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zukkaart · 4 months

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What would you think, if, after getting advice from Iroh, Zuko and the gang travel to the spirit world in order to find Aang’s people so that Aang can teach the air acolytes more about the air nomads? Zuko and the others are able to get into the spirit world using a portal. But Zuko gets attacked by a mysterious spirit and then hits his head. He reverts back to post banishment (but pre Season 1) Zuko after losing some of his memories. The gang manage to get Zuko out of the spirit world before the portal closes, but Iroh and Ursa don't make it out in time and end up getting trapped there. Zuko is confused and doesn’t know why he’s firelord. The gang try to explain things to him, but it only causes him to become even more confused. Aang and the gang then leave Zuko behind to spend more time with the air acolytes.

While they’re gone, Zuko is very uncertain about what to do, especially since his dad is presumed dead, but soon corrupt advisors convince him to restart the war. Zuko doesn’t remember his friendship with Aang, but he hears that he once joined Aang, so Zuko assumes that Aang once brainwashed him into joining team Avatar and turning against his Father. Zuko intends to be a much greater firelord than his father, and he and his army raid the air acolyte settlement in their airships in order to hunt down Aang once again, and end up burning down the settlement. Aang and the gang wonder why Zuko chose to hunt them down again. Aang eventually comes to the conclusion that Zuko backslid due to bad advice from his advisors and because he lost some of his memories. Aang then travels the nations and studies things like chakras in order to look for a cure to help restore Zuko’s memories.

Azula is now alone and more vulnerable than ever because the fire warriors have deserted her, and Zuko sends bounty hunters after her to capture her. Azula tries to escape one of the bounty hunters, but she gets bitten by the bounty hunter's poisonous snake. The bounty hunter offers to give Azula the antidote for the poison if she'll give herself up, but Azula refuses. Azula finds help in the village of Jang Hui where she is healed by two waterbenders who are taking refuge there. Jang Hui is the village Katara helped in The Painted Lady. And the villagers aren’t on good terms with the firelord. The villagers accept her and assume that she’s on their side because she’s made an enemy of the Firelord. The villagers teach Azula how to heal people using firebending techniques inspired by water bending, and she ends up becoming a fisherwoman because it’s a fishing town.

She starts to warm up to the town, but one day she overhears the waterbenders talking about sneaking out to sabotage the smelting factory (which is currently undergoing reconstruction) in order to help the villagers. Azula offers to join their mission, and the three sneak out to destroy the factory, but she betrays the waterbenders over to the fire nation in hopes that she might bring glory to the fire nation. But now that the waterbenders are captured and eliminated, the town is defenseless. Zuko’s army burns the town down leaving few survivors. Zuko didn’t exactly authorize the attack, but he did give his generals permission to do whatever it takes to stop the villagers from trying to halt the rebuilding of the factory used for the war effort. A few survive and declare revenge on Azula for what she did.

Azula starts to feel terrible about betraying the people who saved her life and indirectly causing the village to be destroyed, since she didn’t know it would be destroyed. And she holds Zuko partially responsible for destroying the village. Members of the army give her a head start before they start chasing her. After wandering around, Azula looks through a telescope and sees Aang try to save a fire nation village from a volcano, and she also sees Zuko. Zuko does nothing after his corrupt advisors tell him to leave the village, saying that Aang will probably die, so Zuko runs away. But Aang manages to save the village from the erupting volcano. Azula gets accepted into the gang when she uses her new healing abilities to heal Aang, who is wounded by the volcano.

Later, Aang uses his newly developed powers to find out the real cause of Zuko's memory loss and he discovers that it wasn't because of the head injury. Zuko's memory loss was due to a spirit possessing him. The spirit was trying to make Zuko succumb to his darkest impulses by fogging specific memories. The more Zuko succumbs to darkness, the more control the spirit has over Zuko. Once the spirit gains full control over Zuko's body, Zuko's spirit will cease to exist. The Spirit is really Azulon. Aang realizes that he needs to expel the spirit from Zuko, and he knows he can't expel the spirit from Zuko if he has a heart filled with anger.

The gang have to stop Zuko (who now uses chemical weapons in the war) from conquering the Northern Water tribe using chemical weapons launched from his airships and finishing what his forefathers started. Soon the spirit of Azulon seemingly has full control over Zuko. It's ambiguous how much of Zuko's actions is his fault and how much of Zuko's actions is the Spirit's fault. "Zuko" soon leads a fleet towards the Northern Water Tribe to destroy it, and he even shoots down and kills Appa while laughing. Driven by grief, Aang tries to kill "Zuko", thinking things will be easier this way, but Azula jumps in his way and gets seriously wounded. Aang then expels the spirit of Azulon out of Zuko causing Zuko to return to normal, and Azula manages to survive her wounds.

Anon this is INSANE

I love this idea because I genuinely don’t think Aang could forgive him for Appas death. But I think that this would probably end with Zuko unaliving himself from the guilt. I wish there was a way that this could have a happy ending but I don’t think there is. It’s so heartbreaking and if a:tla was a horror show then this would be AMAZING

#avatar the last airbender #atla #sokka #zuko #asks #Atla au #fic ideas #aang #Katara #Appa #toph #Momo #Suki #Azula #princess azula #prince Zuko #firelord zuko #azulon

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omgitsren · 11 months

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Alexa, play “Broken” by Anson Seabra.

#depression #me #my pic #moody #personal #bipolar #send asks #dm me if you want #send anons #stoner #420stoner #tattoos #appa #avatar #knee high socks #overwhelmed #broken

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goldrushzukka · 5 months

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10, 17, 21, 29 🤔

hi my love

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

i never ever ever thought aidays would get the attention it did. granted it was originally supposed to be 3 chapters of angst-less romcom hijinks, so of course i didn't expect it to blow up as much as it has bc it also blew up in my own mind to become this huge story. the encouragement when i decided to expand it a bit was amazing, and even better was the theorising and close reading that came when i decided to expand it a Lot. (and this is so cheesy but thank you so much to you specifically michelle for loving aidays enough that i noticed and befriended you bc i would not have finished it without you ily)

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

none of my writing has ever gone into much detail on anything technical so i dont really have a good answer for this except for all the times i learned americans have so many different words for things that really do not need a different word. also some irish-isms are so deeply ingrained in me that it takes saying them out loud in an american accent to hear how wrong it sounds for my narration.

21. Have you ever deleted an entire scene after spending hours laboring over it? If so, why?

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

these two have the same answer so I'll just do them together. in my original draft of aidays11, the scene where sokka goes to get groceries actually had a zukka interaction. i wrote about 1.5k words and then realised i hated all of them and scrapped the scene entirely, and then that supermarket trip became just an excuse to get sokka outside into the rain for the sparks fly/how you get the girl climax moment. i won't post the full scene here bc i truly do actually hate most of it but here's some of it

His shoe squeaks on the linoleum when he stops dead in his tracks. Zuko, examining the skin of a peach three feet away, looks up at the sound. “Oh,” he says, setting the peach down. Several expressions flash across his face, and Sokka can’t get a read on any of them. “Hey.” The first thing out of Sokka’s mouth, before he can stop it, before he can even think, is, “What are you doing here?” Zuko blinks at him. “Sorry, that was – sorry,” Sokka says. He shouldn’t get any closer, but he does, approaching the fruit stand and cutting the distance between them in half. Like that’ll help him think straight. “This is just – I mean, isn’t there a supermarket closer to your place? This is a little out of your way, isn’t it?” Okay, so there are less rude ways to ask that. Ways that don’t make it sound like Sokka’s being territorial about the fucking produce section. But Sokka doesn’t know how to talk about anything normal right now, especially not with Zuko, because all he can think about is last chances and leaps of faith and his own terrible, terrible wanting. Is this what it’s going to be like forever? Unable to have a normal interaction without almost spilling every secret he’s ever had, every desire that holds his heart for ransom? Forever crushed under the foot of the elephant in the room? “Azula needs something specific for a recipe she’s working on,” Zuko says. He holds his hands by his sides in a way that Sokka thinks is very intentional. “Our place doesn’t have it. Well, no, it does, but I brought it home and she threatened me with a knife, so I guess our place doesn’t have the right one.” He smiles a little as he says it, and for a second, Sokka forgets about the last chances and the leaps of faith and the terribleness of his wanting. He forgets about Katara and Jet and Suki and the what-does-it-all-mean headache he’s had since waking. For a second, Sokka is standing in the produce section and the man he loves is smiling at him. Zuko asks, “Do you know where the basil is?”

And Sokka says, “Yeah. Do you need it dried or fresh?” “Fresh, I think.” “Okay. This way.” Sokka leads him to the tiny garden section, right by a big window at the end of the frozen food section. It’s mostly flower bouquets and succulents, but there’s a handful of potted plants under a cheerful sign encouraging customers to start their own herb gardens. Sokka hands a potted basil plant to Zuko. “There’s a little card in there that tells you how to take care of it.” “Oh, cool,” Zuko says. “Thank you.” “We had one for a little while,” Sokka says, astonished at himself for being able to carry this conversation as far as he has. “We kept it in Suki’s room.” “Your room gets better light, though.” Something awful and bright as a star twists inside Sokka’s chest. “Yeah, but Suki was the one who remembered to water it. And then Momo got at it, and we had to throw away two sets of sheets.” Zuko throws his head back laughing, the same way he did last night and a hundred times before then, and that awful star inside him expands, exploding as he thinks, maybe this is it. But Zuko says, “Thanks. I’ll see you.” And it isn’t. Sokka lets him go, because what else is there to do? If Zuko wanted to stay, he would. If Zuko wanted to talk about last night, he would. If Zuko wanted to choose him, he would.

#also the scene in aidays11 with suki was supposed to be with aang #it was sokka & aang walking appa in the park and talking through everything that happened the nihht before #& they were going to bump into zuko out for a woman-in-a-movie-facing-a-dilemma run #except first they see him from behind & sokka is like. god. that guys hot. whats wrong w me how can i think abt hot guys at a time like thi #it was supposed to be a silly little comoc relief moment but it felt wrong to do a gag in the middle of all that #so i gave the scene to suki who is naturally mood-lightening #i have some of it written but i never got very far into it bc i decided p quickly to scrap it #haroldtea #asks #my writing

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ask-atla · 22 days

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Hello!! Sokka here!!!! Trying to rkfbwkdjn

Hello, this is Zuko. Please, ask questions about us. Please don't ask anything about our romantic relationships. If you do, you will not be answered. Also, no inappropriate asks. Aang is here, and so is Ty Lee.

Sokka, how do you turn on the color?

#avatar the last airbender #atla #ask blog #Ask atla #Zuko #Sokka #Katara #Aang #Toph #Ty Lee #Azula #Mai #Suki #Appa #Momo #Hello.:))

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imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs · 3 months

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(tw kidnapping) Appa is never captured during the library episode

the Gaang ultimately make it to Ba Sing Se faster then they would have otherwise

The Gaang still has trouble with the sand benders pursuing them across the desert, though.

due to not having the bison, Long Fang would have to find another way to make the Avatar complicit in their activities (cue heavy surveillance).

Drama ensues with the Gaang trying to house a giant flying bison in an urban environment

Appa and Momo have their own "Tales of Ba Sing Se" story

Let’s play a game. Send me a potential AU and I’ll tell you five fun facts that would happen in a story.

#asks #answers #thanks for asking #ATLA #avatar #avatar the last airbender #Honestly I struggled a bit with this one #namely because Appa's capture provided a lot of conflict and storytelling opportunities for the show #having him not be captured just feels like one of those “why didn't they call the police” type-questions #And takes some of Aang's character arc away

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orangepanic · 3 months

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1 3 15 and 17 for the fandom ask?

List three positive things about your fandom.

It's the only fandom I've ever been in and it's still the most interesting. It's a huge credit to Avatar and the fandom both that we're still chewing on these characters 15 years later, but there's so much there and so much love for them.

The largely accepted mostly rejection of the comics in fandom. Fans knew when characters were OOC, even in official content, and have largely stood up and said hey, wait a minute. While plenty of people still incorporate the comics into their canon (especially fans of ships that only came together in the comics) by and large it's accepted to say "I don't include the comics."

The Avatar rare pair community in particular is a delightful barrel of wonderful freaks with galaxy-brained shipping tendencies. The creativity and kindness here is stunning. It really feels like, though small and often shipping wildly different things, we have each other's backs.

3. A headcanon you weren't sure about that you have come to like.

That General Iroh II would be a bad Firelord. It's hard for a character I personally love to be bad at something so fundamental, but the more I got to know him the more comfortable I became with this conclusion. He for the most part already knew this. But Iroh is Prince Harry, not Prince William, and with his foreign wife and desire to see the world and seemingly barest regard for the rules I can't see him as the captain of Fire Nation tradition. He wants to be hanging off an airplane, not sitting on a throne, and it would be cruel to both him and his country to put him there.

15. The character that always makes you smile.

The Boulder. I don't think I need to explain that.

17. The thing in canon you love that everyone else also loves.

How Aaang goes absolutely feral when Appa is captured. Let that baby pacifist go on a murder spree. He might not kill Ozai, who perpetuated a war that killed thousands, but if you touch one hair on Appa's fluffy head you are DEAD. It's both fun, validating (because let's be honest we'd all kill for Appa), and a great insight into Aang's character and how nothing is ever simple, even at twelve.

From this Love Your Fandom ask game

#ask game #atla #tlok #iroh ii #aang #appa

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comradekatara · 3 months

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i am very curious about your thoughts on various utena/atla character parallels… every once in a while i see you offhandedly compare like.. korrasami and utenanthy and i’m like HOLD ON this is so true! if you have any further ideas about that i would LOVE to hear them. i honestly don’t know how big the audience is for rgu/atla analysis but i am definitely part of that audience. 😭

yesss i can't believe you're literally the first person to ask me this lately i've been making rgu references on like, every single post i'm shameless!!!!! over the summer i even wrote (like 95% of) an essay comparing sokka and nanami (tldr; they are meat) and i have yet to revisit it (bc i'm scared tbh) but i will post is eventually that is a PROMISE (for an audience of 5 people). also before we go any further my utena blog is @saionjeans and we have fun there. also, i have some utena/atla crossover art here and here, so check that out if you haven't already. the rest of this post will be scattered thoughts because my nanami-sokka essay will be doing a lot of the in-depth analytical work and i don't need to rehash that all now. but also, because i have never not once in my life heard of brevity, i did write a bunch of mini essays anyway, because of course i did.

korrasami and utenanthy: love and abuse

i compared utenanthy to korrasami a couple times, most notably in this post where i talk about how meaningful their relationship is despite being (arguably) underdeveloped, and then in the tags i still have to acknowledge that utena and anthy nonetheless did it better 17 years prior. but i do think that there is so much to be said for utena-korra and anthy-asami as two young women who are both set up to be "special" but in a way that denies and restricts them from their own humanity, cloistering them away from the outside world and making them more vulnerable to abuse. i talked pretty recently about how asami's abuse is really shrugged under the carpet in a way that pisses me off if i think about it for too long. rgu does such an incredible job of gradually exposing that abuse and its effects on society, not as a deviation from the norm (of the nuclear family, of the romance, of the school, etc.) but in fact a common symptom of it. lok does not critique the nuclear family in any meaningful way despite setting up so many different areas through which such a critique could be facilitated (made worse by the fact that atla sets such a fantastic precedent). but anyway, enough about lok (and how she disappoints me).

2. miki & kozue and katara & sokka: siblings and memory

in my sokka-nanami essay i talk about how various characters can be read to embody various analogues, but how my focus in that essay is primarily to draw a parallel between sokka and nanami by using the framework for gender/patriarchal logic rgu establishes. however, i also talk about how azula can be read as a nanami (or even an anthy) figure, as well as how katara and sokka can be read as miki and kozue (katara = miki and sokka = kozue, obviously) (and note that kozue and nanami are significant foils/mirrors too). i mean, they even have a similar light blue (to signify naïveté, innocence, childlike wonder) versus dark blue (to signify cynicism, jadedness, resigned subsumption into harmful norms) color scheme going on. the Special sibling and the afterthought. (although before going forward i do want to be clear that i am in no way alluding to any incestuous undertones wrt katara and sokka, and i would even argue that the allusions to incestuous desire between miki and kozue are more complex and nuanced than simply reducing it to mere perversion. but that's beyond the scope of this ask lol)

i know that some people might bristle at my comparing katara to miki (baby misogynist, little freak) but miki really exemplifies the trope of the "sunlit garden" in the same way that katara exemplifies that trope in atla. miki isn't the narrator of course (akio is), but the central motif of desire staked to an illusory formative memory since lost that defines a character's motivations and self-becoming is first properly introduced (not including the utena meeting dios intro) and defined through his obsession. in the same way, we are introduced to the world of atla through katara's formative memories, her desire that motivates her self-becoming also being an illusory formative memory, as well as a tale she longs to replicate ("the four nations living together in harmony"). katara, like miki, is defined by her naïveté and childlike innocence, her somewhat reductive desire to be noble and heroic, and her need to flatten everything into a clear-cut narrative wherein she is always its heroine. like miki, she resents her sibling for being transformed into a more cynical version of themselves in accordance with society's pressures (in kozue's case, it's the inescapability of patriarchy, whereas in sokka's case, it's... a lot of things), and longs for a time when they were "truly happy" and playing together (playing piano, playing in the snow, you get it).

both kozue and sokka heavily subscribe to patriarchal logic and comport and reduce themselves in accordance with the dictums of a world they consider truly inescapable. kozue seeks power within her limited frame, whereas sokka only seeks power insofar as it allows him to assume his very narrow role of protector, but they both assume those limitations to be ontological and fixed in a way that does not allow them to see past it. however, the lack of empathy both miki and katara refuse to attempt in understanding their worldviews, in no way making an effort to broach that misunderstanding instead of simply letting the chasm between them fester, nonetheless implicates them equally. after all, they too both adhere to their own limited worldviews, only in their worldviews they are fundamentally special and thus beyond reproach. sokka and kozue are both integral aspects of katara and miki's sunlit gardens, and their idealized return to a picturesque nostalgia involves a transformation (or regression) of sokka and kozue into their more innocent former selves. and sokka and kozue are in turn obsessed with katara and miki, the central figure around which their identity and actions revolve.

through this framework, aang thus becomes katara's anthy (aangthy, hehe), as the embodiment of katara's hopeful/nostalgic ideal of heroism, companionship, and the idealized promise of a distant irretrievable past. like anthy with kozue, aang "replaces" katara's longing for the softer, more innocent version of her brother with aang's friendship. like miki with anthy, katara possesses romantic feelings for aang despite his functioning as a replacement for sokka before he became a shell of his former self (or kozue before she became... sexually active). this is because katara, like miki, idealizes the patriarchal narratives that dictate that all significant relationships be either romantic or familial (or both). she wholeheartedly subscribes to this notion, hence why she attempts to subsume everyone who can meaningfully fit into her narrative framework as either a lover (aang, haru, jet, zuko for all of 2 seconds) or a pseudo family member (aunt wu, hama, pakku, toph, etc etc.), replicating those dynamics as many times as she needs to to make them fit within her two dimensional tapestry. and crucially, coming face to face with yon rha subverts that, because she recognizes the messy humanity spilling forth from the neat boxes she puts people in, and must thus contend with her own role in her narrative. of course miki, being a side character and not the narrator, certainly not the hero, does not get this luxury. and he must find a way to grow up anyway.

3. akio and ozai: patriarchy

there's something truly incredible about how both akio and ozai manage to inflict psychological harm upon every single character in their respective shows, even if they never interact with those characters directly. their reach is vast and spindly; it cannot be overestimated. and yet, ozai has only reigned for about six years. akio is only acting chairman of ohtori academy. they are not patriarchy itself, but merely its signifier. and obviously their modes of embodying patriarchy differ in many respects: a school is not a nation (despite the similarities), and a father is not a brother (despite akio being father-like). ozai is defeated by by being stripped of his technology of violence, whereas akio is not "defeated" in a literal sense (although i suppose anthy driving a car through his ghost and exploding him into a cloud of roses does make quite the statement), anthy merely leaves. and yet, in both instances, they are both forced to succumb to their own limited ideology regarding what constitutes power. if ozai lacks firepower, he lacks control over his subjects and the right to sovereignty. if akio's control is challenged, if people realize that they can just leave, that the ends of his world are entirely arbitrary, he no longer has the power to abuse and exploit and use others for his own ends.

the metonymic signification of patriarchy figured through both ozai and akio in dual ways further emphasizes their respective roles. ozai is both king and father, akio is both (acting) chairman and (acting) father. patriarchy dictates every aspect of [a patriarchal] society: from interpersonal dynamics to the nuclear family to the school to the state to the world. what makes both akio and ozai so brilliant in this regard is the fact that their influence is reflected in all these facets. ozai abuses every member of his family individually; controls them as a system; inflicts his (family's) propaganda onto the fn education system, rewriting history with (almost) no one to disprove him; inflicts his imperialist agenda both within the fire nation (ruining local economies through industrialization, forcing citizens to conform to restrictive roles, inflicting violence through occupation) and beyond it; he refers to the world as "my world," as if he is its creator, its owner, or its god. and in many ways, he is. akio similarly abuses everyone interpersonally (most notably anthy, touga, and utena); subsumes utena into his nuclear family system so that she cannot leave; uses the academy as a site of control in which adolescents are forced to comply with socially codified norms and thus made more vulnerable to the influence of adult authority figures (especially those who emphasize their individuality or inherent specialness when compared with the rest of the student body); operates ohtori as a sort of nation wherein patriotism is reified through the use of uniforms, affiliations, sociopolitical hierarchies, and an acting government (the student council); and defines himself as the creator/owner/god of his world. to be end of the world. to embody not an apocalypse, but a cage.

ozai and akio both fashion themselves the entire world, but it also makes them more vulnerable to resistance, to any mode of critique that points out the obvious: no, you're just one person, and the logic you use to dominate others is deeply, noticeably flawed. it's a logic that they exploit but that in turns exploits them, as they have so deeply internalized it that they can no longer immunize themselves against any kind of resistance. ozai claims that there is no room for an air nomad in his world, which is why aang defeating ozai through the pacifist values of his people and not through his greater power (which would nonetheless be subscribing to ozai's logic, and thus letting him win ideologically if not physically) is so crucial in shattering ozai's paradigm. just as utena, as someone who refuses to conform to the strict, arbitrary, and violently enforced norms of patriarchy, can so thoroughly disrupt akio's control by resisting him. just as anthy can by leaving. akio remains in his cozy little coffin, exerting meaningless control to uphold the hollow puppet of his ego.

people sometimes joke about how long it takes for zuko to recognize that the burning off of half his face was "cruel" and "wrong," but it's not that zuko didn't find it painful, it's not that zuko didn't fear his father, it's not that zuko idolized his father beyond reproach. he questioned his cruelty, in fact he did so constantly. he simply saw no other way to live. he had no conception of a world beyond ozai's defined limits, had no choice but to believe ozai's dogma and loathe himself for not sufficiently adhering to it. similarly, people often ask "if anthy could leave all along, then why didn't she?" because she, too, was trapped in a coffin of her own self-loathing. to leave an abuser is not as simple as simply stepping beyond the threshold and never looking back. first, you must locate the threshold. then, you must find the courage to look beyond it. i briefly touched on azula being an anthy figure before. well, i think that she is. just because she has yet to see beyond the threshold does not mean she does not find her limits. and yes, its not triumphant, and yes, her facade that masks her pain and fear is shattered, but ultimately, that breakdown is a good thing for her. because that's her first step to freedom.

4. the sunlit garden as mythmaking events

i talk previously in this post about the motif of "the sunlit garden" in rgu vs what i like to call "a mythmaking event" in atla, and i do want to elaborate on that slightly. i provided a link to a post on my utena blog going into what the sunlit garden "is" for each principal character, and atla has a similar mode of communicating these nostalgic desires and idealizations that motivate self-becoming, largely through flashbacks. for aang, it is quite obvious, as his memories of a before and after are (temporally, although not psychologically) fragmented by an entire century. that disconnect severs the two versions of himself quite neatly. those memories with gyatso and the other air nomads (as well as with child bumi, and with the mysterious kuzon) are his idealized past, his "sunlit garden," whereas the storm is his mythmaking event, the point in his life where his choices collide with his telos. there is no going back.

katara and sokka have a similar sunlit garden, their snowball fight being the last truly happy memory they have before the black snow falls and their childhood innocence is severed from them forever. kya's sacrifice and murder is katara's mythmaking event as she then chooses to assume the mantle of her mother who took her place, decides to become the greatest waterbender possible to compensate for surviving the genocide, and chooses to be a hero so that the collective memory and sacrifices of her people will not be in vain. like utena, she witnesses pain and suffering at a very young aged and is moved to become a hero so as to mitigate that suffering, even if her own formative tragedy can never be rectified. also like utena, she idealizes a seemingly utopian past wherein violence was more covert and thus presented itself as more ideal (the time of princes vs the time of harmony). her naïveté and persistent idealism are both her downfall and her greatest virtue. she refuses to accept the true state of the world to the point of blindness, but it is also that refusal to accept it that allows her to force the world into a kinder shape.

as for sokka, his mother's death was also a formative trauma, but his true mythmaking event is when hakoda leaves for war with all the other men of his tribe. hakoda tells him that "being a man is knowing where you're needed the most, and right now, that's here, protecting your sister." it's not a rose crest ring, but it may as well be. from that moment onward, sokka officially comports his identity into being his sister's protector, which is how he thus defines his manhood. and of course, being his sister's protector means being a martyr, because the precedent for "protecting katara" that has already been established is, well, dying for her. like aang being the avatar and the last airbender and katara being the last southern waterbender, sokka is thus defined by his necessity (ie, usefulness to others) as well as his isolation – not only the "last warrior/man" of the swt, but also via his own process of depersonalization and self-dehumanization as he attempts to fully embody his role as an eventual martyr.

zuko's mythmaking event is, of course, branded onto his face. in fact, zuko essentially assumes both katara and sokka's mythmaking events by first being irrevocably altered by his mother's sacrifice, and then being all the more transformed by his father's decree as he attempts to dictate what kind of man zuko needs to be. his "sunlit garden" is also shown to us in flashes: memories of a (literal!) sunlit garden, of turtleducks, of his mother's gentle guidance, of happier times on ember island, on his father's hand resting on his shoulder with pride instead of malice. it is unclear just how truthful these nostalgic memories are. obviously, his family was never actually happy. ozai had always been exerting control over them, even if his violence was once more obscured. we never see azula's sunlit garden, for instance (although i'd argue that she and zuko possess the same mythmaking events), and i cannot help but wonder whether it's because, like touga, she never actually had one.

finally, some honorable mentions must go to the following: toph, whose sunlit garden is also her mythmaking event, as she learns from badgermoles how to hone her gift and reject the rigid societal impositions that seek to limit, repress, and control her. hama, who never attempts to return to her sunlit garden in the swt with kanna, despite her freedom as established in her mythmaking event of teaching herself to bloodbend; she knows that she is irrevocably altered, and thus she can never go home again. appa, whose sunlit garden, of playing with the other bison at the southern air temple, occurs in conjunction with his mythmaking event of meeting aang and becoming the avatar's animal companion.

all of these events are depicted through flashbacks wherein the consecutive shots between flashback and present day mirror the character who is having the memory in the past and present, overlaying their younger face onto their current face with identical framing. i'm too lazy to compile a bunch of screenshots here, and i couldn't find the post i'd seen previously that had done so, but if you're as familiar with atla as i am, then you already know exactly what i'm talking about. this device is so effective particularly because it exercises restraint. every flashback in atla is crucial because it signifies either a sunlit garden or a mythmaking event that motivates the character its focalizing in the present day. atla is economical with its flashbacks, but not withholding. like with rgu, flashbacks in atla are used with a specificity of purpose, and illustrate their points in clear, precise ways. just because atla is not as overtly metatextual with its central themes of narrativization, nostalgia, idealization, bias, and storytelling, does not mean it is not present, and in fact, overt. ranging from katara's role as narrator to the fire nation propaganda aang attempts to correct in school, the use of memory and illusion is crucial in illustrating how atla functions as a narrative about heroism, legacy, and challenging dominant myths through preserving cultural memory under an imperialist regime.

5. final thoughts

obviously, i could go on forever. there is simply no limit to my ability to unpack and dissect these two shows (hence, my sideblogs dedicated to doing so). i haven't even talked about zuko as an analogue to saionji with regard to their latent homosexuality, misogyny, violence, and struggle to conform to a patriarchal ideal. and i barely touch on katara as an analogue to utena with regard to their naïveté, heroism, myopia, persistence, and somewhat misguided desire for justice (through her terms specifically), although like kozue and nanami as mirrors wrt sokka, her traits that i describe when comparing her to miki also map onto utena in many ways – except of course, utena, unlike miki, is also the "hero," and thus has the same destabilizing revelation regarding the banality of evil that katara undergoes in "the southern raiders." moreover, i only discuss one central motif in utena, because i think the sunlit garden is the trope that maps best onto the thematic work atla is doing, but i'm sure that there are many more frameworks i could compare. and yet, i only have so much time, and only so much space in which to ramble. so hopefully, for now, this suffices. however, if there any specific areas in which you would like me to elaborate, you know that i shall always be happy to do so.

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chiptrillino · 2 months

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I just watched the first LA episode and can we talk about Zuko drawings ? Piandao would be so proud

oh well pre life action... i liked to think that piandao hangs his students artwork on his wall like a proud dad. right next to zukos simple drawing of the same place is sokka's with the rainbow.

#chip!ask #i always liked to think of zuko being okay at drawing #at least friends know i belive in zuko knowing what sokka is trying to draw and can like... redreaw a more readable version #so other get what sokka means #what i am trying to say is. if zuko draws appa you would know its appa #also sorry i am uh... i am not gonna comment much on it but i am not like... that much into the life action...

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lizardlicks · 3 months

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GRAND THEFT APPA O_O I MUST KNOW.

I think I actually talked about Grand Theft Appa the last time this game came around! When rewatching Appa's Lost Days, hearing the words that Guru Pathik said to Appa, I had an 'Aha!' moment: "You've been through so much recently. Hurt and betrayed. So twisted up inside. You're still full of love, but fear has moved in where trust should be."

I relized he could have, in the moment, just as easily been describing Zuko. And that Zuko probably shared some very painful experiences he could relate to Appa through. Thus was this Turn Left style AU born: Zuko arrives late to the fight with Azula in the episode The Chase, tracks the Avatar until he loses them at the edge of the Si Wong desert. But wouldn't you know it, he finds their sky bison caged and mistreated for amusement in a traveling circus...

They crested a ridge, and a dizzying view greeted him. Beyond a sheer drop, the valley below spread, green, brown, yellow-- thick stands of pines crowding the valleys between the hills and scrubland, where prairie grasses grew in the shade of their borders, pushing back against the desert. Farther still, sprawling across the horizon as far as Zuko could turn to look in either direction, the world became shimmering, Agni-baked gold.

More immediately below, the war machine had come to a stop. It was not a model Zuko had seen before, taller than the ground crawlers he was used to, with harpoon gun mounts and a forward sweeping wedge to clear minor obstructions. Two armored cars were hitched behind it, the last of which was wide open, revealing animal pens. He didn't need to smell the tell-tale musk to know Azula would have brought her favored mongoose lizard mounts. They lacked the stamina of komodo rhinos, but they made up for that in maneuverability and bursts of shocking speed. Zuko allowed himself to be quietly impressed; the train-tank-thing eliminated the animal's usual drawback of a short effective deployment distance. It was a smart tactic, efficient, which was just so very Azula. Whoever was in her sights was very much in a heap of trouble. He could only hope it wasn't Uncle. The last thought poured hot dread into Zuko's belly, whipping his inner fire into unpleasant curls. He hissed through his teeth and dug his heels into Reiya's flank, spurring her into a run with an indignant squawk of protest.

#wip game #asked and answered #zuko #appa #lizard writes stupid things

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ssreeder · 2 months

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Hi pook 😢 ( sorry if u don’t like the nickname) but I’ve been reading your series and I am reading Into the Fire (chapter 8) and I’m just wondering why you made Sokka give in so easily when people tell him to control himself that’s not Zuko. Because I would imagine that he would be more stubborn and more focused on what he wants instead of being caring. Even though he’s a caring and kind person I feel like being in prison would make him more selfish and less understanding of other people if than makes sense 😭

Like it just aggravates me when I see Katara try to idk really baby him and control him a bit (not mentally) it just kind of annoys me. Because even though Sokka loves his Sister I feel like he shouldn’t listen to her for real.

But that’s just me because that’s my opinion coming from someone behind has anger issues/ gets angry easily 🤷‍♀️

I love love love this series btw!!!!

I added your other ask too so I could respond to both! Hiiii hellooooo I don’t mind nicknames it’s actually nice because then I can keep anons apart haha

as for your comment about sokka I gotta say you’re probably the first person to tell me sokka isn’t angry enough haha. Which is fine because everyone’s allowed to have their own opinions, but my thoughts on LIAB angry sokka is his intelligence is often battling his emotions. I think sokka is smart enough to know he isn’t supposed to be lashing out at people the way he is or clinging to Zuko so tightly to where they both can’t breathe. i also think he is desperate to be back to his “old self” without actually wanting to be his old self. I do think he is fighting his path to healing every step of the way but even with all the time spent in prison he is still SOKKA. He cares for people he loves his family and he knows from watching his parents growing up what a healthy relationship looks like - his codependency to zuko is probably not it. I doubt it will change much, but when people tell him ‘you need to chill’ Sokka is very much like I FUCKING KNOW BUT I HAVE NO CHILL!!! NONE! ZERO CHILL.

but I can’t imagine sokka wanting to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Or fighting his friends and family to isolate himself anymore than he already is. I have learned that writing a more emotionally triggering fic does stir up emotions in people and causes them to project onto the characters a bit which is fine but everyone processing trauma differently. & sokka is doing it his own way just like zuko is.

Also…. This is a fanfic and I don’t know if people wanna read sokka being a raging asshole for 50k… so some of the realism in healing gets lost to word count because unfortunately I can’t spend years and 1000k helping these boys overcome their trauma so some of it has to be rushed a little for word count / plot purposes haha.

Liiiiiiisten here pooki-anon you come yell at me anytime about liab I’ll be right here to soak up every word! Thanks for the ask I’m glad you’re enjoying the series!!

#I have tried to take my time with the healing arc #Because we spent SO MUCH TIME dismantling the boys #I wanted to give them the change to be somewhat put back together to where they can at least function #I do agree with you anon!#Sokka could be 10000x angrier he could close up and say fuck off to everyone but it’s just another hurdle to climb over #His anger has been a reoccurring theme because I do write liab sokka angry #He has a right to be angry too!!#But I don’t know if people wanna sit and read sokka going in circles with his anger anymore than he already has #I love love love a good healing arc and I’m trying to take my time with the boys but….#*word count and plot point and me eventually wanting to work on a project that isn’t LIAB haha*#I do think sokkas a mess right now #But damn it I want him and zuko to snuggle and him and Katara to laugh and his dad and him to pal around and toph and Aang to give him shit #And momo to pull his ears and appa lick him and idk all the fun sokka stuff we miss #I can’t do that if sokka won’t be open to healing and being less angry #Which is why I’m allowing him to progress haha #Ugh now we gotta work on zuko!! ->#Zuko: “why I’m fine??”#Boy is NOT FINE but he is damn good at acting fine haha #Thanks for the ask anon #Ill #give you the tag #Pookianon #Liab #ITF #ask

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