#thinking a lot about Nwt right now

[eponastory]

It's not that we ship Zutara because of the pretty symbolism or how they have good 'chemistry'...

It's because they are both framed as Equals from the beginning.

Yes, maybe we picked up the romanticism from that as being the reason they should be together. If you go back and think about it from book one, even if Katara is a prodigy waterbender and Zuko struggled, they are framed in a way that they are both equal is skill from the beginning. I think the only fight that either ever truly lost was in the Spirit Oasis of the NWT when he played a little dirty. But, after that, it was either a stalemate or their fights are interrupted.

So, yeah there is a lot of fight from the A*ng stans about how Zutara is seen... but narratively, that symbolism is based off of how they are matched and of course you have the harmony symbolism with water and fire. But honestly, that's the bare bones. It's why Katara doesn't treat Zuko like the rest of the Gaang and he doesn't treat her like everyone else treats her. They also see themselves as equals to each other.

There is also a saying that you learn a lot about someone by the way they fight... well. Katara and Zuko know a lot about each other from their fights because bending is considered (in writing) to be an extension of someones Chakra or chi. Their energy from the soul (if you're a crystal healing nut like me, you understand) is part of bending.

Okay this is also my hypothesis on that too, so take it with... a meta sized grain of rice. (I have Chinese food on my brain right now).

But yeah. They've been framed as equals this whole time but we get flack for seeing it.

[kawaiichibiart]

Random assortment of ATLA AU ideas I'm probably not gonna do anything with but needed to get out there:

AU where Zuko was never banished from the FN due to the people of the FN revolting when they found out. Word of the Agni Kai and the War Meeting had made it's way across the nation and the majority were in favor of Zuko. So much that they were planning a mutiny. Annoyed, but seeing a way out, Ozai orders a tower be made far away from Caldera. Once it's made, Zuko would live there. If they win the war, he'll forgive his son and welcome him back. The tower is built and Zuko is dumped in there. Only one way in and out and he can't open it. The other option is literally barred. Blah blah blah, we get into book 2, Suki has been caught by Azula. She's on her way to prison, not sure where she'll end up. And she's surprised when she's told she'll be keeping the prince company. Because, what prince? And she's put into Zuko's tower. In short, Zuki prison roommates AU but it's not in the Boiling Rock.

No one understands how it happened. Why it happened. They prayed to the moon. So, why did the sun respond and save their daughter? She prayed to the sun. She prayed and begged for him to answer. The one who answered her was the moon. Sun Spirit Yue and Moon Spirit Zuko AU. Bonus if both can bend the element of the spirit that blessed them (firebender Yue and waterbender Zuko).

Zuku joins the Gaang early and poses as Sokka's wife the entire time (fiancee if we go as early as book 1 and up until they get to Ba Sing Se in book 2. Zuko: I must find my darling husband!! I'm so worried about him... Katara: Seriously, what do you see in that guy? Zuko: He makes me laugh.)

The SWT has collapsed. Men have gone to war, and the remaining women, children and elders have split between finding sanctuary in either Kyoshi Island or the NWT OR living a new life at sea as pirates. Sokka becomes well known as a decent pirate. He won't raid someone just to raid them. They have to have something he wants. And right now, his attention was in the rather pretty boy (he assumed it was a boy anyways) onboard Zhao's ship. He'd usually go for maps and plans and even rations when he raided a ship, but this time he's thinking of getting a person. Huh, kidnapping...well there's a first for everything. (Basic summary, the SWT doesn't exist, Sokka is now a pirate, and yes so are Katara and Kanna. Their biggest enemy personally is Zhao, who's hunting down the Avatar (whom they're hiding in their ship). Sokka eventually notices Zuko, who was given to Zhao rather than banished. Blah blah blah, it's easy to tell Zuko hates Zhao, hopefully he won't mind a small kidnapping if it means getting off Zhao's ship (he does but honestly he'd rather be on Sokka's ship, it's a lot cleaner and the avatar seems nice, the bison is a bonus.))

Despite his attempts, Zuko is unable to join Team Avatar. Not able to turn to either side, he runs off and goes into hiding. While on the run, he reunites with Jin and they end up having a heart to heart. Things are confessed but in the end they get together and go on the run together. They open up a secret camp for people like them, on the run from the war. They heal the injured as best as they can and work together to make food that can last a few days. The first time things turn sour is when Jet enters the camp. He's hostile and picking fights until he's given the choice to cool his attitude or leave and hope someone else takes pity on him. Things settle down and he gets close with Jin and Zuko. More time passes by and they're eventually approached by Team Avatar, Aang and Toph both seem pleasantly surprised to see Zuko, but Sokka, Katara and Suki (whom the two water siblings freed from prison alongside their dad) weren't, Hakoda doesn't say anything. Like with Jet, they were given a choice, cool the attitude or leave.

Growing up, Azula always trailed after her mother and older brother. Despite being their father's favorite, Azula preferred their company. Call her overprotective, but like Uncle Iroh and their cousin Lu Ten have told her over and over, they were dragons. And dragons hoard and protect what's theirs. Ursa and Zuko are Azula's hoard, and she wouldn't let anyone hurt them. So, when Ursa disappears, when Zuko gets burned and banished, she decides enough is enough. The war against the other nations has ended, it was time for Civil War. And once she won, she'd bring her real family back. Ozai touched her hoard, it was about time he learned why you should never touch something belonging to a dragon.

Is this how adoption works now?? He just, finds kids lost at sea, abandoned in random places, having run away? Hakoda's not sure why it happened. It started when he found a young girl adrift on a small boat. Her white hair hidden with scarves and her hood. Yue, Princess of the NWT. Ranaway upon learning she was engaged to someone who wouldn't care for her or her people. Then came ex-Prince Zuko, who had been abandoned on an island they stopped to camp at. He'd been living there for about 3 years, maybe longer, he's unsure. But hey, what's another kid? He joins their crew... Fuck his earlier words, he doesn't need more kids. But Hakoda just sighs as a small girl (Toph) follows Zuko aboard. Seriously, is THIS how adoption works now? How's he gonna explain this to Sokka and Katara and his mother? They'll accept Yue no doubt, Toph might also be easy, but Zuko? Fuck, he needs a drink- BATO STOP LAUGHING!!

She didn't want it to end the way it did. She hated what had happened to him. What Ozai did to him while she was gone. What their mother did when she abandoned them. She remembered when Zuko was happy. When he'd smile at her and tell her he'd love her. She remembered the expectations put on him, the extra lessons and how little he was allowed to sleep. She was...jealous for so long. Both of their fire were unique, hers a brilliant blue and his a kaleidoscope of colors. It wasn't fair he was treated special... He wasn't treated special. And she was blind to that. She was blind and the truth was falling apart right in front of her. She hated this. She hated what this war had done to her family. What it did to her. What it did to Zuko. And she hated that she just stood there as her brother was carted off somewhere, ignoring his gaze as he was taken away. She hates everything... (sorta a roleswap between Azula and Zuko but not really?? Both are strong benders, Zuko just peaked later on but not too much later. As the oldest, a lot of pressure was placed on Zuko and thus Ozai's attention was on him as well. Azula, upset with this, did everything she could to upstage him. The two have a good relationship, but Ozai favoring Zuko didn't help and so Azula left to capture the Avatar, stating she wanted a challenge and to prove herself. She got a ship, and set sail with Iroh at her side. Azula eventually joins to Avatar's side and branded a traitor alongside her uncle. Zuko is tasked at bringing her home and despite how much he'd rather join her, Ozai's grip on him is too strong (not in the sense he's loyal to his father, but in the sense that he's too scared to leave). We eventually get to Agni Kai during Sozin's Comet and Azula comes out victorious, but it feels like an empty win because she knows Zuko had lost long ago. This was just the fight that broke him (also yes, Azula becomes the Firelord).

[circlique]

Another DND profile! I think I have four left.

-------

Name: Klo (written in universe as Japanese 協 (kyō) meaning "unite, cooperate")

Age: 28

Alignment: Lawful Good

Highest stat: Dexterity

Bending: Water (subclass bloodbending)

Played by: my brother-in-law's girlfriend

Background: Representing the Northern Water Tribe (as Chieftess of the Northern Water Tribe), we have Klo, a diplomatic, natural leader, who cares intensely about helping people and believes you can’t help people without power. Throughout her tenure, she has made a point to use her power to help the less fortunate. However, the position didn't come without heartbreak and she carries quite a lot of baggage. Her father before her was power hungry and a bit of a warmonger, who ended up dying when his bastard son, Finley, led a violent revolution against him and tried to claim his right to the throne. Klo ended up quashing Finley's revolution, but accidentally killed him with bloodbending in the process. Klo, by the way, is adopted (a secret in the NWT), and never actually had a bloodright to the throne, but has managed to earn her people's trust and respect through peaceful, balanced rule.

Motivations: Klo (like most of the party) was already secretly acquainted with Juno due to asking her to find and train mindbenders in the Northern Water Tribe. When the party was tasked with finding Juno, Klo went along with it partially to keep from looking suspicious, and partially because Juno, having just relieved the Fire Prince of his bending, was now taking things too far by going after world leaders. Klo also ended up taking on the personal mission of helping Kelsang break his contract with the blood spirit Panggu, since her bloodbending him was what resulted in the spirit targeting him in the first place. She is also motivated by a desire to prove herself a good person and capable leader, since her tenure as Chieftess began with so much bloodshed.

Avatar DND Masterpost

[drachenfalter]

So almost done with the live action, I thought it was time to just collect some of my thoughts:

The first twenty minutes were great, helping to flesh out the airbenders a bit and introducing the world.

The bending and sets are both great.

Sadly, then we get Exposition Gran Gran,

Gran Gran "Oh, wait, did we do the intro already? Well, just in case, I'd better recite the whole thing word for word again."

(They did a version of the intro, and they did it better.)

Gran Gran "Oh, of course I know that he is the Avatar! How do I know this? Beats me, but I'd better tell my granddaughter in case he forgot to mention it."

Sadly, this overexposition is not the only incident, though it isn't quite as bad in later episodes.

Aang is different, but not bad as a character, though he's a lot less optimistic

Which is not surprising, considering her spends half the season listening to adults that blame him for his disappearance or tell him he needs to become some loner warrior without any close friends.

(Really, that BS is almost feeling like they're tryring to "Man of Steel" Aang here? Which is bizarre because at another point, Katara tells us point blank that his true strength lies in connecting to people.

Also, why does Aang not even try to waterbend until they've reached the NWT? If he's so determined, you'd think he'd get on that as soon as he can, not the other way around.

Sokka is probably the closest, though they put more focus on his inventor side (we see his contraptions in the first episode) and it seems they want to put that into conflict with the expectation of being a warrior.

Also, Sokka apparently flirted with a (female) fire nation soldier off-screen?

...And why is his worst memory about his dad being disappointed because he nearly failed his ice-dodging challenge? Is he not Katara's brother anymore?

Suki and Sokka were cute, I guess

Zuko's actor is great, and has some fantastic scenes here.

But I don't like how they portray him as someone who would attack a downed opponent or burn down a village because they didn't help him - that goes against one of the core traits of cartoon zuko, who had a code of honor even in Book 1.

(Yes, there is a scene in the Agni Kai that might connect to that scene with Katara, but it still doesn't work for me.)

BUT

I love the idea that Zuko accidentally becomes Aang's best teacher, the guy who "wrote the book" on being the Avatar.

Now for Katara...

Look, I'm gonna put the blame on the writers and directors here, but as other's have noted, we really lost Katara's anger here.

Worse, they don't go the north because she wants to learn waterbending. Instead, that is just a "hey, if we're already going there" thing.

They also decide to start her out with being barely able to bend, and then after one talk with Aang, she suddenly can bend and even is the one stopping Zuko's fireball at the end of the episode.

The bigger problem is though that they completely removed the prison break and the pirate scene, which in the OG help show Katara's skill and will to fight and master waterbending.

Which is probably why the "I want to fight" talk in the north falls flat - well, or maybe it's because she says it to Yagoda, not Pakku.

Worse, they removed the few weeks of training between Katara challenging Pakku and the Siege of the North.

-> Maybe they'll do something interesting in the last episode, but I'm not holding out hope.

A few other things:

What did they do to ZHAO?

Right now, it feels like they've nerfed Zhao to justify Azula's inclusion - I haven't seen the siege yet, but with how he was portrayed so far, I wouldn't be surprised if they changed it so she came up with the whole "killing the moon" plan.

Mai and Ty Lee feel like "extras" right now. That is, without the context of the original show, you'd think they are just sycophantic nobodies only there to cheer up Azula.

I don't think Mai even touched a knife at this point.

(Like, they have Azula doing archery. They could have easily had Mai do the same, hinting at her marksmanship.)

Ty Lee's actress is clearly trying her best to be Ty Lee, but they aren't giving her anything to work with either.

There are some nice scenes fleshing out the Zuko and Iroh relationship, I'll give them that.

But also

WHAT DID THEY DO TO BUMI?

Is he supposed to be suicidal here? Trying to force Aang to crush him under a ton of rocks? Because it didn't feel like a trick.

Koh feels - less menacing, somehow? Just letting his prisoners go the moment Aang does something nice for him.

Oh, and I did not expect water bending witch sorry, priestress Yue who is living half of her live as a fox-spirit in the spirit world.

Yue feels like a completely different character so far, but I assume they'll still make her die to revive the moon spirit.

I guess the escape from Pohuai was great and so was Aang fanboying over Zuko's writing.

Uh, I'm sure I'll come up with more, but I'll end this ramble for now.

But in conclusion, I have to think of those characters as different charactes with no relation to the OG versions.

Also, I would say it's better if you don't know the original series, but they leave so much out I'm not sure you can understand this one without doing so.

[toonilumi]

I’m not an ominous gray figure in your ask box by will, my friends just don’t need to know that I am publicly BEGGING for fun facts about Nowhere Train. Lumibing old chap I am pleading for the knowledge.

well colorful text anon, i can provide the best of my abilities! Kind of. maybe i can talk about my general thought process with nowhere train instead.

So i've been in a bit of a slump regarding it, but I think I'm finally pulling myself out. See, my Toontown fixation has refused to let me enjoy much else besides it, so a LOT of my OC projects got thrown on the backburner. Its part of the reason I fell off of the splash arts (that and general lack of motivation...). NWT was also in a bad spot of me feeling really really insecure about it.

I... know we're all going through multiverse burnout, so i became really worried about me potentially perpetuating that cycle when i didnt mean to. But I watched Cartoonshi's video about the thing and realized... oh i was just overreacting. That, and I finally got around to finalizing some much needed redesigns. The main 4 just need to be digitized and they'll be done. I wanna touch up Polaris, Henundher, Backenforth, Cozimo, and Stealer so theyre still a WIP (polaris and stealer are very close to being done though).

Coming into the new year I want to actually... do Stuff with them. Now that ive made peace with the fact Im not required to do lunium/"danganmon" content I feel much more free. Unfortunately I must reiterate they are also on the backburner compared to anything Toontown related, so it will be a slow start.

I stated a while ago Id love for it to be animated someday, which is true! But I understand that is... a long time away if it comes at all. Could we expect a comic at some point? Maybe, I've certainly honed my skills regarding the craft. I'd really prefer to start small though (even though I... have mostly worked with small one shot comics, I wanna build to something bigger, ya feel?). Whatever happens... happens I suppose.

I also want to... find meaning in the NWT cast. Various DGM incidents have lead to me feeling detached from my own characters, and I'm only like... JUST recovering from that. Its a hard balance to strike! You want to care enough that they mean something to you, but not too much that attacks against them become personal. This of course could just be because of my interests right now, but you never know.

Anyways, I think I've gone on long enough. This probably isn't what you asked for but it was kind of a vague question! No hate though, I love talking sometimes.

[allbeendonebefore]

i decided to open a new blank doc to go at the ruperts land thing from a different angle just for fun and i’m already suffering from scope creep because. yknow. balancing characters all with their own unique histories that i could go super in depth on each but that’s not the point.

so for the sake of avoiding scope creep lets establish what this is and isn’t if i actually ever do bother to do anything about it

- dominion day was about the founding four provinces that Did join confederation AND the two that did Not; likewise ruperts land is about the provinces and territories that came out of the nwt (3 in the 19th century, 3 in the 20th)

- so, back in iamp the ruperts land fam was treated as siblings even though they were never established as such by sherry. this treatment bothers me for a lot of reasons and it’s not a reading that i bring with me because i just feel like its an extension of the Canadian tm view of a place that was full of very different people lumped together for convenience and colonization. i do treat them like found family, sure, but they are ambiguously related because again its. a Lot of different people and cultures that kind of are treated in canadian history as “land we Wanted and land we don’t care about but need to have or else”

- the reason i bring that up is that in nwt’s bio she’s referred to as everyone’s big sister, and you could take that in a literal or a metaphorical sense. i Personally like the idea that part of her character arc was being alone and independent since ‘birth’ and then her like. mellowing out and learning to actually take care of others as she encountered them. so her relationship with NT is completely different from how the others remember her growing up lol, with nunny she is like you’re sure you’re ok? are you eating enough at home? and yukon starts talking about how when she was growing up it was just nonstop chores and occasionally fighting lol.

- i think the central focus of this story is how nwt is hella ambiguous, i don’t think she came into the world knowing who her people were, she knew that there were people like her but they already had meaning. so it’s kind of the story of her getting definition (mostly from others but i think she finds herself too)

- like its also obviously the story of the others but mostly its about her. and how. right after all the drama and politics of dominion day. she was literally. bought. and the others just appeared as part of the package deal. and that sets the tone for all of western and northern canadian politics up to now, and a particularly big elephant in the room is the numbered treaties.

- ALL THIS SAID i know i have a tendency to lose sight of the big picture because i am so invested in this history and its somewhat personal to me so i need to not do a deep dive. i have to sort of imagine it from an outsider perspective too, so the next thing i need to decide is how to tell the story and what questions to answer and what questions that just get hinted at or asked without being directly addressed. one of the smaller ones that still is pretty big is what is the difference between a province and a territory, and while i want to be cynical about it i guess that’s really the root of the story im telling at the end of the day

- i was initially going to do it chronologically and pick up from where i left off with dd but it occurred to me it would actually make more sense to bookend it with more contemporary history, because again Nunny’s relationship with confederation is also entirely different from the rest of rupert’s land. so really i’m also structuring it around her too.

- anyway that’s enough rambling for now shout if you have questions and i’ll do my best to answer. none of this is or should be considered Canon it’s just how i personally view the history so [radical guitar solo] nothing matters! :)

[maaaxx]

how do you feel about fanart?

If anyone ever makes fanart of any of my fics ill marry them on the spot.

I'm usually really weird about fanart and turn down people who ask about it because of the whole situation with 'my' oc's )iykyk) but we got that sorted out so now I'm okay with it.

There was another anon a while back who asked about fanart but Tumblr ate like half my asks a few weeks ago and i lost that ask. but if i remember correctly that ask was asking for descriptions and stuff so I'm just going to tag that onto here too.

ALL of the 'ocs' listed are originally from the art of burning by hella 1975 (just letting yall know).

I just have my own twist on them but the names and general ideas belong to hella :)

Tomkin <3333 (my fav)

if some of these turn into a tangent because their appearances are reflective of their personalities just ignore that.

Tomkins described vaguely in chapter 2 as this:

"He was skinny.  Like far more than the rest of the people he had seen.  But he seemed to have a lot of lean muscle.  He was maybe half a foot taller than Zuko and had a huge smile plastered on his face.  That seemed to be permanent though, as he was smiling every time he saw him.  He also seemed to be the only one without beads in his hair, which was tied half up, with a strand on each side braided back.  He was slightly darker skinned than the rest of the people, and his eyes were the deepest blue.  They were the exact same color as the ocean."

Tomkins 16 at this time, 17 currently. So he's shaped a bit awkwardly, longish limbs. Hes also tall for his age. almost the same height as Nanook (who is 2 years older) and Nanook is only a few inches from Hakodas height (I think) so do with that what you will.

Something that I developed since writing the above description is that Tomkin has multitextured hair. Its about medium brown and is all over the place and its mostly like very wavy but it curls at a few random places. He also switches between having his hair like halfway up and in like a ponytail.

I also dont know how youd incorporate this into fanart but Tomkins pretty.

Thats consistent with most people we're going to see describing Tomkin is that he's attractive but not in your typical like, masculine, handsome, way but instead hes attractive in a pretty way,,, idk. but that comes up a lot eventually (because of a certain topic thats going to come up a lot) so i thought it might be worth mentioning.

His clothes are also usually slightly too short for him because my dude is still growing.

Nanook <33 my other fav.

I dont think Nanook is described anywhere.

He has like pin point straight and its also very messy but unlike Tomkin its more so in a way of he doesnt put an effort into keeping it tied back right. like when you tie a ponytail back and dont fix it for the rest of the day. He has two braids one on each side of his face. his right side braid has one beed on it, left side has two. these are also lazily tied back with the rest of his hair.

Nanook has a scar right at his hairline on the right side of his face too.

besides that, Nanooks just like your average dude. Hes not skinny but hes not overly broad, like i said, hes a few inches shorter than Hakoda.

I think it's mentioned somewhere that he has big eyes. So idk what to do with that.

He's not that interesting to look at lmao.

Chena

Chenas about Chitsangs height and a little less broad.

idk how good of a reference 'chitsangs height' is but he's pretty tall.

his hair is about to the top of his back and has two braids on one side of his head. the rest of his hair is like half tied up in a wolfs tail.

ummmmm idk what else is that important for him.

moving on

Kanuk

Kanuk is a tad bit older than hakoda, so he has a few gray hairs. He has a really skruffy beard which also has some grays in it.

Something to remember about Kanuk is that he's originally from the nwt so his clothes reflect that. the color is a lot more of that bold purply ish color.

Kanuk, like hakoda, is a short king and is about the same height as hakoda.

he constantly looks tired and kind of has that worn look to him. zuko puts him through a lot lol.

[prying-pandora666]

You’re right! You know what I think?

Aang is a respected spiritualist working on preserving his culture along with his acolytes. He teaches them what he remembers, while they also search for old artifacts and writings since Aang was so young when they died, there’s so much he doesn’t know!

Katara became the leader of the White Lotus and made some changes to allow female members. Including several of the wise elderly women from the series. She is the one taking up a lot of the diplomatic duties so that Aang can focus on preserving his culture, and she fights fiercely for the protection and recognition of her own culture. She is very passionate about rebuilding the SWT, and she has to balance accepting help from the NWT with also not letting their influence overrun them.

Aang and Katara are happily married with their three kids. They love and teach them all about both of their cultures. Bumi has some struggles because he can’t bend, but his parents reassure him and Katara often takes him on trips to hang out with Uncle Sokka and Grandpa Hakoda so that Bumi can learn nonbenders are important and strong too!

Sokka became Chieftain of the unified Southern Water Tribe eventually. Hakoda was happy to train him in leadership but eventually pass it to him, as Sokka is far more educated than Hakoda had a chance to be seeing as the raids greatly damaged the SWT for so long. Sokka excels and what he lacks in tact he makes up for by having Katara to back him up when needed. He’s generally pragmatic though, and despite his neurosis, his creativity shines through with his solutions. He grows the tribe and brings it into the new century while still respecting their traditions.

Toph maintained her Metalbending school, which she continued to offer for free because she believes knowledge shouldn’t belong only to the elite. (This is from the comics so it’s canon too!) She also once broke into the Fire Nation palace and demanded Zuko give her the field trip he owes her, only to discover he was terrified she was another assassin trying to remove him. So Toph takes a part-time job as his body guard and political advisor. She’s savvy and she knows how to play the politics game better than Zuko, something he desperately needs help with.

Zuko, idealistic and troubled but doing his best, puts all his energy and political capital into his reforms. He works to balance rebuilding his nation with mending bridges with the other nations. It’s a tight wire act, and there are still those that accuse him of having sold out their sovereignty to the Avatar and the other nations, but Zuko has learned to take the criticisms in stride while he focuses on reintroducing the lost culture Sozin buried and repressed, giving their true history back to the people.

Mai dumped Zuko to go on her own journey of self discovery and figure out how she feels about all of this. She has a lot of personal growing to do and doesn’t want to be stifled for someone else’s political career anymore (like she was be her parents). Maybe she’ll return to him. Maybe she won’t. It’s up to her.

Ty Lee struggles with feeling like an individual even now as a matched set with the Kyoshi Warriors, but now she knows she can always take the make up off. She discovers there really might’ve been some Air Nomad ancestry in her past, giving her something unique to cling to, and she takes to rebuilding the Southern Air Temple with the Air Acolytes so she can learn about their culture. While still being close enough to Kyoshi Island that she can fulfill her duties.

Suki returned to Kyoshi Island to train the next generation of warriors. Whether she and Sokka broke up (as Legacy suggests) is unknown, but they do work together to develop trade agreements between their peoples for everyone’s benefit. She stays close to Ty Lee as well and is always ready to go where she and her warriors are needed.

Azula eventually reconciled with her brother and found peace. With a mind as clever as hers, she’s often called upon to help end disputes, especially by Zuko who knows she’s the better leader. However, Azula admits Zuko’s tendency to doubt himself is important to questioning the propaganda they’ve been raised with, and she eventually accepts the world is better with him on the throne, as is her own mental well being. She doesn’t need the pressure of ruling the nation that exploited her. She can make her own way. She travels the world, learning about the people she was taught to see as inferior. She spends some time in the Southern Water Tribe helping them industrialize and make a presence for themselves on the world stage. She and Sokka often put their heads together as fellow tacticians. Katara offers her a position on the White Lotus as a show of good faith. Azula refuses it because she can’t stand the idea of anyone mistaking this as nepotism due to Uncle Iroh’s history there. She still hasn’t found her place, but she is now content to take her time figuring it out. She even runs into Mai on her travels and the two reconcile. Azula thinks if she ever does have a child, as much as she fears she wouldn’t be a good parent, she swears she will do her best and most importantly would never abandon them like she was abandoned.

None of them are cops.

im sorry i will never watch legend of korra

bcs as long as i ignore its existence, then the gaang will forever exist in their happy ending state

toph became a cop??? yeah right good one. wdym she met the next avatar and called her twinkletoes bcs she recognised her dead friend and everyone cried?

there is no next avatar, aang is alive and well, he and katara are kissing on a balcony in ba sing se right now???

katara outlived both aang and sokka? and shes old and met the next avatar? i already told you aangs not dead what are you talking about

and while we re at it how could she outlive sokka if hes alive and well hm? sokka died young? ok but no he didnt ❤️

uncle iroh is dead and zuko is an old man? have you been hitting the cactus juice again???? zuko has just become the fire lord and iroh has a his own teashop i saw him last week

[wenuni]

All this Hatmehyt talk got me thinking of Nwt’s watery aspects

‘She who gives water to everyone who is thirsty’

‘The Libyan in the western desert of the sea of life’ <- edit: upon further research, this one is probably related more to the afterlife than actual water

‘She who is amid pure water (Gebel El Sisila)’

‘The Mother of water’

And one of Her depictions is as a goddess with a fish on Her head

[escapism-isgoodinsmalldoses]

I’d plant the stars in the ground for you -> Moon Knight x Daughter!Reader

-‘If I could, I’d plant the stars in the ground for you, They’d grow as tall as your eyes so they’d shine for you only.’ ‘For then you’d see how the world is so big, but it was made for you. And you were made to be loved, loved by me.’ -

                                                           -by abbycates

PART THREE: Part one/Part two/Part three

Relationships: 

Father!Jake Lockley x daughter!reader/ Fatherfigure!Steven Grant x daughter!reader/ Fatherfigure!Marc Spector x daughter!reader Motherly Nut/ Slight Layla x Marc

TW: Depression and anxiety disorders, absent father, slight angst, Steven is a good dad, Marc tries, Jake is scared and hides but will come around. Konshu is intimidated by Nut hehe.

Nut, Nwt, (Ⲛⲉ), is the goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, mothers, astronomy, all heavenly bodies and the universe in the ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the Earth. Nut was seen as a friend and protector of the dead, who appealed to her as a child appeals to its mother. (She is sometimes associated with the cow and represented with the horns of one)

A/N: the story takes place right after Konshu frees Steven and Marc.  She/Her reader pronouns but they aren’t used a lot, the term ‘daughter’ comes up tho. If you want to write/create anything that is inspired by this little story, feel free ! I just want a bit of credit hehe.

(POV: When you get screamed at by an ex you never knew you had) (they look so goofy omg) ___________________________________________ Your mother was a woman with quite a temper. She didn't fundamentally liked conflict, but sure knew how to express her disapproval. Or her wish to tear someone's head off. You've been sitting on the stairs in front of the Museum for about 15 minutes now. Your ice cream half melted in the little pot you held in your hand. You've been absent-mindedly eating the half melted cream, not paying attention to the people that walked past you. You could faintly hear your mother scream at Steven, or... well... You just didn't want to think about it right now. The sun was gone and your cold treat was now freezing your fingers. Grey clouds were looming in the sky and the wind had become stagnant. Everything was... fuzzy. It was weird how every event that occurred followed one another. It felt like a big joke, a big "fuck off" from life. Your vision was slightly blurred, you didn't really feel sad but tears were on the verge of pouring from your eyes.

You heard the steps of your mother becoming louder and louder, her voice was filled with disbelief and rage. « Oh you're father of the fucking year, are you ?! You stay the fuck away from (Y/N), from me ! »

He was running after her, trying to catch up to her as she clearly was trying to lose him in the crowd. You didn't look up at her when you saw her shoes enter your field of vision. « Come on, let’s get out of here (Y/N). »

You got up, not really paying attention to anything that was happening around you. Steven was heaving a bit when he caught up to your mother. You turned your back to them, knowing full well that they were about to raise their voices again. It was a bit ironic how you never experienced the arguments between your parents, but now that you did you were already tired of it.

« Listen, please. I have know idea who you are! »

Your mother had a bitter laugh.

« Oh that’s rich. »

He stuttered, clearly not knowing what to say to convince her anymore.

« (Y/N). » He said your name, trying to reason with you this time. You slowly looked up, his shirt was stained with your mother’s ice cream (which she probably threw at him when you ran away from the scene).

« I’m sorry kid but, » He took a deep breath and ran his hand along his forehead, he was sweating. « I’m… not your father. My name is Marc. »

It really was the worst excuse you had ever heard.

You didn’t exactly know what your expression was like but he immediately looked alarmed. You scoffed. You felt your lips tremble. « And Steven ? » « It’s complicated- » « Oh I’m sure, and it’s not that I don’t believe you, but I’d rather trust my mother. » « (Y/N), I don’t know what’s going on either. » You groaned, rubbing your eyes with your palms. « Jake, you leave her out of this- » « Jake?! » You looked at your mother, almost offended. « Steven, Marc, Jake? How many names do you fucking have ?! » « I’m NOT Jake ! » « Come on, sweetheart, let’s just go home, ignore him. »

« Leave…me alone. »

Your mom tried to protest but you just started to run down the stairs. You wanted to just GO AWAY. Disappear for a moment. They were following you, both trying to ask you to stay, your mom wanting you to come home and the... Other just wanting answers. And he was a lot faster than your mother. As you ran down the street, he grabbed your arm with a strength that scared you.

« (Y/N) ! »

You didn’t like him saying your name anymore. I want to leave, I want to leave, I want to leave, I WANT TO LEAVE.

°°°°°°°

You felt like you just woke up from a dream, but you were very aware that it wasn’t one. You were laid down on sand. You were on a beach.

You took deep breaths of the salted wind. The clouds were moving in waves, at a bizarre speed. The sea was calm, and the sand was white and made of thin grains. You stayed on the ground, realising how no one was around. You weren’t afraid of looking at the sky anymore. And then, you forgot why you were so upset.

…..

« Nut ? »

‘Yes, child ?’ 

You exhaled.

« I like this place. » You said as you took a small amount of sand in your palm, letting it slip away with the wind. You heard her laugh softly. ‘It is quite lovely. And I am glad to be able to see it with you.’ You started drawing small spirals into the sand. 'I am quite fond of Earth.'

« Why is he an avatar ? »

She stayed quiet for a few seconds.

‘Avatars are vessels for us Gods. You are a mean to interact with humanity where we cannot. If your father was chosen by Khonshu, then he must be trying to hide it from you.’ « … Why ? » 'Well...' She marked another pause. 'Khonshu proclaimed himself as a god of vengeance. His avatar must take care of that for him. Gods can grant their vessels superhuman abilities. He might be dangerous. At least in his opinion.' « And he’s not ? »

You heard her sigh.

‘He maybe is. But Khonshu was always proud and arrogant. He feels as if he owns the night. Where I swallow the sun each day to let him prevail. He cannot see past his own beak.’ You chuckled at the mention of his beak. A bird. A bird god. You stared at the calm waves as the sun started to peek through the agitated clouds. « You can give powers ? And… make us into superheroes or something? Ancient Egypt Avengers. » She giggled.

« Could you give ‘me’ powers…? »

‘I could. But you don’t have to serve me in any way. What kind of powers would you need ?’

You sat up slowly, looking around the desert beach.

« Something to get me back to London, for starters. » ‘Oh, right.’ _________________ This chapter is a bit short, but I hope it is still enjoyable! Everyone is confused, but (Y/N) starts to feel more comfortable with Nut :) __________________

[carbootsoul]

anyway no one asked but: yue joins the gaang instead of becoming the moon at the end of season 1 hcs!!

- instead of giving up her life to replace tui as the moon spirit, she gives up tui’s blessing to give them the final burst of strength to escape from zhao. basically yue gives up her blue eyes, pale hair, and waterbending. she never (?) waterbends on the show, and the loss of her bending isn’t too devestating to her.

- also sokka gets a friend who can’t bend either... he deserves it.

- when the gaang leaves after the battle is over, yue decides to come with them and it’s a HUGE thing with her father and begins her main character arc, which is about whether her responsibility to her tribe and the preservation of their culture is more important than her paving her own way and also how those two things can coexist!

- she leaves her betrothal necklace on her bedside table and the last shot of the episode is just of it, lying there. 

- this got rly long so there’s more under the cut

- her traveling clothes are a thing shawl and a tunic similar to sokka’s with pants. she keeps her usual haircut but it’s tied with leather instead of the fancy hair things she used as princess. also she uses a hunting knife as a weapon

- she and sokka continue their weird not-dating-but-kind-of-dating dance for a lot of episodes and it’s generally awkward and easy comic relief. also more shots of yue blushing because she’s just so cuteeee

- there’s a scene of them stargazing where yue tells sokka the story of a pair of lovers who died and then remained best friends in all their future lives (because avatar friendships enduring through lifetimes and also friendship being just as important as romantic relationships)

- yue becomes friends with EVERYONE they meet IMMEDIATELY and everyone falls in love with her because she’s sweet and pretty and has a nice laugh.

- there’s a filler episode that’s just sokka and yue going shopping together and trying on lots of jewlery but the running gag is that yue keeps getting distracted with talking to other people and definitely flirting with every girl she runs into and sokka is always distracted with a pair of earrings or a set of rings and doesn’t notice. finally some random guy is like ‘man your girlfriend has been flirting with my sister this whole time... are you aware.” and sokka is immeditaly like ShE’s NoT mY GiRLfRiEnD and then like wait what

- so maybe yue is a lesbian. sokka is very distressed that he’s been trying to court someone who’s not interested so he talks with katara while she’s sewing or something and he’s like is yue gay?? and katara is like oh i don’t know. lots of people we know are queer. sokka: WHO??? katara: well, zuko. suki. sokka: ZUKO??? SUKI??? and this is when katara realizes her brother’s gaydar is nonexistent. 

- yue tries being a vegetarian (to be nice to aang) but thinks nuts are gross so she and sokka go on hunting trips together. she’s Very Good at archery.

- also the episode where they watch toph wrestle?? she and sokka are SO on her side. it made me angry in the show that sokka wasn’t on her side but yue would convince him very quickly and they are very loud together.

- she also stays to talk to toph on the estate because she doesn’t look as suspect as the rest of the gaang so the guards don’t kick her out immediately (read: she’s good at conforming to elitist ideas of how people r meant to act and passes the rich kid test). she and toph sit in the garden and watch the moon (because the moon symbolizes yue’s perceived failure to sacrifice herself to save her tribe) and talk about how sometimes to live as yourself you have to skirt your responsibilities to your family. yue leaves a few hours later firmly friends with toph.

- she continues to be the one firmly on toph’s side in the toph/katara disputes that are in the first few episodes with toph. katara can’t hold it against her though because literally who could hold a grudge against yue she’s so incredible

- (ok we’re skipping a lot of time here bc i frankly do not remember everything that happened in book 2) her ba sing se tale is her uhhh going to the market to buy herself an iced tea because she’s gay and just having a good time being a no one. a girl she runs into at the cafe asks her to go on a walk around the city with her and it’s very sweet but yue does Not know this is a date so when the girl gives her a kiss she gets blushy and says something dumb

- also at the end of another episode we have a short scene of yue on the roof of their house in the upper ring, staring at the moon and touching the place on her neck where her betrothal necklace isn’t. then the camera switches to zuko, on the other side of the city, looking at the same moon and absently running his fingers through his hair where his topknot used to be

- yue and jet hate each other but yue still advocates for him because she sees how he’s been hurt and thinks that he deserves a second chance. i don’t know the funeral traditions for any of the nations but she does a quick northern water tribe blessing over his body before they run away.

- yue and mai are like.. yes we r gay..... yes we do flirt with each other while fighting sometimes.... yes we r the two knife fighters.. yes we are ALSO narrative foils

- yue looks SO GOOD in fire nation clothes but she keeps her usual hairdo because she deserves it. the fire nation propaganda makes her very angry, as does the institutionalized homophobia. she starts arguing with some guy over it and katara is ready to back her up and start fucking screaming and get arrested and sokka is like.. now. now is when i should talk to her. 

- he drags her away and she’s like fuck dude i can fight my own battles and he’s like no i just.. what you were talking about.... i have something i need to tell you..... and she’s like you’re bi!! good for you, sokka, thank you for telling me. and he’s like :bi shock: no?? you’re a lesbian. anyway yes she is a lesbian they are wlw mlm solidarity. 

- there’s a filler episode where toph and yue rob a bunch of fire nation soldiers and when they get caught (after a While of these robberies) they get out of it by playing the ‘dumb rich kids’ card and run away with jewelry like.. dripping off their hands. katara makes them sell all of it except a choker necklace yue keeps that looks like a betrothal necklace but instead has an etching of a bird flying away.

- skipping again bc this is getting rly long. when zuko joins the gaang he and yue have a tentative conversation about their relationships to their nations and he’s like.. idk sounds like you needed to leave? that wasn’t an environment that you can thrive in. and she’s like but i can change it! i need to be there to change it, and i left. and he’s like well no. some things are just toxic. i went back to my nation and it was terrible. and she’s like i have a responsibility to my PEOPLE and gets mad at him and she and katara r like angry at zuko team. 

- yue’s life changing field trip with zuko is just them leaving on appa to go to a market and be normal teenagers. they both viewed each other as Fire Prince and Water Tribe Princess, but this lets them open up and realize concretely that that’s not all that they are. 

- zuko apologizes for implying that the nwt was irreparable and explains that the fire palace wasn’t something he could fix and that trying just hurt him more. yue says that part of the reason she was angry with him was because he was right and that she felt so much more herself when she was away from her home. they finally reach the conclusion together that they have to become themselves before they can hope to change their cultures for the better.

- yue comes along to boiling rock but is v much background to zukka bromance. she hangs out with suki some (lots more yue blushing oc bc suki is BUFF) and does some dumb gay fighting with mai but they’re both bad at it because yue is busy mooning over suki and mai is busy protecting ty lee.

- ember island players still say she turned into the moon >:(

[prying-pandora666]

Hold on. Regular complaints about the WT being sexist? From natives?

As someone with Incan ancestry myself, I’m calling BS. Sexism is a problem in nearly every culture. Please tell me you’re not spouting “noble savage” tropes right now. That would be incredibly disappointing. I know tumblr sometimes spreads faux social justice, and I don’t know who you saw such complaints from, but there is nothing wrong with addressing sexism in ANY culture, especially in a fictional one made for kids including little girls who have to deal with sexism.

Every culture in the ATLA world (with the exception of the Air Nomads which we don’t get to see much of for obvious reasons) is shown to be sexist in their own way, albeit to different degrees. Why do you think the WT wouldn’t be?

Besides that though…

To minimize this plot point, I think, is an unfair dismissal of a very important part of Sokka’s character AND of Katara’s arc.

Sokka isn’t sexist just because. He’s sexist because he comes from a culture that survived a genocide and had its numbers whittled down, which requires a division of labor just to survive. But then the men went to war, and Sokka was left to be “the man of the tribe”.

He was too young to understand and had no men to teach him how. All the bravado and sexism we see from Sokka is a child miming what he believes a man to be, or at least his best guess. It’s a trauma response, and it’s linked to the reasons he believes he should die to protect Katara and the tribe. As if his life has no worth if he can’t be of service, can’t be a protector.

And a huge part of his arc is not only learning that his assumptions about men and women are not only inaccurate, but so are his assumptions about himself (though this takes longer) and it all culminates in him becoming the leader and tactician we eventually see him blossom into.

It’s not that this arc can’t exist without that misunderstanding, but it sure is a whole lot less complicated and a whole lot more sanitized.

Not to mention, this very same division of labor in absence of their parents is the reason Katara has had to take up the role of mother, and all the more reason she longs to escape and hone her bending. To self actualize.

So she travels to the NWT with every hope in her heart that she will finally be more than the substitute mom or the “freak” who can bend. (A parallel to her grandmother who left the NWT to escape their strict patriarchal cultural norms and found freedom in the SWT.) Only to be met with a far more entrenched and intense version of sexism than what she dealt with Sokka. And now she has to challenge that to prove herself, not only to her doubters but to herself.

Removing this element is a loss, and I truly hope this interview doesn’t mean what it seems.

Unpopular opinion time: Sokka unlearning sexism isn't actually a large part of his character arc--it literally only takes the opening episodes. And removing it COULD be a sign that the live action is taking seriously the regular complaints I see from native fans about the original show runners deciding to make the Water Tribes so sexist to begin with. Sokka's actual character arc is about gaining confidence and leadership skills, and they have the opportunity to focus on that MORE if they change the Kyoshi episode to focus on Suki as a fellow teenager forced into a leadership/protective role in her community and rocking it rather than using her as an object lesson on sexism for a male character to learn from. Whether they will ACTUALLY do that is on them, but it took me less than ten minutes to think up, so I sure hope someone in the writers' room actually cares about using the live action to expand on new angles of the characters. Big ask, I know.

Now the real question is: did they also remove Uncle Iroh's unwanted physical advances on a literally paralyzed Jun, and all of Zuko's snipes about girls? Because THOSE are the actually "iffy" sexism parts in AtLA, not Sokka's five minute arc.

[domoz]

had a long car right to think about the Current AU (which I have been thinking of as both exorcism and post apocalypse au in my head, neither of which feel very close to what this is imo) and now im writing thoughts down.

The gist is this:

Aang does not wake up 100 years after he disappears, and this leads to Problems. The first really major one being Zhao’s attack on the NWT -- the moon spirit is killed. Waterbending is over.

(Zuko is probably there when it happens. At the time, he took the excuse to get into the NWT to continue his hunt for the Avatar, but seeing that happen and knowing it was approved by his father was a major blow to his loyalty)

Zhao captured Yue as a final blow to their pride, not aware of her connection to the moon spirit or how important she would become.

The second major problem is Sozin’s comet which goes... Pretty much exactly how Ozai wanted it to. Earth Kindom is decimated, Ba Sing Se has fallen. The world (what remains of it) is ruled by the Phoenix King. Ostensibly

Zuko is kind of horrified by the whole thing, and the destruction makes him realize that the avatar isn’t waiting around waiting to be found, because if he was he probably would have done something to stop this. Cue the realizations that he was never meant to go back home, and that his father was wrong and has hurt, and will continue to hurt a lot people unless someone does something. He probably feels pretty guilty about doing nothing to stop what happened on the day of sozin comet and decides, well, avatar’s not coming, it’ll just have to be him then.

Both of these problems lead to a third, growing issue, which is that the spirits are also very unhappy. There are a lot more spirits like Hei Bai popping up, and a lot more malicious spirits who are also starting to realize, hey, the avatar isn’t showing up to stop them.

I think things take place like... 1-3 years after all this? Everyone has had a little time to fall into their new roles/status quo. I’m not sure if what pushes Sokka and Katara out of the SWT is some spirit interference or Aang waking up -- But if he does I think they’re a lot less willing to accept that he can fix everything. Whatever the case, I think the theme of the story still ends up being something like... Taking things into your own hands and not depending on someone else to fix things for you. Aang’s just a kid! And he can’t master waterbending anyways, so how can be become a fully realized avatar? When they leave, the vibe is less ‘let’s save the world’ and more ‘we can’t keep living like this’

Sokka got involved with spirit stuff kind of by necessity. After the moon spirit got killed things got really bad. Hunting was bad, fishing was worse, there just wasn’t enough food to go around. He doesn’t believe in spirits at first, and he argues against leaving some of the meat he brings back as offerings for them because there just wasn’t enough. He probably gets himself in trouble with them for this, and Gran gran has to coach him through dealing with spirits. With the problem getting worse, it just sort of becomes another responsibillity of his -- Traditionally, it would probably be Katara’s job, but she had a very rough time after the moon died and is still very withdrawn and sad most of the time. Sokka made it a point to step up, after that. Privately, he also did it because he’s pretty sure that his dad and the other men aren’t coming back.

About the ‘hiding your face’ thing in the post that kind of spawned this -- I think maybe spirits don’t recognize anyone but very exceptional humans as anything but ‘a human’, but if you hide your face you are assuming the role of whatever mask/paint you’re putting on. So in the case of Suki, spirits recognize her as ‘a Kyoshi warrior’ with all of the responsibillity and clout that title holds. In the Sokka’s case, he’s go the warrior facepaint, but he’s got other’s too the SWT has more than once face for when they have to deal with spirits.

Suki got involved with spirits through tradition. Part of the Kyoshi warrior’s job is to be a steward to spirits. Suki is... Young for the position, and probably doesn’t know as much as she wants, but she’s doing alright. Her problems mostly come from the outside (ie, the Fire Nation). Kyoshi Island has been neutral throughout the war, but now that the Fire Nation has pretty much won it, it’s only a matter of time before they show up and start demanding things. If they show up with enough force... There’s not a lot they’re going to be able to do. Suki really hates the idea of just waiting to roll over for the Fire Nation, but it takes Sokka showing up before she gets spurred into action. She’s the one who’s actually heard news of some resistance forces springing up in the earth kingdom

Speaking of when Sokka shows up he’s probably... At least a little less outwardly sexist? Or at least more aware of the fact that these girls can fight, he can’t, and he desperately needs to know how. He still ends up in their uniform at some point

Zuko got involved with spirits pretty much on accident. The Royal Family already has some association with spirits, and he only got deeper into it when he started on his avatar hunt. At a certain point, Iroh realizes that he can’t keep Zuko away from them and instead shows him how to survive. Because of what he’s doing, Zuko is very... We’ll say spiritually volatile. A lot of spirits want him to succeed and kill his dad. A lot of them don’t. he’s very lucky that the dark water spirit, who’s face he happened to borrow the first time he got involved with spirits, is one of the ones on his side.

I don’t know what Iroh is up to -- it would make sense for him to be advising Zuko and falling into his own role as a general, but I think it would also be tastilly tragic if he let himself get caught as a traitor to buy Zuko a chance to get away.

Toph marched her way over to the first resistance movement that looked like it was worth a damn (Zuko’s) after sozin’s comet. Maybe also after getting in a fight with her parents about how they probably shouldn’t just start supporting their new fire lord government so easilly? They are friends.

Idk what Jet is up to but he might be involved, somehow. He and Zuko are Not Friends.

Zuko’s group is the one that Suki ends up bringing Sokka and co. to. He’ll take pretty much any help he can get, at this point

Girl help, I’m all for the three of them recognizing their shared experiences and having moments of levity with each other in an otherwise very dark time.

Sokka is able to sense ‘wow, that guy is very spiritually fucked up’ and then gets mad at himself for being able to tell that because its RIDICULOUS. Things actually start going better when he shows up, because Sokka is a plan guy. Zuko is very much not a plan guy, so he needed one of those.

Fun escapades like “going to the spirit world together because they’re all the ones used to dealing with spirits in their communities and wouldn’t accept the other ones taking care  of it” “breaking Sokka’s dad out of prison, but its way harder” and, most crucially, “getting intel on where Yue is and rescuing her, realizing her importance, and figuring out how to restore waterbending”

An idea that keeps sticking in my head is like... some dark spirit has been with the fire nation royal family for generation, always getting into the heads of the second child and turning them down the darkest paths they can go down. It not the only thing responsible, but it sure doesn’t help! With the focus on spirits I think the culmiation would be dealing with Ozai AND that spirit.

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Jet and Yue’s Deaths: Were They Necessary?

Two of the most common ideas I see for aus in this fandom are the Jet lives au, and the Yue lives au. I’ve written both of these myself, and I’ve seen many others write them. And while yes, fanfiction can be a great way to explore ideas that didn’t necessarily have to be explored in canon (I’m mad at bryke for a lot of things, but not including a Toph and Bumi I friendship is not one of them, even though I wrote a fic about it), it seems to me that people are mad that Yue and Jet are dead, to varying degrees. There’s a lot to talk about regarding their deaths from a sociopolitical perspective (the fact that two of the darker-skinned characters in the show are the ones that died, and all the light-skinned characters lived, is ah... an interesting choice), but I don’t want to look at it that way, at least for right now. I want to look at it as a writer, and discuss whether these deaths were a) necessary for the plot and themes of ATLA in any way whatsoever and b) whether it was necessary for them to unfold in the way that they did, or if they would have been more impactful had they occurred in a different way. 

(meta under the cut, this got really, really, really long)

Death in Children’s Media

When I first started thinking about this meta, I had this idea to compare Jet and Yue’s deaths to deaths in an animated children’s show that I found satisfying. And in theory, that was a great idea. Problem is: there aren’t very many permanent deaths in children’s animation, and the ones that do exist aren’t especially well-written. This may be an odd thing to say in what is ostensibly a piece of atla crit, but Yue’s death is probably the best written death in a piece of children’s animation that I can think of. That’s not a compliment. Rather, it’s a condemnation of the way other pieces of children’s animation featuring permanent character death have handled their storylines. 

I’ve talked about this before, but my favorite show growing up was Young Justice, and my favorite character on that show was far and away Mr. Wally West. So when he died at the end of season 2, it broke me emotionally. Shortly thereafter, Cartoon Network canceled the show, and I started getting on fan forums to mourn. Everybody on these fan forums was convinced that had Cartoon Network not canceled the show, Wally would have been brought back. And that is a narrative that I internalized for years. Eventually, the show was brought back via DC’s new streaming service, and I tuned in, waiting for Wally to also be brought back, only to discover that that wasn’t in the cards. Wally was dead. Permanently. 

So now that I know that, I can talk about why killing him off was fucking stupid. Wally’s death occurs at the end of season 2, after the main s2 conflict, the Reach, has been defeated, save for these pods that they set up all over the world to destroy Earth. Our heroes split up in teams of two to destroy the pods, and they destroy all of them, except for a secret one in Antartica. It can only be neutralized by speedsters, so Wally, Bart, and Barry team up to destroy it. It’s established in canon that Wally is slower than Bart and Barry, and it’s been played for laughs earlier in the season, but for reasons unexplained, the pod is better able to target Wally because he’s slower than Bart and Barry, and it kills him. After the emotional arc of the season has wrapped up, a literal main character dies. There’s some indication at the end of that season that his death is going to cause Artemis to spiral and become a villain, but when season 3 picks up, she’s doing the right thing, with seemingly no qualms about her position in life as a hero. In the comics, something like this happens to Wally, but then he goes into the Speed Force and becomes faster and stronger even than Barry, in which case, yes, this would have advanced the plot, but that’s probably not in the cards either. 

In summary, Wally’s death doesn’t work as a story beat, not because it made me mad, but because it doesn’t advance the plot, nor does it develop character. Only including things that advance plot or develop character is one of the golden rules of writing. Like most golden rules of writing, however, it’s not absolute. There is a lot of fun to be had in jokey little one off adventures (in atla, Sokka’s haiku competition) or in fun worldbuilding threads that add depth to your setting but don’t really come up (in atla, the existence of Whaletail Island, which is described in really juicy ways, even though the characters never go there.) But in general, when it comes to things like character death, events should happen to develop the plot or advance character. Avatar, for all of its flaws, is really well structured, and a lot of its story beats advance plot and develop character at the same time. However, the show also bears the burden of being a show directed at children, and thus needing to be appropriate for children. And as we know, Nickelodeon and bryke butted heads over this: the death scene that we see for Jet is a compromise, one that implicitly confirms his death without explicitly showing it. So bryke tasked themselves with creating a show about imperialism and war that would do those themes justice while also being appropriate for American children and palatable to their parents. 

The Themes of Avatar vs. Its Audience

So, Avatar is a show about a lone survivor of genocide stopping an imperialist patriarchal society from decimating the rest of the world. It’s also a show about found family and staying true to yourself and doing your best to improve the world. These don’t necessarily conflict with each other, and it is possible for children to understand and enjoy shows about complex themes. And in a lot of cases, bryke doesn’t hold back in showing what the costs of war against an imperialist nation are: losing loved ones, losing yourself, prison, etc. But when it comes to death, the show is incredibly hesitant. None of the main characters that we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know die (not even Iroh, even though he was old and it would have made sense and his VA died before the show was over--but that’s a topic for another day.) This makes sense. I can totally imagine a seven year-old watching Avatar as it was coming out and feeling really sad or scared if a major character died. I was six years older than that when Wally died, and it’s still sad and terrifying to me to this day. However, in a show about war, it would be unrealistic to have no one die. Bryke’s stated reason for killing off Jet is to show the costs of war. I’ve seen a lot of posts about Jet’s death that reiterate some version of this same point--that the great tragedy of his character is that he spent his life fighting the Fire Nation, only to die at the hands of his own country. Similarly, I’ve seen people argue in favor of Yue’s death by saying that it was a great tragedy, but it showed the sacrifices that must be made in a war effort. 

Yue

When we first meet Yue, she is a somewhat reserved, kind individual held back by the rigid social structures of the NWT*. She and Sokka have an immediate attraction to one another, but Yue reveals that she is engaged to Hahn. The Fire Nation invasion happens, Zhao kills Tui, and Yue gives up her life to save her people and the world, and to restore balance. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know Yue, this is framed less as Yue’s sacrifice and more as Sokka’s loss. Sokka is the one who cares for Yue, Sokka is the only one of the gaang who really interacts a lot with Yue on screen, and Sokka is the one we’ve spent a whole season getting to know. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Yue a prop character (i.e. a character who could be replaced by an object with little change to the narrative), she is certainly underdeveloped. She exists to be unambiguously likable and good, so we can root for her and Sokka, and feel Sokka’s pain when she dies. In my opinion, this is probably also why a lot of fic that features Yue depicts her as a Mary Sue--because as she is depicted in the show, she kind of is. We don’t get to see her hidden depths because she is written to die. 

In light of what we’ve established earlier in this meta, this makes sense. Killing off a fully-realized character whom the audience has really gotten to know and care about on their own terms, rather than through the eyes of another character, could be really sad and scary for the kids watching, but not killing anyone off would be an unrealistic depiction of war and imperialism. On the face of it, killing off an underdeveloped, unambiguously likable and good character, whom one of our MCs has a deep but short connection with, is the perfect compromise. 

But let’s go back to the golden rule for a second. Does Yue’s death a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to the first is yes: Yue’s death prompts Aang to use the Avatar State to fight off the Fire navy, which has implications for his ability to control the Avatar State that form one of the major arcs of book 2. The answer to the second? A little more ambiguous. You would think that Yue’s death would have some lasting impact on Sokka that is explored as part of his character arc in book 2, that he may be more afraid to trust, more scared of losing the people he loves, but outside of a few episodes (really, just one I can think of, “The Swamp”) it doesn’t seem to affect him that much. He even asks about Suki in a way that is clearly romantically motivated in “Avatar Day.” I don’t know about you, but if someone I loved sacrificed herself to become the moon, I don’t think I would be seeking out another romantic entanglement a few weeks after her death. Of course, everybody processes grief differently, and one could argue that Sokka has already lost important people in his life, and thus would be accustomed to moving on from that loss and not letting himself dwell on it. But to that, I’d say that moving on by throwing himself into protecting others has already shown itself to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. Remember, Sokka’s misogyny at the beginning of b1 is in part motivated by the fact that his mother died at the hands of the Fire Nation and his father left shortly thereafter to fight the Fire Nation, and he responds to those things by throwing himself into the role of being the “man” of the village and protecting the people he loves who are still with him. Like with Yue, he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on his mother’s death. This could have been the beginning of a really interesting b2 arc for Sokka, in which he throws himself into being the Avatar’s companion to get away from the grief of losing Yue, but this time, through the events of the show, he’s forced to acknowledge that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. And maybe this is what bryke was going for with “The Swamp”, but this confines his whole process of grief to one episode, where it could have been a season-long arc that really emphasized the effect Yue’s had on his life. 

In the case of Yue, I do lean toward saying that her death was necessary for the story that they wanted to tell (although, I will never turn down a good old-fashioned Yue lives au that really gets into her dynamism as a character, those are awesome.) However, the way they wrote Sokka following Yue’s death reduced her significance. The fact that Yue seemed to have so little impact on Sokka is precisely what makes her death feel unnecessary, even if it isn’t. 

Jet

Okay. Here we go. 

If you know my blog, you know I love Jet. You know I love Jet lives aus. Perhaps you know that I’m in the process of writing a multichapter Jet fic in which he lives after Lake Laogai. So it’s reasonable to assume that, in a discussion of whether or not Jet’s death was necessary, I’m gonna be mega-biased. And yeah, that’s probably true. But up until recently, I wasn’t really all that mad about Jet dying, at least conceptually. As I said earlier, bryke says that in the case of Jet’s death, they wanted to kill a character off that people knew and would care about, so that they could further show the tragedies of war and imperialism. Okay. That is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. 

My issue lies with the execution of said idea. First of all, the framing of Jet’s original episode is so bad. Jet is part of a long line of cartoon villains who resist imperialism and other forms of oppression through violence and are punished for it. This is actually a really common sort of villain for atla/lok, as we see this play out again with Hama, Amon, and the Red Lotus. To paraphrase hbomberguy’s description of this type of villain, basically liberal white creators are saying, “yeah, oppression is bad, but have you tried writing to your Congressman about it?” With Jet, since we have so little information about the village he’s trying to flood, there are a number of different angles that would explain his actions and give them more nuance. My preferred hc is that the citizens of Gaipan are a mix of Earth civilians, Fire citizens, and FN soldiers, and that the Earth citizens refused to feed or house Jet and the other Freedom Fighters because they were orphans and, as we see in the Kyoshi Novels, Earth families stick to their own. Thus, when Jet decides to flood Gaipan, he’s focused on ridding the valley of Fire Nation, but he doesn’t really care about what happens to the Earth citizens of Gaipan because they actively wronged him when he was a kid. That’s just one interpretation, and there have been others: Gaipan was fully Fire Nation, Gaipan was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation but Jet decided that the benefits of flooding the valley and getting rid of the Fire Nation outweighed the costs of losing the EK families, etc, etc. There are ways to rewrite that scenario so that Jet is not framed as an unambiguously bloodthirsty monster. In the context of Jet’s death, this initial framing reduces the possible impact that his death could have. Where Yue was unambiguously good, Jet is at the very least morally gray when we see him again in the ferry. And where we are connected to Yue through Sokka, the gaang’s active hatred of Jet hinders our ability to connect with him. This isn’t impossible to overcome--the gaang hates Zuko, and yet to an extent the audience roots for him--but Jet’s lack of screentime and nuanced framing (both of which Zuko gets in all three seasons) makes overcoming his initially flawed framing really difficult. 

So how much can it really be said, that by the time we get to Jet’s death, he’s a character that we know and care about? So much about him is still unknown (what happened to the Freedom Fighters? what prompted Jet’s offscreen redemption? who knows, fam, who knows.) Moreover, most of what we see of him in Ba Sing Se is him actively opposing Zuko and Iroh. These are both characters that at the very least the show wants us to care about. At this point, we know almost everything there is to know about them, we’ve been following them and to an extent rooting for them for two seasons, and who have had nuanced and often sympathetic framing a number of times. So much of the argument I’ve seen regarding Jet centers around the fact that he was right to expose Zuko and Iroh as Firebenders, but the reason we have to have that argument in the first place is because it’s not framed in Jet’s favor. In terms of who the audience cares about more, who the audience has more of an emotional attachment towards, Zuko and Iroh win every time. Whether Jet’s actually in the right or not is irrelevant, because emotionally speaking, we’re primed to root for Zuko and Iroh. In terms of who the framing is biased towards, Jet may as well be Zhao. So when he’s taken by the Dai Li and brainwashed, the audience isn’t necessarily going to see this as a bad thing, because it means Zuko and Iroh are safe.

The only real bit of sympathetic framing Jet gets are those initial moments on the ferry, and the moments after he and the gaang meet again. So about five, ten minutes of the show, total. And then, he sacrifices himself for the gaang. And just like Yue, his death has little to no impact on the characters in the episodes following. Katara is shown crying for four frames immediately following his death, and they bring him up once in “The Southern Raiders” to call him a monster, and once in “The Ember Island Players”, a joke episode in which his death is a joke. 

So, let’s ask again. Does this a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to both is no. It shows that the Dai Li is super evil and cruel, which we already knew and which basically becomes irrelevant in book 3, and that is really the only plot-significant thing I can think of. As far as character, well, it could have been a really interesting moment in Katara’s development in forgiving someone who hurt her in the past, which could have foreshadowed her forgiving Zuko in b3, but considering she calls Jet a monster in TSR, that doesn’t track. There could have been something with Sokka realizing that his snap judgment of Jet in b1 was wrong, but considering that he brings up Jet to criticize Katara in TSR, that also does not track. And honestly, neither of these possible character arcs require Jet to die. What requires Jet to die is the ~themes~. 

Let’s look at this theme again, shall we? The cost of war. We already covered it with Yue, but it’s clearly something that bryke wants to return to and shed new light on. The obvious angle they’re going for is that sometimes, you don’t know who your real enemy is. Jet thought that his enemy was the Fire Nation, but in the end, he was taken down by his own countryman. Wow. So deep. Except, while it’s clear that Jet was always fighting against the Fire Nation, I never got the sense that Jet was fighting for the Earth Kingdom. After all, isn’t the whole bad thing about him in the beginning is that he wants to kill civilians, some of whom we assume to be Earth Kingdom? Why would it matter then that he got killed by an EK leader, when he didn’t seem to ever be too hot on those dudes? But okay, maybe the angle is not that he was killed by someone from the Earth Kingdom, but that he wasn’t killed by someone from the Fire Nation. Okay, but we’ve already seen him be diametrically opposed to the only living Air Nomad and people from the Water Tribes. Jet fighting with and losing to people who aren’t Fire Nation is not a new and exciting development for him. Jet has been enemies with non-FN characters for most of the show’s run at this point. There is no thematic level on which the execution of this holds any water. 

The reason I got to thinking about this, really analyzing what Jet’s death means (and doesn’t mean) for the show, was this conversation I was having with @the-hot-zone in discord dms. We were talking about book 2 and ways it could have been better, and Zone said that they thought that Jet would have been a stronger character to parallel with Zuko’s redemption than Iroh and that seeing more of the narrative from Jet’s perspective could have strengthened the show’s themes. And when it came to the question of Jet’s death, they said, “And if we are going with Jet dying, then I want it to hurt. I want it to hurt just as much as if a main character like Sokka had died. I want the viewer to see Jet's struggles, his triumphs, the facets of Jet that make him compelling and important to the show.” And all of that just hit me. Because we don’t get that, do we? Jet’s death barely leaves a mark. Jet himself barely leaves a mark. His death isn’t plot-significant, doesn’t inspire character growth in any of our MCs, and doesn’t even accomplish the thematic relevance that it claims to. So what was the point? 

Conclusion

Much as I dislike it, Yue’s death actually added something to atla. It could have added much, much more, in the hands of writers who gave more of a shit about their Brown female characters and were less intent on seeing them suffer and knocking them down a peg, but, in my opinion, it did work for what it was trying to do. Jet? Jet? Nah, fam. Jet never got the chance to really develop into a likable character because he was always put at odds with characters we already liked, and the framing skewed their way, not his. The dude never really had a chance.        

*multiple people have spoken about how the NWT as depicted in atla is not reminiscent of real life Inuit and Yupik people and culture. I am not the person to go into detail about this, but I encourage you to check out Native-run blogs for more info!

[milf-harrington]

i think about dragons too much so

fuck it: zukka dragon rider au where the fire nation still hunted dragons to the point of extinction (but only in the fire nation so the rest of the world still have their own dragons) and Zuko finds an egg buried somewhere near the edge of the volcano that Caldera was built on and Ozai finds out about the egg but Zuko refuses to tell him where it is because he doesn’t think it’s right to kill an innocent and unborn baby dragon and Ozai burns him so Zuko runs away and smuggles the egg out of the city by stealing a boat.

He’s still badly burned and idk somehow he ends up drifting into water tribe waters. He gets briefly attacked by some wild ocean dragons before being rescued and then captured by SWT warriors.

He and Druk bond some more in “prison” before Hakoda decides that Zuko is only a kid and he’s badly hurt and lets him stay in their village where he’s not adopted by a single family, they all just kinda call him their nephew. He becomes besties with Katara and Sokka (and Katara’s snow dragon) and then 3 years later they all find Aang.

also it’s a friends-to-lovers thing, Zuko and Sokka never really saw each other like That until they started ending up having to fight bad guys a lot (pirates, rogue dragon riders, thieves, regular ol’ bandits) and basically it becomes:

1. wow hot

2. oh god what if he’s hurt.

so there’s lots of tenderly patches the others wounds and “You idiot! Why weren’t you paying attention, now you’re bleeding!” 

some more stuff

- the fire nation was basically put in, like, exile because they hunted dragons; and now Ozai wants to rid the rest of the world of dragons bc he thinks fire benders should be the only ones capable of wielding fire

- before they were properly exiled though, Sozin led an attack on the air nomads and wiped most of them out (they’re nomads so i’ve decided they fire nation couldn’t have killed them all)

- there wasn’t a war but there were a lot of attempts at fighting the other nations, but the other nations still had dragons so the fire nation troops were often brutally defeated

- so, kya was still killed by fire benders

- aang was still in the iceberg and appa is still a bison, (but now momo is a dragon native to the air temples)

- only benders can properly bond with dragons, specifically the dragons of their region

- along with mastering all 4 elements, Aang now has to also learn how to communicate with and ride dragons from all 4 nations. 

- each nation has their own language, and due to the Fire Nations isolation, Zuko struggles to communicate when they travel, so he mostly just talks to Druk and the Water Tribe Trio. (Sokka, Katara, and Katara’s dragon.)

- in the NWT women aren’t allowed to ride dragons either, so Katara and her Dragon throw hands with Pakku

- the raid on the NWT doesn’t happen and Yue ends up joining the group and then later falls in love with a badass Kyoshi warrior (Suki).

dragon ideas!!

- the water tribe dragons are designed for the ocean and the ice: some can breathe underwater, some have nice fluffy coats as an extra protection against blizzards, most are very thick and warm and have strong legs and stronger claws for gripping ice, they don’t tend to breathe fire; usually water dragons can “breathe” very hot or very cold water, or very cold air that can freeze whatever it comes into contact with, they eat fish and seals and are very good at hunting in snow

- earth kingdom dragons are burrowers and builders: some of them live underground and are blind like badgermoles, most of them are pretty big and have strong teeth for crushing rocks and have very wide and hooked claws for digging through dirt and stone. they have thick scales that are hard to penetrate and they use their wings for shade and for packing in the dirt around their burrows to make it stronger, and they also use their wings and/or butts to crush enemies/predators against the side of their burrows inspired by wombats. also! inspired by meatlug from the httyd movies, earth dragons eat rocks or dirt in order to breathe fire. 

- the dragons in the air temples are hollow-boned like birds, and have big wings for optimal flying/gliding. they live in high-altitudes and entertain themselves by diving towards the ground like falcons, the air nomads used to do it with their gliders as a form of playing. like water dragons, they’re fluffy to withstand the cold of being so high up. the bigger ones are gentle in nature and live entirely off of fruit and long grasses, whereas the smaller ones are cheeky and cunning and will eat insects or small rodents (taking after momo in appearance) they aren’t usually offensive creatures but when forced they can either let loose an explosive scream or blow a thin gust of wind with enough force to bruise or break bones. usually they just whistle and twitter like birds, or use their breathe to warm or dry each other.

- the fire nation dragons are the same as in the show, long and winding and breathing fire; modelled after traditional Japanese dragons. they like sunlight and warmth and could be found draped over large rocks before they were culled. they’ll eat any meat as long as it’s lightly burned and dance with each other to show affection. like firebenders, they need the sun to make fire; but they’re still deadly even without it. there’s not much to come up with for them because they’re already introduced in the show and the original atla world.

[zukkacore]

Whitewashing in AtlaLok: the Western & Christian Influence on s2 of LoK

Ok, so i’m not a big brained expert on all things indigenous or even all things asian but I do think bryke's christian & western worldview seeps so far into season 2 of LoK that i think out of every season it’s by far the most unsalvageable out of everything they’ve ever done in the Atlaverse and is a very insidious kind of whitewashing. I know that sounds hefty but here’s what I mean

For the record, I’m a mixed filipino person & while there is religious diversity among filipinos, more than i think ppl realize or that the catholic majority is willing to let on, when we were colonized a large percent of the population was indeed forced to convert to catholicism so that’s my background, & i don’t know everything about taoism or the what the tai chi symbol represents but the way Bryke westernize the concept of Yin and Yang is honestly… kinda bewildering. They get so many details about yin & yang wrong?? & Yes, it’s possible they could’ve been trying to create their own lore that differentiates itself from the traditional depictions of Yin & Yang, but in the end i think it doesn’t matter b/c the lore they invent is a very obviously western interpretation of the concept of “balance”.

The most important and honestly worst change they make is that concepts of “light” and “dark” are completely oversimplified and flattened to represent basically “good” and “evil” (which, the light and dark side are a bit more complex than representing just “peace/order vs. Chaos” like the show might imply but we don’t even have time for that, but is funny how they get the genders wrong. Like. Traditionally, light is usually coded masculine and dark is usually coded feminine, but never mind that, that’s just a tangent). This really simplifies the nuance of the s2 conflict and makes it a lot less interesting, not to mention just—misrepresents a very real religious philosophy?

And for the record, a piece of media going out of its way to do "the show, don’t tell" thing of stating in the text that “oh, light and dark are not the same thing as good vs. evil” without actually displaying that difference through the writing is just lip service, and its poor writing. A lot of pieces of media do this, but i think s2 of LoK is particularly egregious. The point of this philosophy of balance is that you aren’t supposed to moralize about which side is “good” or “bad”, or even really which one is “better” or “worse”. Even if the show states the concepts are not interchangeable, if the media in question continually frames one side (and almost always its “chaos/darkness”) as the “evil” side, then the supposed distinction between “light vs. dark” and “good vs. evil” is made moot. And besides the occasional offhand remark that implies more nuance without actually delivering, Vaatu is basically stock evil incarnate.

This depiction of conflict as “defeating a singular representation of total evil” isn’t solely christian, but it is definitely present in christian beliefs. And I think those kinds of stories can be done well, but in this case, in a world filled entirely of asian, Pacific Islander & inuit poc, to me it feels like a form of subtle whitewashing? B/c you’re taking characters that probably wouldn’t have christian beliefs, and imposing a christian worldview onto them. Not to mention removes what could have been an interesting conflict of any nuance and intrigue… and honestly, sucks, because I do think s2 has the bones of an interesting idea, mostly b/c there are potential themes that could’ve been explored—I know this b/c they were already explored in a movie that exists, and it’s name is Princess Mononoke! It has a lot of the same elements—tension between spirits and humanity, destruction of nature in the face of rapid industrialization, moral ambiguity where there are no easy or fast answers and both sides have sympathetic and understandable points of view. (Unsurprising b/c Miyazaki is Japanese & Japanese culture has a lot of influence from Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, etc)

Bryke’s western & christian worldview also totally seeps into the characterization of Unalaq, the antagonist of the season which is a real problem. I’m in the middle of rewatching s2 right now and what struck me is that….. Unalaq comes across kinda ecofash AND fundamentalist which is 1) seems like an odd combination but maybe it really isn’t? 2) i think is a really tacky choice considering that the water tribes take the majority of its inspiration from inuit and polynesian indigenous cultures.

I honestly forgot abt this but Unalaq gives this whole lame speech abt how the SWT & humans as a whole suck b/c of their lack of spiritual connection & it was really eerie to me b/c "humans are morally bankrupt and they must be wiped out/punished for their destruction of the environment" is total ecofash logic bc it blames all of humanity for damage caused by those in power—be they capitalists or whoever. It’s a worldview that blames the poor and powerless for something they have no say in, and has real eugenics undertones bc with every implication of culling, there has to be someone who appoints themself the job of culling—of who is and isn’t worthy of death.

This belief also struck me as......... kinda christian in it's logic as well which is WEIRD b/c once again........ their cultural inspirations are DEFINITELY not christian...... The whole "man is inherently evil and must spend their whole lifetime repenting/must face punishment for it’s wickedness" thing and the way that christianity treats humanity as born with original sin or inherently corrupt—as well as above or separate from nature are really stronger undertones in Unalaqs worldview....... which isn't really an indigenous way or thinking.

I'm generalizing of course but from what I have seen from the indigenous people who speak on this is that (feel free to point out or correct me if i’m mostly generalizing abt Native Americans and not other indigenous cultures & there are some differences here) is that while native tribes are not monolithic and do vary wildly, there are a lot of common threads and that reverence and respect toward nature and your surroundings is an important tenant of indigenous beliefs. (I specifically remember the hosts on All My Relations saying essentially that we humans are a part of nature, we are not separate from it, and humans are not superior to animals—I’m paraphrasing but that is the gist of it)

So, yeah, I think it’s just really distasteful to write an indigenous character who is characterized in a way that’s way more in line with a christian fundamentalist & wants to bring about a ragnarok style apocalypse end of the world when that isn’t really a tenant of our beliefs? (btw, the way the end of the world is framed is also kinda fucked up? If i were being charitable, I could say that maybe s2’s storyline is a corruption of the hindu depiction of the end of the world, but even that sounds mildly insulting for reasons I won’t get into b/c i am Not The Expert On Hinduism. I will say that once again, the framing of the concept is all wrong, the show views the idea of apocalypse through a very western lense)

To wrap this up, I think the depiction of Unalaq could *maybe* work b/c he is the antagonist, so someone who strays from the NWT cultural tradition in a way that makes his view of morality more black and white wouldn’t be a *horrible* idea for the bad guy of the season. Especially because the introduction of capitalism to the A:TLA universe could probably cause a substantial shifts to… idk, everything i guess, b/c capitalism is so corrosive. Like. Sometimes people are just traitors. I do think it would be interesting to portray the way capitalism manifests in a society without white christians. Like… I do think there are a lot of ways secular christianity and capitalism are interlinked. But Unalaq is not portrayed as an outsider, he’s portrayed as hyper-traditionalist in a way that’s vilified? I guess rightly so, he does suck, but it’s just hard to conceptualize how a person like Unalaq comes to exist in the first place. In the end, I don’t really think it makes sense, in a world without white people, I don’t really know where this introduction of black and white christian morality would even come from in the avatar world?

TL;DR, Bryke applying western christian morality & world views to non-white characters in a world where white people have NEVER existed to affect our beliefs is a subtle form of white-washing. It imposes simplified “good vs. evil” world-views & cultural beliefs onto its characters. Any attempt to represent or even just integrate our actual beliefs into the A:tla lore are twisted and misrepresented is a way that is disrespectful and saps out any nuance or intrigue from the story, and alienates the people its supposed to represent from recognizing themselves within the final product. And Finally, on a more superficial story level, these writing choices clashe with the already existing world of ATLA--and is honestly just poor world-building.