ozaitheestallion

[ozaitheestallion]

“I asked ChatGPT—” well I asked Fire Lord Ozai and you don’t even wanna know what he had to say about you 😬

[ozaitheestallion]

some old old OLD art I found the other day of when my only hcs for Ozai were that he escaped jail and might be a tiny bit zesty 💅

My preferred interpretation of him even before I started doing all of *gestures at blog* this, was “insufferable asshole who never fully evades consequences yet never stops trying”.

[ozaitheestallion]

reddit just tried to recommend me a z*tara subreddit and a Nicki m*naj subreddit within seconds of each other

[ozaitheestallion]

the ATLA subreddit may just be the worst thing the fandom as a whole has to offer holy shit

[ozaitheestallion]

“this character can’t/shouldn’t be trans because it doesn’t have a purpose or serve their narrative” god who the fuck cares. sometimes people are just trans.

[ozaitheestallion]

"but the text never explicitly stated it!!!" hey, so that's actually what they tried to teach you in those english classes you barely passed 😁

[ozaitheestallion]

romance is a type of friendship and im sick of people pretending like they're two seperate categories. your romantic partner is Supposed to also be your friend like at the very least why are we pitting romance AGAINST friendship when they r intertwined???? romantic partners are also friends and u can have romance with ur friends stop acting like these bitches are seperate forces

[ozaitheestallion]

I think now that queens dead they should have her stuffed and put on display in Cairo for the next 150 years.

[ozaitheestallion]

Hi, I read your post about Ozai being queer-coded and I find it fascinating; it isnt something I would ever consider. If its ok, I want to ask for your opinion on queer-coding villains in media.

Recently Ive encountered the argument that its "problematic" to say that villains such as Ursula from the little mermaid is queer coded.

The crux of the argument is that describing particular villains who are depicted as predatory as "queer-coded" is harmful because it "perpetuates stereotypes" and "absolves" them by implying that their predatory actions are a "metaphor for queerness" instead of "perpetuating patriarchal oppression".

And I would like to know your opinion on these arguments. I feel like they could be used to discourage Ozai from being interpreted or described as "queer-coded" since he is a male leader of a fascist, totalitarian and imperialist nation who is enforcing oppression as well as exploiting and manipulating his children, including his daughter.

Hi sorry it took me so long to get to this 😭

I’m aware of the discourse you’re talking about. “Queer fictional characters can only be good and soft and safe or people will associate negative stereotypes with real life queer communities” is not a new discussion and it’s one I’ve gone back and forth on over the years before I got to where I am now.

Of course it’s a perfectly valid concern to have to think that groups that hate us will see fictional representations of us that act in flawed or bad ways and see us the same way. It’s genuinely something I used to sweat about. However, like a lot of us, I eventually came to the unfortunate realisation that…it doesn’t matter how we present.

It doesn’t matter how clean, safe, normal, wholesome, non-threatening and *respectable* we try to be or present ourselves and our representative media. If they wanna hate us, they’ll hate us. There doesn’t need to be a reason.

I emphasised the word ‘respectable’ for a reason. I know a lot of us probably already know what respectability politics are but, as a quick refresher, respectability politics are when members of a marginalised community will make a conscious effort to avoid, disavow or punish aspects of their cultural-political identities. This is done in an effort to gain greater opportunities, assimilation and respectability from the majority of society.

A good amount of criticism of respectability politics is conducted by Black women and African American communities as a whole, but the term can be used for any minority group as all of us either have unconsciously found ourselves taking part in respectability politics at some point or know people who have.

I’m not judging, I’m not expecting. I’m queer, mixed race and disabled. There have been times where I’ve tried to discard pieces of my cultural and political identity in order to be seen as more worthy of respect and inclusion that I know now would never have been granted to me by ignorant hateful people anyway.

The argument that all queer characters and queer media must only be exclusively positive, morally correct and safe is a form of respectability politics within the queer community. It doesn’t endear us to people that already hate us simply for existing, and it does us as artists, creators and fans the disservice of sanitising and limiting our experiences, creativity and enjoyment.

Showing queer stories and characters that are complicated, shitty and unpleasant doesn’t drag us all down, it just expands our options to explore our stories, ideas and perspectives.

When I write and draw and do stuff with Ozai, it’s fully in the knowledge that he’s a straight up monster. He’s a cruel, stubborn, selfish abuser. He’s an actual dictator and relished the idea of committing mass war crimes and subjugating thousands of innocent people to his senseless brand of ego-stroking death and destruction. He also just so happens to be a queer man. Both things can coexist. Gender and sexuality are spectrums, and spectrums have some unappealing colours if you stop in just the right spot.

Also I happen to thrive on chaos and think that attaching all these headcanons to him in particular is fun.

Anyway, this was very long and rambling and I do want to say that a lot of what I said here is very general statements, musings and explanations. Absolutely none of this is an attack on you, the original asker of this question, and I’m really glad you gave me an opportunity to share my thoughts.

Obviously I don’t expect everyone to agree with me or just bend to my views, I just hope anyone reading this will realise that these are quite simply just that; my views, and that I won’t get anyone calling me names again for my poorly expressed opinions 😂

[ozaitheestallion]

“We need complicated female characters!”

We have them, you guys just erase all of their flaws and complexity to make them #girlboss

[ozaitheestallion]

Fire Lord Ozai - Brutus ( animated + live action)

If you ever want a brief to-the-point summary of how I view Ozai and how I characterise him, it’s literally just this song.

[ozaitheestallion]

Very sad but very true

[ozaitheestallion]

So in relation to your “Ozai is a dark spirit AU” does he still show up in the human world sometimes? Like in disguise?

Oh he’s still around.

[ozaitheestallion]

it came to my realization that 99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this

[ozaitheestallion]

It's impressive how Neil Gaiman vanished from the internet. Wish Rowling would do the same.

[ozaitheestallion]

World’s Worst Man unfortunately knows how to accessorize

[ozaitheestallion]

Quick question (that I ask with no judgment btw!!) if you didn’t HC Ozai as trans, would you still draw him the way you do? The lashes, the chest, the nails etc? I ask bc it’s a very glamorous portrayal of him that’s got all sorts of genderqueer vibes and is that the reason for the look?

Oh I’d absolutely still draw him this way lmao tbh the trans hc only came later. I’ve been drawing him this way since I first started drawing him. That’s genuinely how I see him; this very sharp, striking, glamorous bordering on overcompensating creature of secrets and anger.

Being completely real, I only started writing him as not cis as a way to cope with my own gender dysphoria and experience of understanding and presenting myself. Whether that looks oversexualised, ridiculous, iconic or baffling is all a part of that.

The reason I chose him and not a more, y’know, likeable ATLA character is bc I’ve got the kind of autism that means you’re forced to hyperfixate over characters no one else cares about 🥲