I mean, you told me that you loved me.”

“I was.” Azula refuts. “I was thinking straight. For once. I do love you and that’s why I had to save you.” She pauses. “Even if you can’t love me, I had to save you.”

Mai rolls her eyes. “Is everyone in your family so dramatic? I can love you, Azula.” She takes her hand. “You’re aggravating to be around sometimes and you’re very hard to deal with, but I’ve done it since we were kids. I can love you.”

Azula squeezes her hand. “Thank you.”

#femslashfeb2020 #avatar #Azula #Mai #Azula/Mai #Fanfiction

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firelxdykatara · 5 years

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1, 9 and 25 for the tv show/movie ask!

TOP FIVE TV SHOWS: This changes a lot but I’ll go with the most consistent ones I can think of!

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, it’s very dated, and yes, Joss Whedon ain’t shit, but this remains one of my all-time favorite shows, and Buffy Summers remains one of my favorite characters, and there are so many episodes I can watch again and again and never get bored. It has a magic to it that even Angel could never quite capture, and I always find myself going back to it when I’m not sure what to watch but just want something that I’ll enjoy.

2. Avatar: the Last Airbender: Obviously, given my blog name, I have a deep and abiding love for this series. Is it perfect? Of course not, and there are some major things I wish were different, but overall it’s an amazing show with fantastic characters and a brilliant overarching plot, and it manages to stand up to modern scrutiny even though it’s been over a decade since it finished airing.

3. The Nanny. To this day, The Nanny is probably my favorite sitcom of all time. It was released in the 90s, but unlike a lot of sitcoms of the era (Friends immediately comes to mind, though they weren’t the worst offender) the vast majority of its humor doesn’t rely on ‘no homo’ jokes or misogyny/transphobic gags. (There are some off-color jokes, of course--it was the nineties. But this is one of the few shows where I can watch 90% of the episodes without cringing.) Most of the humor is centered around Fran’s hilarious antics, and it’s still a show I can put on whenever I need a good laugh, and it will never disappoint.

4. Leverage. I just love this show so much. A bunch of thieves come together for a job with one (1) honest man to give them a plan, and suddenly they’ve become a family who steal from the rich to give to the poor and disenfranchised and I love every since one of them. Even Nate. Plus, the ot3 is real. Hitter Hacker Thief owns my goddamn soul.

5. Person of Interest. Listen, it was a fantastic show, and yeah it got a little weird near the end, and also Joss Carter deserved better, but it had two of the most fucking cathartic and viscerally satisfying villain deaths I have ever seen in my life. “Oh, no, I’m not gonna kill you--I’m just gonna watch.” and “Now I surrender.” Just.... poetic fucking cinema, ok???

TOP FIVE CHARACTERS: Same deal, this is a list that will change frequently, but these are my most consistent faves:

1. Elena Gilbert from The Vampire Diaries. Surprising absolutely no one who was around for my TVD fandom days, or who has seen me talking about anything TVD related, Elena fucking Gilbert is my girl forever and she deserved so much better. From the show and from the gods forsaken fandom. I’m not gonna get into it cause I don’t need to be dropping thousands of words for an ask meme post, but evidently Elena was the harbinger signaling my love for orphaned brunettes with doe eyes and pain hidden behind a smile, but I just love her so goddamn much and I always will.

2. Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She saved the world. A lot. She’s my absolute favorite character from BtVS and frankly she deserved better, too--fuck absolutely everyone after Empty Places--but I just... love her so much. And her arc in season 6 means so much to me as someone constantly struggling with depression and ptsd (mine is related to childhood trauma, but that’s not beside the point). Buffy is far from perfect, and she makes mistakes, but she does the job literally no one else can do, and she’s so incredibly strong. I can’t imagine going through what she went through and not completely breaking down.

3. Emma Swan from Once Upon a Time. Ok, so not a brunette, but still a woman with severe abandonment issues who grew up believing she was an orphan and kept being punished by the show, and who definitely deserved better. (No, I’m not over the ending to season 4, and I never will be.) My one comfort is knowing that she fell in love with a man who loved and cherished and appreciated her just as much as she deserved, and she got to live a long and happy life with him and their daughter.

4. Katara from Avatar: the Last Airbender. Again probably not a surprise, given my blog, but I just. I love Katara so much. And she deserved so much better than what LoK reduced her to, and where the fuck was her statue, Bryke??? Where????? Anyway, she’s the ultimate Mom Friend who won’t hesitate to cut a bitch if they hurt her friends, and I just think she’s amazing.

5. Rogue from Marvel. Just... every version of her. Rogue was my favorite character from the original X-Men trilogy, which was my first real introduction to Marvel, and she was my favorite character in X-Men: Evolution, and by the time I finally got to actually read some of her comics I loved her even more. While I still love her in the original trilogy I also wish they’d given Anna Paquin more to work with, bc she sure fucking could have done it (and she’s even said she would’ve loved to be able to fly and punch people, and I 100% think she could’ve pulled off Rogue’s natural sass brilliantly), and she’s one of my all-time faves and has been for almost twenty years.

TOP FIVE SHIPS: -laughs nervously- i can only choose five???

1. Katara and Zuko from Avatar: the Last Airbender. Anyone who’s surprised, feel free to stand on your head. >.> LISTEN, OK, JUST LISTEN. Zuko and Katara had an amazing emotional journey in canon, and I love so much how their relationship developed, and there’s so much potential for how they could have grown as a couple and I just. This is why we have fanfic and fanart. (And frankly, I’m glad they weren’t canon--given what was done to the canon ships, I wouldn’t trust Bryke with them. I shudder to think what would’ve happened to Zutara if they were canon and Bryke was in charge of their story.)

2. Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls from Veronica Mars. Listen, we’re just gonna... ignore the last five minutes of 4x08 (and Rob Thomas can fucking bite me). I spent a decade loving these two utter fools and I finally got to see them get fucking married and they are going to live long and happy lives and Veronica’s always gonna Veronica but Logan loves her and she loves him and they’ll work through any problems they have together like mature, rational adults, and they’ll keep solving mysteries cause trouble sticks to V like a bad rash and Logan will always be there to help her, and nothing can take that away from me.

3. Emma Swan and Killian Jones from Once Upon a Time. Killian’s redemption arc is probably second only to Zuko’s, and I fucking love how much he loves Emma Swan. It’s what she deserves. They build each other up and love and cherish each other so goddamn much and I still get choked up just thinking about them. (Usually I pretend that their wedding went off without a hitch and s7 didn’t happen because there was REALLY no need. This trend of shows continuing after their female leads bail needs to stop, I’ve literally never seen it end in anything except the show being panned for however many seasons it ran after the lead’s departure, and rightfully so.)

4. Elena Gilbert and Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries. The show did them so fucking dirty in the later seasons, but fuck if those first four seasons of amazing development don’t still fuck me up. And however much TVD ran itself into the ground, I will always have Elena, and Delena, and my love for them despite how awful the show became.

5. Rikki Chadwick and Zane Bennett from H2O: Just Add Water. Season 3 can bite me, Rikki and Zane were happy together and Zane had so much growth from the jackass he was at the beginning of season 1, and no way would he have cheated on Rikki even for a moment. They deserved so much better my gods.

#fave tv shows #fave characters #fave ships #Anonymous #asked

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