illycanary

[illycanary]

Toph is the little sister he deserves.

#alta #avatar: the last airbender #zuko #toph #art

[illycanary]

Meet the Robinsons art dump ❤️

A few of these I referenced vintage illustrations by Al Parker and Bob Peak!

[illycanary]

Here’s my piece for Fire Nation @recovery-zine! It's been held back for quite a while and I'm excited to finally reveal it ❤️

The inspiration comes from the Lantern Festival in China's Anhui Province and the performance with those fish lanterns at night is really fantastic!

[illycanary]

So... These two.

Also these two.

And...

making a collection

[illycanary]

This is my party of one. Y'all invited yourselves.

tumblr is great because no matter how many followers i get it doesn't stop me from being really fucking annoying. other places i will perhaps think before i post. Not here. not here

[illycanary]

We love Hakoda in this house.

Many people have already discussed the way Zuko and Katara are linked by the loss of their mothers. I and others have also meta'd about the differences in how they interact with their fathers, a comparison the show highlights in "The Awakening," where Zuko faces his father for the first time in years and is forced to repress his emotions, vs Katara being allowed to express her hurt towards her father and being treated with kindness and compassion by Hakoda. But another comparison between Ozai and Hakoda that I have not seen anyone bring up before is this one:

Both Zuko and Katara running to their dads for help upon discovering that something has happened to their mothers. Hakoda immediately stops what he's doing to let Katara take him to Kya, while Ozai does not even acknowledge Zuko. Zuko's angry "where is she?" to Ozai also implies that he knows his father is the cause of her disappearance. There's also an emphasis on the fact that Hakoda is defending the village when Katara comes to him whereas Zuko finds Ozai tending to his own wounds and refusing to acknowledge what his children might be feeling.

The father as protector of the family vs the father who divides the family.

[illycanary]

Mmmmmm can i offer you a zutara in these trying times?

[illycanary]

Sokka and Katara are PEAK sibling representation for many reasons, but one of those reasons is the fact that you literally cannot separate them as "the reasonable one" and "the dramatic hot mess". Like true siblings, they have to take turns with the braincell.

Sokka's getting whacked out on cactus juice and poor life choices? time for Katara to put on the Mom Friend Hat. Katara is impulsively stealing from pirates or starting another revolution? guess Sokka's gotta pull out the Dad Voice™. You never know which one of them is gonna do something completely wild next, but you can be sure the other one will be there on the sidelines, armed with exasperation and vicious mockery in spades.

[illycanary]

Zuko and Katara in taisho roman era clothing, commissioned by zukoshonours^^

[illycanary]

but like…why was there a legend about forbidden lovers from warring peoples with a red and blue color motif who met in underground caverns lit by glowing crystals…and then a pivotal scene of rapprochement between zuko and katara that opens with them framed in the exact same standing/kneeling position as oma and shu and that takes place in an underground cavern lit by glowing crystals…if all that wasn’t supposed to mean anything??? like i’m just supposed to believe that was all a huge coincidence??? that they created this amazing parallel by accident??? that is the fakest news tbh

[illycanary]

it’s very interesting that a lot of the criticism of the zuko/katara dynamic in the southern raiders is, actually, more applicable to, and likely drawn from, the jet/katara dynamic in jet. 

the common anti-zutara arguments i see regarding this episode is that zuko “brought out katara’s darker side”/ “encouraged her worst impulses”/ “pushed her to kill”. aside from being objectively untrue (the only thing zuko did was check in on katara at every turn and let her take the lead every step of the way, stepping in only to protect her), these arguments actually fit the way jet treated katara, not zuko. 

jet absolutely tries to bring out katara’s “darker” side. jet attempts to encourage her “worst impulses”. jet lies, manipulates and betrays katara’s trust to try and make her into someone she’s not - a killer. and in jet, because the people at risk are innocents, katara does not comply. in the southern raiders, however, had it been jet accompanying katara instead of zuko, i can absolutely see a scenario in which jet encouraged katara to murder yon rha, and where he might even have  become angry if she refused. after all, if he considered katara a traitor for not killing innocents, if he could not let go of his rage toward two firebenders who, by all accounts, were refugees fleeing the war, what would he think of her sparing the man who murdered her mother and countless others? who willingly participated in the atrocities of the fire nation military? 

because jet and zuko are so closely paralleled, from their weapons to their looks to their personalities, i think a lot of people believe zuko would have the same influence on katara as jet tried to. but this defeats the entire purpose of making jet and zuko foils in the first place: that jet represented the person zuko could have become, if he didn’t learn to temper his blind rage. 

jet/ara (at least within show canon) would have been toxic for all the reasons antis claim zutara would be. but the fundamental point of foiling zuko with jet is to show that zuko is not, and will never, be jet. zuko does what jet, sadly, does not; he learns to control his rage rather than letting it control him, to grow beyond his trauma and look to the future instead of obsessing over the past. 

and that’s why a relationship between zuko and katara would have worked where jet and katara failed: because zuko was able to learn and grow in all the ways that jet, in his biggest tragedy, could not. 

[illycanary]

i love mutual pining to lovers because it gives some of the vibes of a love triangle without the needless drama. alternatively it’s like a love triangle except the third person is just mutual stupidity.

[illycanary]

READ RIGHT TO LEFT!!

Iroh sleeping with his boys

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Turtle Ducks ^^ Took my time to create a more detailed piece in the last couple of days! I recently rewatched Avatar and really enjoyed all the scenes where Zuko and Iroh were featured! It made me so nostalgic, so I decided to paint this as an homage to these awesome characters! Hope you like it :)

[illycanary]

my first girlfriend turned into the moon🌕

sokka finally joins my ATLA series! you can view the rest of my atla series below⬇️

[illycanary]

Aang - if you got arrested, what would be the charges?

and.. of course..

…

illustrating the incorrect atla quote from @caylenqueen

(the arson zuko from my other post was originally made for this thing, heh)

[illycanary]

There’s so much potential in using bloodbending for cool shit but noooo it’s inherently evil I fucking guess

Like imagine a bloodbender who does the lie detector trick earth benders do by sensing someone’s heartbeat through the blood pumping

A doctor bloodbender whose knowledge of blood vessels allows them to do impeccably healed surgeries.

There’s definitely more good you could do