#this katara just felt so one dimensional

[dreamchasernina]

Netflix, I don’t know how to tell you this but a woman doesn’t have to be self taught to be a strong female character. It’s ok to let her know her limitation and ask for help. It’s ok to let her get angry, it’s ok to let her be jealous, it’s ok to let your female character have flaws and WORK on them. Your female character doesn’t have to become a master on her own to be memorable, it just makes her accomplishment feel unearned.

[longing-for-rain]

Ember Island Players…Racist Caricatures or Meta Commentary?

This episode was supposed to be a fun filler episode to recap the events of the show in a silly way before the series finale, but it’s managed to become arguably one of the most controversial episodes in the fandom. Over the years, Aang’s possessive behavior towards Katara has been rightfully criticized, but there are always people who attempt to justify everything Aang does.

Apparently, the latest iteration of this is the claim that—wait for it—we should be sympathetic towards Aang and give him a pass in The Ember Island Players because he felt “emasculated” due to the supposed “feminization” of his culture.

I’ve been called racist for saying this is a reach, but it’s more than a reach. It’s an entire acrobatics routine; a level of media illiteracy that shows a lack of understanding of the point of that episode.

Yes, Aang’s character is portrayed in a silly, mocking way. So are all of the other characters. That’s the point; the episode was a filler, a gimmick, and the underlying comedy is the fact that all of the characters are reacting to exaggerated, one-dimensional versions of their own personalities.

For example:

Katara is portrayed as an “overemotional crybaby” in her own words, and is constantly giving motivational speeches and crying

Sokka’s “comedic relief” archetype is played up to the point his lines are just corny one-liners

Zuko is portrayed as an angsty, whiny pretty-boy who acts like a bratty asshole at all times

Toph is a huge buff guy (although in this case, it’s a play on how her character was originally going to be a “jock” type male character)

As for Aang? He’s portrayed as unserious, goofy, and childish. Which—just like all the others—is a jokey exaggeration of his childish demeanor and nature. He’s not even alone in taking offense to his portrayal. All of the characters aside from Toph hate their characters for largely the same reason. They’re being confronted with aspects of themselves that make them insecure. For Aang, it’s his immaturity—and specifically his fears that he’ll be rejected by Katara.

As for why Aang is played by a woman? Well, we don’t actually have to wonder about that, because the creators themselves answer this question in the episode commentary.

Bryan: “It's sort of a self-referential joke. Whenever you do a animated show, they usually want to cast, uh, women...who are, like, in their thirties to play boys, because you never know how long the show is gonna go on, and, you know, as Jack mentioned earlier, boys' voices start cracking.” (source)

Wow, imagine that! An inside joke about the cartoon industry in a show’s meta-episode dedicated to making fun of itself? Impossible!

I’m serious though. The episode transcript is right here. Point me to where exactly there is even the slightest hint of anyone bringing up Aang’s culture and tying his childish behavior to it.

That’s right; it isn’t there. Because that wasn’t the point. Aang’s anger did stem from feeling emasculated, but it had nothing to do with culture and everything to do with his own misogynistic attitudes. He was offended at his portrayal on an individual level. I’m not denying that the issue of oppressive nations using femininity as an insult against men of colonized nations is a very real issue, but that was never a theme present in this episode. We don’t see Aang expressing anger towards the Fire Nation, nor do we see him mention anything about culture. What we see is Aang, individually, feeling insulting that his actor is female and Aang being angry at Katara, individually, because the play suggested she felt more attracted to Zuko than him.

Trying to downplay Aang’s behavior and suggest we coddle him despite his atrocious treatment of Katara is a disingenuous reading of the episode.

Why are you reaching to make an excuse for Aang when if you’re really taking the “the point of the episode is that the play is racially demeaning the characters” angle…and why are you not bringing up Sokka? He’s portrayed as a dumb oaf who is always talking about eating meat. There is a much stronger argument to be made there about caricatures, but Sokka isn’t threatening anyone’s ship so apparently nobody cares.

And while we’re talking about caricatures, how about this crap?

Sorry, Aang stans, but this show and Aang’s character aren’t the enlightened portrayals of anti-colonialism and groundbreaking activism you think they are. It’s pretty clear from the context and the episode itself what the intention here was. It is poorly aged comedy from the early 2000s written by white Americans. And we will continue to critique that, thanks.

[old-people-like-avatar]

Netflix Avatar the Last Airbender S1 - Overall Thoughts [SPOILERS]

I am a longtime fan of Avatar the Last Airbender. I did not watch it in its original 2005 run, but I discovered it in around 2010 after my good friend R.S. recommended it to me. It's been my #1 favorite TV show ever since and I have rewatched it more times than I can count. I was cautiously optimistic about NATLA.

Now, having watched the whole first season of NATLA, and looking at the season as a whole, I think the best word to describe it is uneven. I can't say that I loved it, and I can't say that I hated it. But there were things I really liked about it and things that really did not work for me. Overall, I enjoyed watching it -- if only to dissect what did and did not work about the adaptation -- and would want to watch more.

WHAT WORKED

Everything to do with Zuko and Iroh. I found myself going back through just to rewatch all of the Zuko and Iroh-related scenes. I thought Dallas Liu really nailed Zuko -- from tantrums about his journal being stolen to incredible action sequences to the boyish vulnerability of worrying about the laces on his gauntlets. He took an iconic character and made him his own. NATLA added some incredible scenes and lines to my favorite duo: Lu Ten's funeral (coupled with orchestral version of "Leaves from the Vine"); Zuko's first war council; Iroh choosing to go with Zuko on the boat; the 41st Division; Iroh putting a blanket on Zuko. And I liked that NATLA emphasized that Iroh needed Zuko in the wake of Lu Ten's death as much as Zuko needed Iroh after his mother left.

Daniel Dae Kim's interpretation of Ozai. Ozai in ATLA is kind of one-dimensional. Daniel Dae Kim's Ozai adds a deeper layer to him in that he genuinely seems to think he's doing legitimate parenting -- even going so far as to visit Zuko after burning his face and remarking, glibly, that he'll recover ("but he'll never heal," says Iroh). It adds an even more monstrous angle to his cruelty because Kim's Ozai seems to think he's doing it for his children's own good. This post perfectly encapsulates my feelings about why I thought the agni kai between Ozai and Zuko was an excellent addition to NATLA.

Zuko/Aang. These two bonding over goat hair brushes was the scene I never knew I needed. The way Aang managed to wrest a little smile out of Zuko in that scene before Zuko blew up at him for criticizing the Fire Lord? And the way that tied into the "Compassion is a sign of weakness" scene from the agni kai? Great character work.

WHAT DID NOT WORK

Dialogue. I already observed at length my dissatisfaction with the clunky, exposition-dumping dialogue in my episode-by-episode writeups. It certainly wasn't as bad as the Movie-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but . . . there was no art or subtlety to it, and no trust in the audience. A disappointment.

The GAang did not feel like family. The lack of breathing room in the 8-episode season meant that all of the "filler" episodes that fleshed out the relationships between Aang, Katara, and Sokka were sacrificed. I am not saying NATLA needed to recapture each of the filler episodes. But they needed to build the foundational bonds between the main trio with showing not telling and they really didn't. They separated them for big chunks of 2 episodes. And, really, they just felt like traveling companions. That took all of the emotional heft out of, well, everything related to Aang, Katara, and Sokka. I mean, frankly, the kid actors did a better job establishing the "family" dynamic just by being themselves in their press interviews than the show did with the characters.

Aang did not run away from responsibility. I am not one of those people that's just mad that the show wasn't exactly like the cartoon. No. What I mean is, even putting aside the cartoon, even if you just look at NATLA itself: their own themes were undercut by never showing Aang actually running away from responsibility. Each avatar seemed to be berating Aang for doing something he was never actually shown to be doing.

Katara. I really don't think this one is on the actress. Katara felt like a fundamentally different character from ATLA's Katara. It's not to say an adaption is not allowed to have their own interpretation of a character, but... I just did not understand NATLA Katara. There was no passion, no rage, no overbearing nurturing. She was... I don't know what she was. Traumatized, yes, but nothing grew out of that trauma? Meek, until the plot demanded that she suddenly become a waterbending master without any guidance other than a waterbending scroll? The "younger sister"? More than any of the main characters, I'm not sure what NATLA was trying to say about Katara at all. And, as a result, I'm afraid the word to describe it might be uninteresting. And given that she is the heart and soul of Team Avatar, this one was really tough.

Despite the fact that a lot of NATLA did not work for me, I still enjoyed it because the things that did work for me, well, really worked. So. I'm here for all of the Zuko/Iroh scenes!

[the-badger-mole]

In the debate between pro-aang-kill-ozai and anti-aang-kill-ozai. Which side are you on and why? If it's the anti then did you like how it was done or do you picture something else?

I think I've mentioned before, but I am not inherently against Aang not wanting to kill Ozai. Some of my favorite heroes have a no-kill policy. I don't even mind the lionturtle solution itself. What I didn't like was how it was handled. There was plenty of time to address Aang's reluctance to kill before the second to last episode. I can think of three points in particular where it would've been thematically appropriate and given Aang's bland, two-dimensional character some depth.

First, right after the siege at the Northern Tribe. Aang may not have technically been the one who killed all those Fire Nation soldiers, but it couldn't have happened without him. You would think that someone who is both committed to pacifism and also the one the entire world is relying on to end a war that people have been fighting and dying in for a century wouldn't just be able to shrug off what happened. Aang did, though. Didn't even cross his mind when he was whining about people expecting him to kill Ozai.

What should have happened was the next season should've opened with Aang grappling with what happened and his part in it. He should feel guilty about it, not because he was actually wrong, but because it should feel wrong to him. Then, Katara and Sokka should comfort him and tell him he did nothing wrong. Build it up that their word are comforting him a little, then drop the bomb when they start talking about how cool it was. How amazing it was to see all those soldiers running in fear for once. How relieved they are that so many of them died. Then have Aang snap on them about the sanctity of life. He needs to be angry and hurt, and this should be the point where he decries the powers of the Avatar. He'd call himself a monster, and maybe he would call Katara and Sokka monsters, too. Then they (probably mostly Sokka) would argue with him that they aren't monsters, they're just trying to survive, and the Fire Nation is a threat to be taken out. This would be the first time it's brought up that Katara, Sokka...the entire world expect Aang to kill Ozai. I think it would be perfect as a season 2 opener. Season 1 was light and goofy, and Zuko was their biggest immediate threat. The siege raised the stakes, and season 2 should continue on that rising. Aang should also have started looking for another solution here. In the library, Aang should've asked Wan Shi Tong if it was possible to end the war without more violence. We should've seen Aang coming to terms with the fact that the world is suffering and he is the one they are looking to to save them. One thing I think the Harry Potter movies in particular did well was that shift from goofy and whimsical to darker and more frightening (as far as kids movies go) as the story went on and the stakes got higher, and the danger felt more real to the characters. Aang never gets that realization. He has moments when the danger feels real, but he's goofy and whimsical for pretty much the entire series until the plot of an episode needs him not to be.

The second place they should have brought up his reluctance to kill was DoBS. This really should've been a no brainer. Aang was loosing sleep over facing Ozai. He had his anxiety about losing- though not really what losing would mean for his friends and the world- but he didn't even consider what winning would take. If DoBS had been successful, there's no way Ozai would've been able to be taken alive. Logistically, killing him would've been the easiest, safest option. You mean to tell me no one brought it up? No one asked Aang how he was planning to take Ozai out? No, instead we get Aang proving he knows what enthusiastic consent looks like and taking away his excuse for what happened later, but nothing about Aang weighing his personal beliefs against the needs of the world. That training montage and confrontation that he has with his friends in the second to last episode should've happened here. This should've been when his tendency to run away should've been challenged, too, because half a season before he was crying about how he abandoned the world again. Now his instinct would be to run, but his friends would challenge him, calling back to that moment. They could demand that he present an alternative to killing Ozai. I don't think any of them would object to him living to stand trial, but Ozai is a rabid dog, essentially. He needs to be put down. Aang's got nothing, but not for lack of trying. When he tells his friends about all his efforts to find a non-lethal way to defeat Ozai, they are unmoved. They are at the doors of the Fire Nation, and now is not the time to be indecisive. He has to go face Ozai. And he's probably relieved when the plan fails. This whole situation would have the added bonus of skipping that first Kataang kiss because no way would Aang want to kiss Katara after her insisting he terminate Ozai with extreme prejudice.

The third place Aang's no-kill policy should've come up is TSR when Zuko asks him what he's planning to do when he faces Ozai if he's so against killing. This should scare Aang, and it should be his focus for the rest of the season. He should be more withdrawn from his friends, because with all the training he's doing (and he would still be training on all the elements because he's not that good at any of them), talks about the most efficient way to kill would be unavoidable. Katara might actually try to teach him bloodbending. Toph would just tell him that a big rock is just as effective as some fancy bending move. Zuko would be warning him about his father's ruthlessness and cunning. This would be where Aang looses his patience with his friends and insists that he's a pacifist and Ozai doesn't deserve to die. This would piss Katara in particular off because by this point, Aang knows what happened to her mother. He would get an earful about how Ozai's plan is to do to the Earth Kingdom what his grandfather did to the Air Nomads and how he's going to let millions of people die because of his refusal to kill one. Now, Aang can take off, only instead of just running away from his friends because he doesn't want to hear them anymore, he could be making one desperate last ditch attempt to find a solution that both ends the war and keeps him from having to kill Ozai. EIP could still happen in this circumstance, but instead of getting mad that he's being played by a girl, he would focus more on how eager for his death the Fire Nation is. That would come up in the argument about killing Ozai.

Now, for the lionturtle. I'm about to blow some minds. I have been vocal about my hatred of the Lionturtle/Rock of Destiny desu-ex-double team, and I do still hate it with a passion. However, as a concept, I don't mind the lionturtle. This is a fantasy adventure. You expect a bit of magical intervention. What I wanted was Aang grappling with this problem for more than half an episode. I wanted him working on a solution the entire time, starting from right after the siege. I wanted to see him take initiative. To actually think about the problem. Maybe have him specifically looking for the lionturtle. Then when it shows it, it could be because it knew Aang was looking and decided he was worthy of a meeting. Aang could still have his meeting with his past lives, and that could still go the way it did. Then the lionturtle could speak up. Instead of poo-pooing the idea of killing Ozai, it could agree that it was the most effective way to make sure that the war would end. Then, when Aang is despairing that he'd wasted all that time trying to find a different solution, the lionturtle could offer the spirit bending. But it would have to come at a cost, and it might not work the way that Aang hoped. Now Aang has to make a choice. Sacrifice something for this spiritbending ability (I'm thinking he loses his airbending, because it seems poetic) that might not have the outcome he's hoping for, or give up his pacifism- one of his few connections to his heritage- and kill Ozai. He chooses the spiritbending. Instead of the conveniently placed rock, Aang would actually have to give up his attachment Katara. I think he would be half-way there, having finally realized how little he understood her. He "loved" her because she was pretty and took care of him, but he's come to realize there's a lot more facets to her that he hasn't gotten to see because they don't fit his narrow view of her. He also understands what Guru Pathik was trying to tell him about one person not being able to replace everything Aang has lost, and he realizes how unfair to her he had been. He still loves her, but as a friend and caretaker. This will actually lead to a deeper friendship between them. Aang defeats Ozai without killing him, but now he has to deal with the loss of his airbending, which only now does he realize was a much of a connection between him and his people as his beliefs. He still has spiritbending. He can still airbend in the Avatar State, but he's effectively cut off a limb to keep his integrity. He will go the rest of his life wondering if it was worth it, especially after Ozai goes to trial and is sentenced to execution anyway. The effects of that on his children could be explored in LoK.

TL;DR I don't have a problem with Aang not wanting to kill Ozai. I just wanted to see him deal with it before the last minute. I think the show would've been better for it, and Aang would've been a more interesting character.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Elizabeth Midford

She started as just a cutie fiancée trying her best, turns out she's also a swordfighting genius, very under pressure to perform feminity in the Victorian Rose type of way. Fandom crucifies her bc she's Ciel's fiancée and they want him to be with his butler, Sebastian, the demon he sold his soul to for revenge

anime was a shitty canon divergent adaptation that butchered her character down to her "cutesy silly girly" persona, which obviously made the 2008 anime fans hate her with a passion (nothing wrong w being girly I'm just saying the adaptation made her super one dimensional) anyways fujoshis used to treat her as a villain because she's the fiance of Ciel,, who as u might know already was HEAVILY shipped with his butler, Sebastian back then (now it's kinda looked badly upon, nice tbh that ship sucks ass xD) She's a bit similar to Misa Amane from death note in the way she was treated. (Like an obstacle the yaoi ship must overcome rather than a person)

she's my silly little rabbit! i could gush about her character but i'll keep it short and just say that she's really well written and one of the best characters in the series. anyways she's ciel's fiance and she's like, rightfully annoying as any other 13 yr old girl would be but the fanbase fucking crucified her for even existing. she gets demonized for being 'annoying', but then ciel gets yaoishipped with an even more annoying guy. there is 100% an argument that lizzie/ciel is weird bc they're cousins (i personally don't ship it) but that falls flat when her detractors then ship the 13 yr old ciel with an eons old demon who Canonically looks like his father. the anime also never reached her main character development until years after its peak and that was only in a movie, so she really got the bad end of the stick here. not me though i had a giant crush on her when i was 12

Katara

Katara is constantly mistreated by the fans in favor of the Zukka ship (Zuko × Sokka.) They make her out to be mean, homophobic, and completely out of character just to add drama to the Zukka ship. In reality, Katara is very compassionate, and would never act that way toward anyone. 

Zutara was a popular ship but when zukka got popular over covid during the atla renaissance there were a million posts about how zutara was problematic while zukka was perfect usually for racist reasons. Meanwhile katara and sokka are siblings so it didn't even make sense. They did not have to be so illogically rude to her to ship zukka and it was weird

Katara is FANTASTIC I fucking love her to pieces she is so cool and yet the entirety of the ATLA fandom treats her like garbage because she “talks about her mom dying too much” (even though she BARELY does & also was parentified from a young age due to her mother’s death) and, of course, because she’s a more feminine women when compared to her counterparts. Even in the show itself she’s mistreated: she’s ALWAYS shown cooking for the rest of the gaang, doing their laundry, any ‘womanly’ task. She ends up with the guy who kissed her twice without her consent & who she never showed any real attraction to and apparently (despite being a badass warrior-doctor!!!) after the show ended she just… settled down in the South Pole and had a bunch of kids and never did anything else. She didn’t even get a statue :( Anyways during the ATLA renaissance, despite Zutara actually not being canon, people felt that Katara threatened the sanctity of the new almost entirely baseless yaoi ship, Zukka. Unfortunately for them, due to the fact that Katara and Sokka are siblings, the usual anti-Zutara arguments didn’t work as well. So they resorted to just… slaughtering her character. If she was lucky, they’d just make Katara a background character, wingwoman, &or throw her together with her canon love interest. If she was unlucky they’d do anything from make her homophobic (??) to killing her off! Fuck’s sake, she never even got a token spare-the-pairs wlw ship! Sorry for getting so heated, that whole debacle made me FUMING MAD.

[p34rl34rring]

um no nuance november: atla edition?

this was all over tiktok and ive seen some people do it here so...here we go...some of these are probably hot takes, you have been warned.

most of the fandom seems to forget that katara is a young girl with deep-seated trauma that she never truly dealt with. cut the racism and misogyny. shes not the “token straight,” shes not annoying, shes not technically the “mom friend,” she deserves a better life (and life partner) than she was given in canon.

katara’s comment to sokka during the southern raiders was harsh don’t get me wrong, but it was justified 

most of my issues with characters fall on their writing...not the characters themselves if that makes any sense

bakoda should have been canon

why didn’t katara, toph and zuko reunite in korra (they’re literally my three faves i was robbed, plus they all just seem sad...)

mako is hot

if we are talking combat, earth is the strongest element...toph can genuinely just drop a rock on someone and its over

republic city is absolutely unnecessary and frankly, stupid. capitalist propaganda :) why would you american-ize this series? im baffled

i just hope that azula got therapy and some love...her actions were outrageous but as far as we know she was conditioned by ozai to just be a pawn

katoph = best duo (friendship and fighting) in the whole show

katara is not a sister to zuko...that role is for toph

(as much as i love firelord zuko) zuko should have waited at least a few years to actually assume the position but even then i truly think he would hate it and institute a democracy

the humor did not land in for me in lok (list of tried and failed for me is meelo, bumi, bolin, varrick, eska...)

i truly did not feel any strong emotional attachment to any lok character (causing me to be pretty indifferent to most of the entirely new editions to the show)

(i think the large cast did not allow for much development for really anyone, save for korra tenzin and maybe lin?, leaving them all to be pretty two dimensional.)

more rambling under the cut (its more shippy you have been warned...)

the fanon portrayal of aang is a glorified version of the canon (you can criticize your faves!)

aang being a “bad” father in canon fits his (poorly written) character 

TAANG IS GENIUS (it makes me like aang more :)

i dont think maiko is healthy...at all (same for bolin and eska and zhu li and varrick) - bottom line: bryke cant write relationships

building on that it felt weird for zuko to change throughout book 3 for him only to revert back to his old life in the finale by staying with mai

sokka and suki are the only valid canon couple

also why is everyone so quick to be “oh suki is bi!!” but so much of this fandom feels the need to say “no, katara is the token straight she can’t be bi...” it seems so silly to say but katara hatred is so normalized in this fandom and it makes me so upset. literally everyone would be fucking dead if it werent for her i love my queen fuck y’all

kanna would not have gone back to pakku

MAILEE BITCHES

why are most zukka shippers women...food for thought

peace by taylor swift is a zutara song...zukkas dont even try to claim that

zutara works...it just seems like antis forget that these two characters (even if it is not explicitly romantic in atla) have such a strong bond. they listen, care, and look out for one another...and bottom line they see each other as equals. (also watch the second half of tsr again...they play off each other and work so well together)

this fandom demonizes zutara shippers for absolutely no reason while completely disregarding actual problematic issues that occur throughout the rest of the fandom

suki in the comics is practically a katara stand in

makorra felt like an attempt to appease the zutara shippers (it failed immensely)

should we love kuvira as much as we do? should we be shipping her with korra...?

in canon it does make sense that sokka could have been suyin’s father, but where did suki go? were they hinting that zuko and suki had izumi, meaning that sokka and suki broke up? but WHY? they were literally perfect with absolutely no complication in canon...tldr: post-atla is so ridiculous

i think this feels salty...and i went on for too long...i needed to get that out...um...

[army-of-mai-lovers]

@katarahairloopies thank you so much for the tag!! talking about my writing to procrastinate writing is one of my favorite hobbies <3

prompt-share your: 

first fic: the actual first fic I ever wrote was a pjo self insert fic I wrote in a binder when I was eleven and shredded six months later, in which the whole love triangle plot between Leo, Frank, and Hazel was resolved in three pages because even then I hated love triangles, my self-insert proudly declared that they were “too smart to date” (this was the excuse I was using at the time to escape the fact that I was a lesbian), and the completely un-child friendly myth of Philomena and Procne featured heavily because it was the coolest thing in the Mythology Book For Adults That Little Arthur Should Have Never Got Their Grimy Little Hands On, among other things. the first fic I ever posted was a 1D self-insert fic that I regret deeply. 

favorite fic: ughhhh this is so hard I think it’s a tie between let him fly, victory lap, and like ripples, like love. let him fly was really important to me to write because the way the kataang family was portrayed in lok felt like a horrible twisted funhouse mirror version of my own family, and I knew that a lot of other mixed folks were upset by that portrayal, so I wanted to do something that showed Tenzin growing up with both Water Tribe and Air Nomad influences. honestly that’s the fic I’m proudest of, because I got feedback from a lot of other mixed folks saying that they felt seen by what I wrote, which is really all I’ve ever wanted. victory lap I love because I love writing and reading character study fics of characters who don’t get to do much on their own in the show, and I just love the concept of deconstructing the perfect badass Suki whomst we all stan and making her an actual human being. And like ripples, like love just makes me feel good, honestly. Writing it puts me in a good mood, and none of my other profoundly depressing wips do that quite as well. 

EDIT: ok I think the original intent of this question was favorite fic that someone else wrote fjsdkfjsdjfklsjf my bad. for me it’s between Hooked by @listless-brainrot, Balance My Heart in the Palm of Your Hand by the lovely sukis_fans on ao3, where the stars do not take sides by WitchofEndor on ao3, and paint it red, they’ll cover it up anyway by snowandfire on ao3. Hooked I love because it’s the original Jetru fic and because it’s one of the most nuanced characterizations of both Jet and Haru that I’ve seen in any fic ever, also List’s descriptions are phenomenal, also BRUH THE FRAMING DEVICE ok listen framing devices are so easy to mess up and List just made his perfect the rest of us can all go home I guess. Balance My Heart is to this day my favorite mailee fic, I’m obsessed with it it’s so sweet and so well thought out. The author pays so much attention to Mai and Ty Lee as characters and also!!! Mai and Sokka friendship!!! we stan!!!! where the stars do not take sides is honestly a fandom classic (or should be, anyway). Y’all know I love a good major canon divergence and this is honestly one of the most well thought out ones I’ve ever seen. Also the characterization of Azula and of Azula and Zuko’s bond is INCREDIBLE. god-tier content honestly. paint it red is also something that should be a fandom classic and really readjusted my opinions of Jet as a character with its well thought out characterization. I love the concept of past jetko when it’s not “Jet was a total asshole and Zuko was perfect in every way” and paint it red ABSOLUTELY delivers on this it is so wonderful. A common thread with all of these is that they prioritize characterization over “ship dynamics” and they make sure that all of their characterizations are nuanced and three dimensional, and I love them for that. 

most recent fic: love will always find you, the second installment in the donnaverse (in which the girls of Avatar inexplicably love Donna Summer and start a band together), which is about Yue and Suki going on their first date. There’s lots to love about this fic for me: it’s yueki (my favorite atla wlw ship), there’s a philosophical discussion of a Donna Summer song as they drive through LA, Suki backstory, background mailee, just good vibes all around. 

fic with the most notes: like ripples, like love by far, but my most popular fics on ao3 are the greatest of them all (in which Toph and Bumi I duel and become besties) and keep the world at bay (Avatar Sokka) 

a line or two from a wip: what I’m currently working on for atla femslash week-

She’d never needed anyone before, and she didn’t want to need anyone ever again. It was torture, picturing Yue’s face without being able to see her for real. 

Just one night. Only one night. 

How do you know? 

The moon always comes back. 

Suki felt the tears roll down her cheeks, the dry sobs wracking her body as she hid her face in her chest. I don’t know. I don’t know.

favorite character to write for (and why): Mako 100%. I vibe so hard with the tired older sibling with several undiagnosed mental illnesses energy he gives off. 

character(s) you find hard to write: I hate to say it but Katara. I love her to pieces but I have no clue where to start with her characterization wise, which is why if she’s in a fic she’s usually not the pov character and she’s sidelined more than I would like her to be. 

tagging: @listless-brainrot @the-hot-zone @miannmian @scrtminlikesdrawing and anyone who wants to!

[jaxsteamblog]

Aurora

Click here to read the full fic on AO3

And it was over.

Zuko took time to help her move during the week and on Saturday, Sokka closed up the Ice Blossom and drove the big truck to move the pieces she couldn’t break down. In the evening, as she washed away their sore muscles, they all sat at Katara’s kitchen table and shared the various cartons of take out.

They ate by candlelight as the electric company had not switched over her account like she asked.

It was awkward for more than that, as they all knew what the next day was.

Katara’s summer was over, though there was still a week left before her classes began. All of them were about to head up to the North Pole for the Avatar’s debut and, even worse, the Fire Lord was coming along.

They slept over and in the morning, they went together to the airport. Despite the impending three day ordeal, their luggage was light. All of their fancy attire would already be there and waiting for them.

Flying to the North Pole was a lot easier for Katara, mostly due to the fact that they boarded a private plane. Iroh met them at the airport, coordinating with Zuko about when they would be meeting up with Azula and the Fire Lord.

The thought that she would soon be face to face with the man behind her mother’s death was, for the lack of a better word, odd. The degrees of separation between the Fire Lord’s order and Kya’s death passed through so many people, it was difficult for Katara to connect the two. Still, having to meet him made her feel queasy.

Everything was moving so fast, and Katara took her first breath of the day on the plane. It was as if the past few weeks had swept by her in a gust of wind. Her head spinning, Katara gripped her armrests and tried to focus on the small porthole window.

Hopefully the next five days would pass quickly and without incident.

Multiple cars were parked on the tarmac and their plane taxied slowly over to them. A stairway was wheeled over and as the door to the plane opened, the cars similarly opened. Most of them were guards, but Hakoda stepped out of one, smoothing down the sleeves of his parka.

“Hey, there they are!” Hakoda greeted as Sokka and Suki emerged from the plane. “Let me see my soon to be daughter-in-law!”

Katara followed after them and watched as Suki hugged her father. She hesitated before walking over and was distracted by a loud calling. Looking around, Katara finally peered upward, shielding her eyes from the sun still clinging to the horizon.

A Sky Bison banked and landed in a turn, facing the rest of them and stomping some of its tree trunk legs.

“Hi Katara!” Rohan’s voice bellowed from over the Sky Bison’s head. There was a flurry of orange as multiple people jumped down using their airbending.

Still breathing, Katara smiled. It didn’t seem likely that the time would pass slowly now.

It was dark when Zuko found her.

A dinner was being held for just the guests of honor, and drinks were being served. The Avatar was in conversation with Arnook and Tenzin, while the Fire Lord was standing with her father, Iroh, and Azula. It was too much and, with dinner still yet to be called, she had to escape.

It was the end of summer, so the North Pole was heading quickly into the dark season. The sun was only up for a few hours and lingered at the horizons, but evening fell quickly. So it wasn’t surprising that Katara stood in twinkling darkness before suppertime.

“I am not used to it being this dark but not feeling tired.” Zuko said as he walked up to her. Most of the building was made of wood and stone, but the balcony was pure ice. Zuko looked uneasy as he stepped on it, despite the grit the architect had added.

“It’s worse when the sun doesn’t go down at all. My bending is all out of wack then.” Katara replied.

“Sounds like Firebender perfection.”

“Don’t like the moon?”

“I prefer the ocean.”

Katara rolled her eyes and turned, crossing her arms on the railing just as Zuko stood next to her. He, like every other Firebender that came to the Poles, was dressed lightly. It was a mark of weakness if they needed arctic clothing, and while Katara understood that their inner fire kept them warm, it also greatly annoyed her.

It was as if they were saying they were better suited to living in her home than she was.

“So the Avatar seems nice?” Zuko offered. Katara glanced back briefly and nodded.

“She is. She definitely seems interested in being your friend.” She said.

“It surprised me too. I wasn’t prepared for her to get political so quickly.” Zuko replied. “But she wants Azula to teach her firebending.”

“You’re kidding!” Katara scoffed and Zuko smiled.

“It makes sense. If she cozies up to me, it gives me a leg-up on the global stage. But by having Azula be her teacher, she doesn’t risk ticking off my father too much.” He explained.

“About him…”

“What?”

“Does he always look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like he has a rod jammed up his backside but instead of taking it out, he just gets offended that you haven’t impaled yourself?”

A laugh burst from Zuko and he quickly covered his mouth.

“That is definitely one way to put it.” He said.

“I can find other ways.” Katara offered and Zuko chuckled.

“I’d rather you not.” He said.

They stood in silence, looking out over the snowy courtyard. Everywhere she looked was snow and ice. With no humidity, the lampposts and streetlights didn’t glow, but stood like beacons of crisp white brilliance. The snow and ice itself glowed, coloring the light blue.

When it got truly dark, people would begin to carry around lanterns that were as old as their tribe.

“I hate being here.” Katara said suddenly and Zuko faced her.

“As in tonight or just in general?” He asked.

“In general.” She shook her head and tucked some of her hair behind an ear. “It reminds me of horrible things, yet I spend all of my time needing to go to the Oasis.”

“Then let’s go.” Zuko said.

“And be late to dinner?” Katara asked.

“Let’s cause a scandal. I don’t really want to eat with my father.” He replied. Smiling, Katara took his hand.

“We can be quick.” She said and pulled up a massive ice ramp from the snow on the ground.

Katara raced them both around the palace and to the high walls that guarded the Oasis. Out of respect, Zuko insisted they use the door and the guards let them pass. It was going to be hard to deny Katara entry when she harbored a link with one of the spirits being guarded.

Zuko seemed in awe of the place and Katara watched peacefully as he walked around. She went to the pond and sat down, not looking at the fish beside her but neither was she ignoring them.

After marvelling at the plantlife, Zuko walked to her and sat next to her.

“How do you feel?” He asked.

“Calm.” Katara said with a smile. She then grinned and leaned toward him.

“Want to see something weird?” She asked. Zuko only nodded and Katara sat back, putting her hand into the pond.

She couldn’t see it, but the look on Zuko’s face told her what was happening.

“Whenever my link to La is active, my hair turns black.” She said.

“But at the beach-” Zuko started, still staring at her hair.

“My hair was wet, you wouldn’t have noticed it.” She said and then turned to look at the fish. As they swam by, Katara put out her hand and let them pass under. Their scales felt like silk.

It was while she looked down that she saw the reflection of the sky.

“Zuko.” She said with a gasp and looked up, pointing as she did.

Green light spilled over the dark sky like trickles of water. The lines themselves also bled upward, illuminating a three dimensional space that made the vast sky a maw of darkness. The lights shimmered and Katara turned, lying on her back to watch them. Zuko joined her on the grass, his hands under his head.

“Now that is cool.” He said.

“Everything is so beautiful here, I wish I was happier.” Katara murmured.

“Are you not happy?” Zuko asked.

“I am, right now.” She said and turned her face. She was looking at Zuko’s scar and felt impelled to reach out. His eye fluttered, but he didn’t move away and Katara lightly touched the burn. At her touch, he closed his eyes and Katara rolled onto her side.

“I think here, of all places, I could heal you.” She whispered.

Zuko smiled.

“No. Right now, I’m happy too.” He said.

Katara took back her hand and leaned over as he opened his eyes. Zuko reached up with one hand, putting on the back of her head as she dipped in to kiss him. As her lips met his, she turned herself, and he sat up, holding her. They curled around each other as Katara ended up with her arms around his neck; his wrapped around her middle.

As they broke apart, Katara felt her arms pull against him and he pushed her up.

“We should probably go to dinner.” He murmured.

Sighing, Katara rested her forehead against his.

“Fine.” She put down an arm and pushed herself up, allowing Zuko to stand.

“May I escort you, your Highness?” He asked, offering his arm.

Katara only stuck out her tongue before linking her arm with his.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

[lunariaan]

Voltron: The Legendary Let Down

Warning, if you couldn’t tell from the title this is a major spoiler.

So like, Princess Allura, beautifully flawed, gracious, forever learning and just so damn beautiful Princess Allura deserved better. Why is it that our only Black/Dark-Skinned female character dies  at the very end of the series? She really didn’t have to die to save those realities, heck, Honerva should have really been the one to sacrifice herself as a sign of redemption.

Some people may not see why the colour of Allura’s skin seems to be an issue for me but I’ll explain. The first ethnically black fantasy princess I ever saw was Layla/Aisha from Winx Club, I never imagined myself or anyone like me could be ‘fantastical’ in a sense, so seeing Aisha as a princess and a guardian fairy of her realm is comforting in a way. Allura’s characterisation was so real, so relatable and I felt very connected to her character as a dark-skinned leading female character with obvious black features who can be seen as a superhero, a leader, a redeemer and a 3-Dimensional character with feelings and emotions and desires. 

Then to top it of her relationship with Lance (though I don’t really ship anything I understand people’s views of it being one-sided) deserved better. Some of my pet peeves in TV (live-action or animated) is that black presenting characters never end up in relationships with other black presenting characters/brown skinned characters and right now, the ‘Black Love’ issue is predominant in my community so to see it emphasised in a show was comforting (i.e. Avatar Korra and Mako/Asami, Katara and Avatar Aang). Plus with Lance being light-skinned and Allura being significantly darker than him also helped with this ideal of black men date light skinned women and it’s never shown in reverse.

Allura deserved to experience the beauty of the new reality just as much or maybe more than anyone in the lead cast, so can one of the writers really tell me why she couldn’t? I just feel sad, she became a sacrifice, a scapegoat, or a martyr, she should have been a living legend not a fading one.

I am not saying this happened because of her ethnic comparisons, but it hurts all the same.   

edit: THEY DIDN’T EVEN HAVE THE AUDACITY TO MAKE HER QUEEN?????????????????

[ravenvsfox]

Hey Meghan. Have you seen season 7 of Voltron yet? I'm seeing a lot of mixed reviews. I watched it and was disappointed in some ways (though not surprised), and a little bored at parts (parts of it reminded me of the politics of Order of the Phoenix), and I loved some other parts. Cosmo for MVP this season. But what was your take (if you watched it)?

Okay holy shit!!! I literally just finished it this instant right now and I have many many thoughts if you’ll indulge me

(obviously there will be spoilers below so uhhh....... watch out)

Firstly I want to be clear that like everyone’s critiques of this season?? beyond valid. so absolutely justified.

I’m mostly disheartened to my bones that the writers think they exist in a creative vacuum that’s somehow out of reach of the bury your gays trope, and that they assumed hyping up a two dimensional gay character destined for death would be.... okay

“here’s a dead gay man that we did not mourn for nor care about plEASE clap”

plus I don’t like.. care about allurance and I thought it was boring and unnecessary lol but like it is what it is and I’m not surprised by it

I think their relationship scans the same way that Aang and Katara’s did in atla, you know? like they’re together bc they’re both..... there.... blue and pink, boy likes girl, girl gives in eventually (when OBVIOUSLY zuko would’ve been a better and more interesting match for katara 👀👀)

making allura a blushing schoolgirl who’s like.. forgotten lotor I guess?? weird. making keith seem straight??? curveball. homophobic

All that said though? I love love loved this season I thought it was hopeful and rallying and emotional and connective

Here are some of my favourite things!

- Shiro and Keith’s brotherhood is such a key emotional force and seeing a vulnerable furious rebel find himself a family and a purpose all at once was SO  effective 

- Keith is a superb leader, like. everything about him is beyond s1 keith’s wildest dreams. He fosters emotional connections and commands respect, he’s a mama’s boy and a deeply awkward friend as well as being the utter coolest and thinking so quickly on his feet that he’s a blur my dude

- the war feels like a war!! there are such interesting stakes, military proficiency with a healthy dollop of alienness and magic, quirky pilot personalities, interpersonal drama, and endurance of human spirit. When it’s the Earth on the chopping block everything seems more frantic and flawed and personal

- I totally get what you mean about kinda boring politics, but it actually felt the most compelling to me of any season’s shop talk, maybe because there were familiar faces on home turf, and we got to see the way the Holts or Iverson or Veronica worked through their fear and hope

- I loved that there was some lost time, I love that people grew up and grew apart, the implications of time flushing out years and lives from the resistance instantaneously

- now like.. the paladins are unquestionably soldiers, saviours, legends, and they’re also kids who will never really know how old they are?? like they’ve suffered all of this loss and blinked in and out of existence, and when they face Earth again, both they and their home are unrecognizable, and everyone is struggling but also more capable than they ever thought possible

- Hunk is the bravest gd kid and he got to actually hear and feel and understand that (Keith is so fatally honest and wildly action-driven that I think it was critical that he was the one to tell Hunk his worth as a soldier). He has incredible ideas and unshakeable heart and he went from relating to Romelle to relating to Keith? like from poking fun at his own fear to understanding that bravery and terror are two sides of the same coin

- Allura wrestling malfunctioning technology to the floor and gifting altean tech and being metal as fuck but also embodying this steady kind of gentleness?? unreal. give her more interesting lines.

- I heart Coran, my alien kiwi dad

- all of them being vulnerable and sleepy and bored and confused, roadtripping and participating in a game show and spiralling out into hallucinations in space. interesting arcs for interesting kiddos

- Pidge is a child in the war of a lifetime and we got to see her vulnerability and brilliance coexisting in the same scenes. When she leapt out to hug her mom with all four limbs and when the Atlas was under attack and she like whimpered ‘dad?’ she was so so young we really weren’t allowed to forget it

- Cosmo (Kosmo??) you’re absolutely right, a true MVP, head and shoulders above the rest of the animal sidekicks, my apologies to mademoiselle kaltenecker. That scene where lance guides keith & pidge through guarded terrain and they teleport around on the back of a wolf? TIGHT as HELL

- everything about lance, everything everything

- the way he always stands up for his friends first, before anyone else, with that determined mouth of his, “don’t you touch her”, the way he thinks mixed heritage and leadership are the future, the singleminded tenderness for and reliance on keith as “team leader” even though it makes him second in command

- his pristine marksmanship, the focus and seriousness and planning, his ease in battle scenarios, slapping down a shield in front of Veronica to free his arms for fighting or swinging out a rifle to cover Keith’s back, the way war looks on him

- and the way it isn’t all of him!! his gnawing worry for his family, the way you can see him shrug off his trauma when he sees them again, how much kids and animals adore him, his willingness to die for his cause or his sister or his people, self sacrificing over and over again without hesitation, looking so sad and grave when no one’s looking

- his strength at Keith’s side, their constant fizzing energy in battle, their trust in each other, turning their bayards in tandem and creating magic together, voting each other out of purgatory

- (calling him the dumb one is patently untrue and pretty shitty in general lol)

- Veronica? exactly perfect. strong and annoyed and fierce. The only person who makes sense to be lance’s sister, so exasperated and kind and willing to die

- Shiro’s gorgeous character design, his blinding strength, (like..... he shouldn’t have to be this strong and he should’ve gotten big gay married and never been hurt again but) his expression when he finds himself at the helm of a sinking ship and the sheer grit that allows him to win anyway

- his victory is (as always) borne from his generosity for the people he loves and always always believes in

- the last episode?? the coalition of survivors, Shiro’s rousing speech, the sweeping music, the way everyone looked at ruin and division and got immediately to work? hurts. exactly the right emotional punch. 

- unity, shiro says. unity, the universe echoes.

[salzspektrum]

top 5 fave atla moments!

the entire show

the entire show

the entire show

the entire show

the entire show

okay for real tho, this is probably gonna be a really long reply since atla is my fave thing ever sooo let’s go! this is in no specific order bc omg I can’t put this in an actual order…

the final agni kai between azula and zuko: for me, this was the emotional weight of the entire finale. while I did enjoy the entire finale a lot, this specific fight just felt so real to me. it felt so personal to watch these two siblings fight each other, one of them falling apart mentally while the other finally has a clear mind after years of hurt and confusion. the music is absolutely beautiful and the animation is fucking stunning. it feels so tragic, knowing that if things were different, they might actually get along but well that’s the tragedy behind it…idk this entire thing just makes me so emotional since I love both of them haha

katara refusing to kill yon rha: this entire episode showed so much of katara’s strength and I admire her so much for it. the amazing thing about this episode tho was that the writers didn’t tell the viewers which way they should feel about this. they didn’t say “forgiveness is key, revenge is bad and senseless” but they showed the harsh reality. sometimes you can’t forgive and while it may not be healthy, it is the reality. this episode showed such a unique approach to this moral dilemma: katara didn’t end up killing him but she also didn’t end up sympathizing with him. he was pathetic, she told him so, they didn’t show us any good sides to this man because we didn’t need them for this story. this is katara’s story of loss and character strength and I feel like this 20 minutes episode managed to balance it out in a way that most liveaction shows can’t manage and I respect that so much.

leaves from the vines: I’m crying just at the thought of this man, I am so fucking weak for tragedy it’s pathetic. look the entire episode was awesome but iroh’s part is objectively the best (like everyone agrees here). his part shows him walking around town being a gentle and kind-hearted man and in the end we get this heartbreaking scene with him celebrating his dead son’s birthday aw fuck my life I’m gOnNa CrY

the campfire scene in The Beach: I am one weak ho for this episode but especially for this scene. it not only shows how conflicted and unhappy zuko was at that point of his life but it also gives a glimpse into mai and ty lee’s psyche and shows us that they aren’t one-dimensional characters either. it also gives us a glimpse into azula’s own fears and insecurities which was a great set-up for the finale imo. it feels very teenage-angst breakfast-club but I love it and I love these characters lol

sokka and toph in the final battle: okay apparently 4/5 of my fave things are from book 3 but this was so great and sad and when I watched that scene with them holding on for dear life I was so fucking tense. like toph couldn’t even sense her surroundings but she held onto sokka bc she trusted him and they couldn’t do anything else. imagine being toph and being in this deadly situation and not being able to do anything about it. imagine being sokka, already hurt, holding your friend knowing if you made one wrong move your friend would fall down and die, trying to fight but the enemy has the clear advantage. just….both their faces when they realized that that was it, they would die..thanK FUCK FOR SUKI OH MY GOD

Bonus: the entire show, bc these are only a few of the 346543 moments that I love

Ask me my top 5 ___

[old-people-like-avatar]

Netflix Avatar the Last Airbender -- S1E3 Omashu Review [Spoilers]

Episode 3 of the show was noticeably weaker than the first two, unfortunately.

THE GOOD

Appa, yip yip! The way Gordon Cormier's face totally lit up when he said this was just pure joy and the embodiment of Aang.

Commander Zhao: I continue to be interested in Zhao's failure in officer training and scheming/conniving. More of this please.

Fire Nation resistance: I appreciated the introduction of the idea of Fire Nation rebels, planting the seed that not all Fire Nation citizens are bad. I also liked that Azula was instrumental in rooting them out and destroying them. Because of course she would be. And of course Ozai would roast them all alive.

THE I-APPRECIATED-WHAT-THEY-WERE-DOING-BUT-NOT-SURE-THEY-PULLED-IT-OFF

Jet/Katara: There was a lot to like about this dynamic. Jet had swagger. He had decent lines. "That's the price of freedom." They also had a good scene where they shared their pain and Jet helped Katara access her feelings for waterbending. But the "innocent people are going to die" line really didn't land with me because, well, no one died in the explosion we saw earlier in the episode. The explosion seemed kind of... small?

It makes no sense that Zuko/Iroh went to Omashu. I like seeing Zuko and Iroh together and seeing their dynamic develop. And they probably needed to get these characters there to set up later developments. But story-wise, in universe, it makes absolutely no sense that they went into an Earth Kingdom stronghold. Like what?

THE BAD

Clunky, terrible dialogue continues: "I just want to help people!" "One person at a time!" Wince.

Teo/Mechanist: Wooden, wooden, wooden. I hated all of their lines. All of them. These characters were flat and less than two-dimensional.

My cabbages: I love the Cabbage Merchant, but he just did not translate here in the live action. "My cabbages" felt totally off and like random pointless fan service, which it was, sadly.

UNKNOWN

Azula and sibling rivalry...? "He's done the impossible." Not sure whether this will pay off, but they have framed Ozai as playing Azula and Zuko off each other and Azula to be motivated by sibling rivalry. It's a different take and I am interested in seeing where it goes.

Zuko: Dallas Liu is doing an admirable job. I like what the actor is doing with the role. But... character Zuko thus far has not done much to earn cred with the audience. He's threatened to kill both Sokka and Katara in a rage. So far he's fully in villain camp with not much shading. Am willing to let this continue to play out before judging.

Onto the next one...

[flameysaur]

So. This is going to be a rant about the most topical of subjects: the ending of Avatar: The Last Airbender!

This is something I discussed with @harunohoe but I remember when Avatar finally ending there was a lot of bitterness. Now I’m in the zutara side of that shipping war. (The right side.) But there was a lot of bitterness among people I talked to that had little to do with the ship. It felt like it did, because Katara centered the discussion, but it wasn’t. Later, when Harry Potter ended, I noticed an interesting echo, and I think it comes from the same place.

The finale for Avatar: The Last Airbender felt wrong with the rest of Season 3. It had the same feel, scope and depth as season 1. Season 1 was epic. It’s easy to forget because seasons 2 and 3 so blew it out of the water, but Season 1 was large. It was deep. It had pathos and engagement and fun. If the finale had come at the end of Season 1, I don’t think a lot of people would have the feeling that something was off the way they did when it came at the end of season 3. I think this because I think the finale was written before episode one ever hit the air.

(This is a good thing, btw. When writing serial fiction with a solid end point, you need to know what the end is if you want to keep working towards it. That’s how you avoid ended up in the reeds with no way back except how you got there in the first place.)

But things changed. The Avatar crew was very vocal in they changed things in response to fan criticism. (The amount of female characters in season 2, for example.) And that change included adding depth and character struggles that were so much more than season one Avatar. Especially in season 3 which dealt with adult themes of redemption and darkness with a maturity that I’ve never seen in an adult show. The biggest examples being: Katara’s flirtation with murder and Zuko’s redemption.

Katara is a dark female lead. It’s easy to forget, because she’s the Mom Friend(tm) and she’s so loving and she’s the healer but Katara is also a person that about a month after promising to never use bloodbending again, USED IT. She premeditated an attack to use it and she used emotional blackmail to carry out that attack. Katara has, from season 1, put her friends first, but her feelings before that. She wants to do what’s right, mentally. But emotionally? Katara wants what Katara wants. It’s a complex side of female characters we do not get in fiction. That someone can be both the light and the dark. She is the moon, always shifting between the brightest and darkest points during this very long night.

Then you get Zuko, the masterfully written redemption of a character. I don’t think anyone can argue that Zuko’s change from one dimensional whiny villain to desperately trying to redeem himself boy wasn’t amazing. You could argue it’s the best thing written for television, never mind a kid’s show. And his redemption. His confrontation of his abuse. Him receiving everything he ever asked for and realizing it wasn’t what he needed, then taking the steps to fix his mistakes. All that was beautiful and complex and hard and understated within the show. Which is perfect. The show trusted us with knowing more than they told us, and that’s hard to do.

Both Katara’s darkness and Zuko’s redemption were confronted the most during season 3. They told us this show understood moral complexities without losing its optimism. Katara didn’t kill because she couldn’t. Zuko did the right thing because he wanted to. For all the greyness of them and their actions, they chose the light. Which, again, isn’t something you’re likely to get on an adult show.

Then we have Aang.

One of my, and many people’s, biggest complaint with Aang in the finale was the spiritbending/stripping of bending power. I remember watching a lot of people discuss the morality of that choice. How it wasn’t “better” then killing. How it was more evil and Aang was wrong to do it. And I don’t agree. It was a fight to the death and Aang found an option that wasn’t death because he chose his morality over the easy answer. That should be a good choice. It should be powerful. It should be the culmination of everything Aang has grown to be.

But it wasn’t. Because Aang lost nothing in making the choice.

Season 3 showed us again and again that it was morally complex. This theme continued with Aang realizing everyone expected him to kill Ozai.

(Tangent! This was also something I saw people complain about. I don’t think anyone, really, had an issue with Aang being anti-killing Ozai, but it does not make sense that the death didn’t come up before it did in season 3. Death rules this world. Reminder: Katara was a small child, eight, when she watched her mother get murdered in her own home. That means, from young childhood, Katara knows death can come to anyone and from anywhere. Sokka likewise, was ten, maybe eleven, when his father left to fight in the war. Sokka declared himself a man and asked to go with him. He was a CHILD. And he wanted to go KILL people. That’s brutal. He only agreed to stay because his father framed it as needing him to protect the villiage. Sokka has, since young childhood, decided that his job is to kill to protect his family. Death is a part of these kids in a way most first world people will not understand. You think Sokka or Katara would use “stop” and “destroy” every time they discussed the finale battle? No. They’d use kill. And Aang would have had to have the debate sooner than the last quarter of season 3. End tangent.)

Aang’s character arc, from episode one, is a painfully simple conflict between Want and Need. In writing, the easiest way to create tension in a story is to have your characters Want a Thing, and they do whatever it takes to get that thing, but they Need something different. And if that Need conflicts with their Want, then bam! You get instant story tension.

Aang wants to be Aang from day one. He wants to be the fun loving monk boy who doesn’t hurt anyone, gets along with everyone and always had a hand outstretched. He wants the world to support this boy. He wants to be a child who helps people and travels and makes friends everywhere and has no care greater then taking care of Appa or what his next prank is.

Aang needs to be the Avatar, savior of the world, master of all four elements. In a world that’s desperately unbalanced, he needs to find and maintain balance. Not just in himself, but in everyone around him. He needs to know not only how to solve surface issues, but the deeper issues that arouse from a 100 years of war and conflict.

And in all three seasons, Aang turns down being the Avatar for being Aang. We get told this rather blatantly in the season 2 finale. His love for Katara is holding him back from becoming a fully realized Avatar. And one thing this show fails at in all this telling, is it fails to show it’s not about Katara the person, but Katara the representation of the love he’s found in this time. Aang failed at being an Avatar before the show began because of this same love. They were going to take his beloved master away from him, and so he ran away. Now, a hundred years later, and everything a hundred years worse, he’s making the same choice. His love, his heart, over his duty. Aang doesn’t want to kill the boy in service to the Avatar.

(And if the show focused on this rather than if Aang could totes bang his first crush, we’d not be left feeling that Katara is a rather literal prize that Aang is fighting for, but instead Aang choosing between his humanity and his destiny.)

Now we return to Season 3. Aang has lost contact to his Avatar spirit. But he’s growing closer and stronger with these people he surrounds himself with. By being himself, Aang has formed a family that is as diverse as he has always wanted. He has Zuko, Sokka, Katara, Toph, Suki, and more allies always reaching out to him. Aang has gotten his want, and he thinks he has married it with his need. He is both a boy who is Aang and the Avatar who is going to save the world. He did it. And in the finale we got...yeah. That’s it. Three quarters into Season 3, Aang stops growing as a character and he never starts again.

But here is where things should have changed. Aang has achieved balance, he thinks. He’s not a fully realized Avatar, but he shouldn’t have to be. Being the Avatar in this world is more about being the spiritual guide to the world, the one person who is not attached to any one country and so can help lead them all to balance. Aang can do that as he is. He already has! He has brought balance to his friends and united a group of people from around the world to join him and believe in him. And it can all stay that way.

But he has to kill Ozai.

We remember, I’m sure, the scene where Aang talks to his past lives and they all say, “Yeah, no, smoke the asshole. Kill him dead.” And that was a weird scene. It was supposed to be a dark moment, before Aang figured out a third answer, but...he...didn’t. He talked to a lionturtle, we don’t see what really happens, and then end of show, BAM! Magic answer from no where.

What should have happened, what would have been stronger, is if he’s told in all his lives, there is faint memories of a non-lethal option. He can find and learn that option, but only if he becomes a fully realized Avatar. Aang knows he can’t. He doesn’t want to pay the price, his heart, his self, for that. So his past lives agree. That’s fine. You can do that. You can do everything you’re supposed to do and never reach that finale pinnacle. Many Avatars, great Avatars, never get there. You are best as you are, Aang.

But you will have to kill Ozai.

That’s the cost here. Kill the boy, or kill the man.

And I want to focus on something: neither of these options are evil. Aang would have to make a choice that echoes the very first one he ever made in the series. He can chose the world or himself, but before, when he chose himself, he doomed thousands (at least) to die. This time, no matter what he does, he will save the world. He is not choosing between dooming humanity or dooming his own heart. He is choosing between his heart and his morality.

(Something that, btw, would echo Katara’s journey. She had that choice when she faced her mother’s killer. She chose her morality over her heart. Something Zuko knew she would do because she’d done it once before, with him. In the season 2 finale, Zuko and Katara had their moment and Katara offered the water from the spirit well to him to heal not a debilitating injury or to save his life, but to heal his scar. He is someone who chased her across the world and has tried time and again to kill her best friend but when he showed her weakness, her response was kindness. That’s why Zuko took her to face her mother’s killer. He knew she’d chose empathy in the end because that’s who she is. If Aang was going on this journey, Katara could be brought in to echo what Zuko did for her.)

I also want to say it is very clear what Aang would chose as well: himself. Aang has, from the beginning, been selfish. He’s caring, empathetic and giving, but he is always selfish. From day one, he put the world on hold so he could do what he wanted. The more he started to understand what the world was going through, the more he clung to what he wanted. That’s why Katara became this giant sticking point in the series. He wanted something to make all this worth it. And she, his crush, became that something. That thing he could want and have and hold. And though he and Katara are friends. Though they are best friends, he still turned her into an object in his head. Something for him to clutch to. “You can have this world, but I want this in return.”

And I think, if we confronted this head on, it would give Aang what he needed. Clarity.

Here’s the scene in this story: Aang has learned the price of his Want and his Need. To get what he wants, he only has to kill someone that everyone agrees should be killed. To get what he needs, he has to kill the part of himself that is so desperate to live. And Katara talks with him about it. She relates it to her mother’s death and what Zuko did for her. She tells him that she knows he’ll do the right thing. That he’s a good person, and a good Avatar, and that he will--

And Aang kisses her. Not on the dock before a battle. But here, in this private, intimate moment. A moment where it’s just them as they are, at their best. Friends who love each other. He kisses her and he thinks, yes, I choose this. I chose her. I will always choose her. I love her.

And Katara pulls back. Because she doesn’t love him. Because. She. Doesn’t. I don’t care if she’s kissing Zuko or not. (Though she is.) But she doesn’t love Aang. She, at best, doesn’t like it when the boy who likes her show interest in other people. And as a former fourteen-year-old girl? MOOD. Even not wanting someone, you can get pissy when their attention is given elsewhere. You feel like shit about it, but damnit, it’s yours even if you don’t want it.

Now Aang is kissing her. He crossed that line she put up a long time ago. And made his feelings clear. And her response is, at best, “Not now.” And she leaves. And Aang is alone. And Aang has to come to some realizations about himself.

He expected Katara to fall into his lap. All his stress and angst and fighting for her, he never realized that...he never asked her how she felt about it. In his head, he was fighting for his future with Katara, but it was never about Katara the person. It was always about Katara, the symbol of all his new love he found in this dark future. 

And Aang would look over his friends. He’d watch them go through the nightly routines. He’d see the joy they had (Sokka and Suki flirting casually together.) and he’d see the growth (Toph, loud as she ever is, bullying Zuko, able to take it and smile) and he’s see the darkness (Katara, alone because of him and his feelings and his choices and him not doing the blindingly obvious) and Aang will realize something.

The problem has always been him. Aang, the boy, has been the issue this entire time. The good he’s done, the good he will do, isn’t what this world needs. This world doesn’t need empathy. It needs balance. And Aang gets up. And he leaves.

He goes to the lionturtle. He learns what he needs to know. The finale battle happens. And he is still Aang, the boy. He’s hoping he can make a third choice. He’s hoping, Aang, the boy, is enough. But he isn’t Ozai isn’t willing to be anything less then ruler of the world. Aang fights. Fire, rocks, wind, water. All of it flying at him. At a pivotal point, a dagger of rock is snapped free from the ground around him. Aang throws it, and it’s aiming for Oazi’s neck. And it would kill him, but at the last moment Aang stops it.

Because he made his choice.

He will kill the boy.

And in that moment, he becomes the Avatar.

He takes Ozai’s bending. No longer a cop out “yay no death in our kids show” ending, but the price of peace. Something must die. In this case, it was Aang.

He doesn’t smile as bright after this battle, (though he does still smile.) And he doesn’t laugh as hard (though there is so much laughter to come.) His pranks are smaller (but they do still happen.) Aang still lives, but as a man, and a man who carries the lives of everyone he killed because he was a boy for too long. (And not near long enough. Spirits help him, not nearly long enough.) And he still has his love. His friends gather around him. 

The ending isn’t Aang and Katara kissing. It is Aang, held and loved by the family he formed on his journeys. The reward for Aang isn’t a girl he earned by virtue of saving the world. It is the family he made because Aang, the boy, chose mercy at every turn. Now Aang, the man, still has them. All of them. They all lived. All grew. All loved.

Aang won.

[zuzuslastbraincell]

What to you think about measure each to step to infinity overall? I remember reading it years ago and being annoyed by how Zuko was depicted in the beginning

oh boy. I read it years ago, re-read it recently (i.e. this july) and realised I’d remembered it with big rose-tinted lenses. I ended up writing a whole review of it in the drafts of a private blog, which i just posted now: i’m linking it here.

Putting bullet-point thoughts under a cut - I tear into it a bit, big warning. (Would appreciate that you don’t send this to the author, thanks.)

starting with the positive: love the way azula is characterised and develops naturally and grows. really works as a redemption arc for her.

strongly dislike that azula’s firelord by the end because i do quite honestly feel that letting go of that ambition (or ‘glory’, as the fic calls it) is crucial to letting azula heal. ties into the way i feel the author glorifies the FN a bit too much.

feel like katara’s character is massively sidelined, though, and doesn’t get nearly as much depth, forgives azula far too easily and readily, and feels really two dimensional to me? similarly i wish we had so much more water tribe stuff. i enjoyed the worldbuilding we got on that end (asides from again, how readily everyone forgave azula & the FN) and wanted more.

i feel like katara has a lot of war trauma she needs to work through & a lot of pressure on her shoulders as the last southern waterbender that needs to be addressed and could have been explored.

i also feel like the dynamic was off, katara/azula honestly should just... bicker more, they’ve got potential in spades for rivals-to-friends/lovers, wish we saw more of that shine through. again, katara felt too accommodating, too pliant, too welcoming. i wanted more fire (ironic word choice) from her. it felt like it didn’t do her character justice.

it’s just. really horrible to aang’s character. like classic character-bashing stuff, wildly out of character, turns him into a weird jealous lover, it’s just weird and bad. ends up being very dismissive of his choices & in turn trauma from genocide.

like very much feels like this fic leans too hard into the fire nation stuff and veers into apologist territory too much for my liking. i love the fire nation characters and the fire nation as a setting, but really, the culture’s militarism and love of war is not something you should romanticise or present as essential or inherent to the culture.

importantly:

all of the sex scenes were entirely unnecessary. all of them.

I fundamentally believe you shouldn’t write explicit sexual content about kids. even if they’re aged up. not necessary.

but even putting that aside for half a second, the way it was written, it was all intrusive, unnecessary, got in the way of a more compelling narrative, and the attitude to sex was so immature. the way azula and aang were compared on the basis of skill just felt very juvenile. that’s not what sex between long term partners is about, and not how you’d talk about an ex you cared about.

anyway.

more minor things:

in general, really like the way that author writes - it’s really compelling and readable

there were a lot of great scenes/moments with azula. love that she’s a dork in this. it’s a common trope, but i like how she lost her flame & had to work to regain it. love the dragon scenes. love all the fire nation politics she gets embroiled in - love political drama honestly.

in general, I really liked the fire family dynamics. iroh & azula and ursa & azula in particular were really good, really liked how it dealt with iroh/ursa and the affect that has on the dynamics. the awkward dinner scenes at the beginning were priceless imo.

i feel like zuko is portrayed as more bratty and tbh a little bit more lazy/incompetent than canon but i can mostly let it slide, honestly. he’s still young in the beginning and i liked how he did initially get mad about azula ‘stealing’ iroh from her (but got over it). like there’s a level of pettiness there that doesn’t feel too out of character, if you remember what a mess book 1 zuko was like and what potential he has to be a mess.

i’d say the author does have a tendency to flatten characters to an extent. sometimes this works - e.g. ursa’s mostly a mild-mannered and mildly homophobic mother (in a way that is quite funny honestly, the sleeve ties comment always gets me). sometimes this really doesn’t - e.g. sokka’s (limited) portrayal mostly shows him as a bit of an idiot, which I honestly really hate.

hakoda’s character was turned into a bit of a villain similar to aang, as if to present him as being mean and an obstacle for not forgiving azula/distrusting azula, when there are plenty of good reasons why a water tribe chief would distrust a princess of the fire nation. just. hated that.

(really wish the water tribe family dynamic had half the thought put into it as the fire family one)

basically, the imperialism in this fic - the way azula and her trauma was favoured by the narrative, the way katara and her trauma was sidelined, the way the fire nation was treated as a whole - just largely ruined it for me. I wanted to enjoy it more, because the great moments in this really are fantastic. it just disappoints politically and ends up failing the characters in the process.

[foxy-knowledgeseeker]

I just want to clarify the intent of this post, since I received a very thoughtful response from @firelxdykatara (found here).

This list was not meant to defend the way Katara was portrayed on-screen in LoK. I agree that her role in the show was very one-dimensional and was disappointed we only saw her through the lens of care-taker. The linked post also pointed out several valid missed opportunities (that I didn't notice or acknowledge) for Katara to act in LoK that would have been more true to her character. Honestly, representation of the whole Gaang (except maybe Toph), was either unsatisfying, nonexistent, or detrimental (see Aang). My personal stance is that LoK is not about them, so I try not to get too offended that they weren't represented three-dimensionally on-screen. We do view many of the events of the show through people 2 generations removed from them.

My list (which is explicit canon or just inferences I felt were justified based on the canon) was only meant to provide evidence to contradict the notion that Katara spent her married life to Aang only barefoot and pregnant, so to speak. I just appreciate the referenced legacy built for Katara in the comics and in how the LoK characters regard and talk about her, despite her disappointing screen time.

I highly recommend reading the linked response because it is a well written and passionate defense of Katara's character and how poorly her role in LoK was handled with some excellent insights. :)

A (probably not comprehensive) list of Katara's accomplishments following the Hundred Year War, for those who still think the creators made her out to be nothing but a trophy wife:

-finished her work as Avatar Aang's waterbending master

-played a major role in mediation of political conflict and land disputes following the war in both the Earth Kingdom and Southern Water Tribe

-helped to recover Ursa, the lost Fire Lady

-revived the near extinct Southern Style waterbending and became the master to the Southern Tribe's first new waterbenders in generations

-became a noted human rights activist by leading the movement to outlaw bloodbending

-was an internationally respected master waterbender and healer, even canonically called the greatest of her time in LoK

-demonstrated skill in non-bending forms of medicine such as midwifery and physiotherapy

-became the waterbending master for a second Avatar in her lifetime by teaching Korra both combat waterbending and healing

-was obviously a beloved and respected elder of the Southern Water Tribe

-LoK implies she is a member of the White Lotus

-until Book 3 of LoK, is the matriarch of the only existing airbenders and thus is a historical figure related to the revival of an entire culture following a catastrophic genocide

-raised* ** three amazing children who did incredible work for the world in their own right

*and yes this is an accomplishment because traditional "women's work" is important and worthy work.

**you can't convince me, after spending her youth fighting for the greater good, Katara -gentle-hearted, empathetic, mom-friend extraordinaire, for whom family was everything- wasn't perfectly happy to spend the rest of her life living peacefully as a teacher, wife, mother, and grandmother, and if that is what made her happy then she deserves it, and we don't get to judge.

[zutaralesbian]

ATLA

Top 5 favourite characters: Zuko, Katara, Azula, Toph, and AangOther characters you like: Sokka, Iroh, Suki, Ty-Lee, YueLeast favourite characters: Ozai, Zhao, and even though I don’t hate her, i’m pretty disinterested in Mai as a character. Oops.Otps: Zuko/Katara, Sokka/Suki, Aang/TophNotps: Aang/Katara, Zuko/MaiFavourite friendships: The GaangFavourite family: Zuko/Iroh and Sokka/Katara. I also think the relationship between Zuko and Azula is really interesting, but it’s toxic and not at all positive, so idk if I can say that it’s one of my favorite family dynamics lolFavourite episodes: “The Southern Raiders”, “The Crossroads of Destiny”, “The Storm”, “Zuko Alone”, “The Chase”Favourite season/book/movie: S2Favourite quotes:

“Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don’t see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We’ve created an era of fear in the world. And if we don’t want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.” - Zuko  

“You can’t knock me down!” - Katara

Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel, you can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving, you will come to a better place. - Iroh

Best musical moment: SECRET TUNNEL

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: Zuko finally deciding to join Aang. I was like “it’s about time.” 

When it really disappointed you: When it ended with Zuko asking Ozai where his mother was, only for us to never get an answer. Saddest moment: Iroh singing “Leaves from the vine” in memorial to his dead son. I still get teary eyed when I watch that scene. Most well done character death: Eh…there wasn’t very many major deaths in ATLA in general. Even Ozai survived at the end. Maybe Yue? She went out like a hero. Favourite guest star:Favourite cast member: Dante BascoCharacter you wish was still alive: I was pretty okay with the deaths that happened, even though I felt sad for Yue :/One thing you hope really happens:Most shocking twist: Finding out that Zuko was Avatar Roku’s grandson. I’m still mad that wasn’t explored more??? It could have provided some interesting material for Zuko and Aang. 

When did you start watching/reading?: Almost from the moment it first started airing. Best animal/creature: Appa and MomoFavourite location: Ba Sing SeTrope you wish they would stop using: Nothing in particular comes to mindOne thing this show/book/film does better than others: Story-telling and redemption arcs. There’s a reason everyone wants their favorite villains to get an arc “like Zuko’s”. It’s because it’s one of the best. Funniest moments: Secret tunnel and Sokka with the cactus juice. Couple you would like to see: Zuko/Katara *a thousand sighs*Actor/Actress you want to join the cast:Favourite outfit: Katara’s water tribe outfitFavourite item: IdkDo you own anything related to this show/book/film?: I own all three seasons on DVD.What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: Eh….Water tribe maybe?Most boring plotline: I can’t really think of a full arc that bored me but there were certain episodes. “The Great Divide” comes to mind.Most laughably bad moment: All of the “romantic” scenes between Katara and Aang lolBest flashback/flashfoward if any: The flashbacks in “Zuko Alone”, even though they were sad.Most layered character: Almost all of the main characters on this show are pretty layered??? But i’ll go with Zuko, just because he’s my son.Most one dimensional character: I wouldn’t say she’s one-dimensional but I feel like the writers weren’t really sure what they wanted to do with Mai at times. Scariest moment: The entire duration of “The Puppet Master” Grossest moment: IdkBest looking male: Zuko (in my lesbian opinion)Best looking female: KataraWho you’re crushing on (if any): None akndkndkjfn. They’re all children.Favourite cast moment: Every moment where Dante Basco voices how much he ships Zutara lolFavourite transportation: Appa? Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): I’m sure there is one but I can’t think of it.Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you: Zuko’s mother. And yes, it’s still a question for me because I refuse to acknowledge those awful comics as canon.Best promo: IdkAt what point did you fall in love with this show/book: After “The Southern Air Temple” aired, I knew it was going to be a deep show. 

Thanks!