f1reladymai

[f1reladymai]

there is a serious lack of discussion about how mai is zuko’s safe space. we see this in their first appearance together (that’s not a flashback). when mai asks him a simple question, “aren’t you cold?” and zuko, who has a hard time opening up and expressing emotions that aren’t anger or angst, freely and openly starts to tell her his worries about going back to the fire nation. and while people love to chastise mai on her reply, “I just asked if you were cold, I didn’t ask for your whole life story”, I think they misunderstand her approach to this. zuko is worrying and overthinking about something he cannot change, something that will only drive him crazy and she tries to distract him with a joke. and it might fall flat, but she realises this and suddenly she is comforting him with her touch. her hand reaching out so casually towards scar like it’s not a big deal, because it’s not. they’ve known each other for a long time, they’ve grown up together and their relationship was a long time coming. and zuko leans into her hand, and her kiss, without thinking twice about it. because mai is familiar, and mai is comfort and that can be seen when you contrast it to song’s attempting at touch his scar, and how quickly he was to stop her. but it’s not only this moment that showcases mai as his safe space, but also when he’s back in the fire nation. when he’s stressed out and going through a tumultuous time, not knowing what’s right and wrong or what he should do next, it’s mai he goes to. we see this in “nightmares and daydreams” when he spends all day at her house, when he can’t stand being in the palace anymore, mai and her house and her bedroom is his safe space. and here we see her trying to comfort him, trying to say the war meeting is stupid, it would be be boring anyway, and shall we go for a ride around town? it’ll be fun… and even though he’s still sad, he goes back to her house on the day of the war meeting and she’s making him tea. and even when he does get invited to the all day war meeting, she goes to the palace with him and waits for him all day, to see if it went well and to comfort him if it didn’t. when he says that it was everything he thought wanted it to be, she’s immediately happy for him, reaching out to touch him with a smile on her face. mai is who zuko feels safe and comfortable around, even in his vulnerable moments and it’s something we should talk about.

#yes yes #excellent edition #the fall back into each other so easily despite being apart for 3 years #!! #txt post: maiko

[f1reladymai]

“White Flag” by Dido and “When the Party’s Over” by Billie Eilish are great Maiko songs during the Smoke and Shadow era. What are your thoughts? 

ANONNNN HOW WEIRD OMFG… the way I was listening to White Flag TODAY and I was going to tweet about how it was so Zuko during Smoke and Shadow but I was underground so I didn’t !! you and me are so synced up, it’s crazy 😌

but yes, I mean the lyrics, especially the first verse and chorus:

I know you think that I shouldn't still love you

Or tell you that

But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it

Where's the sense in that?

I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder

Or return to where we were

But I will go down with this ship

And I won't put my hands up and surrender

There will be no white flag above my door

I'm in love and always will be

this is particularly him in the catacombs when he has that conversation with Mai about how much he misses her:

I mean, c’monnnnn !! In fact, I’m gonna tweet it now that I’m not underground hehe !!

as for “when the party’s over” I never thought of it as a maiko song but after re listening to it just now, yes it is !! although I can’t quiet decided if it’s from Zuko or Mai’s POV. Initially I thought Zuko, but I think it could work with Mai too:

tore my shirt to stop you bleeding

but nothing ever stops you leaving

kinda like she’s willing to do anything for him (go to prison, hire Kyoshi guards for him, tell him he can always come to her) but he has a hard time opening up, “leaving” in a sense? and that causes her to pull away?

#noreen’s asks #anon

[f1reladymai]

there is a serious lack of discussion about how mai is zuko’s safe space. we see this in their first appearance together (that’s not a flashback). when mai asks him a simple question, “aren’t you cold?” and zuko, who has a hard time opening up and expressing emotions that aren’t anger or angst, freely and openly starts to tell her his worries about going back to the fire nation. and while people love to chastise mai on her reply, “I just asked if you were cold, I didn’t ask for your whole life story”, I think they misunderstand her approach to this. zuko is worrying and overthinking about something he cannot change, something that will only drive him crazy and she tries to distract him with a joke. and it might fall flat, but she realises this and suddenly she is comforting him with her touch. her hand reaching out so casually towards scar like it’s not a big deal, because it’s not. they’ve known each other for a long time, they’ve grown up together and their relationship was a long time coming. and zuko leans into her hand, and her kiss, without thinking twice about it. because mai is familiar, and mai is comfort and that can be seen when you contrast it to song’s attempting at touch his scar, and how quickly he was to stop her. but it’s not only this moment that showcases mai as his safe space, but also when he’s back in the fire nation. when he’s stressed out and going through a tumultuous time, not knowing what’s right and wrong or what he should do next, it’s mai he goes to. we see this in “nightmares and daydreams” when he spends all day at her house, when he can’t stand being in the palace anymore, mai and her house and her bedroom is his safe space. and here we see her trying to comfort him, trying to say the war meeting is stupid, it would be be boring anyway, and shall we go for a ride around town? it’ll be fun… and even though he’s still sad, he goes back to her house on the day of the war meeting and she’s making him tea. and even when he does get invited to the all day war meeting, she goes to the palace with him and waits for him all day, to see if it went well and to comfort him if it didn’t. when he says that it was everything he thought wanted it to be, she’s immediately happy for him, reaching out to touch him with a smile on her face. mai is who zuko feels safe and comfortable around, even in his vulnerable moments and it’s something we should talk about.

#txt post #atla #avatar the last airbender #zuko #prince zuko #fire lord zuko #avatar: the last airbender #a:tla #txt post: maiko #mai #fire lady mai #zuko&mai #pro maiko #maiko #mai&zuko #fire nation #mai atla #atla mai #atla maiko

[f1reladymai]

They could never make me hate Maiko when Mai was willing to die for him and Zuko looks like a dopey puppy every time she is involved and Mai will let her walls down around him and Zuko is the only one who can earnestly make her laugh and Mai threw mud at him when they were kids and Zuko was so ready to jump to her defense when Azula lit a apple on fire on her head and Mai can touch his scar like it’s not even there and Zuko thinks she’s so beautiful when she hates the world and Mai trusts him so implicitly that she’d betray her nation, friends, and family for him and Zukos only regret when leaving the fire nation was also leaving her and Mai tries her hardest to work past her own issues to support him in his struggles and Zuko genuinely loves it when she expresses herself and Mai who doesn’t like hugs will be so cuddly and touchy only with him and Zuko knows she doesn’t need anyone to protect her and Mai loves him more than she fears Azula…

Maiko the ship that you are… they could never make me hate you

#ugh they are everything #txt post: maiko

[f1reladymai]

These posts are so painful

-Fire ladies are irrelevant asf. They are not leading anything

-Katara could never be the fire lady cuz she loves her CULTURE/IDENTITY

-The fire nation killed her mother, and yes, that's important. She's not gonna live in Sozin's room

-KATARA JUST DOESN'T WANT TO BE FIRE LADY

leave this girl alone if you don't understand her arc/character

#yes #100% #this is what I always say #she would be a community organiser activist (even politician I’m sceptical about) #an environmentalist #a teacher #her ass would NOT be a monarch especially in the fucking fire nation get real #thank you kataraslove #anti zutara #I guess #anti racist takes lol #txt post: katara

[f1reladymai]

Michi & Mai, A:TLA 2.03 | Izumi, A:TLOK 4.09

#that’s her mama

[f1reladymai]

QUARTER FINALS, MATCH 4

Maiko previously defeated: Korroh, Mingzan, Zhurrick

Tyzula previously defeated: Borra, Tophuki, Maizula

#c’mon everyoneeeee #voting

[f1reladymai]

ID: digital full body illustration of Mai and Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender standing next to each other looking front with original clothing. Mai has dark long hair with bangs and two braids. She’s wearing a white turtleneck shirt, a deep v-necked dark-red robe with gold and white beaded trimming in the chest, wide sleeves and legs reaching her ankles, a shorter reddish-brown skirt open at the front and black boots. Her accesories are long earrings and necklace with a big circular pendant, both in silver and red, a long black belt with silver studs that goes down below her knees and three knives in her left hand. Zuko has loose hair, his signature scar on his left eye, he’s wearing a brownish-pink long sleeved shirt, dark brown trousers with vertical thin lines, and a dark-red sleeveless robe with yellow detailed trimmings, crossing over his chest in a “y” shape reaching his knees. He has black “riding” boots with three small silver studs in the center. His accesories are a black belt with silver buckle, a knife and cloth bag attached, finally he has wide silver bracelets with a fire flame carving. END ID.

Follow the artist on instagram @ceni.cero

Reposted with permission 

#so beautiful #fa: maiko

[f1reladymai]

I saw the person you responded to reiterating that the Water Tribes were never colonized.

https://www.tumblr.com/zauncomeon/747921571188015104

hey, thanks for sending me this. I’m pretty sure I’m blocked so I can’t respond, but tbh they don’t seem like they want to hear what I have to say anyway, even though that post ended with “even if they were a coloniser x colonised ship (which they are) I’d still ship them”.

like, cool. no one’s telling you not, but to deny that the SWT didn’t experience colonisation just because there weren’t any settler colonies or to dismiss genocide as if that isn’t a tool of colonisation/isn’t as bad is crazy.

they’re just in denial of the realities of their ship and are trying to sanitise it when they could just acknowledge it to try and avoid any distasteful fan work but they don’t.

#anti zutara #noreen’s asks #anon

[f1reladymai]

dragon dad zuko sketches xoxo *re-uploaded 

#sooo cute #I can hear his voice un the second panel lolll #fa: Zuko and Druk

[f1reladymai]

asfhkgj please tell me no one else has thought of this yet

#LMAOOO YESSS #to all of this #Sokka is constantly thinking ‘what would my gf do?’ #sksksk

[f1reladymai]

#best boys !! #platonic soulmates #fa: Aang x Zuko

[f1reladymai]

How I imagine a kataang/Maiko double date to go

#yes lmao 😭😭 #they are so affectionate in this show !! #meme: maiko #meme: kataang

[f1reladymai]

saying that the SWT was “completely left alone (wrong) besides the enacting of genocide” is a dismissive sentence and a crazy thing to “just” carve out.

I think it needs to be reiterated: The Water Tribes weren’t colonized. Katara does not have “colonial trauma”, as one post suggests. The Water Tribes were never claimed by anyone else and were left completely alone besides The Fire Nation enacting genocide. If we are going to discuss “zutara colonization discourse”, then please do it right. Especially if y’all are gonna write long essays about it, given that all that time writing would end being partially for nothing since the thing you’re focusing on isn’t relevant to what anyone is saying.

[f1reladymai]

thanks, I hope you have a horrible day considering how much you dismissed genocide in your initial post !

I think it needs to be reiterated: The Water Tribes weren’t colonized. Katara does not have “colonial trauma”, as one post suggests. The Water Tribes were never claimed by anyone else and were left completely alone besides The Fire Nation enacting genocide. If we are going to discuss “zutara colonization discourse”, then please do it right. Especially if y’all are gonna write long essays about it, given that all that time writing would end being partially for nothing since the thing you’re focusing on isn’t relevant to what anyone is saying.

[f1reladymai]

yeah, I can tell you “didn’t read all that” considering I explained how colonialism isn’t just land theft but, anyway, there’s only so much I can say to a dumb dumb lmao.

I think it needs to be reiterated: The Water Tribes weren’t colonized. Katara does not have “colonial trauma”, as one post suggests. The Water Tribes were never claimed by anyone else and were left completely alone besides The Fire Nation enacting genocide. If we are going to discuss “zutara colonization discourse”, then please do it right. Especially if y’all are gonna write long essays about it, given that all that time writing would end being partially for nothing since the thing you’re focusing on isn’t relevant to what anyone is saying.

[f1reladymai]

I think it needs to be reiterated: The Water Tribes weren’t colonized.

You have a very one dimensional way of thinking about colonisation. If you just google what the definition of colonisation is then you will get an answer that reflects settler colonialism (like we saw in the Earth Kingdom in A:TLA, real life examples include Hawai’i and Palestine) or exploitation colonialism (like we also saw in the Earth Kingdom real life examples include Congo and most other African countries).

But if you engaged in any academic definitions or any post colonial classes (which I’m not going to fault you if you haven’t, because I don’t know your area of study or how old you are) then you will see that there are other definitions that are more thought out by academics. One of these definitions is:

“Colonialism is a relationship of domination between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decision affecting the lives of the colonised people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonised population, the colonisers are convinced of their own superiority and of their ordained mandate rule” (Osterhammel, Frisch, Tignor, 17-18).

If we take this more thought out and researched definition of colonialism, then the Southern Water Tribe (SWT) was absolutely a victim of colonisation. It was dominated by foreign invaders (the Fire Nation (FN)), we saw this by the regular raids against the SWT and acts of violence committed against the indigenous population in order to subjugate them. Genocide (a decision made by the FN, the “foreign invaders”) was committed not only for the subjugation of the population, but also “in pursuit of interest” for the “distant metropolis” (FN) which was to kill all the waterbenders not only to weaken their population and army but also to ensure the cycle of the Avatar was stopped (the worlds last hope for peace).

If you are still uncomfortable with the word “colonialism” to describe what happened to the SWT, because they were no settler colonies, then a word you might find more appropriate to use is “imperialism” which is described as:

“a broad term that refers to economic, military, political domination that is achieved without significant permanent European settlement” (Kohn, 2006).

Either way, whether you chose the word colonialism or imperialism, the SWT was definitely a victim of the FN and just to say they “weren’t colonised” to make your argument is a gross oversimplification.

Katara does not have “colonial trauma”, as one post suggests.

What a thing to say. Katara (and Sokka) absolutely do have “colonial trauma” which is described as:

“a complex, continuous, collective, cumulative and compounding interaction of impacts related to the imposition of colonial policies and practices which continue to separate Indigenous Peoples from their land, languages, cultural practices, and one another” (Mitchell, Arseneau, Thomas, 75)

Not only have they been ripped away from important parts of their culture, with the waterbenders being killed off, which we can see in Book 1 Episode 1, with Katara barely being able to waterbend and the following interaction she has with Sokka:

Sokka: “Why is it that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked?”

Katara: “It's not "magic", it's waterbending! And it's-“

Sokka: “Yeah, yeah, "an ancient art unique to our culture", blah, blah, blah.”

With this interaction alone you can see that Katara has no idea how to control her waterbending and Sokka is so dismissive of it because he’s never seen it before despite it being an “ancient art unique to our culture” and Katara is trying her damned hardest, at 14 years old, to learn and keep that culture alive with seemingly nothing (no waterbending scrolls, text books, etc, indicating that the FN probably destroyed these in their raids), all on her own.

This is not the only thing that points to “colonial trauma” but their mother dying and father leaving is, of course, a big one. They both carry trauma from this, and we see it throughout the whole show. Katara feeling guilty because of her mother dying, connecting her mothers death with the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, trying her hardest to keep her mothers memory alive. Sokka forgetting what his mother looks like, despite looking exactly like her, taking on his mothers role as “protector” of his sister and village at the age of 15.

These are all trauma responses to colonial acts that the FN have committed or is a chain reaction to the FN’s brutal rule (their father leaving them and tasking them to take care of their village).

So I think it is safe to say they have “colonial trauma”, despite the FN not having colonies in the SWT, their other actions are enough.

The Water Tribes were never claimed by anyone else and were left completely alone besides The Fire Nation enacting genocide.

wow. okay. so we’ve already established that no colonies were in the SWT, but that does not mean they were “left completely alone” and the fact you said “besides The Fire Nation enacting genocide” so flippantly, like that isn’t such a big thing that will cause generational trauma, physically change to a populations brain chemistry and just be all in all a devastating thing for a population to face is absolutely astounding.

Yes, the FN did commit genocide and frequently did raids on the SWT, which is not ‘leaving them complete alone’. I don’t have much else to say on this, to be honest, but I’ll leave you with these images and think about how casually you dismissed genocide:

The SWT 40 years into the war:

The SWT 100 years into the war:

The SWT 70 years after the war:

If we are going to discuss “zutara colonization discourse”, then please do it right.

I hope after this you can see that just because there were no FN settler colonies in the SWT that doesn’t mean they weren’t colonised, people who use the colonisation “argument” are not incorrect and they are often colonised people (I’m not saying this means all colonised people have the same opinions, we are not a monolith and there are absolutely people who have been colonised who ship zutara but that doesn’t make the people who disagree with the ship because of the implications any less relevant/important).

I hope you are more open minded in the future and recognise the problems that could arise with the ship, I’m not saying people have to stop shipping them but maybe don’t get defensive over something that is factually correct and is written in the text of the show.

Especially if y’all are gonna write long essays about it, given that all that time writing would end being partially for nothing since the thing you’re focusing on isn’t relevant to what anyone is saying.

Again, I hope my “long essay” about this shows you how it is relevant to what is being discussed.

I think it needs to be reiterated: The Water Tribes weren’t colonized. Katara does not have “colonial trauma”, as one post suggests. The Water Tribes were never claimed by anyone else and were left completely alone besides The Fire Nation enacting genocide. If we are going to discuss “zutara colonization discourse”, then please do it right. Especially if y’all are gonna write long essays about it, given that all that time writing would end being partially for nothing since the thing you’re focusing on isn’t relevant to what anyone is saying.

#let me not even touch fire lady Katara lmao #anyway #anti zutara #zutara discourse #I forgot to add the bibliography at the end but if anyone wants it let me know or just google the authors it will come up