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perfectlypanda · 2 years

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The Geography of the South Pole in AtLA vs. the Graphic Novels

Of the many inconsistencies between Avatar: the Last Airbender, and the graphic novels, there is a particular bit of world building that always bothers me; the geography of the South Pole.

In the first two episodes of AtLA, the viewer is introduced to the South Pole at almost peak summer. Sokka makes a reference to this when he first meets Aang:

Sokka: Giant light beams, flying bison, airbenders … I think I got midnight sun madness. I'm going home to where stuff makes sense.

“Midnight sun” is a term that describes how during the summer months places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle experience consecutive 24 hour periods of sunlight (so the sun is still out even though it’s midnight). From Sokka’s dialogue, it is explicitly summer.

The two part episode “The Winter Solstice” takes place over episodes 7 and 8 of the first season, and occurs some weeks following the opening episode. It’s important to note that this refers to the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, where the Gaang is at the time. Thus, the summer solstice is simultaneously occurring for the southern hemisphere.

Why spend time establishing that at the start of the series, the South Pole is experiencing the middle of their summer? Well, because it’s important you understand that the version of the South Pole we see is the South Pole at its warmest. At its warmest, Katara and Sokka go fishing surrounded by massive icebergs, snow and ice completely cover the ground, and the Southern Water Tribe has a wall and several buildings made entirely from snow.

Continues after the cut.

The Water Tribes were inspired by different indigenous peoples in and around the Arctic Circle. However, the real world northern regions where many of these people live do see true, if brief, periods of summer where there is snow and ice melt. What does this mean? Well, it means plants can grow. And trees if you get below the tree line.

Even at the peak of summer, no exposed land is visible at the AtLA South Pole. So unless AtLA has special plants that can grow in literal ice or snow (and can somehow pollinate without major pollinators like bugs…), that means that the South Pole cannot support traditional plant life. More importantly though, the South Pole cannot support trees. Trees have roots that need to be able to dig into soil. Soil that is not visible even in the summer in the South Pole, so even if soil does exist under all that ice and snow it’s going to be too frozen for roots to be able to take purchase.

That the ice and snow cover is permanent year round is further be backed up by how the Southern Water Tribe disabled a Fire Nation ship back in Hama’s youth… and it’s still frozen in that same ice some 70 decades later. If that area got warm enough for the ice and snow to melt, the ship would have shifted, and likely been damaged or destroyed by the ice expanding and contracting against it for years.

Which is why, from almost the very start, the graphic novel North and South is inconsistent with the worldbuilding established in AtLA:

It’s a stretch how much wood is seen in the modern buildings in the *new* South Pole, but the use of wood in so much of the building materials could maybe be explained as part of the industrialization of the South Pole, with lumber being imported. It would be a ridiculous amount of lumber to import but... *suspension of disbelief*

Buuuuut the trees on the other hand…

These trees cannot exist in the version of the South Pole as depicted in AtLA. In order for these trees to exist, the parts of the South Pole near where the Southern Water Tribe is would have to get warm enough for the soil to thaw for trees to take root (AND have soil somewhere underneath all that ice and snow). As we established, even in the middle of summer, the ground is still completely covered by ice and snow. And North and South depicts scenes in both daytime and nighttime so we aren’t even seeing the South Pole in summer when it would be its warmest.

It wouldn’t have been hard to be consistent with the worldbuilding of the South Pole. The Rise of Kyoshi by F. C. Yee shows that someone can pay attention to the original show’s worldbuilding, and make it work.

In the first act of The Rise of Kyoshi, Kyoshi accompanies a group that is going to negotiate with the Fifth Nation (a massive sea fleet led by a Southern Water Tribe pirate called Tagaka).

In their negotiations, Tagaka agrees to release the captives she has taken from the Earth Kingdom. Why?

“The captives are useless to me anyway. … Out of a thousand people or more, not one was a passable carpenter. I should have known better. I needed to go after people who live among tall trees, not driftwood.”

Yun frowned. “You want… carpenters?” he said cautiously.

She glanced at him, as if she were surprised he was still there. “Boy, let me teach you a little fact about the pirate trade. Our power is measured in ships. We need timber and craftsmen who know how to work it. Building a proper navy is a generational effort. My peaceable cousins in the South Pole have a few heirloom sailing cutters but otherwise have to make do with seal-skin canoes. They’ll never create a large, long-range war fleet because they simply don’t have the trees.”

Tagaka turned and loomed over the table. “So, yes,” she said, fixing him with her gaze. “I want carpenters and trees and a port of my own to dock in so I can increase the size of my forces.” (RoK, 93)

The Southern Water Tribe doesn’t have carpenters because they don’t have trees. There are some wooden ships but just “a few heirloom sailing cutters”. That they are “heirloom” boats reinforces the idea that, although the Southern Water Tribe can get some wood (likely through trade or sale), it is not something they have readily available, so things made from wood are precious.

Whenever the Southern Water Tribe warriors are depicted in AtLA, their ships do utilize wood. But not all SWT boats do. For example, in the first episode, Katara and Sokka are in a boat that looks to be of stretched hide and bone (maybe a “seal-skin canoe” like Tagaka mentions). The only parts that might be wood are the seats (which… okay).

So the idea that the Southern Water Tribe has some wooden ships, but that they are the most valuable ones, works with the AtLA canon because it makes sense that the warriors would take the best ships that the tribe has available.

(Admittedly, there are a couple background moments in AtLA that are a bit inexplicable. For example, in one shot in 1.02 there’s a woman holding what appears to be a bundle of firewood before a fire. We’ve seen the surrounding landscape. It’s not like she could just go take a short walk and collect kindling, so where did it come from...?)

But to circle this back to the bigger issue of the inconsistency between the worldbuilding in AtLA and the graphic novels - changing the environment of the South Pole also changes what resources are available, and what conditions the Southern Water Tribe would have to adapt to and survive. These are factors that shape a culture, particularly a culture that is located in an extreme environment. If you live in the South Pole in AtLA, farming is impossible, as is foraging because the ground is ice and snow, neither of which can sustain plant life. This limits your diet to hunting and fishing (*in AtLA they do mention sea prunes and it’s implied that they’re vegetarian since no one stops Aang from eating them, but that’s the exception not the rule). This also largely limits your resources to those which come from animals. Which impacts the types of homes you can build, the types of clothes you can wear - it even changes how you would make and sustain a fire.

The South Pole in the graphic novels would produce an entirely different Southern Water Tribe than the one in AtLA, and so it’s frustrating (and sloppy) that the graphic novels got the geography of the South Pole so wrong. There are many metas about the differences between AtLA and the graphic novels, but putting trees in the South Pole really demonstrates just how little attention the graphic novels paid to the canon worldbuilding established in AtLA. ~

Thank you for coming to my ramble. As a parting gift, enjoy this visual depiction of how Katara and Sokka have learned that wearing something cute and shapely is definitely way more important than not freezing to death.

#atla #avatar #atla meta #avatar meta #the avatar graphic novels are a dumpster fire #the kyoshi novels are great though #atla worldbuilding #long post #panda writes

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adventuresinclientservice · 5 months

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Instead of being good in the moment, failing at it.

After happily arriving at a title for the International Advertising Association’s Annual Conference – “Why Client Service is an Art” – I soon realized I needed a story to open my remarks, something that would illustrate, demonstrate, and validate the title.

I was stymied for a bit, but then recalled a post I wrote, “Great client service people are ‘good in the moment;’ what the hell does that mean?” and had my answer.

The piece recounts how my Foote, Cone & Belding Account Management colleague, Jane Gardner, was able to convince a client CEO, on the verge of thwarting a major brand campaign we presented, to instead do the exact opposite and greenlight it.

It was an amazing turn of events, now largely forgotten by nearly everyone in the room that day with Jane, by everyone at the rest of the agency, and by everyone in the rest of the business. Pretty much everyone except me.

I thought of this again as I revisited post-October 7 events occurring on university campuses around the country, as Jewish students felt the sting of threatening backlash emanating in the aftermath of the terrorist group Hamas’ ruthless slaughter – there are no other words to describe it – of 1,200 Israeli citizens.

With temperatures rising in college campuses around the country, the Presidents of three of the country’s most prestigious and prominent universities, Penn, Harvard, and MIT, were called to testify before Congress. In the midst of the hearing, there came a moment when Congresswoman Elise Stefanik asked President Elizabth Magill of Penn,

“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?”

Stefanik then turned to Harvard’s President Claudine Gay, to ask if

“calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard's Code of Conduct?”

Stefanik also put much the same question to Sally Kornbluth of MIT.

The answer was obvious, but the responses were uniformly tentative, waffling, indecisive, unclear, and compromised:

From Magill: “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes,” From Gay: “It depends on the context,” From Kornbluth: “It would have to be targeted at individuals and pervasive, as well as require an investigation.”

It’s a simple question: is the answer yes, or no? There are times when nuance is called for; this clearly was not that time.

No need to take even a second to respond. No need to consult with attorneys. No need to check with anyone on campus, not professors, not administrators, and not students. The answer is simple, unequivocal, unimpeachable.

I’m reading these answers, thinking, “What is wrong with you people?? Have you lost your minds??”

Here was a moment when clarity, concision, and conviction were at stake, and all three Presidents, instead of being equal to that moment, failed at it.

Magill and Gay are no longer Presidents of the Universities they led. Kornbluth, who is, if you can believe it, Jewish, might survive, but should not.

My politics are the polar-opposite of Elise Stefanik’s – she stands for everything I’m opposed to -- but when a moment like this presents itself, it defies politics or party; more than anything else, it serves as a fundamental test of character: do you have the courage to stand up and proclaim what’s right, or not?

Th other day, in an entirely different venue, I heard Presidential candidate Nikki Haley respond to a question, “What was the cause of the Civil War?” in an equally baffling, outrageously infuriating way.

What is wrong with all these people???

When I witnessed Jane Gardner’s response to our CEO client, there was absolutely no one she could turn to for advice or guidance. A bunch of us were in that room, but Jane didn’t need rescuing. She needed to be good in the moment; she was, and then some.

The stakes were admittedly exponentially higher for those tone-deaf University Presidents and that laughably ridiculous Presidential candidate, but their answers were no less clear. They had their moment to be good.

To a person, they weren’t.

#antisemitism #advertising #marketing

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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 1 year

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BRING ON THE NOVEL!!! Oh, I love your responses to my questions BECAUSE they're always so in-depth and informative, and I just drink it up because it's SO GOOD! I love the amount of thought you put into your answers, I can see the passion plain and simple, and it gives me a lot of food for thought for my own interpretation of Grima, so thank you!!

hahaha I'm glad you enjoy them! I love answering questions about him, so it's always a joy to see one in the inbox.

It's really fun thinking through what we know from the various canon sources (granted I don't really go into unfinished tales, save for the Grima-Nazgul-Face-Off reference [Grima loses]) and logicing out what we can from it. Then, of course, just making shit up. Love that sweet, sweet world building.

But I'm always curious to hear what other people think! I love seeing different interpretations and what people run with, given that we're all working with the same, rather limited, base material.

And lolol yes. Grima's type is absolutely "can they kill me with their bare hands and I wouldn't stand a chance? yes? excellent."

Re: Eowyn and Grima - I've always much preferred Eowyn in the books (pre-Faramir personality change up) to Eowyn in the movies, because Eowyn in the books is a stone cold bitch with a bit of ruthlessness in her (aside from her being obvioulsy high-hearted as Hama says, and generous - she is beloved by her people for a reason) and I am here for Grima simping after her and she's like "What is this? did I trod on a cockroach?" and Grima is like "please trod again my lady" etc. etc.

With Eomer it's basically the same dynamic plus the added benefit of Eomer being able to do the slinging-over-a-shoulder-like-a-sack-of-spuds. Not that Eowyn's a light-weight, she's not, but it's more just a bit of a larger size difference and it makes for a funnier visual. Granted Eowyn would win the yearly Husband-Carrying competition. She doesn't have a husband for them, of course, so she just picks the biggest guy she can find who isn't married or whose wife can't enter for whatever reason and carries him through the ridiculous course that's been set up. (It's Hama most years, they're a great team. If not him then Grimbold.)

One year she had to skip it because she was down with flu and everyone was pleased because it meant there was a chance for someone else to win. Grima offered to go in her place and she was a little tempted by it, if only to have some rep at the game and he's built like her so it's a bit of a fair switch, but she ended up turning it down. ("You'll die. Hama will squish you. It's a prospect I'm not adverse to, save that it means you'd lose in my name." "My lady, I'm the youngest of many brothers, I'm used to being at the bottom of the dog-pile. I'll be fine." "...yes. yes you would have been at the bottom." "Anyway, I've a few tricks up my sleeve." "No. Cheating." "Just think about it, my lady." "No. Cheating.")

I think Grima also has a bit of a hard-on for competency and so that's where the intellect and confidence come in. Which, when I write Eomer/Grima, it's Eomer showing up and being very good at his job, and his cousin's future-job, that has Grima going "oh no. There are stirrings and they shouldn't be stirring."

Grima carrying Eomer for the husband-carrying competition is objectively hilarious. It's not about roles or anything, because that's a nonsense, it's just something funny to do of a summer afternoon. I feel like he's surprisingly strong for a man who avoids physical labour as much as possible. That said, he'd be dead for the next four days after the competition. ("You broke every part of me, Eomer." "...isn't that what you're into?" "Not quite like this. I can't move my arms above my head.")

Anyway. Now I've become distracted with Rohan's left-of-centre highland games (Eomer would be stellar at log tossing. Grima runs a betting ring on it every year and somehow makes a killing despite everyone knowing the odds. Eomer keeps trying to get him to not fiddle the books but it never works).

Thank you so much for the asks! I love this stupid, greasy snake man and any chance to natter on about him is a blessing. <3 <3

#ask #reply #grima wormtongue #lotr #lord of the rings #eomer #eowyn #grima thoughts

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arpov-blog-blog · 5 months

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..."As we sit here a good 11 months before the election, there has been widespread bed-wetting over the incumbent. Buckets of liberal tears have been shed. And it all seems, in my humble, liberal opinion, a bit ridiculous.

I will never, ever, ever again utter the words, “There’s no way Donald Trump becomes president.” Fool me once, and all that.

Trump could absolutely win the 2024 election. He has a sizable swath of the voting public so thoroughly brainwashed they’d follow him into an active volcano. And there are plenty of Republicans who claim they loathe him and talk a good game about protecting democracy but would still push the button for him in the privacy of a voting booth.

Democratic voters shouldn’t rest or feel confident for a second between now and the minute the polls close. There’s too much at stake. The threat of a second Trump term and the dictator-y nightmares it might bring are too great.

... but which candidate would you rather be right now?

That said, it’s absurd to look at the two candidates and think for a moment one doesn’t have the edge, and not just because Biden faces 91 fewer state and federal felony charges than Trump.

Consider these facts:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high Wednesday. The S&P 500 went up 8.9% in November, one of its best monthly jumps in decades.

In the most recent jobs report, unemployment dropped to 3.7% from 3.9%. In January and April, it hit a 54-year low of 3.4%.

Biden's accomplishments as president have been significant

But Biden is president, so Democrats, as they are wont to do, grouse and moan and fret and wonder if there’s a younger, more dynamic candidate out there.

While painted by the right as doddering and inept, Biden has enacted wide-ranging legislation, from a $1 trillion infrastructure bill to the Inflation Reduction Act. He appointed the first Black woman to ever sit on U.S. Supreme Court. He signed the Respect for Marriage Act protecting same-sex and interracial marriages. He united NATO over the war in Ukraine.

And last I checked, everyone is still allowed to say, “Merry Christmas.”

Now consider Biden's opponent, the guy who wants 'Muslim ban'

The man isn’t flawless by any stretch. His age shows. He has failed to tackle illegal immigration and the dire situation along the U.S.-Mexico border. And now some liberals are furious with him for his strong support of Israel in its war against Hamas.

But let’s examine the Republican fellow Biden will almost surely be running against. For starters, if you don’t like Biden’s handling of the Middle East, wait until you see what Trump would do. This is the man who created a Muslim travel ban and has said that he'd restart that immediately. He recently said that he'd send immigration officials to “pro-jihadist demonstrations” to arrest or deport “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.”

Liberals need to stop panicking about Biden and start working

I am not now nor have I ever been a passionate fan of Biden. Frankly, I’m not a fan of any politician.

But I can say objectively that if someone asked me who I’d rather be right now as a political candidate – Joe Biden or Donald Trump – it would be Biden, and it wouldn’t be even remotely close.

Perhaps my fellow liberals should stop panicking, change their bedsheets and just focus on putting in the work."

Rex Huppke, USA TODAY

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mitigatingacademics · 8 months

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{10.09.23}

I spent the evening reading about the almost unbelievably dramatic experience that has been Norman Finkelstein's academic career.

Then, my morning consisted of poll worker training for election #3.

Yes, in that order. #ThirdShiftLife

Focus, overnight, wasn't good. Again.

Attempted LSAT Trainer Lesson #28, as the agenda indicated, but it was a struggle. I was annoyed and getting nothing out of it.

I don't find that anything worthwhile comes out of forcing it at times like that, so I put it aside, unfinished.

Twitter brought me, once again, into the debate surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I decided to see what kind of books I could find, on the history of the issue - from the beginning, specifically, available for e-borrowing from the library.

Put a hold on a few of potential interest.

Of those currently available, Norman Finkelstien was the author of several, including the one that seemed the most worth investigating further.

...a comment in the praise for the work found in the Forward led me to Googling to see if Mr. Finkelstien is still alive.

He is. ...and he's...a lot.

Reading about the Dershowitz Finkelstien affair rabbit holed my entire night.

Finkelstien has some controversial, pro-Palestinian views to be sure.

He also says things like, there are circumstances in which it's alright to target civilians during the course of war and "...I'm not going to be in a cult again."

The whole thing is very 😬😬😬

But Dershowitz is a lunatic of a different breed.

Beyond being a member of the criminal defense team of an impressive amount of questionably sub-human individuals, Dershowitz came for Finkelstien's academic career and right to publish his own work in a rabid manner of a kind I had never before even considered.

It's unAmerican to write to a publisher in an effort to stop a book from being published because you don't like what it says.

It's outside of any stretch of rational appreciation to personally come for an individual to the extent that the result is their being denied tenure despite popular approval. (DePaul University was also strikingly in the wrong here. Yale has a bit of explaining to do as well.)

Dershowitz was not unprovoked...but his response has been beyond ridiculous.

Suffice it to say that then Dean of Harvard Law School, now Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan was name dropped as being involved in investigating allegations of plagiarism over the course of this outrageous undertaking.

For the record, nothing of the sort was ever conclusively determined...on either side.

Moreover, it wasn't as if Finkelstien was trafficking in indisputably harmful falsehoods. He has his own respectable supporters, his own evidence to offer for every claim that he's made, etc.

Whether I ultimately overwhelmingly agree with Finkelstien's perspective is inconsequential.

What happened to his academic career is an atrocity in its own right.

I don't know if I'm going to take the time to read his book after all. It does seem to be more heavily biased than the type of historical overview I was looking for.

But that brings me to my main point: You can't just pick up a book and educate yourself. Almost nothing exists outside of the inherently biased perspective of those reporting on it.

Fake news is everywhere.

It makes trying to determine the truth and stay informed incredibly frustrating.

It's little wonder that so many folks don't bother.

Speaking of...

Liz tweeted today about Hamas beheading babies.

Within an hour there were reports in response to the reports Liz (and others) cited, claiming they were false.

(It does seem that the other crimes she mentioned have been better authenticated.)

...and if we've learned anything about Liz since we've decided to accept her problematic self for exactly who she is (while lovingly calling her out, of course), it's that we can't really take seriously our favorite warmongering 👑 when it comes to the subject of the killing of babies.

God bless her, she has a history of being...not quite right...on that topic.

🤦🏻‍♀️🫠

EDITED TO ADD:

Biden claims to have seen photographs of the beheaded children.

I'm not one to believe everything he says just because he's the President, but short of seeing said proof with my own eyes (I'll pass, thanks all the same), I'm not sure how much more confirmation I could ask for.

Apologies, 👑.

You weren't wrong this time.

I wish you were.

(Democrats still aren't lining up for partial-birth abortions, though.)

EDIT THE SECOND:

"The White House clarified that President Biden and US officials have not independently confirmed that Hamas terrorists beheaded Israeli children.

The White House says the president based his comments on claims from Netanyahu’s spokesman and media reports from Israel."

...additionally, I fucking give up. 🤦🏻‍♀️

END EDIT

THIS is an interesting and both-sides style timeline of the major events of the Israel-Palestine conflict from the beginning.

The most recent 20 years are missing, but how things developed from the jump was of more interest to me, anyway...at least at this point.

PBS seems like a fairly neutral source. ...though I'm sure there are some who would disagree. 😂

I love the folks at the Board of Elections.

Never met anyone there that wasn't super patient and kind.

Veronica and Christine made my third time through the same 3 hour class, fueled by caffeine having worked all night, almost enjoyable.

I feel that I owe an apology to everyone that was there this morning because I've done this enough now that my anxiety no longer silences the sass. 🤣

I was fairly well behaved, save for in the middle where I made an under-my-breath comment to my seat partner, Paul, that I didn't want to be a Republican today when signing into the e-poll book for demos -- (Veronica, the Democrat representative of the bipartisan training duo, good naturedly scolded that 'we all need to get along!') and towards the end, after being gently chastised by Christine for not waiting our turn (because we knew what to do) during machine set-up, Christine came at Paul again during voter processing demonstration.

She reprimanded him for not following along exactly and he came back with "we already know what we're doing." ...and, exhausted, over it, shamefully amused by witnessing just how far Christine's patience would stretch before she, too, was over it...I completely lost it. 🤣

Christine was not as amused.

Oh, well.

I told her that they (the instructors) are great on my way out.

Because they are.

She wished me a good election.

I think Christine is actually a rover by election-day trade, as well as assisting with training. Would love to see her on our rotation. One of our regulars is a little 🤨 ...and Christine, amused or not, would not be...that. 🤣

Walking out to the parking lot, talking to Paul all the way to his car, he mentioned that he is, in fact, one of our county's rare Republicans.

Oops.

It never fails to amuse me, though, how easily I make friends with the folks 'on the other side.'

I would far rather an informed, engaged voter that I disagree with than one that doesn't care to put any thought into it.

If you can handle a little self depreciating humor (and I'll meet you barb for barb), we'll be fine.

I'm actually hoping one of the Republicans that worked election before last but not the August one ends up working November. I missed having her around.

We have Liz to thank for my participation in this civic duty.

Elections are A LOT of work.

A LOT of people are involved.

It is very much absolutely worth it.

#Academic Adventures #LSAT #Elections #Liz 👑❤️🙌🏻

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army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years

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in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough.

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.”

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role.

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all.

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.”

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.”

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~”

y’all WHAT.

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back.

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai.

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too.

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!”

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse.

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.)

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out.

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show.

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.”

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring.

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what?

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her.

Conclusion

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked.

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here.

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice.

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us.

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sokkabaddiebender2021 · 3 years

Text

An ATLA Rant: Imperialism & Nuance

Just to start off, this is coming from a girl who’s grandmother was Filipino. No, I have not personally experienced imperialism in my lifetime, but it is a subject that I think is very serious and important to me because of my heritage.

That said, I have absolutely zero idea how you could watch avatar: the part airbender and come out of it saying that it is pro imperialist. Absolutely zero.

I agree because this is a pan Asian inspired show that was written was created by two white men (with the help and advisement of several poc as well but that is a topic for another time), people, especially people of color, have every right to be critical of it. But this argument that the show is somehow pro imperialist just doesn’t make sense to me.

The fire nation is in the wrong. The show makes that VERY clear. Their actions towards other nations is called out by several characters (Zuko, Roku, etc). Their destruction of other cultures (southern water tribe, air nomads, attempted earth kingdom) are seen as diporable and downright inhuman. Not only that, but we see the devastation this cultural genocide brings upon main characters like Katara and especially Aang and how they must heal from it.

Moving on, the show absolutely was not teaching people to stand docile and peaceful against their oppressors. Katara and Aang literally destroy a whole fire nation factory!! When the fire nation was attacking the northern air temple, they were kicking their asses off the cliff!! They planned a whole invasion to attack the fire nation capital to end the war!! (Let’s not forget Katara incititing a riot against the fire nation in the imprisonment episode with the earth benders). I could on and on about all the times the gaang meets the fire nation with violence and encourages others to fight back against them, but that would be going wayyy too in depth.

I think where people get far too simplistic here is that they think that atla is telling people to not use violence against their oppressors because the show is critical of people like Jet and Hama. First of all, the characters are given a lot of nuance in the show. Both are introduced with tragic backstories of the horrors that the fire nation inflicted upon them (I still get chills with the scene when Hama explains her story).

Despite this, both characters have every chance to use their abilities to fight back against the fire nation in a way that helps. You know, like fighting against the army and not innocent people who have no idea that the fire nation is actually in the wrong. The narrative is not that violence is bad! Peace is the only way! I think it’s that you can’t let your veagance lead you away from fighting the right people. That’s the issue: neither Jet and Hama were fighting the right people.

And we first see both characters fighting soldiers in their first scenes. Hama in the flashback when she’s defending her home (and rightfully uses violence to do so) and Jet when he helps the gaang take down some fire nation soldiers in the forest. This is just violence directed at the right people. But instead, both attempt to murder and in Hama’s case, torture people who take no part in the atrocities the fire nation has committed. Are they ignorant? Well of course they are because as we very obviously see, they’ve been fed propaganda their entire life while also living under an authoritarian regime, something that’ll give you no will to think other than the things that are spoon fed to you.

So let me ask you this, was it right for Jet to try and murder an entire village of innocent people, literal children included? Was it right for Hama to imprison and torture lord knows how many innocent citizens just because they belong to an nation that they have no actual knowledge of its evil? I’m hoping your answer is no, and the show would also say no as well.

When both Katara and Aaag choose not to kill, the narrative is not saying that they shouldn’t kill these men. The narrative allows both characters to make their own choice in what ways they wish to do, and it has nothing to do with what is actually right or wrong, because ultimately it is up to what each character wishes to do. Katara sees Yon Ra as the pathetic old man that he is, so she sees no purpose or healing for herself in taking his life. This is a personal choice made for herself, and that is all that matters.

The same goes for Aang. This poor boy is desperate to uphold the beliefs of his people, so he finds another way. A way that still upholds his beliefs while still ending the tyranny of Firelord Ozai. It is ridiculous to say that this is a passive take to imperialism, because yes he doesn’t literally murder someone but he still takes the dude out. And honestly, Ozai’s fate is worse then death (especially considering who Ozai is). Once again, the narrative is not saying be passive to your oppressors and don’t use violence. Its saying that because Aang is living in a world where his beliefs have been forcefully removed and disrespected, he has every right to continue to defend them in the ways he sees fit.

While some may see the narrative as more sympathetic to Iroh and Zuko, I think it’s just because they ARE some of the main characters of the show, as compared to those like Jet and Hama. We see much more of their story just as we see much more of the gaang’s story. Not only that, but their narrative purpose is far different from these two other characters. Iroh and Zuko are meant to show that despite them being from the fire nation, they are not inherently evil people. Jet and Hama are meant to show that even while they are against the antagonistic force of the show, they still can commit evil. Not only are Iroh and Zuko’s actions never justified, but they both must go on a journey to unlearn the hateful propaganda instilled into them, and remedy their ignorance. The narrative never says that neither Jet and Hama cannot also redeem themselves, but Hama feels no remorse for her actions, and Jet does attempt to redeem himself, but ultimately falls back into old habits (I believe he could’ve redeemed himself, but I’ll agree the writers were a bit sloppy in his end, like I’m not sure why they had to kill him other than to make him a tragic character but whatever).

To finally wrap up this essay, ATLA is not a black and white show. The show is not pro imperialist for condemning the violent actions of two characters who happen to be victims of imperialism. The show is not pro imperialist for allowing two children to decide for themselves whether or not they want to end the lives of someone. The show is not pro imperialist for not making the antagonist of the show a one note and one dimensional bad guy.

I’ll end this with the speech that Zuko makes to Ozai when he prepares to leave on Day of Black Sun:

No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #atla essay #zuko #katara #aang #iroh #jet #Hama #anti imperialism #I promise you if the show leaned towards supporting imperialism I would not love it as I do #the southern raiders #sozins comet #day of black sun

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the-last-cuddlebender · 4 years

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I straight up check your profile daily for the southern raiders analysis you’re working on. 👀👀 where IS IT 😩

bRUH I am so excited to drop this analysis you have no idea (It’s creeping up to 22k+ I am gonna cryyyyyyyyyyyy). The only problem is that my TSR analysis and “Moon theory” are so incredibly hard to structure and articulate. I’m happy you’re so excited for it, though!!! Truly, it’s an honor. I’ll give you a taste of my madness and what’s to come, but be warned: it may be a bit hard to follow because TSR (from how I’ve come to understand it) is about the vagueness of beginnings, endings, and cycles, so there isn’t really a starting point for me to begin with. (So it may seem a tad bit like a ramble in some points that I haven’t fleshed out yet/am summarizing for this ask)

This analysis has me on trails like THIS brilliant nonsense, and I am 1000000000% here for it:

Roku: “The spirit's name is Koh, but he is very dangerous. They call him The Face Stealer.”

Katara: “We’re going to find the man who took my mother from me.”...“That’s him. That’s the monster.”

Lion Turtle: “To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable, or you will be corrupted and destroyed.”

Roku: “When you speak with him, you must be very careful to show no emotion at all. Not the slightest expression, or he will steal your face.”

Hama: “Congratulations, Katara. You’re a bloodbender.”

(If Katara had killed Yon Rha, she would be giving up her identity--her face. Not only would she have become a killer, but she would be killing what made her Katara)

Aang: “Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him.”

Forgive him--approach him for what he is, not the faces your memories or your heart are having him wear. See him for the pathetic man he is in that moment right in front of you.

Aang’s forgiveness is seeing someone for the sum of their parts. It’s judging them and seeing through into their very soul, just like the Firebending Masters saw through Zuko being the Crown Prince and Aang being the Avatar. That meant nothing to the Masters. What did matter to them was who the boys were right there, right then, right in front of them.

“Why should I hold a grudge against you for something you did in a past life? After all, you’re a different person, now. You’ve come to me with a new face.”

But anyways...

If I can give no other take-away from my analysis and moon theory, it’s that Yin and Yang are not two entities; they are three. I think the fandom’s misunderstanding of it may be why the discourse on TSR (and Aang, Katara, and Zuko) is so black and white (pun intended lol).

“But Yin and Yang are obviously two things. Don’t you know the symbol?” I hear some people already saying.

Wrong, sir.

It has never been just Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang have never existed as just two things.

They are Yin and Yang and Wu Wei.

(Aunt Wu has her name for a reason, and she has the mark of the wise in her hair for a reason, too...AND she is at odds with Sokka in The Fortuneteller for a reason, too!!!...but that’s for the analysis😉)

Balance isn’t good triumphing over evil. Balance is good and evil. Balance is standing on the flow between two opposites--it’s the compliment that connects them. (The koi fish live in an oasis for a reason.)

I’ll explain what Wu Wei is later in the full analysis (like many things in here), but here’s some of my evidences and proofs for the “Yin Yang trio”:

The Tibetan “Wheel of Dharma”

(I’ll also explain the Wheel and Dharma and etc. later because it has everything to do with Koh and the moon) Long story short, the wheel and its spokes are representative of the 8 steps to enlightenment and the cycle of rebirth.

Look at the hub of the wheel. It’s a swirl made of 3 parts.

It is also a white lotus

Here’s the colored version of the wheel (as an alter):

Recognize the colors?

BLUE, WHITE (or gold, depending), & RED

These are the “THREE TREASURES” OR JEWELS.

They symbolize DHARMA, BUDDHA, & SANGHA respectively.

KATARA, AANG, & ZUKO

water, air, & fire

T H R E E

Bato: “Ice dodging is a ceremonial test of wisdom, bravery, and trust.

Bato: “The spirits of water bear witness to these marks...”

Why does Bato say spirit(s) plural? The Ocean and the Moon are only two spirits. The Ocean can’t be two things. Right?

WRONG

Yue: “The legends say the Moon was the first waterbender. Our ancestors saw how it pushed and pulled the tides and learned how to do it themselves.”

The Moon--singular. The Tides--plural (push and pull)

Lion Turtle: “In the era before the Avatar, we bent not the elements, but the energy within our senses.”

The moon pushing and pulling the tide is the moon bending the energy of its world.

Katara finding balance between “being too weak to do it” or “strong enough not to” is her bending the energy within herself.

It’s two solutions written as a question but said as a statement.

Yue: “Our ancestors saw how it pushed and pulled the tides and learned how to do it themselves”

THE SOUTHERN RAIDERS IS ABOUT AANG AND ZUKO LEARNING FROM KATARA. Katara had already learned from Aang and Zuko all leading up to TSR. That was her studying. TSR was her test.

TSR is Zuko’s and Aang’s studying. Sozin’s Comet is their test.

Bato: “For Sokka, the Mark of the Wise. The same mark your father earned. For Katara, the Mark of the Brave. Your courage inspires us. And for Aang, the Mark of the Trusted. You are now an honorary member of the Water Tribe.”

Aang - Wise (”you’re pretty wise for a kid”)

Katara - Brave (the same mark her mother earned)

Zuko - Trusted (”I was the first person to trust you”)

Sokka - Bato ("I am to have no part in this--you pass or fail on your own.”)

Yin and Yang are nothing without their dance. The Avatar and the Firelord mean nothing if they don’t have a world to rebuild.

The valley means nothing if there isn’t anyone to live in it.

Fighting is useless if there isn’t someone to fight for, otherwise it is “selfish and stupid”

Katara had to have a reason to return from Yon Rha. She needed to have Aang waiting for her. If she didn’t have a reason to stay, then she wouldn’t have a reason to go.

To have a reason to sleep, a person has to have a reason to wake up.

Katara: “Aang. He just took his glider and disappeared. He has this ridiculous notion that he has to save the world alone; that it's all his responsibility.”

Hakoda: “Maybe that's his way of being brave.”

(Bato: “For Katara, the Mark of the Brave. Your courage inspires us.”)

Katara: “It's not brave! It's selfish and stupid! We could be helping him! And I know the world needs him, but doesn't he know how much we need him, too? How can he just leave us behind?!”

(It was, in fact, not easy for Aang to ‘do nothing’)

Katara: “I understand why you left. I really do, and I know that you had to go, so why do I still feel this way? I'm so sad and angry...and hurt.”

Hakoda: “I love you more than anything. You and your brother are my entire world. I thought about you every day when I was gone, and every night when I went to sleep, I would lie awake missing you so much it would ache.”

(AND YUE IS ONE OF THE ONES TO SAVE AANG IN THE OCEAN FOR A REASON)

Thinking and missing: a matter of mind (who) and heart (want).

Iroh: “Who are you? And what do you want?”

Sokka: “We need to go back. I wanna see Dad, but helping Aang is where we're needed the most.”

Mai: “I love Zuko more than I fear you.”

BUT YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT THE MOON FOR A HOT SECOND???

I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT THE MOON

I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT 2 MOONS

OH REALLY???

OH REALLY, ZUKO

A FEW HOURS YOU SAY?

THEN TELL ME, ZUKO

WHY IS THE SUN GOING UP

WHEN IT IS THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT A FEW HOURS LATER

AND KATARA IS SLEEPING SO YOU CAN’T TELL ME IT’S BECAUSE YOU RISE WITH THE SUN OTHERWISE SHE’D BE WIDE AWAKE DURING THE FULL MOON THAT SHE USES TO BLOODBEND NOT EVEN TWO MINUTES LATER

THIS, MY FRIENDS, IS A HARVEST MOON

WHICH IS THE LAST FULL MOON OF THE SUMMER

(and looks off color when it rises/falls because of the angle of the rise/fall in the atmosphere...it’s normal once overhead)

AND SYMOLIZES HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF

“We’re going to find the MAN who took my mother from me.”

“That’s him. That’s the MONSTER.”

8 spokes on the wheel

Katara was 8 when Kya was killed

8 steps to enlightenment (the “Eightfold Path”)

8 phases of the moon

8 faces of Koh

“One of your previous incarnations tried to slay me! Be it 8 or 9 hundred years ago” (but time is an illusion, so hundreds mean nothing)

THE OTHER TWO MOONS THAT ARE CONSUMING MY EVERY WAKING MOMENT???:

1.) The WOLF MOON--the first full moon of the new year (a love between the wolf and the moon in the harshest winters...connection is kindof obvious lmao)

2.) THE THUNDER MOON

The Thunder Moon is the full moon of July. It is also known as the Buck Moon--for when young buck regrow their antlers.

Yue: “My hair turned white.”

Zuko: *cuts and re-grows his hair*

Aang: “I have hair?”

The Thunder Moon--the full moon of July--is also the beginning of a certain Buddhist holiday.

DHARMA DAY

WHICH CELEBRATES THE BEGINING OF BUDDHISM AND THE FIRST OF THE 8 STEPS (the first spoke of the Dharma Wheel) TOWARDS ENLIGHTENMENT

AVATAR IS ALL ABOUT CYCLES

THE SOUTHERN RAIDERS IS ALL ABOUT BREAKING THEM

I haven’t even touched Jung, Koh, Hinduism, and Buddhism yet

or the fact that Katara and Kya are the only characters in the entire series to wear moons on their clothing and that, together, they form an actual lunar phenomenon

or why the spirit oasis isn’t a complete circle

or the fact that this thing that Aang is told to chase is just like Whaletail Island:

or how important the Great Divide and the Solstice are

AND I’M JUST GETTING STARTED

BECAUSE EVERYTHING IN THE SOUTHERN RAIDERS--RIGHT DOWN TO THE SOUND DESIGN--IS ABSOLUTELY MONUMENTAL IN UNDERSTANDING THE SHOW, ITS MESSAGE, ENERGYBENDING, AND LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE

TLDR: Idk how the heck I’m going to arrange or articulate this analysis because it is WILD. Be warned: There is literally no exact beginning and ending to this analysis because the whole point of Yin and Yang is that is has no beginning or ending (...kindof...), so you’ll have to bear with me once I’m done editing it into something that’s somewhat coherent.

These are just SOME of the things I’ve been able to answer with my moon theory and analysis of The Southern Raiders as it currently stands:

Why “letting go” isn’t really letting go (as we understand it...see: Aang’s confrontation with Koh)

Why Lake Laogai and the Spirit World are symbolically the same thing.

Zuko’s advice to the bullfrog is actually a summary of the show, energybending, the origin of bending, and the definition of Aang’s “forgiveness” I stg

Why “Sokka’s instincts” are the reason Katara yells at Sokka

Believe it or not, every time Katara mentions her mother, it is at specific times for specific reasons.

^^^same thing for the moon, lack of moon, moon positioning, etc.

Katara’s mother’s necklace is more important than we realize.

Who the faces of Koh are and WHY they are there.

The true meaning of Jet’s sacrifice.

Why Jet’s episode about the dam explains the entirety of TSR as it pertains to Katara (all the way down to the little girl who runs to get her doll after the dam breaks)

Why Katara actually DID forgive Yon Rha, and the fact that she doesn’t even know it is proof that she did

^^^^^Aang’s definition of forgiveness is completely misunderstood by the fandom, and the way he “forgives” is sososo much deeper than “moving on”, and it is DEFINATELY by no means “doing nothing” or “excusing” past actions.

The importance of lightning, Zuko, Aang, and Katara.

The absolutely monumental and not nearly talked about importance of Jeong-Jeong like holy crap.

How Katara and Azula are just as much of a Yin and Yang as Zuko and Aang but not in the way we think they are

Why Koh has the Blue Spirit’s face

Why Koh DOESN’T have the Painted Lady’s face.

Who Ni-Ni from Katara’s campfire story in The Puppetmaster is

How and why Iroh was able to learn firebending from the Masters even though he didn’t have a partner.

How/Why Azula had her breakdown and why she saw her mother in the mirror

Why “Leaves from the Vine” and “Four Seasons” are the same song, explain Azula’s downfall, and explain the Yin and Yang of TSR.

Why Katara and Sokka are so often mistaken for parental figures.

Why Aang’s flashbacks to the Air Nomads are so important in understanding TSR.

Why Toph and Suki disappear after the campfire in TSR.

How Hakoda, Gyatso, and Kya are all connected.

Why it is so dang important that Azula shows up in the beginning of TSR.

The importance of the Spirit Oasis.

Energybending, healing with waterbending, Aang’s trauma, and Zuko’s scar.

Why Zuko gives Katara the exact opposite advise in TSR that he gave her in the catacombs.

How everything could be predicted and read by the moon.

WHY YIN AND YANG ARE THREE THINGS AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THREE THINGS.

HOW ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL OF THIS TIES BACK TO THE MOON AND BUDDHIST BELIEFS--AND YEAH THE MOON AND BUDDHISM AND HINDUISM ARE MORE CONNECTED IN ATLA THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE.

AND HOW IT LEADS INTO OUR MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SELF--BECAUSE JUNG TOOK GREAT INFLUENCE IN HIS DEVELOPING THEORY OF THE CONSCIOUS AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS FROM THE HINDU/BUDDHIST RELIGIONS

^^^^AND ALSO THE THEORY OF THE SHADOW AND THE PERSONA

The ocean is a deep, dark, unknown place with a lot of hidden monsters (like Yon Rah). Katara needed a light to find her monster, but she also needed somewhere she could breathe when she came back up for air.

If she didn’t have both Zuko and Aang, Katara would have drowned.

I wasn’t kidding when I said this was a thesis, and what I’ve said and listed here isn’t even all that I have.

btw This all does line up on the traditional Yin Yang symbol we know and see in the show, but I don’t have enough space here for that lmao. That’ll be in the analysis

I hope you enjoyed this little taste, my friend, because I need to sit down for a hot second before my brain leaks out of my ears. Sorry for the ramble. I promise the analysis isn’t like this lol. This is just me trying to summarize as best as I can.

***Disclaimer: My points are always subject to change since I am still researching. These are the facts as I’ve found and applied them to the evidences I’ve noted from in the show. I’m always open for friendly discussion or any directions to better sources on Buddhism/Tao/Jung!***

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the-melting-world · 3 years

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picrew

Seeing as how long I have been a HUGE fan of the airbender series (ATLA), it's actually kind of ridiculous that I never got into the fandom. Anyway, humor me while I go through each of my ocs and babble about their roles, histories, and bending styles in the ATLA universe! Also please excuse the fact that they had zero afro-textured options for hair in this one lol.

*Check under the cut for an unnecessary amount of lore.*

Kipling ~ Waterbender | Northern-style waterbending, vine/plant-bending, healing

Water Tribe Babeyyyyy

I don't really see Kip hailing from the Southern or Northern Water Tribes, but rather from a coastal village that developed after a handful of Southern Water Tribe hostages escaped one of the prisoner of war strongholds in the Earth Kingdom. I mean, if Hama (The Puppetmaster) and the plant benders from Foggy Swamp were any indication, there were water benders scattered all over the Earth Kingdom during Lord Ozai's military campaign.

Bending-wise, Kip has always been an average waterbender, whose bending is strongest when she's manipulating the water in plants and vines. When she comes of age, she is determined to advance her skills and find a way to serve her tribe more directly. So she travels to the Northern Water Tribe to seek an apprenticeship. There Kip advances her skills in traditional water bending forms (because up until then, her methods have been rather unorthodox) as well as her affinity for healing.

While Kip is up north, she does get close to Princess Yue in their healing classes. For a long time, Kip develops what she believes is a stupid crush, but eventually discovers the Princess has mutual feelings. Step aside, Sokka, you ain't the only one. Kip and Yue explore their relationship, but only briefly until the guilt and paranoia of getting caught and tarnishing Yue's reputation catches up to them. Kip ends up leaving in the dead of night leaving nothing but - you guessed it - a poem for Yue to find.

Kip happens to be one of the travelers Team Avatar meets while they're on the road. It's quite some time after the invasion of the Northern Water Tribe. This is after Yue has passed on, but before the group reaches Ba Sing Se. Both being kind of self-taught waterbenders, Kip and Katara bond very easily. Kip has a hard time being around Sokka since it's the first time she's felt something for someone since Yue. Still, despite Kip's efforts to ignore Sokka, they end up bonding over a lot of stuff, both stupid and serious. I'm not going to go into details about what went down when they inevitably learned of each other's past relationships with Yue, but yes, there were lots of emotions. A lot of Kip trying to run away and shake herself of Sokka. A lot of Sokka battling between pursuing her or leaving her alone. It's a mess. And no I still don't know how it turns out. Haven't planned it out that far.

After Ozai is defeated, Kip makes her living as a traveling waterbending instructor with her good Earth Kingdom friend, Khleo. She travels the territories, finding hidden water tribes and informing them of the fall of Ozai. She works with Khleo and the community members to open smalls schools, closely modeled after the earthbending schools in Omashu.

***

Khleo ~ Earthbender | earthbending, sandbending, lavabending

Khleo had a rocky start to their journey. Sorry, I couldn't help it.

They were born in an area that bordered on the Si Wong Desert and the mountain chain dividing the land from Chameleon Bay (where they later meet Kipling.) Naturally, Khleo picks up a little bit from each of the known forms of earth manipulation. Although they develop into a fully realized master by the time they reach adulthood, they don't ever try their hand at meltalbending when it starts to gain popularity after the fall of Ozai.

Khleo grew up poor and had to resort to unsavory business ventures with the local sandbenders in order to keep food on the table. But since they were the sole bender that could calm down the nearby volcanoes whenever they acted up, they were always regarded as a hero within the community.

Eventually, the Fire Nation finds a way to complicate Khleo's existence and they have to flee their home. First, they cross the mountain range to Chameleon Bay, where they meet the waterbender Kipling, who they easily bond with. Khleo and Kip travel together for some time until they run into Jet and his crew. Jet's lifestyle appeals to Khleo, who was tired of roughing it. But Kip takes one look at Jet and knows that he's bad news. She and Khleo part ways.

Like most of the kids in Jet's crew, Khleo blinded themself to his activities in order to survive and stay connected to a family group. But when his actions become too hard for them to go along with, they abandon the Freedom Fighters and go to go look for work elsewhere.

Khleo had set their sights on Omashu, where they believed they could earn an honest living and still practice their bending without the eyes of the Fire Nation bearing down on them. The journey was tough and Khleo had a few brushes with death, but they made it to Omashu. There they were immediately hired by a cabbage vendor who struggled in the past with keeping his wares in one piece. Khleo guarded his cabbage stand for all but a week before they were noticed by some Omashu academy trainers. They offered Khleo a job as an instructor in multiple earthbending forms. Surprised, but very willing, Khleo accepted. Eventually, Khleo was inducted into the Order of the White Lotus.

Years later, Khleo reunites with a very emotionally scarred Kipling. She stays with them until the capture of King Bumi, after which they quickly leave the city so that they can carry out the will of the White Lotus in hopes to undermine the Fire Nation's plan to conquer the Earth Kingdom on the day of Sozin's Comet 2.0.

***

Ozy ~ The Avatar Firebender/Airbender hybrid | firebending, airbending

Ozy's kind of special. He has an affinity for two elements.

He was born in the Fire Nation in a very, very small village on the coast of Crescent Island. When Ozy's parents noticed that their child was something of a prodigy, they brought him straight to the Fire Sages.

Now, there was a split among the sages. Some were loyal to Lord Ozai while others were secretly members of the Order of the White Lotus. One of the members recognized Ozy's affinity for airbending very early on and did everything they could to protect him.

Without being able to say goodbye to his parents or getting an explanation for what was happening, Ozy was sent to the Western Air Temple (you know, the cool upsidedown one) where he learned airbending with the help of older White Lotus members as well as spiritual experts like Guru Pathik (the same guru who taught Aang how to navigate the Avatar State.)

As Ozy became more and more enlightened, he came to believe that his gift was not a rare one. When he was not actively practicing the rudimentary components of bending, he was meditating on the factors that led the majority of people to believe that the ability to bend was inherited based on the ethnic and cultural group into which they were born. He thought that while this was true to some degree, additional affinities could be unlocked through the forgotten teachings of the Air Nomads.

To test his theory, Ozy went on a very dangerous journey to the Library in the Si Wong Desert, where he met and became very bonded to Uncle Iroh. Thankfully, Iroh and Ozy managed to not get eaten by the Library's spiritual patron. Later, Ozy declined Iroh's invitation to the Order of the White Lotus, instead choosing to retire to the Northern Air Temple. Thre he ended up assisting the mechanists with the construction of the flight technology (part of which had already been stolen and weaponized by the Fire Nation.) Ozy never left the Northern Air Temple to help in the fight against Ozai. Instead, he remained and became the first of the Air Acolytes, from which grows a community that later founded Air Temple Island and discovered the next child born into the Avatar Cycle - Korra of the Water Tribe.

***

Sun Bai ~ Airbender | proficient in airbending. Technically.

Bai, unfortunately, did not discover that he was an airbender until he was well into his twenties. The only way he unlocked his affinity for bending was through a traumatic event, the effects of which he managed to suppress for several years. It wasn't until Bai found himself in another flight or fight situation that he spontaneously called upon his connection to the air element. (Turns out Ozy was kind of right!)

Once Bai realized what he was made of, he made it a point to gather as much knowledge on the subject as he could. Everything that he came to understand about bending was self-taught. Meditation came more naturally to him, but even that required additional training, discipline, and theory to fully master. (He was basically the opposite of Avatar Korra, who picked up on the manual technique of airbending quite easily, but struggled with its spiritual component.)

Bai didn't really play a role in the fight against Lord Ozai. He didn't run into any of the Trio or Team Avatar. His journey didn't really start until after the war. At which point he meets General Adrenaline, and then later, Sascha of the Water Tribe.

General Rosario Adrenaline ~ Firebender | firebending, master in lightning redirection

Like Ozy, Adrenaline was another firebending prodigy. (In fact, it was Adrenaline who worked very closely with Princess Azula to hone her lightning redirection technique.) Eventually, Nali's skills were exploited to the fullest in the Fire Nation's military campaign, but long before that, firebending for her was a means to perform and entertain the masses.

Adrenaline grew up in the same circus troupe as Ty Lee! They had been best friends since childhood and ended up escaping together.

While Princess Azula always favored Ty Lee and Mei over Nali as bodyguards, she often went to Nali for "companionship." Azula kept her relationship with Nali very private. It lasted well into Azula's teenage years and got pretty serious. Though neither of them considered themselves in love with the other (just due to the fact that there was so much of a strain on them thanks to social hierarchy, and Azula being Azula) Nali developed a very deep, unhealthy loyalty to Azula, that in the end, resulted in her banishment from protecting the royal family.

After she was banished, Nali linked up with Zuko, who wasn't really all that happy about it, but Iroh steps in and gives the wise compassionate uncle lecture. Zuko folds and Nali becomes one his crew!

Nali and Azula continue to pursue their relationship. And now that it started to hinge on whenever Azula came around to fuck with Zuko's head, you can imagine how even more unhealthy and eventually toxic it became. Nali was torn between her loyalty to Azula versus her loyalty to Zuko. And Azula... didn't really care. It was a mess. Didn't end pretty.

Only after Azula was imprisoned by her brother did Nali finally wipe her hands completely clean of the Fire Nation's royal family. Not really caring what was happening in the rest of the world, she stumbled around from territory to territory, drinking, gambling, and taking up muscle for hire gigs to keep herself afloat. Until she meets and unexpectedly bonds with a very lazy monk, who needed an escort through the Serpent's Pass.

***

Sascha ~ Nonbender | weapons specialist - firearms and projectiles

Solo ~ Waterbender | Southern-style waterbending, bloodbending

Sascha and Solo were both students of Hama. Nuff said.

Although the twins soaked up much of Hama's ruthless, yet practical attitude towards survival, they just didn't inherit her very deep, eternal loathing for the Fire Nation.

They also realized that she was pretty messed up.

When Sascha and Solo were of age, they made a clean break from Hama and decided to open up a business in one of the towns along the mountainside.

Having grown up in the Fire Nation colonies, Sascha and Solo were very used to hiding their connection to their Water Tribe heritage. They blended in well and opened their garment and optics shop. It was a strange combination, but they managed to stake their claim in the community.

However, the two of them were still very clear enemies of the Fire Nation. They rebelled by getting the information out to other Water Tribe refugees living in hiding. Solo taught bloodbending in his self defense classes (which was much easier for him to pull off rather than traditional waterbending because it required less physical labor and thus did not put as much of a strain on his body.)

Meanwhile, Sascha would show Water Tribe nonbenders how to assemble firearms, which at the time, were considered still very new and dangerous technology.

Solo was happy with their life, but Sascha grew bored and restless. She wanted an adventure.

Then one day a very strange monk winds up wounded on her doorstep in the middle of the night. He's riddled with bullets - the kind of which only Fire Nation militia and Sascha herself would know how to remove and treat the damage they could cause...

***

And a treat for those that made it this far! 😜

Me!!! A water-airbender hybrid. And you're damn right I would have some hair loopies!

#this ended up be very long and involved #yall i am sorry but i needed it get it out somehow lol #this has nothing to do with the arcana #and yet...#kipling the apprentice #ozy the grey mage #khleo the barhand #sun bai the psychic #mestra adrenaline #sascha the gunslinger #solo the seamstress #atla

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 2 years

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Old Bones Aflame (Part 14)

Sorry if this one is lackluster. I typed this one while carrying out a conversation at a family reunion lol. So I was a bit distracted. This one is more of a bridge chapter anyhow.

It is nice to feel sunlight on her face after so many days of being cooped up in Hama’s little shack. To feel a breeze in her hair, especially knowing that she almost wouldn’t have felt it ever again. She wanders her way through the tall grass, feeling it brush against her bare calves and between her toes.

She inhales, taking in a fresh and earthy perfume of clover and dewy grass. Beads of water are still sparkling upon them.

“This way.” Hama beckons.

“Can I put my shoes on?”

Hama shakes her head. “I want you to get a feeling for the jungle, learn to walk around it without shoes so that you can do it if you ever have to live without them later.”

“That sounds…ridiculous.” She mutters.

“You’ll find that it is actually quite invigorating.” She pauses. “It could be good for you.”

She supposes that, with the security of knowledgeable company, there is something soothing about the feeling of earth beneath her feet. Something about the jungle air that takes the tension from her shoulders and the stress from her mind.

She trails her fingers along the surface of trees, brushing them against the mosses until Hama’s fingers come to claps around her wrist. She jerks it away from the tree with a startling abruptness.

“Lesson number one; pay attention. Just because you aren’t on a battlefield doesn’t mean that you should let your guard down.”

“My guard is plenty up, I assure you.” Azula grumbles.

“Perhaps with me it is. But with the jungle–even after everything–you trust it too much.” she clears her throat and begins again. “Lesson one, pay attention to your surroundings. Snakes and spiders like the trees. They slink across the ground.” She pauses. “Poison ivy likes the trees as well.” She gestures to a tangle of leaves that thinly cloaks the tree. A tangle of leaves that is just shy of Azula’s fingertips.

Azula retracts her hand abruptly and cringes.

"You see." Hama says smugly. “That is why you have to pay attention to where you let your fingers wander.

Azula’s cheeks flush. “Right, of course.” She stiffens. They have only been walking for some thirty minutes and she is already displaying her ignorance and incompetence. She can’t fathom why Hama is bringing her along for this. She is only keeping her from what could be a relaxing hobby.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Get all stiff like that. The jungle is a calming place, just keep in mind that you can’t get careless.”

“Right.”

“I suppose that it will take some getting used to. Eventually you’ll relax.”

She can’t imagine that Hama will put up with her long enough for that to happen.

“You’re an intuitive girl–I’m sure that the jungle won’t be a problem for you after you let me teach you about it.” She pauses, bringing their walk to a full halt. “You do know that, right?”

Azula furrows her brows. She has always thought herself to a person of sensibility and clever but lately she has been feeling anything but. Lately she has been questioning intellect. Only a fool could manage the feat she has accomplished; taking an inconsequential infection and turning it into a life-altering tragedy.

“You can’t expect yourself to know what’s what if you’ve never been taught. I don’t know what is said in the Fire Nation but I do believe that ignorance and idiocy aren’t the same.”

“Yes.” She agrees. “You can make something of ignorance.”

Hama flashes her a grin.

“Only an idiot would run off into the jungle when there are other options–and with an oozing infection no less.” Only someone like Zuzu. Only someone like her, apparently.

“Anger isn’t exactly rational.”

But she has never let anger take her like that before. “It was foolishness, plain and simple.”

“Sit.” Hama points to a stump. “Or stand if you’d like, I’m going to sit.”

Azula furrows her brows. “We’re not going to get to find any bones if you keep stalling.” Azula finds herself a spot on the stump regardless.

“Before we collect bones we need to have a discussion.”

“Another?” Azula stares down at her feet, they are cringe inducingly muddy and she finds herself suppressing a shudder. She feels gross and dirty. A far cry from the civilized, well mannered princess she had been. It is no wonder she is losing her grip and her composure. Her intellect.

“We are going to be having lots of discussions.”

Lots of uncomfortable lectures that make her stomach lurch.

“We need to talk about how you talk.”

Azula furrows her brows.

“The things that you say about yourself.”

“I don’t say much about myself.”

Hama arches a skeptical brow but plays along. “Which is why it’s so astounding that I’ve heard so many degrading remarks.” She sighs. “You throw your titles around but do they even mean anything to you? Or do you only drop them when you can think of any skills to mention.”

Azula’s tummy flutters.

“I don’t think that you would have been so quick to run off if you didn’t feel the need to prove something.”

She clenches her teeth.

.oOo.

“I don’t suppose that I helped any.” Hama confesses. “I made you feel incapable.”

“You were ri–”

Hama holds a hand up. “I wasn’t right. You have what it takes. I can tell. You’ve got plenty of natural skill. The mistakes you made were mostly common, beginner mistakes. Things that many Caldera City dwellers make. Unfortunately little mistakes in places like these can end terribly. And a series of them…” She gestures to Azula’s arm. “I shouldn’t have let you just go out there. You lasted the night, figured out how to set up a shelter and start a fire despite the rash and the infection.”

“And it didn’t matter. In the end it never does. I can work hard, I can do everything…almost everything right and…” She trails off. “Nevermind.”

“If you’re going to get through this, you’re going to have to be gentle with yourself.” She draws a sizable sphere of water from the ground. “Leave room for error, flexible and fluid.” She gives the water an easy and lazy flick. “You’re a rigid person.”

“I’m adaptable.” Azula insists. “I haven’t broken yet.” But there is a hitch in her voice. The faintest little hitch that she only recognizes from decades of hearing it around her and inducing it.

“You’ve got a lot to adapt to.” She reaches for Azula’s left arm but the firebender jerks it away. “And you’re going to have to give yourself room for error while you do.”

Azula bites her lower lip. “If I give myself room for error then that leaves room for complete failure.” Her fingers close around the end of her left arm.

“You also leave room for growth.” Hama insists. And Raava, she hopes that the girl will. She can see it, her mind is just open enough to open the old woman’s own mind. She slaps her knees and gets to her feet. “Well…that wasn’t the best talk–”

“We’ve certainly had better.” The girl mumbles.

“But I think that it’s time to scavenge some bones and pick some flowers. I’ve got a lot to show you; different herbs and what they are good for. I’d like to teach you to identify bones–just something that I find fascinating.”

Azula nods. “I would like to learn about bones.”

Hama gets the impression that she simply likes to learn in general. She has an inquisitive nature, a curious one. The kind of nature that tends to put old beliefs and new beliefs at odds. So she will take the girl out to the farther bone field, she will take her to forage and pick herbs, and with any luck old prejudices will fall away on their own. Her lust for learning will drive them out. With any luck, security and confidence will take root with each root she plucks. And perhaps it will all fall into place.

Perhaps Hama will let go of her own grievances.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Hama #Found Family #Fanfiction

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bigmeatymudcrabchitins · 3 years

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A not-so-brief overview of my Skyrim Dova OCs bc i need to scream to the digital void about my ideas

Freyora Lind, more commonly known by her strange alias “Bjorne Icepick”

A Nord-eventually-turned-werewolf who orphaned during the Great War and taken in by a Dunmeri mercenary whose residence was in Windhelm’s Gray Quarter. Grew up in a cramped boarding house setting among desperate mercenaries of varying backgrounds. Many of them would all come and go, but there was always some sort of a familial bond between them all.

From a young age she got in a lot of fights against people who insulted her for living in the Gray Quarter among the dark elves. Eventually she took a fight too far and was jailed for murder around 14, but was broken out shortly after by a band of masked vampires. Turns out some of her mercenary comrades unwittingly caught vampirism during a contract to clear out a vampire den and had to skip town, but not before ensuring one of their own wasn’t left to rot.

Lived in Cyrodil for about 15 years, but returned to Skyrim pursuing rumors surrounding a cure to vampirism, as her adoptive father would be nearing the end of his elven lifespan and had wished to die a normal death.

Seeing as she was literally a fugitive, and her long-belated parents were somewhat renowned for their battlefield prowess, she took on a false identity. AND an act to match it.

She’ll eat raw meat, chase prey with swords instead of using a bow like a normal person, harp about irrational conspiracy theories, and more. Everyone’s foul reactions to her outlandish act are plainly hilarious to her and only encourage her to act even stranger.

The alias “Bjorne Icepick” was simply the most ridiculous name she could think of.

Not the most morally outstanding. Besides drunken brawling, she’ll steal from anyone who angers her, even if it’s things she literally won’t ever need such as all the goblets in a household. It’s the pettiness that counts. “Try drinking your damn high-end wine now, jackass.”

Calls Dwarven Automatons “Gundams.” Including she herself, no one knows what that means.

Joins the Companions out of homesickness and a desire to fill in a gap that leaving home left.

Hasn’t bothered curing herself of lycanthropy because her whole schtick is being incredibly resourceful, and that includes using any means of power necessary. Still doesn’t fancy Hircine’s Hunting Grounds as her desired afterlife, though.

As her journey goes on, however, her lightheartedly eccentric face starts to fall off as a number of events push her to begin to question the legitimacy of her actions up until that point.

Some of which include the eventual death of her adoptive father (and how she was indirectly responsible for it even if it was what he wanted), Delphine’s ultimatum, the civil war as a collective, learning the tragic history behind the Falmer and the original Companions’ role in it, and killing of Vyrthur (no matter how much he genuinely deserved it).

She grows disgusted by herself down to the core. She takes to skooma to cope, and starts to be plagued by serious skooma-induced side effects. She ends up shutting herself away from all her responsibilities and distancing herself from her friends.

Does she get better? Maybe. I haven’t thought up anything past this point lol

Moureneris Alta

A very, VERY ancient vampiric snow elf, (though it’s notable she was born a considerable amount of time after the razing of Sarthaal)

Survived many atrocities. Stayed in isolation with a band of vampires for countless years out of sheer disgust for the nature of the sapient races. (I’ll explain her full story some other time. It’s pretty complicated)

She was abducted from her isolated lifestyle by a certain person i’ll talk about later. She managed to free herself south of Skyrim, and uh, walks right into that Imperial ambush. The rest is history.

Super ignorant to modern society as a result of centuries of isolation. Exploited for comedic relief. (“What in the name of Oblivion is a Cyrodilic Empire? Are you messing with me? And please, how does levitation magic simply get outlawed by this hypothetical Empire? What are you to do when you fall down a crevice? Just... let yourself perish? How degrading.)

She reintegrated herself into society with vengeance in mind under the belief that all humans are savage bloodlusting murderers who had to answer for their treachery. (And she was royally angry there was no Dwemer left to spite, but partially satisfied at the same time). But she grows conflicted after being shown genuine kindness, even as early as being freed from her binds in Helgen.

Subsequently has a very muddled redemption arc. Queue Dragonborn hero stuff

She has impaired vision, but she cultivated detect life magic to aid her in daily life and combat (think Hyakkimaru from Dororo ‘19 and his soul detection or Toph Beifong from ATLA and her seismic sense). At her peak, she can detect life from about a kilometer away.

She can just barely read, but only if she holds the text incredibly close to her face, not to mention her Cyrodilic lessons were left unfinished after her abduction, making reading a very taxing process. Weary travelers are often spooked at the sight of a floating, ghastly looking elven woman with her nose pressed up against crossroad signs, and it has become somewhat of an urban legend.

Isn’t as nearly as skilled with detecting the dead and tenses up in burial crypts or around other vampires for that reason. Unfortunately, being the Dragonborn and all, she finds herself in a lot of crypts...

When questioned about her background due to her unique appearance: “Oh, yeah. My mother was one of those mer from the east. You know the ones. Dark elves, I think? And my father was one of those er, tall elv- no, sorry, HIGH elves. Yeah. They both died in a big fire or something though. It was horrible. I can’t get the noxious smell or the deafening screams out of my head. Good talk, but never ask me about that again.”

Queue sheltered old immortal antics: “Wow, you’re THAT old? Enlighten me on how it felt witnessing the fall of the Dwemer. Or perhaps the rise of Tiber Septim’s Empire. The Gates of Ob-“ “Oblivion if I know. I lived in someone’s basement for thousands of years. And I still don’t know what everyone means by Empire. You all are messing with me, aren’t you? That really annoys me.”

She ultimately returns to faith in Auri-El and makes it her life’s purpose to help the Betrayed find peace, as well as to seek out any remaining snow elf groups. Probably good friends with Gelebor or something.

Had a crush on Serana. We all know how THAT went. Damned temples.

Was originally gonna spiral into a much darker corruption arc (another ATLA comparison being Jet or Hama) but I just felt bad for her. Moureneris can have a little found peace. As a treat.

That’s her preliminary design made. I’ll need a mod to properly play her, because that right there was made by choosing Dunmer as her race. But I can’t do that. I’m on console, and while I got the Steam port a month ago, my PC’s stone age specs can’t handle Skyrim yet and I’ll need to wait until I can afford a better graphics card (thanks economic inflation)

Alexandre Armasi, jokingly nicknamed Alexandre the Curious

A complete and unapologetic export of my character from a dead and unfinished DND campaign. Except there are no Aasimar in Skyrim, so he’s half Altmer half Bosmer. And his initial last name was Armas but I thought Armasi suited his Skyrim counterpart more, as subtle a change it is.

He’s mainly Bosmer in appearance and constitution, save for his hair and eyes, which are more similar to that of his Altmeri father’s.

I can’t really export his original backstory though because the campaign wouldn’t translate well into TES lore at all.

He’s a writer who came wandering into Skyrim in search of inspiration. While he mainly writes dramatic fables, he wanted to divert his focus to crafting his own bestiary and herbal compendium surrounding Skyrim’s fauna and flora. The ones at home are simply too vague to him!

He’s very altruistic, wishing to spread cheer wherever he goes, through the art of song (even though he was a cleric in DND and not a bard. My bad.) However, many of his verses are just blatant self promotions of his published fables.

But he’s too naive for his own good. Dangerously so. In fact, he says what’s on his mind with little forethought, with little grasp on the consequences of his actions, which lands him in lots of trouble. “I don’t favor him myself, but you guys kill people over Talos worship? That’s not very cool. A bit scary, if you ask me.” or “A Stormcloak rebel? Didn’t your leader kill a bunch of Reachmen rebels years back, or so I’ve heard. By the divines that’s not a man I’d make a symbol of nonconformity.”

He’s also insatiably curious. The type to ACTUALLY shove alchemic ingredients in his mouth with no knowledge of their properties, experiment with dangerous rune spells, throw rocks at pressure plates, and more. Needless to say he’s very accident prone.

Doesn’t know common curse words. People exploit this for laughs. Think that episode of Spongebob.

Everyone is a little baffled that HE of all people is the prophesied Dragonborn of legend. This agonizingly imbecilic writer who has absentmindedly wandered into burial crypts, troll dens, bandit forts, and more, too busy juggling his manuscripts to pay attention to his surroundings.

His past doesn’t exactly reflect his outlook on life. His mother and father fought in the Great War aligned with the Imperials despite their elven background. Both managed to live to see the war’s conclusion, but his father vanished without a trace shortly after, and it seems his mother knows something she won’t tell him.

With plenty of exposure to bad influences, his innocence is slowly lost throughout the course of his journey, and his altruism begins to grow twisted. But nevertheless, he maintains his jovial, social persona, except this time with much darker undertones. Kinda like a creepy dentist or something.

Whoops. He winds up becoming a feared Dark Brotherhood assassin. (Haha get it “Innocence Lost”???) He somehow deluded himself into thinking that the life of an assassin was the right thing to do. But he’s a funky little guy so he gets a pass for his heinous crimes against society

#skyrim #skyrim oc #dragonborn #dovahkiin

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jaxsteamblog · 3 years

Text

Nightmare

Click here to read the entire fic on AO3

Content warning: References past violence

Fire snapped, water dripped, and rocks tumbled down walls. As Katara clung to Zuko, she felt his hold on her weaken. The moment he slipped into unconsciousness, everything in her body tensed. Instinctively, Katara pulled walls of ice shards up whenever someone approached. She did the same when someone tried to get to Azula.

“Katara.” Rohan said softly, holding up their hands as they approached.

“No one can touch them.” Katara hissed, the ice rippling like a spine. “I don’t trust anyone here.”

“Thuy needs help. You need help. And there aren’t enough of us.” Rohan said.

“THUY!” A panicked yell ripped through the crowd and Katara snapped her body around Zuko’s unconscious form. Peering back out into the pit where the audience had gathered, she saw two young women arguing with a few guards and Tenzin. They were the twins Katara had seen skulking around the palace when Thuy was there.

She narrowed her eyes.

“No.” Katara said.

“Katara-”

“Then get more people Rohan!” She snapped. “No one else is allowed near them.”

“You need to let go, Katara.” Rohan said.

“Back off, Rohan.” Katara seethed, pulling the shards closer around herself and Zuko. “I’m warning you.”

Rohan held out a hand and placed it gently on her shoulder.

“Let me help you.” They said softly, holding her gaze.

Katara began to tremble, first feeling her chin wobble before her whole body dissolved into tightly held tremors.

“Okay.” She whispered.

Rohan squeezed her shoulder and everything went dark.

When she came to, Katara scrambled to her feet. It was pitch black and her head swam, making it impossible for her to get her bearings. Her stomach pitched and she almost went with it, but Katara swallowed the lump in her throat.

As she looked around in the nothingness, she tried to find some clue as to where she was. The air was stale and reeked of metal. Not just steel, but the stench of long containment.

A bright light snapped on, blinding her with its large, watchful eye. Katara tossed her arms up to shield herself from the searchlight and it felt cold on her skin. Still, it gave her light to see by, and Katara looked under her arms to see where she was.

It was a simple hallway. The floor was metal but the walls were painted white stone, with long, thin vents running at the top. That was what circulated the air through this underground chamber, albeit poorly. It was cool and dry, keeping things from getting damp or sweaty.

It was one of the places the Fire Nation would keep Waterbenders.

“We have to keep moving.” Katara said and started running. Behind her, she could hear two pairs of feet following. Then more. The two were planned, the others were not.

Hama had told her about this place, had warned her about it, had prepared her for it.

But after seeing Kya again, Katara swore she wouldn’t use it.

“Hama!” Kya’s voice cried just as something hard hit the metallic floor behind Katara.

“Go!” Hama urged.

But Kya was a nurse. Kya wouldn’t go.

Fire blazed as Katara spun around, catching the brunt of it in the cloak Suki had supplied. But not all of it. She faltered, clutching her forearm, as the Fire Nation soldiers thundered down the hall.

Shadows licked up the edges of the bright white spotlight, and Katara could hear everything.

Guns made such a unique sound. It was more than a pop; it was all about air being forced out of a space by the sudden arrival of something very deadly.

So much like lightning, the thought flashed just as suddenly as the muzzle in front of her.

And the lightning stopped as it buried itself in someone else’s abdomen.

“Bend it!” Hama demanded.

“No.” Katara said, stepping over her mother’s body and crouching low. “Not her.”

She held out her hands as the muzzle flashed and the lightning cracked.

“Them.”

“MOM!”

Katara jolted upright, her body soaked in sweat, and she started to cry. The tears frightened her, as the nightmare left her and the emotions came on as a confusing wave.

Her hands searched erratically until they hit something firm and she dug in. Zuko, still out, lay peacefully next to her.

Katara curled around him, her sobs interrupted by bouts of hiccups as her body was frantically sucking in air.

“No, no, no. Zuko, WAKE UP!” Katara yelled, grabbing his shoulders roughly and shaking him. “WAKE UP!”

Hands were on her and Katara fought viciously. Ice at her fingernails sliced through skin and blood ran down her arm.

A bloody handprint had healed the burn on her arm.

Katara felt the blood drain from her head and the room tilted backwards, shoving her back into bed.

Back into the darkness.

The second waking was much gentler.

The bedroom had a window and the gauzy curtains ruffled timidly from the air conditioning. That was about all Katara could see of the room from her position.

“I assume I’m restrained for a reason.” She said to the other person in the room.

“You are correct.” Iroh replied. Katara was quiet as she heard him close a book and push a chair back.

“I hurt someone.” She stated.

“Correct again.”

“Badly?” Her voice was small.

“I’ve had worse.” Iroh stood over her, a wide bandage taped to his cheek.

Katara’s body went cold but her face flushed and she looked away as Iroh undid the light restraints.

“A moment of psychosis, which is common with PTSD, but more extreme than I think anyone was prepared.” Iroh continued. “I thought this was a bit much but everyone is... a little on edge right now.”

When the restraints were off, Katara rubbed her wrist lightly. There was still dried blood under one of her fingernails.

“Is Zuko okay?” She asked, staring at her wrist.

“My nephew is physically fine, and I thank you for that.” Iroh said and Katara lowered her hands.

As she stayed silent, Iroh continued.

“He is furious about your treatment.”

“Well, it makes sense. I did assault you.”

Iroh chuckled and Katara finally looked over at him.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but actually it’s because of Azula.” He said.

“What?” Katara balked and Iroh laughed again.

“Until what happened yesterday is sorted, you technically assaulted the princess of the Fire Nation. I’m just a pardoned traitor afterall.” He explained.

“That’s completely ridiculous.” Katara said, her eyes going flat.

She jumped upright as the bedroom door slammed open. Iroh stood in front of her, but Katara peered around him.

Zuko stood in the doorway, his hand smoking on the door and his robe undone.

“She’s awake.” He said.

“How-” Katara started as Iroh stepped aside. But Zuko crossed the room in long strides and grabbed her.

“Let’s go.” He said, hefting her into his arms.

“Zuko!” Iroh bellowed as Zuko headed toward the window. Katara wrapped her arms around his neck, her heart galloping under her ribs.

“I won’t let them arrest you.” He said, flinging the curtains to the side.

Iroh grabbed his arm as Zuko lifted a leg, seemingly getting ready to kick out the window.

“You idiot, they’re not going to arrest her!” He snapped.

“You gave him too much!” Rohan’s voice came from outside of the bedroom and Katara clung tighter to Zuko.

“I’m sorry!” Thuy cried. “I didn’t know you used it to raise the dead!”

“Zuko.” Katara said softly, cupping his cheek with a hand.

He stilled and looked down at her.

“It’s alright, my love.” She said and smiled.

Zuko nodded and let her down, almost immediately crumpling at her feet.

This time she kept her composure and, as Rohan and Thuy barrelled into the room, Katara laid Zuko on his back.

“Did you give him adrenaline or something?” Katara asked, looking to Iroh as she pointed to the teapot at the table he had been sitting at.

“Worse. Airroot.” Rohan said.

Katara checked Zuko’s pulse and nearly scoffed at the rapid beat. It wasn’t anything alarming; it was equitable to having made an all out sprint.

“He’ll be okay. Firebenders have a natural resistance to poisons and drugs like these. Their metabolism is crazy.” She said, smiling at Iroh as he handed her the teapot. Still feeling tired, she poured the contents over Zuko, using her bending to cool the liquid and spread it into a flat puddle.

“Oh thank Tui and La.” Thuy sighed, slumping down on the floor with her back against the bed.

“Now,” Katara prompted as she focused her attention on Zuko’s liver. “Can someone tell me how much trouble I’m in?”

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#zutara #fanfiction #jax writes #modern au #the fic that prompts built #zutara month 2021

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zuzuslastbraincell · 4 years

Note

Katara!

KATARA KATARA KATARA

why I like them

oh god where do i even start. katara just contains so many multitudes - she's sweet and feminine and caring and attentive but she's never reduced to just that, she's never just 'the girl', she's also allowed to get mad, to be petty, to laugh at her brother, to be headstrong and stubborn, to express vulnerability, to cry and to laugh, to make ridiculous facial expressions and *be* very expressive. she's dealing with a lot of trauma not simply from the loss of her mother but that loss represents also how her tribe have been decimated by the fire nation, how she's the last waterbender, how all this pressure exists on her shoulders (but also pride, but also determination, to bring it back) and that is expressed subtly throughout the series with the same depth and love that male characters are afforded with regard to their respective traumatic experiences. and despite all this she never tries to stop making the world good? She's always pushing for change, she's always wanting to make things better, she's relentless and doesn't give up when it comes to her vision for a better world... she has such a big heart. and that coexists with a deep anger in her, and deep hurt. Not to make an ocean metaphor so early on but she's as deadly and deep as the ocean but she chooses to be kind and warm and that's so powerful.

why i don't

honnestly while katara's instincts to mother people are a sad symptom of how she was forced to grow up to soon and automaically asigns herself a role of emotional responsibility she has mixed feelings about, i know that if katara tried to mother me, i would be annoyed. but that sounds more like a me problem.

favourite episode

oh it's either the episode where she beats the fucking shit out of pakku or it's the southern raiders. the first one because it's so gratifying to see how she's grown and developed as a bender and really come into her own. the second because... god i love how *messy* the southern raiders is, and it really taps into what i love about katara - she's flawed, she runs off on an ill-thought out revenge mission with zuko, she's got a great capability for darkness as she quite seriously considers murdering a man she has every right to loathe and to kill - but she chooses against it, in the end. it would not be right for her, if not him. she chooses what's right for her in the end.

favourite season

I'm gonna be a wee bit controversial and say book 1 had the best conception of katara's arc from student to master and really saw her grow and flourish, from someone yelling at her brother' oafish prejudice to a real master, that really solidified her as an idealist and presented that as the strength that is, that showed her struggling with petty jealousy of aang's progress and had her stumble in ways that made her character comeplling and interesting - like what an introduction to her character! book 2 had some fantastic moments but i can't think of anything particularly remarkable about hee character arc - largely because it tied into aang's romantic arc i think at this point. book 3 had some absolutely fantastic moments (scam queens katara and toph!! painted lady!! southern raiders!! the final agni kai) that really shone but also book 3 lays a lot of groundwork for fanon i hate (e.g. katara as the mom friend - wish that headcanon would die tbh)

favourite line

fuck there's a lot of good ones but my underrated fave is when sokka says he's kissed a girl before but she's never met her and katara says 'Who? Gran-gran? I've met gran-gran' and it's bruuutaaall

but my favourite serious line is 'I will never ever give up on people who need me'. powerful.

favourite outfit

water tribe anything!! and i actually think her book one/book two braids are her best hair. underrated katara hair. personally she looks just adorable in her parka in the flashback to when she was like. eight.

OTP

katara/personal fulfilment

katara/happiness

katara/fulfilling her goals and dreams

katara/loving minor background character who is never named

there's some ships i like in AU situations - yuetara is actually one i lov, especially with waterbender yue, i just love the whole sea/moon thing as well as katara and yue rebelling in loud/quiet ways, being girlfriends who refuse to have their lives defined by the expectations of older men, who have a great sense of duty towards their nations and won’t let gendered expectations stop them.

and most of you know i like the messy drama of katara/azula in a lighter AU situation where they're like, school or academic rivals, and the legacy of imperialism isn’t quite so personal (and azula makes better choices, obviously), but it’s not as much as i “ship” them as i just find the potential dynamic interesting, they’re both driven by a sense of duty for their home, it’s just that means *very* different things depending if you’re SWT or FN.

none of them are OTPs though - they’re more just fun thought experiments

brotp

katara & sokka - absolutely love their sibling dynamic its amazing. both have been impacted negatively by the shit in their lives and are not always dealing with it in functional ways but theyre there for each other, through thick and thin, always have each other's backs, they roast each other and bicker and sometimes make stupid decisions and sometimes lash out but at the end of the day their love pulls through, they’re able to work past those conflicts.

katara & aang - honestly while i feel kataang was just so poorly executed in the show (listen guys I just can’t after ember island players, i know that was a bad episode, but i can’t) & i cant imagine katara wanting to leave the south pole after the war for long spells (it would have to be long distance love, lots of profound and heartfelt letters and occasional visits, if anything, but i dont know if that’s what katara wants or needs? so maybe it wouldn’t pan out?), but regardless, i really do think these two had a life-changing friendship where each really represented hope for each other, that's at the core of it, they both truly believe in each other, and inspired each other. katara & aang good.

a headcanon

chief katara anyone?? chief katara?!?!

oh oh OH i also think that katara, while primarily a combat bender during the war, actually takes to healing a lot more after the show and gets proper healing training at some point with the help of a trained medical expert and maybe yugoda. tbh i feel like the show was a bit dismissive of healing as an ability - i feel like having that is *extremely* useful in any combat situation, you always have a medic on hand - but i understand why katara, who wanted to be recognised as powerful regardless of her gender, and wanted to hold herself in a fight alongside sokka & aang, pushed for combat waterbending training because that is what 'powerful' looks like to her in the moment. obviously katara is capable of incredible healing feats (see: saving aang) but i think given we see her as a healer in lok (not a decision i necessarily disagree with) would mean a shift in focus. i think katara actually comes to realise she likes healing a great deal, but really she excels in all aspects of waterbending and is the south’s most respected master who helped rejuvenate southern style waterbending

unpopular opinion

the main reason people think katara is straight is because we see her have very few meaningful interactions with other girls outside of toph. ATLA as a show is a bit romance obsessed, and very heteronormative in that regard, and so interactions with minor characters almost always line up with a potential crush for sokka or katara, and later, zuko (suki, haru, jet, yue, song, jin....). we rarely see katara build friendships with other girls and it’s such a damn shame.

(anyway bi katara for life)

a wish

the version of the puppetmaster we saw was actually fire nation propaganda, i feel like katara would have felt deep compassion for a prisoner of war and after maybe some clashes, would have agreed to help smuggle her out of the fire nation and secure passage home for hama, and tried to assure her that she still has a place there. the treatment of hama in that episode was awful (but also hama was written to be almost cartoonishly evil, very much an evil witch in her cottage in the spooky woods? like the whole horror movie / spooky story opening was such a big tell) and tbh i reject the thesis that we saw ‘katara’s dark potential’ in that episode completely, or that bloodbending as a power is inherently dark, or katara’s use of it to stop hama ‘corrupted’ her. I feel like katara might feel this way as a teenager perhaps but with time (she can be a little black and white at times), and especially with more training as a healer, i think she might realise that’s not the case, she’ll realise that she was right to try and oppose hama, her elder (she was lashing out rather than really trying to oppose the fire nation), and it wasn’t a betrayal of her or her beliefs, but also her use of bloodbending wasn’t wrong or evil inherently at all? and maybe she’d find ways to use it for healing purposes? anyway my wish is that, i like the idea that they meet again, speak about their differences, reconcile a little / come to an understanding, and katara learns more from hama again

an oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen

anything where katara’s character is reduced to a comforter or a healing device for a man and his trauma. particularly zuko. (they don’t have that dynamic in canon thankfully, zuko would never, zuko respects her too much)

5 words to describe them:

idealistic, hard-working, powerful, headstrong, kind

my nickname for them:

chief. or comrade. :^)

#katara

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