#I WILL only draw pretty sokka

[demaparbat-hp]

Izumi (steambaby) sketches.

[jusiri]

Love people using the live action atla as an excuse to draw White Katara and Sokka

I mean, obviously its totally fine, because after all, thats what the actors look like!

That means theres nothing at all wrong with this now :)

And like, Katara's actor is paler than OG Katara, so its alright to make her skin just white, as well as take away all indigenous features, and give her a stereotypical White Girl Face

No problems at all, thats all totally cool!!

[snoopysvalentine]

I love zukka as much as the next guy but y’all need to stop the horny fan art and fan fiction wtf

[victorianbatman]

ATLA/LOK incorrect quotes

F, M & GN reader | every scenario without the readers gender being specified is Gender Neutral.

Bolin, on the phone with Mako: Mako, I need you to come pick me up.

Mako: Why?

Bolin: Y/n is busy passive-aggressively doing the dishes they asked me to do 6 hours ago.

Bolin: This house is not safe anymore.

-

Mako: Hey, whats for dinner?

Bolin: I cant tell you, its a soup-rise.

Mako: Is it soup?

Y/n: We soup-ose is could be.

Mako: Enough with the soup puns you two.

Bolin: Aww, you never soup-port our jokes.

[Five minutes later]

Mako: It was fucking tacos.

-

Mako: The stars look really pretty tonight.

Y/n: Yeah, they do.

Mako: You know who else looks pretty tonight?

Y/n: Asami.

Mako, at the same time: Korra.

Y/n: What?

Mako: What?

-

Toph: Do you do anything other than whine like a little bitch?

Y/n: Sometimes I whine like a BIG bitch.

-

Mako, not looking up from his book: What did she(Kuvira) do now?

Y/n: SHE SMILED!

Mako: At you?

Y/n: No, at her dumb friends, but she looks like an angel.

Mako: Go away, Y/n.

Y/n: Shut up, I watched you pine after Korra while in a relationship with Asami.

Mako: Go on.

-

Korra: We can bake these cookies at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or 4,000 degrees for 1 minute.

Lin: That’s not how you make cookies.

Y/n: FLOOR IT!

Bolin: How about 4,000,000 degrees for 1 second?

Lin: yOURE GONNA BURN THE HOUSE DOWN!!

Korra: IM GONNA HARVEST THE POWER OF THE FUCKING SUN TO MAKE COOKIES!!

Y/n&Bolin: DO IT!

Lin: NO-

-

Korra: I’m small, but knowing.

Tall!Y/n: You dont be knowing what the top of a shelf looks like though.

Korra: …

Tall!Y/n: …

Korra: Bitch.

-

Bolin and Mako watching Y/n from a distance chase a squirrel.

Bolin: Thats the person I see myself married to in the future.

Bolin: Thoughts?

Mako: …

Bolin: …

Mako: ..and prayers, bro.

-

Y/n: My autistic friend(book 1 zuko) is my favourite person on the planet. I asked if he would still be friends with me if I got a mullet and without looking up he said “we are not friends” like ok bestie.

-

Korra: Theres only one thing worse than losing.

[Tips over paper saying ‘losing Y/n’]

Y/n: Me.

Korra: No-

-

Y/n: Are you sure you’re ok?

Zuko, crying: Yeah, it’s just these onions, man.

Y/n: …

Zuko: …

Y/n: Those are potatoes.

-

[Asami, puts on chapstick]

Y/n: What flavour is that?

Asami: oh its [chapstick flavour].

Y/n: Lemme taste.

Asami: Sure.

[hands chapstick]

Y/n, kisses Asami

Y/n: Shit it does actually taste like [Chapstick flavour].

[Asami blushing like crazy]

-

Y/n: Aang, why do good people die young?

Aang: When you are in a garden full of flowers, which one do you pick?

Y/n: The ugly ones.

Aang: Exactly- wait wait what, why?

Y/n: Because ugly bitches dont belong in my garden.

-

Toph: Hi, im your doctor today, I’ll be drawing your blood as soon as I’m done with my capri sun.

[Misses the hole four times before finally getting the straw in]

[Y/n, sweats profusely]

-

Sokka: I have the sharpest memory, name one time I forgot something.

Y/n: You forgot me and Suki back in the fire nation 3 weeks ago.

Sokka: I did that on purpose, try again.

-

Y/n: Listen to me, love is a scam.

Bolin: You’re making a valentines card for Mako right now.

Y/n, points glue gun at him: You’re on thin fuckin ice.

-

Zuko: Whats with the napkin on the glass door?

Y/n: Aang keeps walking into the glass door, so I thought this might help.

Aang: Oh cool, a floating napkin!

[Walks into glass door]

[theotterpenguin]

the performative accusation that shipping zutara (and occasionally this criticism is levied at jinko/zukka) is colonialist apologism has been addressed in some excellent posts, explaining the inaccuracies and problematic implications of this logic far better than i ever could - like this post and this one and this one and this one and this one.

and i know this topic has been talked about to death, but if you could indulge my contribution for a moment, i just find it interesting how this sentiment results from the cognitive dissonance of atla fans being unable to reconcile with the idea of their favorite show's political beliefs not lining up with their own.

atla is a largely philosophical children's show that at its core deals with themes of love, redemption, and destiny vs. free-will. atla examines these themes through an anti-colonalist, anti-imperalist lens that deconstructs the idea of racial divisiveness and the idea that people of different ethnicities are inherently different. this is message is pretty explicitly stated by guru pathik:

Guru Pathik: "The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same." Aang: "Like the four nations?" Guru Pathik: "Yes. We are all one people. But we live as if divided."

and also by uncle iroh:

"It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations will help you become whole."

this theme is developed across three full seasons, with the crux of this message culminating in zuko's friendships with the gaang - despite coming from different nationalities and different backgrounds, they have all had their own experiences being hurt by the fire nation and work together to take down the oppressive fire nation government. the question of destiny vs. free will is also explored through zuko's character - despite starting off as an antagonist, he develops into a symbolic representation of how the fire nation's oppression hurts its own citizens. he unlearns the fire nation's imperialist propaganda while simultaneously unlearning his father's abuse. rather than following misguided beliefs of what he thought his destiny was as the heir to the throne, instead he forges his own path.

thus, to claim that zuko can never form a deep and meaningful relationship with any of the gaang because of his nationality goes unequivocally against the themes of the show. and a major part of this is because these are fictional characters being used to analyze different theoretical questions within the show and in some cases, are used as symbolic representations of different philosophical ideas - their friendships and their character arcs serve a purpose within the text that cannot be easily transcribed onto real-life dynamics between people.

it's illogical to criticize fans who are choosing to understand atla at the level of the themes that are presented by the text - who are interested in exploring similar philosophical questions brought up by the show through the context of relationships.

if you don't like the themes of forgiveness and redemption that atla explores, your criticism should be aimed at the writing of the show itself rather than other fans. because you are giving far more thought to the "implications" of a close friendship or romantic relationship between someone from an imperalist nation and someone from an oppressed nation than the writers ever did. (and if you fall in this camp of people, i would hope you wouldn't be reblogging fanart of zuko and the gaang together while simultaneously claiming zuko could can never escape the sins of his ancestors and can never form a deep relationship based on trust and intimacy with katara or sokka or jin - because that would just be hypocritical).

and as a side note, people seem to apply this flawed logic to zutara far more than other ships solely because the show spends the most time exploring the complicated nature of fire nation imperalism in the interactions between zuko and katara in the latter half of b3. this is because they've been juxtapositioned against each other and paralleled with aang since the beginning of the show in ways that toph, sokka, and suki are not, who have mostly been used to examine different themes. there simply isn't enough time to explore these complicated themes with all the other characters, even if they theoretically exist in zuko’s dynamics with these characters, so the writers focus the most on zuko's relationships with katara and aang, and these relationships are given far more narrative weight, so have more content to criticize. but zuko and katara also canonically become friends by the end of the show. if you want to discount the existence of their friendship, claiming that it will always be tainted by the fire nation's oppression regardless of what is shown in the text, then you also have to discount zuko's friendships with aang, suki, toph, and sokka - because even if this isn't shown as a permanent barrier to their friendships in the show, it’s also not shown as a permanent barrier to his friendship with katara. if your logic is solely based on the idea that a person's identity in a relationship as a colonizer or a victim is fixed and unchanging regardless of character development, this would apply to zuko's friendships with everyone else as well.

[seyaryminamoto]

My latest completed commission may have been a bit ambitious... because I went wild with it. But I certainly relished in doing so :') Combining my favorite ship with my favorite-ever Disney movie is, uh... a dangerous concoction :'D

The commissioner specifically requested for Azula as Mulan, Sokka as Shang, and Xin Long (my OC dragon from Gladiator) as Mushu. The rest of the cast was up to me to choose, and I pretty much went wild rewatching this movie and picking out some of my favorite moments to recreate them in my style, with these characters. I came up with a lot of correlating characters between both ATLA and 1998's Mulan, but I couldn't hope to draw EVERYTHING, unfortunately. Still, if you want my reasoning for the cast correlation... check out the Read More! Beyond that, feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to commission me, or if you want to join my Patreon!

The Herbalist as Mulan's grandmother might feel arbitrary but she honestly felt like the ATLA elderly lady with the most similar personality to Grandma Fa. Fickle, with a unique connection with a seemingly perfectly ordinary animal, old and sassy? Figured it fit! So for once, the Herbalist is Azula's grandma! xD strange notion, I know, Azulon/Herbalist is not a ship I ever thought I'd accidentally put out in the world but there have been wilder ships than that in this fandom...

Momo became Cri-Kee, I wasn't 100% sold on it but when I considered that Avatar features soooo many hybrid animals... I figured he could be a hybrid cricket-lemur. Weird, I know, but eh? Better than nothing xD

Aang as Chien-Po was a no-brainer. He's the only character I settled on instantly, never even considered anyone else for the role. Their personalities line up really well, and Chien-Po's tendency to be OP and resolve things that are outside of other people's reach sounded like he was prime Avatar material! So, while their dietary preferences are an obvious difference between them, I decided to go for it nonetheless considering all their other similarities!

Kino (another Gladiator OC) is Ling, and he actually did give me a ton of trouble to choose. I considered many characters for the role right up until I realized that Kino's personality actually lines up fairly well with Ling's, down to being a class clown type (who ABSOLUTELY would have cut gym class!) and breaking out in song about the hypothetical woman he'd like to fight for? Yeeeeah that's right up his alley xD but there's another reason why I picked Kino...

... And that is my likely unexpected choice for Yao:

ZUKO.

ZUKO IS YAO.

YES.

I'M NOT EVEN SORRY.

(For the uninitiated, Aang, Zuko and Kino are best friends in Gladiator, very often together, and they make a really good team, so that's the extra reason why Kino became the obvious choice for Ling aside from having really similar personalities, definitely closer personalities than, say, Jet, for instance.)

People have likened Zuko to Shang a LOT since ATLA aired. This is the main reason why I'm even making this huge note! I suspect it's primarily because of the aesthetic, let's be real here, and because he becomes Aang's teacher, but people have exaggerated Zuko's alleged similarities with Shang, or taken them out of proportion, in many ways. I actually remember an AMV ages ago with "Be a Man" and it was Zuko "training the Gaang"?? It... didn't feel right to me. Obviously, someone might rebuff with "well, how does Sokka make MORE sense than that, though?" And believe it or not, I have arguments for that... (when do I not...?)

Not only is this what the commissioner specifically requested (and it obviously lines up with the ship we love!), but let's examine the actual reasons why Sokka as Shang adds up:

Sokka actually had to train a bunch of toddlers who weren't paying any attention to him. You know. Kind of how Shang had to train the unruly soldiers who weren't getting anything right. Sokka has a positive relationship with his dad (Zuko, ofc, does not). Shang also has a positive relationship with his dad! And not only this, but there's a military component to both relationships, specifically with Shang wanting to follow on his father's footsteps and aid him in the war... so much like someone else I know, who jumped at every opportunity to rejoin his father in the war, even wishing to join him as a child until Hakoda tasked him with protecting their Tribe instead (kinda like Shang is tasked with training soldiers rather than joining a battlefield).

And the final cherry-on-top that I'd loooove to hear Zuko fans try to argue against... is sexism :') didn't Sokka get characterized as a sexist guy for four episodes, which made people decide that this was his main character trait even if it went away that quickly? Um, yes, that happened. Shang literally sings the memorable song that's a crazy ode to masculinity, including the rather sexist line of "did they send me daughters when I asked for sons". Shang outright abandons Mulan once they discover that she was a woman all along (while, admittedly, choosing to abandon her rather than KILL HER, which as we saw from Chi-Fu, he was NOT supposed to spare her!)...

So, is this REALLY what Zuko fans, who willfully believe their boy is a feminist king (... why? beats me...) are trying to compare their unproblematic blorbo to? :'D Me? I have no problem linking Sokka with Shang due to Sokka's beginnings and due to the fact that both Shang and Sokka have similar growth when it comes to accepting femininity is as valid as masculinity, and as they both learn to respect women as fighters and potential heroes! (I simply do not believe Sokka's ENTIRE tenure in ATLA was about that, though, and that's what I continue to clash with the fandom over...) So... all this is why I've reasoned that Sokka is a VERY solid choice for Shang, in fact, better than Zuko could hope to be.

... but this isn't all.

Maybe some might accept my arguments for Sokka-Shang. And then, they might ask:

WHY ZUKO AS YAO, THO??

... And the truth is it took me long to see it, myself, but HOLY SHIT, DOES IT FIT!

What is the primary thing we remember about Yao in Mulan? This guy is constantly itching for a fight, to prove himself, surely riddled with insecurities that he exteriorizes through overcompensation of masculinity. He's funny as fuck, but he's taking himself 100% seriously as a manly man all the time, and he's always ready for violence. But there's one more thing...

He treats Mulan as his RIVAL.

And more often than not? SHE SCREWS HIM OVER. Intentionally or not.

What does that sound like? Why, yes, it sounds a LOT like Azula and Zuko's sibling relationship!

The fact that Yao is a temperamental dude who lashes out easily at things (oh, something he has in common with Zuko!), that he specifically resents Mulan (in this case, Azula, just as Zuko does!) and is either constantly looking to defeat her and prove his superiority over her (... wait, just as Zuko with Azula??), that he has a black eye perpetually across the movie, and it's his LEFT EYE (just as Zuko's scar is on his left eye! :'D), that he's friends with a pacifist he has basically nothing in common with, personality-wise (just like Zuko and Aang!), and that he pretty much has a REDEMPTION ARC in which he goes from a bitter, asshole rival to Mulan to treating her as a friend and ally, to the point where he was disappointed to leave her behind and THEN joined her at once when she says she has a plan? :') I have always been critical of Zuko's redemption arc, goes without saying. But if ANY of these characters redeemed himself in any significant way, it certainly seems to be Yao to me, and with people gushing NON-STOP about Zuko's redemption? Why, he ought to be the character who goes from bitter rival to loyal friend, right?

So. I'm not even sorry. Zuko is Yao. And I'd dare say that he should be flattered by the comparison, even, because Yao ends up being cool as FUCK!

I don't really talk about this much nowadays, but Mulan was my favorite Disney movie growing up, it ABSOLUTELY had a formative influence on me as a little girl, and Mulan was my favorite female character for a looooong time. Thus, any excuse to rewatch this movie makes me happy as heck. With the wisdom of age I know, of course, that it's not perfect, it's not what China wants, it's not the most thoughtful depiction of Chinese culture or the most faithful adaptation of Mulan's poem (... but I'd also dare bring up that the 2009 Chinese adaptation ISN'T all that faithful either...), but it has a kind of magic in it, a solid storytelling flow, so many memorable moments one after the next, that I could hardly choose which scenes to depict... Disney has never again seen the storytelling heights it reached with Mulan in 1998. I don't even care if that's a controversial opinion in any way... this is their best animated feature for me, and nobody can change my mind.

So... depicting Azula, my beloved, in all these scenarios as this character I adored and idolized as a child, was so damn fulfilling for me. While some might think that, personality-wise, these two ladies don't have much in common, the fact that Mulan is sent to a matchmaker who basically tells her she looks good but is going to be the worst wife ever...? Our girl Azula, with all those insecurities about being unloveable and a monster, probably would relate big time to that.

Mulan is also an INTELLIGENT soldier rather than a brawny one, which is how she starts to make progress in the army, it's how she manages to overcome the huns with that avalanche... and Azula's primary difference with most other antagonists in ATLA is that she's smart as fuck. She is very strong, no doubt, but a LOT of that strength comes from her intelligence, from assessing situations in unique ways, from planning and strategizing. The way Mulan finds the most unexpected solutions that still pay off reminds me a lot of how Azula achieves unexpected feats through rather unorthodox means, capable of taking over a city with basically no bloodshed while her nation has spent 100 years trying and failing to do so through major army incursions and who knows how much senseless violence. Obviously, I'm not saying what Azula did is GOOD and it's kind of dumb that we always have to point that out... I'm merely comparing the magnitude of the feats, and the fact that they both come from ladies who use strategy and intelligence to achieve their goals rather than muscle and physical power.

And while anyone would rage at me for the comparison between Fa Zhou (her dad) and Ozai, the truth is the dynamic between them CAN be compared, if loosely: Mulan literally goes to war to keep her father safe. Azula goes to war under her father's orders. Hell, she makes herself BAIT in the Eclipse to make sure the Gaang won't get to her dad?? While it's very much possible to say that both characters have different personalities and attitudes in life... I'd also bring up that their contexts are evidently completely different. I wouldn't say for certain that Azula, had she been raised outside a Royal Family, would be EXACTLY like Mulan... but they might have more similar traits than one might expect. Ultimately, though... I love them both. And this opportunity to swap their places was pretty much a dream come true!

Alright, that was plenty of rambling xD ultimately, I had a blast doing this commission, as I'm sure is obvious by now. So! If anyone wants to commission me, feel free to check out my prices right here and hit me up if you're interested!

[late-draft]

Some more details for the sci-fi AU, this time specifically for Zuko before I manage to draw more:

He fires lightning in this AU. However it's not very strong, and he has to wear a specifically made suit that allows him to fire it without damaging his body. Electricity is gathered then channeled along the outside of his arms. Visually it's purposefully similar to Aang's tattoos, except only localized to his back and arms. Azula, of course, doesn't need any assistive technology for her lightning bending!

While in canon it's important that Zuko's s1 hairstyle is a shameful one that signifies that he lost an Agni Kai in a terrible way (and I believe this hasn't been touched upon enough in canon), in this AU I'm reversing it. This hairstyle is worn by all the best firebenders-racers. It's supposed to be a point of pride and the gaang (mostly Sokka and Aang) make fun of it.

Zuko's lapels on his suit are pure white, they lack any stripes that signify status in the Fire Nation. Ozai's are (of course) completely covered in a bazillion stripes.

Zuko's entourage of older racers that accompany him oftentimes do NOT want to attempt very dangerous moves while chasing an airbender who makes it look easy. Zuko just hits the gas and survives by jumping and passing through pretty narrow openings or closing garbage press or what have you... yikes. He also tries to race Katara, but once she's on the highway, he's left in the dust. This is why Katara often jumps in with her bike to pick up Aang once he's done with his search.

Firing lightning and fire blasts at fleeing Aang who snickers at him results in a lot of explosions and collateral damage on buildings.

Zuko often gets in trouble by racing on highways and pathways that are held by Zhao, who's in charge of Fire Nation's transport lines. These are not your standard 200 km/h highways, these things have unmanned vehicles going 400 km/h. Again, Yikes.

Music? Yes

Me & You - Dirtyphonix Remix

[the-badger-mole]

It is baffling to me how Kataang shippers interpret that couple. How can you be a fan of Katara in specific and see how little agency she got in that relationship yet still be satisfied with how that whole mess turned out. Katara never gets to express her feelings.

Let that sink in. Katara, who challenged a waterbending master with decades of experience on her, who started a prison riot and freed captive earthbenders, who went out of her way to help a village of Fire Nation citizens. Who made a flower hat for a really cute guy she was into. THAT girl didn't get to express her own feelings for Aang. After their last two disastrous encounters- one in which he violated her consent after she tried to let him down easy said she was confused. After he had opened a lava fissure in her face because she didn't want to talk about his feelings for her. She didn't even get to speak. Her final line between the Agni Kai and that final scene was about Sokka's drawing.

She doesn't get to talk to Aang about how his treatment of her upset her. She doesn't get to express what changed between EIP and the finale. She doesn't get to confront Aang on his habit of running away when things get tough. She doesn't even get to hear what Aang likes about her (I mean, we the audience know that he thinks she's pretty, but beyond that?). The way the finale sets up Kataang it makes it seem like Katara is only into Aang now because he's Th3 r3@L H3r0!!!! (lies, but that's another rant). It makes her look either like she feels obligated or she's incredibly shallow (which, we know she isn't). But somehow this feels like a satisfying culminating moment for Kataang shippers???

And let me be clear, I don't care. I don't care if you are reading this now and you like both Kataang and Aang. I don't care if you truly do think their story is the height of romance. I am not here to debate you on the story merits of Kataang vs Zutara or change your mind on anything. You can like or hate whatever you want in good health as far as I'm concerned. Just know that if you try to argue with me, this is my opinion; Aang is fetid trash. Kataang is somehow both the most boring and the most toxic relationship in the show (yeah, I'm including Maiko). All trying to argue with me will accomplish is to stir up more examples in my mind about why Kataang is a terrible ship and Aang is an awful character/friend/SO/father, so jump into my inbox if you want that. But wouldn't you rather go talk to your fellow shipper fans about it?

[discordiansamba]

zuko's in the courtyard. he's got swords.

sokka is instantly worried. like. for a lot of reason. chief among them because before the whole... brainwashing thing, zuko's dedicated mission in life was hunting down and capturing the avatar. he hadn't shown any inclination to pick it back up after he'd gotten un-brainwashed, but...

"sokka," zuko doesn't even turn to look at him, "-i know you're there."

sokka stays still. he's bluffing. he's perfectly hidden in the bushes.

zuko points a sword in his general direction and tells him to get out of the bushes. okay. maybe he does know where he was. the not-looking but knowing where he is thing reminds him a little of toph, but zuko is apparently half blind. maybe that shouldn't be a surprise.

"okay, you caught me," sokka stands up, "-but the real question is... what are you doing?"

zuko just gives him a bland look. he's practicing, what does it look like? turns out his dao were in the jasmine dragon this whole time. it's been two years since he touched them. he's gotten rusty. he can't really firebend at the moment, so he figured now was a good time to pick them back up.

you know, sokka says. not to boast, but while you were off serving tea, he'd studied the blade himself. zuko rolls his eyes. yeah, i heard. you learned from piandao. something about losing your comet sword during the invasion and pleading with aang to search the ocean for it for you?

"first off," sokka says, "-it was a space sword. second off-"

he draws said sword. the pleading paid off. why don't we spar a little? swordbender to swordbender.

zuko briefly looks like he's thinking about killing him again. sokka doesn't mind. it's good for his recovery. then zuko just shrugs. sure. i could use the practice. you weren't the only one to study with piandao, though.

sokka readies himself. he's not worried. zuko hasn't picked up a sword in two years. how good could he be?

the answer? very.

okay. now he thinks he can understand how he'd broke aang out of pohuai stronghold with just swords. sokka sits up, and he swears zuko smirks as he sheathes his swords- but he also offers him a hand. sokka hauls himself up with it, dusting off the back of his pants. huh. guess that's why lan-wei wanted to convince you you were useless at swordplay.

"yeah, probably," zuko says, "-he wanted me to think i was defenseless. i'm pretty sure if you put dao in lee's hands, he wouldn't even be able to use them."

he looks at zuko. he asks what that's like, to have his own skills stolen from him like that. he shakes his head. he couldn't tell you. lee didn't even know what he was capable of. there's nothing to miss if you don't even know it's gone.

and that? that's scary.

"...i guess i should thank you," zuko says after a moment, "-for not just leaving me like that."

sokka shrugs it off. no problem. you weren't their friend or anything, but they couldn't just leave you like that. at the same time... he thinks lee had become their friend, at the end there. those last few days at the ember island villa felt like they'd roped a new friend into their little group. maybe it's why they'd all gone along with katara's crazy idea to let lee choose.

he missed him, just a little.

ah well. guess he'd have to just make do with zuko.

[14th-century-verona-queer]

Sokka Headcannons

pt 2!

As always i remind you all that I’ve not watched atla in genuine years, please correct me for any wrong information

On to the hc’s!

he’s secretly a VERY good singer. Kya used to teach him how to sing when he was younger in order to do simple prayers and rituals asking the spirits to keep Hakoda safe and bring back a successful hunt. Sokka would sit next to her, looking up starry-eyed at the beautiful melodies that would come out of his mothers’ mouth. He would spend all day practicing, humming the tunes to himself, trying to get them perfect, and at night would run up to his mother with a hushed “look look mom! Listen to this!” And sing it right, note for note. And she would smile and say “very good, sokka. You might even be better than me some day!” And sokka would always grin at the thought of finally, I did something right! And now mom’s proud of me. After Kya’s death, he spent months without singing. He would train all day and almost all night to try to be better, be faster, be stronger. One day after he finished his night training, he heard Katara wake up and screaming from a nightmare. He pulled Katara onto his bed, lay her head on his lap, and stroked her hair while he sang softly to her. Kya’s lullabies one of the few things that he remembers about her, and it’s the only thing that would calm Katara down. He’s still sort of embarrassed about his singing voice, so no one but Katara knows how good of a singer he is until one day Zuko wakes up from a nightmare. He put’s Zuko’s head in his lap, just like he used to to Katara, and starts singing a low, haunting melody in his native language (more on that next), and Zuko looks at him suprised, but then slowly relaxes and falls asleep with a smile on his face. After that night Zuko begs over and over for Sokka to sing for him some more which is rare because Zuko isn’t usually very pushy. I guess he liked his singing. It’s mostly because of the look on Sokka’s face when he sings and how pretty he looks and how well he sings and wow hes just really pretty oh my god and it makes zuko lose his fucking mind. Eventually the rest of the Gaang finds out (after a very very long time), and sometimes certain words, (or even just randomly he’ll remember) will remind him of a song and he’ll just quietly hum or sing and everyone stops and stares for a second cause damn sokka thats rlly pretty youre acc rlly good

(Ive seen this headcannon that all the nations have their respective native languages, and then a universal language used for trade and all that, so this stems from that ) Sokka slips back into his native language a lot and switches between his native language and the universal language a lot (kinda like Spanglish lol). Bc of this everyone in the Gaang knows enough of the language to have a conversation (especially Suki and eventually Zuko because teaching people he dates his native language is just?? Rlly important to him? He wants to share everything about their culture and teach his partners about how see this word actually can’t be translated to Universal Language, but its really versatile and here’s the whole history of how this word was created. He really loves language and learning so he wants his partners to enjoy it too) he mostly slips back into the language out of force of habit, but also makes a conscious effort to speak it to make sure he doesn’t forget his culture and remind people that the water tribe’s aren’t savages, they have genuine spoken languages and converse like normal people. Whenever he and Katara are fighting they’ll fight very fast and unintelligiblyin their native tongue so everyone else is just kinda trying to figure out what they’re arguing about lol.

after everyone made fun of his art skills you know DAMN WELL he learned how to draw after that. Brother was up at DAWN learning the basic elements of art so he could show up with a Mona Lisa next time the Gaang got together and wipe the smirks off their faces (and ofc Zuko hung up every single one of his drawings, no matter how messy or fast or bad, in the palace)

HE BUILT A STATUE OF KATARA. SOMEWHERE. (I haven’t watched LOK but ik that there are statues of the Gaang around!) if there’s one thing that that man loves, its his sister. He will CONSTANTLY remind everyone. “UHM YEA, ALL YOU WOMEN TRAINING IN BATTLE IN THE NORTH POLE??? DONT FORGET WHO YOU OWE THAT TO. YEA. MY WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL AMAZING (but dont tell her i said that abt her) SISTER DID THAT. AND DONT YOU DICKWADS FORGET IT”

And yea, thats all i got for now lol

You can find part 1 here (cause its been a month since the first one): pt1

[circlique]

hiiiiii

I love ur avatar ocs they feel so natural to the world, do u have any advice/tips on designing an avatar character??

thanks :)

Thank you! but I gotta give credit where credit is due: most of the OCs I'm drawing belong to IRL family and friends---but I did design them!

Honestly for most of these designs I just stole bits and pieces from characters in the show, usually minor or background characters. If you spend some time looking at characters from the same nation, you'll start to see design elements repeated. For example, the Water Tribes often have fur trim on the shoulders, fur tufts that occur in threes, and triangle or wave patterned trim. I used all of these in my design for Chai Li and feel like he looks pretty natural in terms of Water Tribe design!

@atlaculture has some posts just showing lots of background characters that I used a lot. If you're looking to make an OC that looks natural to the show, I'd recommend taking a look at those and seeing what design elements you see repeated for a particular nation and using those in your design.

Water Tribe (Complete)

Fire Nation (Royal Family and Military)

Earth Kingdom (Season 1)

Earth Kingdom (Non-Ba Sing Se)

Earth Kingdom (Ba Sing Se)

atlaculture also has a great repository of posts showing the cultural inspiration behind various articles of clothing in the Avatar world if IRL inspo is more your jam! Highly recommend basically any of their posts for reference, but here's their post index if you're looking for something specific.

The only thing with IRL inspirations I would caution if you're trying to make it look like it came from the show though is you're going to have to do a loooooot of simplification and stick to the established color schemes. Using water tribe as an example again, in the show we don't really see brown in Water Tribe clothing except as shoes, belts, and armor, and gray almost never. Blue, purple, and white remain the primary colors. You can also see from this comparison (courtesy of atlaculture again) the simplification of the inspiration vs. the designs in the show (on Sokka's especially). The show designs keep large sections of one color on the main bodice and reserve trim mostly for the extremities vs. having intricate furs and trims throughout like on Sokka's.

That isn't to say you can't stay more faithful to the IRL inspiration if you want! I've seen plenty of artists do great takes on those too portraying a more realistic take on the characters and they always look fantastic, but they definitely give that more realistic and less cartoony-straight-from-the-show feel. Just depends on what you're going for I guess.

[3motionally3xhausted]

Kiss Kiss Fall into another old hyperfixation

Anyway, I randomly wanted to redesign the main cast of Ouran in my style/ with headcanons and my own embellishments

Here's a screenshot redraw, I'll put all the redesigns below the break bc I did all the main characters & wanna talk about the choices I made. Also I made up that uniform redesign on the spot bc I when I was doing the characters I just put them in casual clothes lmao

(I might do some others later, like Renge, Kasanoda, Yasuchika, Benibara, etc.)

Going in order of my least favorite to top favorite. And dont mind that I didn't color the clothes, that's not whats important here lmao

Mori is only at the bottom because I don't like the drawing that much, I still think the design is pretty good. Though, like right when I finished coloring, I decided a bun/top-knot would look better so it's a bit disappointing there. In my head, Mori is kind of struggling to figure out who he is & what he wants to do, which is why he follows Honey around and doesn't talk much. He does genuinely like being around the other hosts though.

Also, the undercut because A) he has the reputation for being the scary one & it kinda suits that, B) uh do I even have to say it? ...its hot He does lowkey look like Sokka from Avatar tho, especially with the blue accents

(edit: I accidentally deleted Mori's file so now this is the only copy so 😭)

Honey is next because again I think the drawing itself is a little off and the design is pretty close to Basil from Omori, which i didn't notice until it was too late lmao. One of the main things I didn't like about his character in the show was obviously how childlike he was & how girls still flirted with him even though he looked and acted 6; So now he still acts a bit childish but doesn't play it up as much & definitely has a more normal voice, not a fckn child's.

Haruhi! I definitely had to keep her glasses cuz they were really cute and kinda sold the whole 'commoner' thing in a way. But other than that I mainly wanted to balance out her femininity and masculinity to make her more androgynous/nonbinary/gender-fluid since she definitely has some of that going on in the show as is. I also gave her dark circles under her eyes to kinda show that she worked really hard to get into Ouran with low status.

Next up is Tamaki of course, getting into the characters I'm most happy with the designs of. One small thing I tried to do for each of them was give them varying hair tones; so even though Honey and Tamaki are both blond, I went very platinum-blond with him. When I started drawing him, my only real thought was "he has to be a pretty boy" so I dont have much to say about my choices, but i do think I succeeded. Don't mind the modern mullet thing, I can't stop it

Kyouya is definitely one of my favorite characters as is, seeing as he has one of the more fleshed out & heart-wrenching backstories in the show. I think the only thing I really wanted to change was getting rid of the Anime Bangs, so I just gave him this kinda sleek, kinda messy pushed-back look with a blue tint. Even though it's simple, I really struggled to come up with anything, until I found a page from the author saying smth like "I don't like the idea of him wearing neat clothes" with a picture of him in like a track suit so I did kinda the same outfit

My absolute #1 favorites, Hikaru & Kauru. They're honestly the ones that started it all because Kauru has been my favorite since I first saw the halloween episode (iykyk).

I don't know why, but I wanted their hair to be fluffier/curly and more of a natural(?) ginger color. I knew I wanted Kauru's to be redder and Hikaru's a bit lighter/blonder, but only subtly. I also gave Kauru a scar on his cheek from that time in Karuizawa, but most notably, I gave them blue and pink eyes as their signature colors. Lastly, their expressions are slightly different, because no matter how much they are in sync and try to match each other perfectly, Kauru's a much gentler soul than Hikaru, so I made Hikaru's smile a bit more snarky while Kauru's is soft.

Thank you for looking at my art/ reading my thoughts, here's an extra little design edit & comparison

(lol, I think they're mimicking Kyouya in this panel idek) (Also here you can see I tried the bun hairstyle w Mori, I think it looks good, but this is a really simple drawing so.)

[quillthrillswriting]

"why are you so quiet, what's on your mind?"

"oh, nothing, just aang admiring katara without realizing he's in love with her"

guys, i am SO excited for tomorrow's new chapter of "the teenager in the iceberg" there's gonna be some great moment & generally im excited to start progressing past the first few episodes

here's a teaser excerpt!

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Sokka immediately jumped off, almost kissing the sand in relief, and Aang followed close behind. Katara moved to stand up and join them, but a combination of that nerve-sick feeling and a bit of light-headedness had her slipping a little, stumbling off the saddle. She would’ve landed face-first in the sand, but Aang smoothly caught her with a current of air, then offered a hand. 

Once she was safe on the ground, Katara blushed, embarrassed that she’d lost her balance that easily. She moved to tell Aang, only to have Sokka take one look at her and burst out laughing. 

“What?!” She snapped, suddenly overly self-conscious.

“Your hair!” He cackled, a shaking finger pointing at her. Confused, Katara reached out her hand to draw a tendril of water from the cold morning sea. She concentrated, forming it first into a sphere and then a flat oval, then stilled the water so that she could see her reflection…

Only to drop the water in surprise when she finally saw what Sokka was talking about. Her carefully done hair was snarled around in its braids,  bits of it loose and bits of it still intact. She huffed in annoyance, then fished out a small glass mirror and her hairbrush. 

“Aang,” she said distractedly, “could you hold this for me?” She handed him the mirror. 

“Y-yeah, no problem.”

She tugged out her hair ties, flipping her head upside down for a moment to make sure that it had all gotten loose, then she gingerly tugged a few tendrils of water from the nearby ocean and wrapped tiny streams around her hair, tugging out the crimped braid pattern and reviving her curls. Then, she carefully bent the remaining liquid back out. 

She couldn’t see his face through her thick hair as she stood back up, but from his voice, Aang seemed impressed. “I get that you haven’t been able to learn any big combat moves, but for someone whose bending is self- taught, you sure have a pretty good handle on these smaller things.”

She properly flipped her head up now, curls and waves bouncing around her face. Her dark brown locks shone with honey-toned highlights, all different shades of caramel and chocolate sparkling as they framed her face. She reached up, gently twisting and clipping a few strands out of the way, but a few wayward pieces still fell forward, gently brushing against soft, full lips and smooth skin. Aang awkwardly froze for a moment, caught off guard by how different she looked when her hair was loose and free. He had a weird urge to tell her so, but bit his tongue, instead focusing on her answer. 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

♥ check out the two chapters of this (ongoing) fic & my ao3 here! ->

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

What do you think of this? I cannot understand the reasoning for this at all. I just don’t get it?

https://stardust948.tumblr.com/post/726023002649772032/amp

It means "Aang thinks she looks pretty in a necklace and knows she'd regret murdering a man, even if it was a bad man, therefore he sees her as an object, and a poorly timed kiss that he clearly feels bad for it's proof of it. Therefore we should ship Zutara, a fanon pairing that literally only exists because of rape fics because I think 'bad boys' are cooler than 'good guys'."

Also it's VERY funny that they try to act like Aang is the only one that can't relate to Katara's pain about losing her mom/isn't told about it, when she explicitly draws a parallel between their situations when he sees Gyatso's body, and then he does it in The Southern Raiders to remind Katara that he DOES know what it's like to feel so much rage and pain that you want to wreck everything in sight.

Zutarians really don't like being reminded that the reasons Zuko encourages Katara to go murder her mother's killer is because:

1 - He's being an entitled jerk that thinks she HAS to forgive and befriend him just because he's sorry, and thinks this will be the way to achieve that. It's only during the mission that he starts to actually feel compassion and empathy for her, Kya, and their family.

2 - He doesn't know or understand her at all yet, so he doesn't realize that being a-okay with murder is completely unlike Katara. Meanwhile Aang and Sokka try to discourage her from it because they know she'll regret this later.

3 - He was raised by a violent abuser in an imperialist nation that is waging war against the whole world, so he's way too used to violence being used to handle literally EVERYTHING.

[atla-confessions]

1. suki absolutely the easiest one to babysit, she’s pretty self sufficient & easygoing. 2. aang he’s such a sweetheart and would do his best to listen & clean up. would definitely get caught up in the chaos but would make an effort to be on his best behaviour & make it easier for me. would try and calm down the others if he saw me stressing. i’d send him outside to run around for a bit just to tire him out. i’d bring him a techdeck. 3. sokka he’d want to do science experiments and draw and watch a movie so that’s pretty easy. the only issue is keeping him from deconstructing something just to figure out how it works / blowing something up. he’d probably complain about how he doesn’t need a babysitter but would get over it eventually. someone needs to get this kid some legos. 4. zuko he’s the kind of kid that would sulk in the corner the entire time. he’s only this low because i can’t imagine telling him to put his dishes in the dishwasher & him actually doing it without huffing and grumbling. the others would absolutely rile him up on purpose. 5. katara as much as i love her character, i would despise babysitting her. she’d be starting fights & when aang tries to intervene, she’d start another one. she’s bossy & high strung and i can’t imagine her calming down with a quiet activity because she’d rally the troops into overthrowing me. love her for standing up to authority in the show, not so much when it’s me she’s standing up to. i mean, episode ONE we see how much trouble kanna has wrangling her, and kanna has way more patience than me. 6. toph i’d be stupid if i thought toph would allow herself to be babysat. she’d be starting fights as well AND she’d end them. violently. she and katara would be arguing and then suddenly they’re ganging up on me & tying me up so they can draw on my face with a sharpie.

Not this making me want to read a daycare AU of the gang. Very baby looney tunes. I'm obsessed with this and you are so correct. Especially about Katara like she is sweet as pie I'm sure but put her in with toph and try to tell her what to do? you might as well find a new job

X

[theeeveetamer]

Avatar the Last Expositionbender: Thoughts on the new Netflix adaptation from a near 20-year-long fan of ATLA (first three episodes)

Disclaimer: I’ve been a huge fan of ATLA since literally the day it dropped on February 21st, 2005. I’ve probably seen the original show at least 200 times all the way through. That said, I absolutely am trying to go into this Netflix show with an open mind. I don’t want to denigrate it just because it’s not exactly the same as the original.

I can't draw any final conclusions because I've only watched through episode 3, but my impressions are... not good. I’m going to try and leave some of the nitpickier stuff to my live tweeting thread and just focus on the big things here.

My biggest takeaway thus far is that the show has decent to great special effects, set design, and cinematography, and it is just ALL completely let down by an atrocious script and bizarre changes to both the plot and characters. I don’t think any one decision is the decision that’s breaking this show for me. I think it’s a death-of-a-thousand-cuts kind of breaking the show for me.

(A lot) more below the cut

Let’s start with the structure. The original ATLA is a serialized show (there is one overarching plot), but each episode is smaller scale with short plotlines that are resolved within the runtime of one or two episodes (leans more episodic). The Netflix adaptation seems to drop this format and centers the main plot in pretty much every episode. Many of the little stories still technically happen, but they’re reframed to be in service to the greater plot. E.g. They no longer visit Kyoshi because Aang just wanted to have a fun little adventure and ride some giant fish, he does so because he needs to learn more about the Avatar from Kyoshi.

This is not an inherently negative change, but it is a negative change in this case and I’ll tell you why: it completely destroys the character building that the original series was known so well for. Let me explain.

I can point to any episode in the series and immediately tell you if it's a Katara-centric episode, a Sokka-centric episode, a Zuko-centric episode, etc. I can tell you exactly what the characters did, what the themes were, and how the characters have grown from beginning to end. I can tell you the threads that were woven in which ultimately serve the larger plot, from huge shifts to tiny threads you wouldn’t even notice.

I’ll take episode 2 from the Netflix series and compare it to the three episodes I believe it’s based on: The Warriors of Kyoshi and The Winter Solstice (parts 1 and 2).

In the original series all three of these episodes are largely Aang-centric, with significant moments developing Sokka as well. Kyoshi is the point at which Aang’s lackadaisical attitude toward being the Avatar is significantly challenged for the first time. He spends significant time in Kyoshi being fawned over and messing around despite realistically having done nothing to earn that praise. It’s the damage to his friendship with Katara + Zuko coming in which ultimately humbles him. The Winter Solstice episodes are where Aang’s determination and goal is solidified and a sense of urgency is developed.

On Sokka’s end, Kyoshi is a significant moment for him as a character. He has some of his core beliefs challenged and not only does it humble him, he apologizes and works to better himself. In The Winter Solstice episodes (particularly part 2) we see, for the first time, glimmers of his ingenuity and his role as the idea/plan guy with how he develops a plan to open the door so Aang can speak to Roku.

In terms of the plot, The Warriors of Kyoshi ultimately doesn’t have much to say at this moment, but it is setup for later payoffs in seasons 2 and 3 (the Kyoshi Warrior ruse Azula pulls in Ba Sing Se, Suki’s presence in The Boiling Rock and subsequently joining the Gaang, etc.) so it’s not wasted. The Winter Solstice is where Aang gets crucial information about the world and solidifies his goal (stop the Fire Nation before the arrival of the comet).

Ultimately we discover something important about Sokka, and Aang has a significant moment of character development where he decides to put aside his own ego, stop messing around, and focus on saving the world.

What do we see in Episode 2 of the Netflix series?

Sokka has a kind of awkward relationship with Suki where she largely just kind of complains about being stuck on Kyoshi and acts like a massive bitch toward him for seemingly no reason (since they completely removed his sexism and thus his entire arc in that episode) but then they kiss anyway.

Aang gets shit on by the people of Kyoshi and then blasted by Kyoshi herself for not being determined enough in his quest and not understanding what it means to be the Avatar (even though in this version of events Aang never ran away from the Southern Air Temple he was just out for a lil fly to cool his head and got yeeted by the storm, and the entire reason he came to Kyoshi in the first place is so he could learn more about being the Avatar).

Katara is, uh, there and plays around with the waterbending scroll Gran Gran apparently had the entire time (so I guess we’re not covering The Waterbending Scroll in this show, aka one of Katara’s early defining character episodes).

None of them develop because they weren’t given any flaws to begin with. There’s nothing for them to overcome. The problems they overcame in the original episodes were taken out from the very start, which means they have nowhere to actually go.

And that might be fine if this wasn’t an Avatar the Last Airbender adaptation. You know, the show that is so well known for its character development that it’s often cited as one of the best examples of a redemption arc in fiction? That Avatar the Last Airbender show? Yeah…

Another problem, and I really can’t overlook this, is the atrocious script this show has. It feels like the characters spend 90% of their talking time either delivering bland exposition that was usually just shown to us in the original show, or monologuing about something. It feels like the writers had no confidence in their audience to actually follow what was happening or understand the themes, which is… embarrassing. This show is clearly not made for children at all based on the levels of violence depicted, and it’s not a great sign when the show made for ten year olds has more faith in its audience's intelligence than this one.

And really, I get that you’re probably going to have to combine episodes and cut out some things to fit a 20 episode season into an 8 episode season, but some of the choices for episodes they combined is just bizarre. Who on earth decided it would be a good idea to combine Jet, The King of Omashu, and The Northern Air Temple into one episode?

The original Jet is largely a Sokka-centric episode, dealing with his own insecurity as well as the group’s lack of confidence in him and his abilities. Yet Katara is almost exclusively the one interacting with the Jet plotline in the Netflix adaptation, and all of Sokka’s best moments from that episode are lost. Instead he spends most of this episode hanging out with Teo’s dad and establishing his interest in engineering (and weirdly shitting on Hakoda for some reason in the process?) which could have been established in an episode which shares a less Sokka-important plotline.

The Northern Air Temple is about Aang reconciling his conflicted feelings about refugees moving into a place that once belonged to his people, changing things, and adopting/adapting some of the Air nomad’s culture (such as the gliders). He ultimately comes to the conclusion that the Air Nomads are gone, but he’s happy new people have come along and carry their spirit. Because this episode takes place in Omashu in the Netflix adaptation, there is absolutely none of that conflict or growth over others using the space which used to belong to his people.

The King of Omashu is just a sweet, Aang-centric episode where he realizes he still has friends in the world, and establishes Omashu and Bumi for the world/later seasons. Bumi isn’t even in episode 3 of the Netflix adaptation physically until the end, and when he’s mentioned he basically gets shit on, treated as completely incompetent, and almost murdered by Jet. Though from what I gather based on the episode blurbs the substance of The King of Omashu is probably contained more in Episode 4, so we’ll see if my opinion changes after episode 4.

The act of combining episodes is not the problem. It’s the episodes they’ve chosen to combine. What they’ve done so far does not in any way take advantage of what the original show gave them to work with.

For example, Why not instead combine the Southern Air Temple, The Storm, and The Northern Air temple? All three episodes connect with the theme of Aang dealing with his loss. Just move Teo and his father to the Southern Air Temple instead of the northern one and keep their plotline the same. In the process Aang can walk the run down buildings and learn more about what happened, and at some point he can find Gyatso’s body and there can be flashbacks to him leaving the Southern Temple and he can talk about how guilty he feels.

(While I’m at it I think they could have more smoothly combined Jet with The Waterbending Scroll. Katara can steal the scroll and as they’re escaping they can run into the merry band of freedom fighters who hide them. Katara practices with the scroll while Jet encourages her which is part of why she takes such a liking to him, and Sokka has his arc with Jet. Maybe Jet could even dangle the prospect of getting rid of the pirates chasing them along with the town to try and bait Sokka to his side/convince him by exploiting his protective instinct, but Sokka still refuses.)

Basically, I wish they’d combined the episodes more on the basis of their interconnected themes rather than… whatever it is they were trying to do here.

Anyway I think that’s the big thrust of my criticisms of the show. Now I’m just going to do random miscellaneous complaining about character changes.

First, Aang is such a bland pile of nothing, and despite the writers claiming he’s more determined and a go-getter he has never, not ONCE stopped getting pushed around in the plot.

He doesn’t intentionally leave the Air Nomads of his own volition, he just happened to be out for a little fly to clear his head when a storm oopsied him into the plot. He gets bullied by Kyoshi for like four minutes straight into doing the thing he was already doing (going to the Northern Water Tribe) because she psychically knows that the Fire Nation is going to attack them later, not because he actually… y’know… wants to learn waterbending/wants to find Katara a teacher.

2) Sokka gives sociopathy with the delivery of some of these lines. The jokes are REALLY hit or miss and the acting is more miss than hit in this show (goes for everyone tbh, not even just the kids). I already complained about them removing his sexism and I can confirm the sexism is indeed gone. He does at least maintain his role in the comic relief department, but I can’t say I’m that thrilled they kept the literal least interesting part of his personality.

3) Katara is genuinely one of my favorite characters in media ever. Seriously I could probably make a whole other post about how much I love her, and I am so disappointed by what a bland ball of nothing she is so far. She has none of her edge.

You’ll notice that they’ve so far covered The Boy in the Iceberg, The Avatar Returns, The Southern Air Temple, The Warriors of Kyoshi, The King of Omashu, The Winter Solstice (1 and 2), Jet, The Northern Air Temple, and if I am being EXTREMELY generous The Waterbending Scroll (as in, there is technically a waterbending scroll and Katara does now have possession of it).

None of which are what I would consider Katara-centric character development episodes, and the moments she does have in those episodes appear to be mostly cut out or overlaid with bizarre PTSD flashback nightmare fuel. I’m not trying to imply that the show won’t get better about her, but I’m not a huge fan of having a lot of her moments stripped out and her characterization reduced to “yeah she’s traumatized”. Honestly depending on how the rest of this season goes you might have to deal with a big long ramble just like this on just Katara. Katara Alone, if you will.

4) I have no idea what’s even going on with Zuko. They covered Aang’s half of The Storm in pretty gruesome detail but completely neglected Zuko’s entire half of that episode. Thus far he feels like he’s getting pushed around by the plot just as much as Aang. And he has to share villain screentime with Ozai and Azula for whatever reason. Also, they wussed out on that scar.

Iroh is in a similar boat to Zuko. It just feels like the Netflix adaptation doesn’t have nearly as much interest in developing Zuko and Iroh as the original show did. Which is really disappointing. One of the things that made Zuko’s redemption so good was because he and Iroh were such a presence in the show from the very beginning. They very frequently, even if they’re not directly interacting with the Gaang, dominate the episode B-plot. His redemption simply does not work if you don’t have that.

5) Zhao is such a dweeb. A dork. A weenie. I don’t even understand why they made this change to him. In the original show he’s ruthlessly effective and ambitious to a fault. He’s an antagonist not just to Aang, but to Zuko as well. Aang is his meal ticket to even greater acclaim and Zuko is a banished princeling who has nothing of value to offer him. He has it made in the Fire Nation and he’s not afraid to flex his power or show it. He is also hot headed and rash, which gets him into trouble on more than one occasion and ultimately probably leads to his downfall. He is not some weenie hut junior loser who slides into the Fire Lord’s DMs while trying to play nice and team up with his banished prince son after failing his Commander Exams™ three times.

6) I’m sensing an Ozai woobie arc with that “don’t pretend to know anything about loss” line he said to those guys trying to assassinate him and I swear to god if they try to give him an uwu sad backstory and/or try to pretend like he gives a shit about his wife or either of his kids I am not only not watching the rest of this trainwreck, I’m never paying Netflix money for anything ever again. Don’t even start with me on that shit.