#would have made so much more sense than zuko randomly getting back together with mai

[yiangchen]

okay i'm a zutara shipper through and through....however....i absolutely ADORE jinko alright??? like,,,, if jin had appeared in the atla finale as uncle iroh's first employee of his tea shop and she shared an awkward flirty moment with zuko hinting at something more happening between them in the future, just LISTEN. i would have screamed. i would have yelled. i would have been on the fucking floor. also just....imagine the look on uncle iroh's face when he tells zuko who he hired. imagine zuko's flustered reaction in front of the gaang PLEASE

[demigod4-life]

Headcanon Time! (Who bites)

So, I have this thing where if I really like you I wanna like…bite you. Just a gentle little nom on your shoulder or something. Idk, it’s probably some weird ADHD way of expressing affection but that’s what I do. So here’s who I think does that when they’re overwhelmed with love and other emotions. This is based on my favorite ships and OTPs!

Harley/ Ivy: Harley for sure does it. She’ll just randomly hug Ivy and nom on her shoulder or something. She’ll bat her eyes and go “bite?” And Ivy just sighs and accepts the little bite. She’ll do anything to give her little crazy girlfriend a bit of serotonin. Of course, sometimes she has to remind Harley to be gentle when things get a little ‘steamy’.

Percy/Annabeth; Honestly I see them both doing it at different times. Annabeth does it when stressed and Percy does it when excited. He’ll be so happy about Annabeth playing with his hair or something that he’ll just take her hand and lightly bite at her wrist. Annabeth will get stressed but instead of biting Percy she just kind of bites at herself. For instance, if she rests her chin on her arm while working on something and gets frustrated she’ll lightly bite at her arm.

Natasha(Black Widow)/ Steve (Captain America): Natasha does this for sure but more as a joke. She does it whenever they’re together and Steve does something really endearing. She just grabs his arm and bites at him. It’s hilarious to everyone else, and for a while Steve was absolutely mortified by it but now he expects it.

Thalia/Reyna: Thalia is the biter 100%. You cannot tell me otherwise. She does it completely at random without much rhyme or reason. It’s based solely on impulse. She’s a neck/shoulder biter and Reyna likes to make fun of her by calling her a “fake vampire”. Percy gets it though. It’s their little secret.

Zoë/Artemis: Yes, Artemis is the biter. Zoë calls it ‘nipping’ and is so used to it that she barely even notices it anymore. It’s hilarious though because she can tell when Artemis gets the urge and does everything in her power not to indulge in it. Sometimes when the moon goddess just can’t take it anymore she casually turns into a wolf and starts lightly gnawing on whatever body part Zoë is willing to let her have. Truthfully, Artemis even does it to Apollo at times when he lets her. Of course, he was super confused and had to ask Zoë about it.

Ty Lee/Azula: Ty Lee is full of quirky little traits so what’s one more? At first, Azula didn’t really get it but it made Ty Lee happy so she just let her do it. After a while it became so natural that Azula would just look at the acrobat and go “alright, you can bite.” Of course, Zuko thought it was really fucking weird until Ty Lee started doing it to him too. Turns out, it’s just a thing Ty Lee does for people she really likes and is super comfortable with. It actually makes Mai smile, but everyone knows Azula is the primary target of said ‘bites’.

Raven/Starfire: Guess what? They both do it. The demon half of Raven is more than happy to get away with ‘somewhat chewing’ on her girlfriend who is too strong to even notice or care. Sometimes, the little demon half of Raven’s brain likes to see how hard she can bite (within reason of course). However, it was Starfire that started this weird little love language. At first, Raven assumed it was a Tameranean thing until she discovered from Robin that it, in fact, isn’t. It’s just a Starfire thing. Naturally, Starfire was pretty embarrassed about it until Raven started doing it back. Now, it’s just a silly little thing they do to each other.

Kya/Lin: Kya is the biter and she 100% gets it from her father. Literally, it just makes sense. I don’t think I even need to elaborate. Look at her and tell me she doesn’t bite people for fun.

[loopy777]

Do you think what Mai did in Smoke and Shadow (about her father/NOS) is as evil/unforgivable as others make it out to be?

What are your thoughts on Maiko in Smoke and Shadow in general? Thank you!

For the first part, these are the same comics in which:

Zuko asks his genocidal father about how to handle international relations when millions of lives are at stake and then lies to Mai about it (The Promise, Part 2)

Zuko physically attacks Aang for saying that randomly breaking into people's houses looking for Azula probably won't work (Smoke & Shadow)

Zuko orders his guards to attack his friends instead of talking to them about their Harmony Restoration Movement not taking into account all the facts they didn't yet have when they came up with it (The Promise, Part 1)

Aang tries to murder Zuko because Zuko is trying to prevent the forced mass deportation of mixed-race kids born in the former colonies (The Promise, Part 3)

Katara forces Aang to promise to murder Zuko if Zuko ever makes a mistake (The Promise, Part 1)

So no, I don't think Mai trying to protect her family -- shortly after her brother's kidnapping by what everyone thinks are angry ghosts -- by lying about her Dad having committed treason is "evil" or "unforgivable" compared to any of our other supposed good guys. She makes a bad choice in a stressful moment with the goal of trying to protect her family and provide a good home to her toddler brother after she's already saved Zuko from her dad's treason. And I'm pretty sure she'd save Zuko again if her dad tried anything new.

Also, compare what Mai did to the first bullet point up there. Both she and Zuko lied to each other based on messed-up feelings of loyalty to their evil fathers. If what Mai did was evil, didn't Zuko also commit evil to her first?

My problem with Mai's actions is similar to my problems with all the other comics, as hinted by my bullet points: it's an out-of-character, contrived moment that doesn't make any sense in the moment and exists only to create drama in a story with a plot held together by string and bubble gum.

See, Mai is feeling bad because she thinks that her dad could have protected Tom-Tom from being kidnapped by the ghosts. That's right there in her dialogue. But why would she think that? What would her dad, who couldn't even actually assassinate Zuko right, actually do to fight off the ghosts? Does she think that the ghosts would have taken a political poll and passed over anyone who claims they voted for Ozai in the last election? Why would she think that, when Aang is right there in the room telling people that ghosts don't work that way?

To be fair, Kei Lo calls out exact what I'm criticizing- but then Mai never gives a response to it and the story moves on without addressing it again. Mai doesn't get a moment where she realizes she's being irrational; she doesn't acknowledge how she's letting her sense of guilt drive her to gloss over the truth; she doesn't even get to have her relationship with Kei Lo change based on this interaction.

Moreover, the story itself doesn't even seem concerned with his moment from her. Even though it's a mistake, it doesn't come back to bite her. Zuko merely asks why she would lie like that, and then she explains herself, and then he apologizes for doubting her and forgives her for what she did because he can completely understand.

Literally, it all goes down in exactly two panels. I wouldn't be surprised if Gene Yang actually forgot about what he did in S&S Part 2, and his editor made him insert a resolution into a mostly completed script for Part 3.

But let's take it at face value and ask why Zuko might be so willing to shrug it off?

The answer is that the story itself does not consider Mai's action evil, and maybe not even all that wrong. Or it considers intent to be more important than the actions. Or maybe everyone involved likes Mai so much that they really don't care.

It's a fairly shallow treatment of forgiveness, honestly. I consider 'Smoke & Shadow' to be a mess of a story made up of thrown-together elements that at best have nothing to do with each other and at worst get in each other's way. The whole story accomplishes nothing, leaving all the characters in the exact same place they were at the beginning. It even has Mai date and break up with the same terrorist boyfriend as she did in the prior 8-page Free Comic Book Day short (which actually told a better story).

And that's the core of my problem with how S&S treats Maiko. Mai's transgression could have been used as a springboard for them both confronting the matter of Zuko going to Ozai for advice and lying to Mai about it. We have parallel lies about fathers who don't deserve that kind of loyalty, but no one seems to notice. Both Mai and Zuko could have examined why they felt the need to tell those lies, and about how their family issues are pulling them apart. They could choose to overcome those issues and get back together, or they could tragically decide that they'll never be able to find a balance and go their separate ways forever. I'd prefer the first option, but at least the second one would still be a story.

Instead, we get some vague stuff about how Mai doesn't want to get hurt, so she doesn't want to be with someone she actually cares about. And then she breaks up with Kei Lo at the end, but is that because she's changed her mind about love, or has she actually come to have feelings for him? The story is kind of vague on it, and I see evidence that could support either reading. And since those readings are contradictory, that's not good.

About the only Maiko thing I felt satisfied with in S&S is that it establishes that Mai and Zuko both still love each other. So all a future story needs to do is address the matter of them telling lies to each other. I just don't understand why it's been 6 years and we haven't gotten that story.

So is Mai's action evil? No, it's stupid, but it's not as bad as what everyone else in these comics are doing, and it's directly comparable to what Zuko did to her in a prior comic. Does S&S treat Maiko well? Also no, because I'm not sure it realizes what I just described.

If I wanted to respond to someone calling Mai evil for her lie, I would say, "lol you're actually taking these comics seriously? go touch some grass, kid." But no one who calls Mai evil is actually using their brains for anything but justifying an existing preference. It's fair to dislike Mai or Maiko, but this kind of disingenuous garbage is what makes the whole rest of the fandom not want to be associated with Zutarians- and that's especially unfair to the nice Zutarians, who just want to enjoy their ship in peace but are treated as guilty by association with the militant fanatics.

I hope Anon dislikes S&S as much as me, otherwise this is going to be a really awkward answer.