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awkward-txrtle · 10 months ago

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fun. x ATLA

Idk if anyone else in the fandom listens to fun., but I'm a big fan of pretty much the whole Some Nights album. I was listening to it last week (yes, even the Some Nights - Intro, which I don't vibe with) because it was speaking to me in terms of ATLA characters (certain songs reminded me of certain characters).

"But Turtle, Nate Reuss wasn't focused on ATLA when he was writing this album"

Ok, and? I'm gonna have some fun with this!

So here's each song and the character I think it fits (not all are exact fits & not every song is included, but most are)

1. Some Nights - Sokka

"This is it, boys, this is war/what are we waiting for?" feels very Sokka to me, especially since he considers himself a warrior and is the protector of Wolf Cove after Hakoda and the other men leave to fight the fire nation. Also "I still see your ghost" could reference Kya, but more likely Yue, since Sokka says that he sees Katara's face when he tries to remember his mother. The line about the martyr reminded me of Suki. Ok also the "miss my mom and dad for this" line?? Come on. Ok BUT "my heart is breaking for my sister and the con she called love/and then I look into my nephew's eyes" is just SCREAMING a Zutara or Kataang fic of some sort. Come on, right?? It's just begging to be written. Overall, this is very existential crisis-Sokka to me.

2. We Are Young - Katara

Ok so I wasn't fully sure what song to give Katara and it just didn't feel right to leave her out so I deadass just gave her this one like 5 minutes ago, but it still works. It would also be AU-based, but hear me out. I'm assuming y'all are most likely to know this song out of all of them. So Katara's at a bar after breaking up with her boyfriend (Aang) and the Gaang's all here. "My seat's been taken by some sunglasses askin' bout a scar" would be Zuko asking about the scars on Katara's hands that she couldn't fully heal after Aang's firebending accident. "But between the drinks and subtle things/the holes in my apologies/you know I'm trying hard to take it back" feels very Aang to me, especially since he's immature. Then right after, I feel like it switches to a more Zutara vibe for most of the song. Also "the moon is on my side/I have no reason to run" with Katara is such a sick combo omg.

3. Carry On - Zuko

The lyrics are very angsty. "You swore and said we are not/we are not shining stars/this I know, I never said we are" feels like a very Zuko & Iroh interaction to me. And also "though I've never been through hell like that/I've closed enough windows to know you can never look back" !!!! Like that feels very Season 3 Zuko to me. Also, no matter what, Zuko is forced to carry on, whether it's with Ozai, Azula, the Gaang... Although don't get me wrong, Zuko does take back his destiny, but I'm referring more to how he can't give up. Also Ursa tells Zuko and he later says how he struggles and fights, even though it's hard. "And we talked and talked about how our parents will die/all our neighbors and wives" Zuko is very familiar with the concept of mortality, he nearly died and he loses his mother at a young age. I'm sure he worries about when Iroh will die, as well as his friends. I feel like Zuko has a line about people leaving him, but I can't find it. Ok next point "and it's nice to know when I was left for dead/I was found and now I don't roam these streets/I am not the ghost you are to me" is very reminiscent of Zuko's relationship (or lack thereof) with Ozai. Also "may your past be the sound of your feet upon the ground" feels like a very Iroh line. Last point, "on our darkest day, when we're miles away/so we'll come and we'll find our way home" is very reminiscent of Zuko's redemption arc and how he returns home and retakes his place in the line of succession and becomes Fire Lord.

4. It Gets Better - Katara?

Honestly the "yes, I know it hurts at first/but it gets better" reminds me a lot of Katara. I also liked the line about fire in the sky and snow on the ground. Not too much else to say.

5. All Alone - Mai

I really encourage you guys to listen to this song, it was really interesting. The lyrics reminded me of Maiko, especially how Mai seems to not care about anything. The girl's voice reminded me a lot of Mai throughout the series, especially her interactions with Zuko. "I gave her to you/I don't need a toy/I thought you might appreciate it/I don't like the way it moves" reminds me of their interaction when Zuko tries to give Mai the shell on Ember Island. "How do you cry with inanimate eyes/you're never gonna smile/with the way that you're wired" also reminded me a lot of Mai's character throughout the series.

(I really like All Alright, but wasn't sure who it would fit well with)

6. One Foot - Toph

"I put one foot in front of the other" is very Toph, she is a fighter first and foremost. "I don't need a new love or a new life" also feels very her, Toph doesn't care as much about the more material things compared to the rest of the Gaang. I'm sure there's more that can be said about this connection, but I didn't really vibe with the song so much. Sorry Toph.

7. Out on the Town - Aang

Okay, Aang fans, I'm asking you to stick with me here. "Cause I know I'll never take the time/to unpack my missteps and call all of our friends" feels very much like season 3 Aang, where he doesn't face consequences for his actions and Bryke kinda places him on this pedestal of sorts. Also, this is a kataang breakup song to me. The chorus really feels like Aang to me, putting his feelings before those of other people, causing a scene, there being consequences (that he somehow gets out of, but that's not today's discussion). "But I'm waiting for the day you come back and say/'hey maybe I should change my mind'" reminds me of the first 2 times Aang kisses Katara and how he expects her to change her mind on how she feels about him. Also the repetition of "open up your heart".

Overall, I found the entire album to be very Zuko-coded.

If you read this far, I appreciate you!

#atla #fun.#sokka #katara #zuko #mai #toph #aang #zutara #fun #nate reuss #some nights

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levitatingbiscuits · 2 years ago

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as a native woman, i do agree with you on how katara is treated, but i can't agree with how you put down other characters you or anon mentioned. my culture was also a victim of genocide, and because of that i cannot fault aang for his reactions to things, just like i absolutely cannot blame katara for how she reacts to things. they have both suffered survivors guilt immensely, and the comics mention aang never got over it- yes, their trauma is different, but you cannot compare who suffered the most when they have both lost and suffered so much to genocide. and as for sokka, i do agree the fandom kind of goes wild with him, but as a water tribe character he also suffers from the genocide cast on the water tribe, like everyone else in the south pole, just in a different way to katara because she is a bender. there's no denying sokka has suffered as well, just because the show doesn't make a big point of it and he mentions he doesn't remember his mother doesn't mean he barely has issues. in fact i think the atla renaissance, whilst making up some stuff, looked into his character on a level i can appreciate because he didnt get a lot of the depth he deserved in the show. and further on fandom treatment of katara, she often gets parentified, which downplays her character so much, and falls into how woc are often painted to only be mothers- dont let yourself do that either. relate to katara a lot, and seeing how the fandom treats her i will always defend her, but i will not put down the characters who have suffered things me and my own people have as well. sorry if this is messy but I do love these characters a lot, because they hold a lot of connection to me

i never faulted aang for his reaction to the genocide of his people, i faulted him for how he reacted to the genocide of katara's people, especially considering that she gave him unconditional love, support, and comfort that he never gave her. and people are always saying katara is a selfish bitch who had it way better than him, so i was pointing out that her survivor's guilt was worse in the show (i haven't read the comics in years) due to the fact that she saw her mother's killer, her mother's fresh corpse, and heard her mother literally trade her life to spare her daughter's. that's why katara is who she is; her arc is defined by her grief and her desire to spare others the pain she went through. aang felt a ton of survivor's guilt too, but his guilt and loss came up a lot less in the show because katara was always there to reassure him. no one ever does that for her, but they sure do scold her for seeking justice for kya's death!

the genocide wasn't targeting the entire southern water tribe, it was specifically targeting southern waterbenders. they started raiding the south when hama was young specifically to capture and intern the benders, not the entire tribe. sokka was never at risk of being murdered by yon rha; katara was. he lost his mom because of the genocide, but she died in katara's place by claiming to be a bender. no nonbenders were put in internment camps with hama. water tribe nonbenders undoubtedly suffered from the raids, but they were not eradicated like the airbenders and the waterbenders, even though the fire nation easily could have killed the entire tribe. in fact, the fire nation pretty much left them alone after the raid that killed kya (the supposed last waterbender); there's a reason hakoda and the warriors had to leave the tribe to go join the war, instead of the fire nation continuing to attack. in fact, it seems like the tribe was totally unprepared for the last raid, implying that the second to last raid was the one that captured hama; so there would have been decades where the southern water tribe was left alone once all the waterbenders were dead. it seems like kya's murder was the catalyst for the southern water tribe warriors joining the war; the warriors would not have left the tribe with only sokka to defend it if the fire nation was still attacking it. sokka never had to fight to defend the tribe until zuko showed up. so the nonbenders suffered from losing their loved ones in the genocide, but they were not the ones getting wiped out. the fire nation was at war with the southern water tribe specifically to kill the waterbenders (presumably to keep the avatar from reincarnating.) After that's done, they attack the north, instead of occupying the south, because they don't really care what the southern tribe does if there are no waterbenders anymore. in fact, it seems like they viewed their southern waterbender genocide as complete, and were gonna try to commit one on the northern waterbenders next.

sokka gets tons of development in the show, but the renaissance often made shit up about him specifically to put down katara. they also made up a ton of aus where he took traits from water tribe girl characters, like the waterbender sokka with hair loopies au or the moon spirit sokka au. we saw a lot in the show about sokka growing into his own as a leader, about his genius, about his romances (he gets two!!), about how much he misses his dad, about his struggle to live up to the standards expected of water tribe men, about how he comes to respect women, about how he struggles being the only nonbender of the group and becomes a formidable swordsman using his wits and ingenuity. yet the renaissance largely ignored all of that really compelling stuff in favor of transplanting katara's struggles on to him--suddenly he's the caretaker of the group and he's the one who hasn't healed from the loss of his mom, even though he said katara helped him move on from kya's death and that she's the one always taking care of him.

i'm not parentifying katara, the show is! sokka straight up says he parentified her after kya's death, and there's a whole episode about how the gaang parentifies her, too. me acknowledging that she is parentified by her older brother and the gaang (and struggles with it, but still does a really good job) isn't me parentifying her. (in fact, i'd argue that the fandom parentifies sokka by saying that he was the one taking care of the gaang and looking after all of them when he really wasn't.) and then katara's canonical sole legacy in lok is being aang's wife and tenzin's mom, according to the creators of the show, so they also reduced her to that parentified role she was always being shoved into and i have a right to be mad about it.

i don't think i'm putting down aang or sokka by saying that katara suffered equally or more, especially considering how the fandom is so viciously cruel and sexist to her and insists she's selfish and suffered the least. trauma is not the same thing as being a good character. it's good that katara helped them both heal! I'm happy that they were able to receive love and support from her and help moving on. I am just pointing out that katara never gets that from them. sokka and aang are both excellent and well-written characters. pointing out that they are further along in the healing process than katara (which is canonically thanks to her love and care) is not putting them down. would it be putting them down if i said that zuko's trauma is also less healed than theirs? would i be putting down toph if i said she suffered the least of the main cast? no, that's ridiculous. trauma is not a value judgement of a character's worth, it's just backstory. characters have different backstories, and that's fine! i never said that katara was a better person than aang or sokka, just that she suffers as much (aang) or more (sokka) than them. (again, it's canon that sokka suffered less thanks to katara looking after him, sokka literally said so.)

i'm very sorry if my post upset you. i should have been nicer about it. however, i stand by what i said, even if i should have been more diplomatic about how i said it. feel free to block me if you disagree, and again, i sincerely apologize for any distress my post caused you. but what i said about aang and sokka is way kinder than the misogynistic vitriol and downplaying of trauma that 70% of the fandom directs at katara, including the creators of the show themselves.

#anonymous #katara deserved better

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sokkastyles · 3 years ago

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I was thinking about the moment when Aang burned Katara's hands. It's funny that there are people who blame Katara for her injury (because she was standing too close to Aang), although it is obvious that Aang is to blame for this. And only now I realized that Aang treated firebending as a game just like he treats his airbending, which is why he couldn't stop in time and burned Katara. It seems to me that this is the reason why fire became the last element that Aang had to study, for his full growth as a character, to start taking things more seriously and responsibly than before. While Zuko is learning on the contrary to be more free and liberated, like air.

I agree. I've said in the past that I feel like a lot of the hate Katara gets is because of the way the narrative positions her in opposition to Aang, both as a love interest and as the no-fun caretaker who is always trying to get him to take responsibility, and that's exacerbated when the narrative won't hold Aang responsible for things, such as the kiss in "Ember Island Players," which is why even people who like Katara argue that she really actually secretly wanted to be kissed (blegh), but Aang burning Katara is actually a place where I feel the narrative does do a good job of holding him responsible, and it's actually a huge part of his arc, so people who try to argue that it was Katara's fault for "standing too close" are not even paying attention to the show. There are other problems with the way that situation is addressed, and plenty of people have pointed out how Katara is the one who ends up having to comfort Aang over him burning her, while her pain is just magically healed, but it is something the show holds Aang accountable for and a big part of his development.

And you are right about him treating it as a game, just like he does with airbending, and this is an aspect of Aang's character that I feel is often overlooked. This isn't a criticism of Aang, it's very understandable that he is this way. He's a kid who grew up in peacetime. There's a tendency to idealize Aang's pacifism that I've seen in the fandom, and to portray him as someone who hates fighting, but that's not the case. He's a martial arts master, for Pete's sake! And he was just as hyped to learn firebending as any twelve year old boy would be. He thought the freedom fighters were super cool and didn't believe Sokka when he told them that Jet was dangerous. Even in "The Avatar State," which opens with his nightmares about the violence at the North Pole, he was totally into General Fong's plan and wouldn't listen to Katara when she warned him of the danger until Katara got hurt.

And this makes sense, if you think about it. Because Aang is a kid who grew up in an idyllic setting and was raised by pacifist monks, because airbending came easy to him, and because he wasn't there for the genocide of his people, he doesn't quite understand the real consequences of violence the way the other characters do. I'm not saying he takes violence lightly, because of course he doesn't, but he hasn't experienced things the way Katara and Sokka have, particularly how dangerous the Fire Nation can be, so it's more of a game to him until it becomes serious in a very real way, and by then it's unavoidable.

Look at when they go to the Fire Nation festival in "The Deserter:"

Katara: Aang, hold on! Where are we going?

Aang: I don't know, but there's a big crowd so it must be good.

Sokka: [Sarcastically.] Knowing the Fire Nation, it's probably an execution.

Aang: I gotta learn that trick!

It's not that Aang is naive, it's just that he doesn't have the same experience with the Fire Nation that Sokka and Katara do. Katara is cautious and fearful, and Sokka assumes the worst, while Aang is excited. Katara and Sokka grew up fearing violence from the Fire Nation, and lost their mother to that same evil, while Aang, despite the trauma of losing his people and witnessing the devastation at the Southern Air Temple, still remembers having Fire Nation friends. He's excited to be part of the firebending show while Katara is clearly terrified.

Aang didn't grow up in constant fear of raids like Sokka and Katara did, and he didn't grow up in a violent and abusive environment like Zuko did, so it makes sense that the consequences of violence aren't as real for him (this is also an aspect of what Zuko says to him in "The Southern Raiders" and why it annoys me when people say that Zuko was in the wrong to say what he said). And because Aang is also twelve, his initial feelings about firebending are more "fire cool" than anything.

That's why he's impatient with Jeong Jeong, and also why he's so shocked and upset when he does accidently burn Katara. And because of this he does a complete 180 and is afraid to ever firebend again. I also think that both Katara and Sokka's reactions were unexpected for him. Katara's terror and hurt is so palpable and Sokka's reaction towards Aang, tackling him to the ground, becomes horribly tragic if you think about how much Sokka wanted to be like his dad and was raised to be a warrior and protector of his tribe and family, and the flashback we get later of Hakoda running towards Kya, who he will find dead.

It's also made clear by the narrative that it was Aang's fault. I mean, I'm not saying Aang should be blamed, because of course it was an accident, but the reason Aang lost control of the fire was because he was being reckless, and playing with it. Part of it is also Jeong Jeong's fault, because Jeong Jeong has the opposite problem, and I do blame Jeong Jeong largely for Aang developing a complex around firebending. Both of them, because of their bad experiences with fire, become so afraid of hurting other people that they don't know how to handle it. And Jeong Jeong was actually the last person who should have been teaching Aang, because of his fear of his own fire. Aang disobeys Jeong Jeong and is too reckless, but Jeong Jeong also is way too timid and doesn't teach Aang, who is eager to learn more, how to keep his fire from going out of control. He teaches Aang to be afraid of the fire because he is afraid of it.

(I actually also think this is tied to why Aang is afraid of Katara's desire to face Yon Rha in "The Southern Raiders" as well. When Aang is exposed to situations where he is confronted with the reality of violence, he becomes incredibly fearful and loses control. That's why he's afraid of Katara losing control and falls back on Air Nomad aphorisms that land on deaf ears to Katara and Zuko.)

This is ultimately why Zuko ends up being the perfect firebending teacher for Aang. Zuko had a lot of the same problems, and had to learn the hard way how to control his fire, but because he's had those experiences and learned from them, and decided that he wanted to become better, he's able to teach Aang how to have a more balanced view. Zuko had to learn how to be more like air, but one of the things I love about "The Firebending Masters" is how Zuko and Aang's roles are somewhat switched, and Aang is constrained by his own fears while Zuko is more free than we've ever seen him:

Aang: [Scared.] Zuko, I think the past is trying to kill me.

Zuko: [Kneeling down to inspect the spikes.] I can't believe it. [He picks the tripwire up and examines it.] This booby trap must be centuries old and it still works.

Aang: There's probably a lot more. Maybe this means we shouldn't be here.

Zuko takes two steps back and runs toward the wall adjoining the path. He runs on the wall before jumping on the other side of the spikes.

Zuko: [Dusting some dirt on his shirt.] Where's that up-beat attitude you were talkin' about?

(This is also a rare scene of Zuko bending air.)

Because in the end, it's all about balance. Aang learns to have more confidence and Zuko learns to be more wise. There's a great message there about learning from your mistakes. Yes, you should be careful especially when you are in danger of hurting others, but if you're too hesitant then you'll always be held back by your fear, and you might end up hurting others more in the end.

#the firebending masters #atla meta #katara #aang #zuko #the deserter #jeong jeong #the southern raiders #sokka

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army-of-mai-lovers · 4 years ago

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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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flameo-fanfic · 4 years ago

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Okay, but let’s talk about the Avatar: TLA character names and their meanings because they’re so thoughtful and some of them are so sweet.

Aang: means “peaceful soaring”, was pieced together from Chinese characters meaning “peaceful” and “rise, raise”. Aang also derived from “akang” (from Indonesia) which is a word used to refer to one’s elder brother or one of his peers.

Very sweet, 10/10 I love Aang so much. He really is just a simple monk.

Katara: get ready for this one, her name means “droplet” (!!!) deriving from the Arabic word meaning “water droplet”.

This is so sweet. Katara is baby. I can just imagine Kya or Hakoda using “my little water droplet” as an affectionate name for her UGH. Cutie pie.

Sokka: Sokka’s name comes from the Japanese phrase "So Ka" which means "I Understand."

This suits his character SO WELL. I was imagining his name having to do with water considering he’s from the water tribe but his name being based more on the fact of how intelligent he is is honestly so much better. What a smart king.

Toph: the creators of ATLA actually named their earth bending character Toph because it means “tough”.

I’m joking, or I wish I was. Toph’s name isn’t actually an authentic Chinese name but it was written as 北方拓芙, giving her name the meaning "expanding lotus". I couldn’t find verification but Toph’s name definitely could have just been intended as a pun for the English word “tough”.

The meaning “expanding lotus” is absolutely beautiful and I find the symbolism of Toph being a lotus flower makes so much sense considering how they grow in dirty water or mud but are still considered such a beautiful, breathtaking, and pure thing of nature. This also suits how her parents treated her like some delicate thing even though she was content being in rough and not-so-fragile environments. When you put more thought into it, I think Toph’s name might be one of my favorites, even if it actually was just meant to be a pun.

Azula: We all know that Azula’s name means blue and why she was named Azula. Blue fire..

This isn’t surprising. She’s a manic baddie, I love her and feel so sorry for her. That poor, traumatized child.

Zuko: okay, Zuko’s name makes me laugh and cry because in Chinese the meaning of his name is either “loved one” or “failure”.

I also read this on Avatar Wiki-

“On his wanted poster, his name was written with the characters 祖寇, meaning "ancestor robber". In Ursa's letter to Ikem, Zuko's name was written with the characters 豎髙 meaning "vertical high" with the second character being a variant of "高".”

This is very suiting to his story and how people in his life view him but god does it hurt. I also feel bad for this little baby for his traumatic past, but at least he had people who gave him the chance at feeling loved unlike his sister oop :/

Yue: Her name originates from China and means “moon”.

If you haven’t heard of this one yet, I know, it broke my heart too when I found out. She went too soon. </3 Still a very sweet name for her in context of her destiny.

All in all, I love how much thought was put into this show. To this day I still find little details that add to the story and it would be an understatement to call it impressive.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #atla characters #Aang #Katara #Sokka #Toph #Azula #Zuko #Yue

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that-was-anticlimactic · 4 years ago

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Yes hi, I'd love to know more about your tourettes sokka hc if you're up for it 👀 I'm starving for tourettes hcs so 👀

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!! I can talk about this SO MUCH (I will warn now, there will be some Zukka in this) okay so I guess I’ll start at the beginning...

Sokka was six when he started showing symptoms

It started with just some motor tics but everyone kind of just attributed it to this kid has a lot of energy ahhh

It became more noticeable when he kept almost killing himself with weapons because of his tics and slight carelessness

That’s one reason why he loves boomerang so much, none of the other weapons felt right to him and they would always get in the way of his tics, but he could throw boomerang and it would come back to him so he could keep throwing it and it made him feel calm

Then, Sokka started saying stuff that he didn’t mean to say, but again, everyone was just like hyper kid because it’s not like he was doing anything wrong

But they realized something was up when Sokka started yelling “FIRE NATION” without intending to and sending the whole tribe in a panic

So, Hakoda took Sokka to a nearby trustworthy Earth Kingdom village and that’s where Sokka got diagnosed with Tourette’s (and ADHD)

One of the things with Sokka is touch, like, he feels like touch is constricting and restraining sometimes. The problem is, he LOVES touch, he is a touchy person, but when someone touches him without telling him first or asking him, he doesn’t like it.

Sometimes he mentally shuts down when it happens, sometimes he tics more, the reaction depends on his anxiety levels and who touched him and when and where

The only people he gave a pass to was Kya and Katara. He didn’t even like it when Hakoda put a hand on his shoulder.

It was weird, he could feel the difference when Katara and Kya touched him compared to anyone else and he felt bad because he wanted his dad to hug him, but it felt so wrong

So, Sokka loves touch, but he likes to initiate it

So, moving forward, Sokka and Katara meet Aang, he’s the Avatar, they join and you know, there’s Aang the Avatar, Katara the Waterbender, and Sokka the guy with Tourette’s on the team

At least, that’s how they are known amongst the Fire Nation

Going undercover is so fun for Sokka, but he also has to be really conscious of what he’s doing and what he says and trying to suppress

It takes a lot out of him, but he knows he literally has to do it or he could get caught or expose them and Aang or Katara could get caught

On occasion, he has tic attacks (and for those who don’t know, they’re essentially a really bad TS day or moment where your tics are more consistent and seem to hurt more or you just have like an unending moment of tics where you just can’t stop for a little while. They are usually caused by anxiety or overstimulation or something like that, but they differ for everyone with TS)

The first time it happened in front of Aang, the sweet child panicked because he didn’t really understand what was happening and why Sokka was doing that and really what TS was

Katara is an angel, seriously. She is so sweet to Sokka when this happens and she knows exactly how to ground him and help him get through it

(Seriously, Sokka appreciates her so much. She is genuinely the one exception and anytime she wants a hug or any kind of touch she is allowed to do it)

the first time it happens in front of Toph when she joins is in Bitter Work when Sokka was in the hole

Just looking at Sokka in the whole sends my anxiety up because he literally can’t move! So like, imagine being in a hole for like five hours+ and needing to move like physically and you can feel the sensation in your body and it hurts and burns and tingles but you can’t. Sokka is not having a good time

So, Toph drags him out of the hole and is freaked out because she can’t see what’s happening and it’s scary because Sokka is making noises and hyperventilating and his heart rate is through the roof and Aang ran to get Katara and she can’t touch him because when she pulled him out of the hole he shrieked

She’s cool with it after that, she doesn’t think of him any less or anything, but it terrified her the first time because no one told her he had TS because they forgot to mention it and she couldn’t see what was happening

We all know that Sokka loves Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors with his whole entire heart and once they kicked his butt and helped him learn that sexism is bad, they were so fun to work with?? They taught him their style, obviously, but they also helped him incorporate his TS into it and how to use it to his advantage, something he had been struggling with his whole life

One of the things Sokka loved most about Yue is that she never even mentioned his sounds or movements she just let him do it without questioning him and that doesn’t happen a lot

I feel like Sokka having TS would make his time with Piandao even kore meaningful because he really struggles to keep his hands still so sword fighting does not come naturally to him

Piandao loves it though because it just makes Sokka even more clever and resourceful and he takes his time with Sokka, helping him as much as he can and never getting angry or anything when he can’t stand still

He also added more to what Sokka learned from the Kyoshi Warriors about incorporating his TS into his fighting and using it to his advantage

Not only was his sword an extension of his arm, but his TS was an extension as well

Did Toph and Aang help Sokka incorporate his tics into their scams? Yes, yes they did

Zuko joining the team was weird for Sokka because they kind of just clicked and he realized that they both have a weird thing with touch

On the balloon to Boiling Rock, Sokka is just comfortable around Zuko and his tics are like “cool yeah, have a break” and so he doesn’t tic and Zuko just “why aren’t you ticcing?”

and Sokka is ??? “Huh?”

and Zuko “You usually tic but you aren’t now. Why?”

and Sokka essentially explains that TS is weird and random and sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t, but he’s really comfortable and calm so his body is like “ye, let’s chill for now”

and Zuko is like “oh. that’s good. I kinda miss it though”

and Sokka d i e s because what?? Someone likes his tics enough to miss them? Like, they don’t annoy Zuko and he doesn’t tune them out?

and the bender goes on to explain that he likes the noises, they remind him that he is doing the right thing and that he’s here and he didn’t hurt team Avatar and they’re just comfortable / pleasing to the ear

and Sokka DIES

but then Zuko is like mmm maybe you should stay in the balloon and I’ll go to Boiling Rock and Sokka got pissed because he thinks Zuko said it because he’s a nonbender and he starts panicking and ticcing and Zuko panics and kind of just grabs his hand and Sokka... Sokka doesn’t hate it? Like, it feels nice and doesn’t agitate him?

but Zuko was like no I mean because everyone in the Fire Nation guard knows about the guy on team Avatar with TS and I don’t want you to get hurt

At one point in the prison courtyard, Sokka verbally tics really loudly about the moon and some guards hear and head to where they are so Zuko covers for him by screaming about how much he loves the moon

One of the worst moments in Sokka’s life was when Toph was falling and he grabbed her, but he wanted to tic and he knew that if he did, Toph would fall and die and he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t

(he still has nightmares about it happening)

when Sokka becomes an ambassador, some people are pissed because well 1) Watertribe 2) he’s a child 3) they suck 4) they think he’s distracting with his tics and Zuko is not here for it so he will destroy them

Like one time (after they started dating) Zuko overheard some councilors mocking Sokka’s tics and he got PISSED like so pissed and he went off and the found Sokka and hugged him because he is allowed to

oh! Sokka and Zuko’s thing is like hand-holding okay? They both kind of hate it because weird touch stuff, but it’s okay when they do it to each other?? Like, it feels right and like they’re completed and whole and it’s nice

before they start dating, they kind of do it a lot. Like, night before Zuko’s coronation, Sokka finds Zuko and he’s freaking out because what if he ends up like his dad and Sokka kind of just... grabs his hand and they sit there

Sokka is panicking because chronic pain and the cold of home makes it worse and Zuko finds him crying in the library and just... holds his hand

Zuko keeps little things on him all the time like paperclips and paper and writing utensils and things that click and buttons and stuff so if Sokka looks stressed during a meeting he can slip something under the table to him so he can play with it

Sokka also draws a lot during meetings, like, he doesn’t look at anyone throughout the whole meeting, even when he talks. He is able to focus more and pay more attention when he is doing something with his hands so he draws and doodles and sometimes takes notes

Sometimes he just writes the same word or sentence over and over again throughout the whole meeting

Sokka has sensory issues and a lot of noise stresses him out

It’s kind of the opposite of Zuko’s sensory issues? Like, Zuko doesn’t like loud noises and Sokka doesn’t like kind of static-y noises, like... when things sound muffled or muted or people are talking kind of quietly over each other

(Zuko definitely gives Sokka massages when his tics hurt a lot)

Random, but after awhile “yip yip” became a verbal tic of Sokka’s. Sometimes, he would say “you need to yip yip” and then he’d apologize to Appa and tell him that he’s yipping just fine

Toph is kind of like Zuko in how she likes Sokka’s verbal tics

She can’t see-see, but hearing his tics is nice sometimes, especially when she worries

She likes falling asleep to some of his tics

Even though Katara and Zuko are allowed to touch him whenever they want, more often than not they ask first because friendship is magic

Suki is lovely, okay? Like, just her presence is enough to make him feel better and she approaches helping him in a different way, she just talks to him and asks him questions to help him take his mind off of it

Sokka really doesn’t hate his TS, like, yeah, sometimes it pisses him off more than he can even explain, but it’s a part of him and as much as he cherishes when he can sit still, it’s wrong, it’s not him? He sits weirdly in chairs and changes his position every two minutes, he rocks his legs in his sleep, he sometimes even finds his own tics grounding...

Over time and with help from his friends, he learned to not be ashamed and that having TS didn’t make him ant less of a warrior

also, he, Toph, and Zuko are the disabled club✌🏻(and it makes them feel better sometimes in their own little way)

I have a lot more I could say but this is already pretty long, so I’ll end this sweet with Katara is amazing and Sokka’s relationship with her is wonderful and she knows how to help him with his tics in the way that Zuko does and can help center him like no one else and Sokka just loves her so much

Okay! Ah! That was kind of a lot but I hope you like them! Anyone can feel free to add more to this or lemme know if you have any ideas!

Thank you for the ask! I enjoyed writing these:)

#avatar the last airbender #Sokka #sokka avatar #zukka #Zuko #Katara #zukka but tourettes and a healthy dose of angst #but what if... sokka has tourettes #Tourette’s syndrome #Sokka with Tourette’s #self projection? who is she🤭#atla headcanons #atla #atla sokka #corey rambles:)#corey tics:)

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thethiefandtheairbender · 4 years ago

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The air nomads don't get nearly enough love (or discussion) in fandom, so if you wanted to meta about *slides five dollars* I would love you forever. Thanks!

I don’t have a particular about the Air Nomads to haul out that hasn’t been said by people much more talented than me — about how them being underestimated or their (Aang’s) values being derided as weak in fandom reflects the perspective of the imperialist nation that wiped them about; about how their values of peace, fun, freedom, and childhood (even into adulthood) were the first to go in a war; about Aang as a forgotten ideal, etc. — however, as a brief one, perhaps:

We really don’t give Monk Gyatso enough credit. His character always reminds me a little of Gran Gran, in which we learn way more about him than I would ever expect to. (Like, in ATLA even the grandparent has a fleshed out backstory. God tier). Like, he was friends with Avatar Roku and Guru Pathik and tried out new, exciting airbending moves (glider surfing) just like how Aang invented the air scooter. Imagine how touched he was when the baby boy he’d been given to raise turned out to be his old friend in a new lifetime.

Like Monk Gyatso so clearly imparted the best of the monks’ teachings onto his boy and raised/loved Aang as his son, which is something that Aang knows in how he carries the monks teachings with him and has so much respect and love for them, but also how he looks at Zuko in Book One, when Zuko says this:

Z: This staff will make an excellent gift for my father. I suppose you wouldn't know of fathers, being raised by monks.

Like of all the parental figures in the series, if we’re going by percentages, Gyatso is the most consistently involved and healthiest parental figure for his charge. That’s not to say the other parents in ATLA are bad (except, obviously, for Azulon and Ozai) or that I’m blaming them for their absences/choices/deaths, but it is the truth. Iroh was largely absent in Zuko’s childhood as was Ursa; Toph’s parents abused her as well and were extremely unhealthily controlling & dismissive; Kya died and Hakoda left, leaving both of his children with massive issues about it.

Comparatively, until Aang woke up from the iceberg (I believe ATLA takes place over nine months in total?) and for 99% of the first 12 years of his life, Gyatso was a loving and active parent. People really tend to undersell Aang’s loss of his people, but I see almost no one ever talk about how he’s the character (outside of Toph) who’s lost a parent most recently, and a singular parent at all. Gyatso filled every main role for him in that way (as some of the other monks did, I’m sure, but Gyatso was number one). He encouraged Aang’s travelling all over the world to friends like Kuzon and Bumi, he was complimentary and good natured, and also fiercely loyal and protective.

He was willing to put his boy above the supposed needs of the world, even when the situation escalated. And while Aang was his old friend reincarnated, Gyatso is someone who always saw Aang first and foremost as Aang, not the Avatar.

Even when the elder monks were applying greater pressure and Aang was socially ostracized from his peers, Gyatso managed to keep his spirits up. He taught him Pai Sho (I will always believe that Aang is Iroh’s favourite person to play Pai Sho with post war, because he knows all the old styles / moves too). He trained him into a master airbender and a very sweet young boy.

And Aang ran away, not really knowing what he was doing (and certainly not where he would end up), not knowing that Gyatso was going to flat out refuse to let them be separated, because he loved him just as much. And then Gyatso finds out Aang has run away — which, as an Air Nomad with a sky bison, isn’t too terrible but still kinda scary, if only because Aang did so because he was so upset and would have said so in his letter, which must’ve torn Gyatso’s heart in two. First because Aang was so distraught to do something like that, and then Gyatso realizing that Aang thought Gyatso was going to let something like that happen, which is a terrible gut punch, because Gyatso was actively about to stop it. Then, the fear of his kid being out in an awful storm.

We don’t actually know how much time passed in between Aang running away and the Air Nomad genocide. It could’ve been days, weeks, or months. Did Gyatso go out on his own bison to look? Did he and the monks organize a search party? Did they come back day after day with nothing, and then had to conclude either Aang had successfully gone missing, or drowned at sea?

Did Gyatso cling to the hope that Aang was alive all that time, and as the Temples burned, and as other children died around him? As Gyatso’s own breath gave out?

Like I always get so emotional at this line in “The Storm” because

A: How could [the monks] do that to me? They wanted to take away everything I knew and everyone I loved!

in the end, the monks didn’t do that. The Fire Nation did.

So like, Aang sticking to his practices? The fun loving way he approaches travelling and his airbending? How Gyatso is always the direct face of Aang’s unimaginable loss? Aang reciting Air Nomad sayings that Monk Gyatso would’ve taught him? How proud Gyatso would’ve been of his son? Aang moving from a child’s Air Nomad’s shawl to a Master’s, complete with the necklace Gyatso wore, and for once entirely at peace with himself the way his father always wanted him to be, while also being safe and happy? That these are the robes he continues to wear even (presumably weeks) later in the Ba Sing Se epilgoue?

Fucking tearbending city, man

Side notes: It also shows that Aang and Gyatso were not afraid to critique the monks or their ways, or even go against them, when the verdicts seemed unfair. As well as Aang and Katara both having necklaces, ultimately, to remember the parent’s demise they discovered when they pushed aside a blue curtain. The importance of Aang’s staff (perhaps Gyatso carved it for him), his arrows, and his ceremonial robes.

They have such a beautiful, loving, tragic, and underrated relationship, and I will love them forever.

#atla meta #aang #monk gyatso #atla #the air nomads #thanks for asking #anonymous #requests #analysis series #analysis #the air nomad genocide #Anonymous

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the-badger-mole · 4 years ago

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Let's say you're on the writing team for Avatar when it was just an idea Bryke had. They've stepped back, letting the writers do what they do best. While Bryke certainly offer suggestions, they don't try shoehorning in their ideas.

What aspects of canon would you change and keep the same??

Would you have elements of a one-sided Kat@@ng, with Aang learning to let Katara go, or not have it at all??

If you were to write Aang as a character you actually liked, how would you do it??

Oh! I like this ask. Bet! Get a snack, because this is a long one.

In Book 1, I would keep Aang pretty much the same, but I would frame certain things he did the way they should have been framed. Like his whole deal on Kyoshi, leaving Katara to do all the work so he could flirt. That would have much more of an impact on his friendship with her. Subtle at first, but it would be the first blow against Kataang. Katara would gradually over the course of that first season have to confront the fact that she's pinned all her hopes of ending the war on a child. I think that making her face that reality would open the door to more conversations about how he felt about what the world expected him to do, and that would in turn lead to Katara helping Aang to face what happened at the siege on the NWT, and what he was being trained to do honestly.

Book 2 would be where Aang is confronted with his duty as the Avatar and what "ending the war" would mean. By this point, he knows in no uncertain terms that he's expected to kill Ozai at the very least, and his crisis of conscience happens here, and this is where he would start trying to figure out alternatives. At the same time, the people he's meeting talk to Aang and his friends honestly about what they've experienced in the war- famine; disease; loss of homes; seeing loved ones suffer and die brutally.

It all has an effect on Aang, and makes him cling tighter to Katara. Katara interprets it as platonic and doubles down on mothering Aang, even trying to shield him from the worst of the realities of the war as much as she can. When Aang tells his friends once again that he isn't sure if he can kill Ozai, someone snaps at him- Sokka I think- and tells him how the war has affected all of his friends personally, and that they don't have the luxury of feeling bad about Ozai dying, and what did Aang really think the army they were trying to gather was going to do on the battlefield, have a tickle fight (yeah...this feels like a Sokka moment). Here is where Aang finds out about Kya, I think.

Aang still goes to (the much less racist version of) Guru Pathik, and still fails to let go of his attachment to Katara. Zuko and Katara still have that moment in the caves. I haven't decided if Zuko still turns on them- on the one hand, I do think him joining the Gaang here could work. on the other hand, I think he needed to go home and see how much it doesn't fit him anymore. I could go either way. Aang still gets shot by the lightning and Katara still saves him.

As Aang and his friends travel through the Fire Nation, they spend more time with the poorest citizens. They find out how much they've suffered because of the war, and how much they also want it to end. Katara's stint as the Painted Lady lasts much longer, and she becomes a sort of urban legend, which may or may not get back to Caldera. If Zuko is on their side at this point, they start planting the seeds of rebellion on the promise of ending the war (none of the FN citizens know who he is of course). The Footloose episode doesn't happen. It's stupid and adds nothing. Instead, there's more focus on the propaganda and fear the FN leaders are spreading and finding out that there's already a rebellion brewing among certain pockets of the people. Piando plays a much bigger role in this season. He knows who they are, and helps connect them with a growing resistance movement.

Aang is still hung up on Katara, and still hasn't told them that he can't enter the AS or why. On the DoBS, he figures it won't matter since neither he nor Ozai can use firebending anyway. He keeps it too himself, and lies to his friends about being prepared to kill Ozai (well...not so much lying as telling them he's going to do what he has to and letting them assume). He still kisses Katara. They still lose this battle. The adults still sacrifice themselves for the kids to getaway.

When they get to the Air Temple, things get heated with Aang and Katara. Aang tries to run off and go play immediately, but this time, Katara lets him have it. She reminds him that she just lost her father again because he and so many other people surrendered to give them the chance to escape. She lays into him about his laziness and disregard for the people around him and tells him that he needs to shape up, or he'd get everyone killed. She becomes a lot stricter with his training at this point. Not cruel, but she's a lot less likely to tell Toph or Zuko to go easy on him, and she raises her expectations for his waterbending.

Aang gets his feelings hurt and he goes off by himself deep into the temple. He finds writings on AN culture and philosophy and actually begins learning about his people. He learns about airbending techniques he never learned. Some of it is clearly meant for battle. Aang learns that his people's views on the sanctity of life and killing aren't as black and white as he'd believed. This is also where he gets a hint of energy bending.

The Firebending Masters, Boiling Rock, and TSR still happen. Mai does not rescue Zuko and Co- that was something that never made sense to me. But then, most of Mai's characterization after CoD makes no sense to me. She's a character that needs a redo, too.

Katara and Zuko get closer during this time. Same as they do in the show. It's not quite yet a crush on either of their sides, but a lot more focus is given to the development of their friendship. They quickly become each other's go-to person in the group for support and to just hang out. Aang sees this and does not like it. It also makes his reaction to the play make a lot more sense, because he's already starting to suspect there's something between them. He confronts Katara about his feelings for her, her feelings for Zuko, and the kiss they never talk about. Katara says she doesn't really know how she feels about any of it, and she doesn't think this is the time or place to talk about it. Aang kisses her again. It's bad. Katara probably hit him this time. They don't talk alone again.

Aang is once again confronted with the expectation that he's going to kill Ozai. He has to this time, because Ozai is going to be at the height of his power, and won't hesitate to cancel Aang's subscription to Life. His friends finally realize he never actually intended to kill Ozai on DoBS, and demand to know what his plan is now. He still hasn't got one. He still hasn't told his friends about the AN philosophy scrolls he found at the air temple. He still insists that he can't in good conscience kill Ozai. Then his friends point out that millions more people will die if he doesn't. Aang goes off, gets kidnapped by the lionturtle and has the conversation with the past Avatars. They tell him he not only should kill Ozai, but he also has to let Katara go so he can use the Avatar State. Aang doesn't want to do either. Then the lionturtle gives him another way. Energy bending

The lionturle's way has consequences, though, and Aang is informed upfront that energy bending would bind him to whoever he used it on, and that it's influence was corrupting. If Aang wasn't careful, he could become as big a threat to the balance of the world as any Fire Lord had ever been. Aang doesn't understand that warning. He chooses energy bending and goes off to face Ozai.

It does not go well. There is no Rock of Destiny to magically give Aang access to the AS. There is just hyperpowered Ozai- with his decades of experience bending, and Aang, whose firebending is also strengthened, but who can't control his power as well as his opponent. He tries some of the battle techniques he read about in his scrolls. He hasn't got them down either, and some of them just feed Ozai's flames, but he manages to trap Ozai in a ball of air and suffocate him and the fire. He doesn't kill Ozai. He just leaves him disoriented long enough to energy bend him. Battle's over.

Aang brings Ozai back to Caldera, expecting to be hailed as a hero. He isn't at first, but then Iroh, Hakoda and other older and wiser people agree that it's better that Ozai gets to stand trial for his crimes. He ends up being sentenced to die anyway. Aang is furious, and then he discovers that some of his anger is Ozai's. He's bound to Ozai and now Aang has to work really hard not to let that bit of Ozai influence his personality. It's difficult, because Aang is genuinely angry enough that he can't tell what's his feelings and what is Ozai. Aang is now dealing with the fact that despite being the Avatar, people aren't willing to take him seriously, and won't not kill Ozai. He also has still not gotten over his crush on Katara and can't control the AS. On top of that Katara tells him that she doesn't feel the same way about him, and later he finds out that she's fallen for Zuko. Hard. Stupid hard. Like, they've already decided to get married in a few years, hard.

It's a bad time to be Aang. Book 3 would end with him being overwhelmed by his hurt, disappointment, and anger. Roku comes to him and suggests that he go back to Guru Pathik and learn from him. And so the last scene is Aang slipping away without telling anyone he's leaving. Toph may or may not join him. IDK.

#atla #atla critical #alternate version #not really #anti aang #but i know some people still won't like this so...#aang's arc could have been so interesting #imagine a world where he had to face the darkness inside of him #idk this universe might end with taang #i don't ship it but it might work here #zutara #because you KNOW once those two figure out they're in love they'd want to be together forever #they'd be the Crofts of the ATLA universe #persuasion reference #background jane austen au #anti kataang

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chaoticnerdsstuff · 4 years ago

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Do you have any Azutara head-canons or AUs?

Here’s an Au where I completely ignore the comics and Lok LMAOO

YES i do have HC'S (btw these aren’t in order)

Katara would be the one to be most supportive of Azula, and her most frequent visitor when they threw her in the… y’know.

Azula HATED Katara at first, She hated that this was the person to defeat her. She hated the fact that Katara always made time in her busy schedule to visit her. She hated that Katara was being kind to her. She hated that she was so sure that her brother was likely the one to convince katara to do this. But never once did she tell her to go away, did she try to push her away with insults? Yes. Did it work? No.

Katara only chose to help Azula because she witnessed her Mental breakdown, and it didn’t help that she knew of Zuko’s and Azula’s Homelife.

Katara was the first person to realize that Azula lost her bending(Headcanon of mine that Azula lost her bending for a few years after her mental breakdown)

It took them both years to realize they had feelings for each other and a few months to actually act on them.

Katara would often gush about Azula to Zuko, while he braided her hair. While Azula simply told her best friend, who is toph, that Katara was attractive and Toph made crude jokes that made the princess laugh her ass off.

After being released from her cell, Azula lived in the South Pole for a year, to her surprise she wasn’t beaten to death for what she has done to them in the past.

Katara and Azula often can’t sleep well, even before they get together if they are in the same place. They would end in each other’s arms for comfort.

Katara is able to read Azula like an open book, the same is for Azula.

Azula is the most awkward flirt Katara’s ever seen and she absolutely loves that about her. Azula gets flustered with a single compliment out of Katara’s mouth. Toph tried to do what Katara did and gave Azula a simple compliment, but all Azula did was call her a dumbass.

Azula is the most physically affectionate of the two.

Azula isn’t overly protective of Katara knowing what she is capable of but the same could not be said about Katara. If someone just gives them a look, she will take them down with her words, Azula loves it.

Katara is the one to encourage Azula to give her mother a chance.

When Azula and Katara play Pai sho, Azula does not care if the woman is her partner she will destroy her. Katara on the other hand doesn’t understand the game and somehow wins 90% of the time. Since then Azula swears Katara is not only a master in water bending but in strategic skill.

Katara is horrible at making Tea. Azula never tells her, when Iroh went to their house and was offered tea by Katara, he almost spat it out in an instant if it weren’t for Azula who was giving him a death glare. Azula refuses to admit that she loves Tea, just not katara’s.

Azula doesn’t mind if she’s a little or a small spoon, Katara usually prefers being big spoon.

Azula and Katara are both morning people! Even if they usually have all-nighters.

Katara practically babysits every time her girlfriend and Toph are in the same room

When they get arguments they both make each other Tea, sit in silence, then begin talking about what and why the topic upset them.

Azula regains her bending when she is in her late twenties but doesn’t use it unless necessary, Mostly uses it to show off to Katara and ZuZu.

Katara still gets nightmares of Azula screaming out flames, And Azula still gets nightmares of her time in that cell. They don’t talk about it until one of them begins shouting in their nightmares.

Azula asked for the permission of Hakoda and Sokka to marry Katara. Sokka knowing how much the woman changed gladly accepted her into the family. Hakoda and Azula got high together and Azula revealed how much she cared about Katara, and Hakoda gave her his blessing. Unknown to Azula, Katara asked for Zuko’s and Toph’s blessing, obviously, Zuko broke out into tears while Toph punched him and told him to get a hold of himself.

Aang officiated their wedding!! Zuko walked Azula down the Aisle and Hakoda walked Katara down the aisle as well.

Since Azula was the first to get married, Ursa often nagged her about wanting Grandchildren. It usually went like this “Mother I am a lesbian” “You can always adopt!” And they have three kids: Oldest is Lu Ten(Water bender), Youngest is Kya(Fire bender), and Eldest is Mira(Earth bender) :D

Katara and Azula get married in the Southern Water Tribe and just throw a party in the fire nation, much to Ursa’s dismay.

Since Zuko got his own dragon, Azula was jealous, so Katara gifted her a Polar bear dog, which was named Fikhar. Which Azula adored from the beginning

When Azula went to the southern water tribe to visit her girlfriend/wife she offered Hakoda and Sokka advice, which they almost always took.

Azula and Katara raised their kids quite oddly, 6 months in the southern pole and the other six months in the Fire Nation. This went on for ten years before they settled down in the southern Water tribe.

Azula was the cool aunt who gave Izumi all these gifts and candies while Katara was the one who told Izumi not to burn down the courtyard or play with her mother’s knives.

#kazula #Katara #Azula #azula x katara #master katara #Fire princess Azula #Zuko #toph beifong #fire lord izumi #Oc children #Hakoda and Azula would get drunk together #Platonic Tophzula #Sokka #hakoda #redeemed azula #azula deserved better #Ursa #uncle iroh #azutara

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