Latest Posts by fallingstarinspace - Page 4

The grief I feel for both rhaenyra and healana is soul shattering. They both lost their babies. Luke was so pure and he deserved better. Healana should’ve married Jace. He would’ve looked at her spiders :(

THIS.

Imo blood and cheese could never have went down exactly like in the book anyways because luke's death ends up being an accident (as a result of them trying to make both teams come off as not as bad and violent as their book counterparts), in order to make team black not viciously evil (because we the audience know the circumstances of luke's death), they went with the approach of removing haelena choosing which son to kill like she does it the book. And tbh it makes blood and cheese in the show work well.

While I still don’t think it was done perfectly, the more I think about it, the more I think Blood & Cheese was done well. With no Maelor, the change to “which one is the boy” makes sense, and even Helaena offering up her necklace, which I really didn’t like at first, makes much more sense now that I think about it. Cheese(?)’s “does she look like a fucking prince to you” line and all their talk of sons makes it clear to Helaena that offering herself up is not going to do any good, and doing so might risk making them angry and just make them kill both children. So then of course she offers up her necklace, they have to be doing this for money and it’s the only thing that might appeal to them. Then, once they make it clear both kids are dying if she doesn’t tell them which one is Jaehaerys, she points to him. They know she’s telling the truth because she looks so guilty and horrified but she has no choice, at this point she can only save Jaehaera. Even her running out makes sense, being unable to watch the fate her son has been doomed to, saving who she can save and wandering around, not even being phased by Alicent and Criston because she’s so guilt-ridden and so traumatized and so stunned and so out of it that all she can do is collapse to the floor and say “they killed the boy.” Not even Jaehaerys’ name, they broke her so thoroughly that she can only speak like them. Okay maybe it was actually done well.

Every time people use ATLA as an example of progressive children's cartoons that was "unusally politically sound" I remember how there were two whole villain characters (including an orphan kid and an elderly Indigenous lady) who were victims of genocide and settler colonialism but chose to fight back and were thus rebranded in canon as terrorists for harming "innocents", as in, harming the very colonialists who have settled on their land and leeched off their resources and are definitely not in favour of the Fire Nation imperialist propaganda because they are cute little civilian folk ofc, and dont you get, the Fire Nation has good humans too 🥺🥺🥺.

And I'm not usually someone who makes those Hunger Games, AOT style comparisons to real life events etc but I am a literature student and I genuinely think it's not unsurprising the number of people who fall for American liberal "pacifist" propaganda in media, that paints revolutionaries and armed resistance as inherently evil, that has the central character call his indigenous love interest as bad as aforementioned canon "terrorists" because she wanted to kill the colonial officer who murdered her mother during a genocide, and she has to defend herself saying "no that was different Jet was killing civilians (aka settler colonialists are not = military and therefore are totally absolved of their crimes) I am killing a dangerous man (aka safe to blame imperial military)"

And like. Do you not see it. Do you just. Not. See it.

Let's Talk About How Book 3 Ruined Aang

If you've seen any of my prior ATLA posts, you know that I don't hate Aang. In fact, I quite liked him in Books 1 and 2. He was flawed, as all characters should be, but the show didn't shy away from those flaws or justify them. He was called out for burning Katara and rushing his firebending, Sokka and Katara were rightfully upset when he hid Hakoda's letter, he willingly owns up to the fact that his actions helped drive Toph away, and his entire arc after losing Appa and finding hope again in The Serpent's Path was beautifully done.

(Hell, even in The Great Divide Katara says what Aang did was wrong and he agrees. It's played for comedy, but the show still makes the effort to point out that what he did wasn't the right thing to do. You're just meant to understand that he was fed up and acted off of that)

Those flaws and mistakes were addressed and improved upon and helped Aang to grow as a character.

But for some reason, that aspect of Aang's character was completely flipped in Book 3.

The best examples of this are in both TDBS and EIP. Both the show and the fandom are too quick to brush off that Aang kissed Katara twice without her consent, one of which after she explicitly said she was confused about her feelings.

(And yes, she is angry in response and Aang calls himself an idiot. But after this, it isn't really addressed. They go on like nothing happened for the rest of the episode. Aang's lamentation comes from screwing things up with her romantically, not that he violated boundaries)

The show never really addressed why what he did was wrong. Not only because he wasn't given consent, but also because both times he isn't thinking about what Katara wants. In both instances, Aang is only thinking about himself and his feelings. This is something that persists through a lot of the third book. And by Sozin's Comet it ultimately ruins any character development he had built up in the second book.

One thing I feel was completely disregarded was the concept of having to let go of Katara in order to master the Avatar State.

For me, the implication wasn't that he had to give up love or happiness necessarily. He was emotionally attached to and reliant on Katara, to the point where she was needed to stop him from hurting everyone around him and himself. This is obviously detrimental to his functionality as the Avatar. And the point of him "letting her go" wasn't that he had to stop caring about her, it was that his emotional dependency on her was stopping him from being the Avatar he needed to be and that was what needed to be fixed. I don't even think it's about the Avatar State itself, it's about being able to keep your emotions and duty as the Avatar separate.

(If you look at Roku, he loved and had a wife. It wasn't his love for her that messed everything up, it was his attachment to Sozin. He wasn't able to let Sozin go and not only did he lose his life for it, the world suffered for it. It's the unhealthy attachments that seem to be detrimental, not love itself)

And Aang realizes that in the catacombs, which is how he's able to easily enter the Avatar State and seemingly control it. He let Katara go.

So then why does it seem like his attachment to Katara is not only stronger, but worse in mannerism? He liked Katara in Books 1 and 2- obviously- but he was never overly jealous of Jet or Haru. He only makes one harmless comment in Book 2 when Sokka suggests Katara kiss Jet.

But suddenly he's insanely jealous of Zuko (to the point of getting frustrated with Katara over it), off the basis of the actions of actors in a clearly misrepresentative play. Katara showed a lot more interest in Jet and Aang was completely fine with it.

(Speaking of EIP, Aang's reaction to being played by a woman was interesting. He wore a flower crown in The Cave of Two Lovers. He wove Katara a flower necklace. He wore Kyoshi's clothes and makeup and made a funny girl voice. He willingly responded to Twinkle Toes and had no issue being called that. And for some reason he's genuinely upset about being played by a woman? Aang in Books 1 and 2 would have laughed and enjoyed the show like Toph did. His aversion to feminity felt vastly out of character)

I guess my point is, why did that change? Why was Aang letting go of Katara suddenly irrelevant to the Avatar State? It felt like him letting go was supposed to be a major part of his development. Why did that stop?

Myself and many others have talked about The Southern Raiders. The jist of my thought process about it is his assumption that he knew what was best for Katara. And the episode doesn't really call out why he was wrong. Maybe sparing Yon Rha was better for Katara, maybe it wasn't (the only one who's allowed to make that choice is her). Pushing forgiveness? That was wrong. But the episode has Zuko say that Aang was right when the course of action Katara took wasn't what Aang suggested.

Katara's lesson here was that killing him wouldn't bring back her mother or mend the pain she was going through and that Yon Rha wasn't worth the effort. That's what she realizes. Not that she needed to embrace forgiveness. How could she ever forgive that? The episode saying Aang was right wasn't true. Yes she forgives Zuko, but that wasn't what Aang was talking about. He was specifically talking about Yon Rha.

And that was wrong. Aang can choose the path of forgiveness, that's fine. That's his choice. But dismissing Katara's trauma in favor of his morals and upbringing wasn't okay.

I know it sounds like this is just bashing Kataang. But it's not simply because I don't like Kataang, in my opinion it brings down Aang's character too, not just Katara's. But let's steer away from Kataang and Katara for a minute.

The one thing that solidifies Aang's character being ruined in Book 3 for me is the fact that he- at the end of the story- does the same thing he did in the beginning.

He runs away when things get hard.

Aang couldn't make the choice between his duty and his morals. So he ran. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but subconsciously he wanted an out. And this is really disappointing when one of the things he was firm about in Book 2 was not running anymore. His character went backwards here and that's not even getting into the real issue in Sozin's Comet.

There's been contention about the Lion Turtle intervention. For many- including myself- it's very deus ex machina to save Aang from having to make a hard decision. And that in turn doesn't reflect kindly on his character.

Everyone- Sokka, Zuko, Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, and Yangchen (who was another Airbender and was raised with the same beliefs he was and would understand which was the whole point of him talking to her)- told him he had to kill Ozai. They all told him it was the only way. And he refused to listen to any of them, rotating through his past lives until he was given the answer he wanted.

And before anyone says that I'm bashing Aang for following his culture, I'm not. Ending the war peacefully, in my opinion, wasn't the problem. In a way, I think it allowed the world to heal properly. However, that doesn't make up for the fact that Aang refused to make a choice and face the consequences of that choice. Instead, he's given an out at the very last second.

Even if he couldn't kill Ozai and someone else had to deliver the final blow, that would have been better than the Lion Turtle showing up and giving him a power no one's ever had before. It would have been a good compromise, he doesn't have to have blood directly on his hands but what needs to be done needs to still get done. It would also show that being the Avatar isn't a burden he has to bear alone. That when things get hard, he can't run away but he can rely on the people closest to him to help him through hard decisions.

All these issues aren't necessarily a problem with Aang. Aang prior to Book 3 didn't have most of these problems. This is a problem with the way he was handled

x

me 24/7

Mary Oliver, from “Hum Hum”, A Thousand Mornings

— David Cronenberg, Consumed

– Audrey Hepburn

-Rumi

Andrea Gibson, Lord of the Butterflies

“War ate a girl and spat out a woman.”

— Excerpt from Myth Untold // L.H.Z

If a man doesn't save my life and when I ask him why he came back and he doesn't say "I dreamed of you" then idc and I dont want it

STOP SELLING BOUND FANFICTION

I cannot blame them for pulling their works, in fact I'm proud of them for doing so. Fanfiction is a community of gifting. As authors we write fics and share our works for free. Fanfiction is a weird, fragile, liminal space that can crumble at any time. This fragility needs to be respected.

If you want fanfiction to be around for you to enjoy, then the rules need to be respected!

You can bind fics. You can gift bound fics. DO NOT SELL BOUND FICS!!

Or soon we won't have fanfiction anymore and the world will be much darker for it.

This quote specifically from Aaron Ehasz did smth to my psyche.

Have you noted that no one from Azula's family was shown to express love and affection towards her?

That is mostly true. Ozai's affection is clearly conditional (and full on manipulation at worse, like we see in the finale), Ursa canonically favors Zuko to the point that we never see her spending any alone time with Azula like she did with Zuko, and while Iroh gave her a toy like he did to Zuko the toy in question was so OBVIOUSLY wrong for a kid like Azula that it's comical AND show's he did not really know his niece at all.

But there is a constant exception.

Zuko's relationship with Azula is complicated. He clearly admires her strength and power, but he hates how she uses it. She lied to him many times, was seen apparently cheering Ozai on during the Agni Kai, tried to have him imprisoned and even said she'd celebrate being an only child - and then allows him to come home as a hero after Ba Sing Se, even though SHE had the control of the Dai Li and was not yet aware Aang could have survived, meaning she had nothing to gain from it.

And when she lets him know that if he's caught talking to Iroh people might think he is a traitor too, and explicitly says "Believe it or not, I'm actually looking out for you" Zuko drops his innitial suspicion that she wanted something and that's why she was helping him.

On The Beach, he just follows her when she say their old family home is depressing and they shouldn't waste their time there. When she's asking him who she is angry at, she mentions herself and Zuko explicitly says that is not the case.

He doesn't trust her and know she has a tendency to mock or full on lie to him... yet when he wants to know about Fire Lord Sozin he asks her about it, and lets it slide when she mocks him by saying he should make sure the royal painter got his good side - for a character as quick to anger as Zuko, that is a big deal. In Nightmares and Daydreams he also goes to her to find out if he'll be allowed at the war meeting.

More importantly:

1 - Iroh's infamous "She's crazy and needs to go down" line was only said because ZUKO, without anyone putting that idea in his head before, suddenly went "I know what you're going to say. She's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her"

2 - Zuko only jumped into the fight in Ba Sing Se when Azula was being cornered by Aang and Katara.

3 - Zuko looked genuinely shocked and even distressed when she was falling off that cliff. He just sounded so shaken saying "She's... not gonna make it..."

4 - In the writer's own words, Zuko felt no hate but only pity when seeing her breakdown. Katara tried to comfort him because, canonically, even though Zuko and Azula are enemies, this was never what he wanted because he still sees her as family. That's why the Last Agni Kai's music is not the epic you'd expect from a battle, but a tragic one.

5 - Aaron Ehasz, the lead writter for the show, probably the person with the most influence after Bryke, has REPEATEDLY said that he always felt Azula should have gotten a redemption arc, Zuko being an Iroh figure to give her advice and be the only one still by her side when all else was seemingly lost to her forever.

Even the comics (most of which I HATE, mainly because Azula's storyline checks nearly every box for "the mentally ill are inherently evil/less human, so it's fine if literally every other person on the planet mistreats them") didn't fully abandon their complex dynamic.

Zuko is not a perfect sibling, and for a long chunk of the story he seemed too focused on his own issues for Azula to ever be a factor in his mind (aside from the moments in which she was a potential/explict threat), but he DOES still feel a sense of obligation towards her, to the point that it made him do something no one else in their family had done before or since - actually look at Azula. Not the prodigious daughter/perfect weapon, or the problem child that is difficult to handle, or the pontentially deadly enemy that was in the way, but Azula.

His 14-year-old sister that got on his nerves a lot, was far from the kindest person alive, and that he had a ton of issues with, but that he could never fully hate or even be indifferent to. Because she's family. Because he remembers a happier time in which the gap between them didn't seem so big. Because if things had been slightly different he could have been her. Because he went from wanting to be her to seeing just how miserable her life ended up being - especially compared to the one he now had - and feeling deeply sorry for her.

Now if you guys excuse me, I'm gonna go cry in the corner. Have some wholesome/bittersweet fanart if you wanna cry too.

"I hate you," and you're the object of all my desire and the bane of my existence

academic rivals who use their last names to refer to each other will always be supreme

Lowkey sick of people saying Zutara is a "sunshine and grumpy" ship.

This is a sunshine and grumpy ship.

This is grumpy and hurricane.

once i catch u fujimoto

enemies to friends to lovers is literally my favorite trope. i will never tire of seeing two characters go from hating each other, to tentatively feeling out a friendship, to slowly developing feelings for each other and then falling in love. it’s painfully cliché and  i want to see it e v e r y w h e r e

honestly fuck the atla comics for even trying to convince us that zuko and katara went from ride-or-die besties, people who would risk life and limb for each other, practically soulmates, to acquaintances who had to make awkward small talk once in a while.

you’re actually telling me that after opening up about their deepest traumas to one another, after comforting and supporting each other in a way no one else did, after zuko nearly sacrificed his life for katara and katara fought tooth and nail to save him and wept over him… they just up and decided they weren’t gonna be close friends anymore because that’s definitely the next logical step in the progression of their relationship.

Book 3 | That painful moment when we saw Zuko and Katara reach for the other from their POV *sob*

Hello! (First I wanted to say I'm sorry if you've answered this before, and if so could you please direct me to it in your response?) but I was wondering what you thought of Zuko's betrayal toward Katara in The Crossroads of Destiny, if it felt in character or not for him, if not, how do you think it should have been written differently? On the same note, what are your (specifically Zutara related) thoughts on Season 3? Is there anything you would have written differently, and if so, how? Personally, I always felt dissatisfied with S3 in general, although it was still overall enjoyable. I don't even personally dislike kataang, but maiko disgusts (and I mean REALLY) disgusts me.

i know there are many who argue that zuko's choice in CoD was character assassination, that it was meant to torpedo zutara, that it was too sudden etc etc... but personally, i've always felt that it was both in-character and necessary for zuko at that point in his arc.

i can understand how on first watch it seems like too much of a turn-around, given how zuko's arc seemed to be heading, but i think this ignores two things: firstly, that the path to redemption isn't linear and secondly, the real context of the choice that lay before zuko in CoD.

it's one thing to give up on chasing the avatar and accept a quiet, humble life in ba sing se; it's another entirely to actively turn traitor yourself and work against your nation and your family. part of the reason zuko was able to reconcile himself to being lee the tea shop server forever is because it was essentially a path of passive neutrality: he was helping neither the avatar, nor the fire nation. it was the best option available to him, a grey area that allowed him to find some measure of peace without forcing him to pick a side.

azula's coup, however, destroys any chance zuko has of ever going back to that life. he's been dragged right back into the conflict, and this time there's no question of staying out of it. one way or another, he'll be forced to fight, and the only choice left to him is who his enemy will be. azula, his own sister, offering him everything he's ever wanted? or aang, the boy he's spent years hunting, who embodies everything he's been taught to oppose?

and so naturally, when confronted with a dangerous unknown, he chooses to go back to what's familiar and what he spent most of his life believing he wanted. remember that zuko is also a victim of a lifetime of abuse and indoctrination in a moment of extreme psychological stress, and it's no wonder that he picks what he sees as safe and easy (zuko isn't actually safe in the fire nation ofc and he knows that, but it comes back to the case of the devil you know vs the devil you don't), though he himself is aware deep down that it's the wrong choice.

from a character perspective, zuko also needed to go back to the fire nation to realize how much he's changed, and that the home he'd always yearned to return to didn't actually exist, and probably never had. had zuko actually gone with the gaang in the book 2 finale, i think a little part of him might have always wondered about the what-if of it all. ultimately, i think it strengthens zuko's redemption for him to backslide and then actively make the choice to change and still try to do better, further proving the show's message of how it's never too late to do the right thing.

the only thing i would have changed is how zuko's arc in the first half of book 3 is handled, because while i do get what the writers were going for, i think it was a wasted opportunity to get insight into the war from the fire nation's perspective. it would've been cool to see zuko learning about the gaang's exploits and slowly putting the pieces together about who was likely responsible for it, allowing us to see the effects of their actions from the other point of view.

book 3 was definitely the most unsatisfying of the series, because the season as a whole is the least cohesive and well-planned of the three, and coming on the heels of the near-perfect book 2, the disparity is even more obvious. it's somewhat masked by the fact that it does have some of the best individual episodes of the series, which is probably why many people overlook how weak the season is as a whole.

i actually wouldn't change anything zutara-related other than letting them have ONE conversation and a hug post-agni kai (as they deserved) because that entire arc was just *chef's kiss*. my problems with book 3 stem almost entirely from the finale and aang's overall arc, but that's probably too long to get into here so tldr: less magic pointy rock, lion turtle, and half-assed relationships, more letting go of katara, confronting grief over air nomads, and found family with hints of an actually well-developed romance for the future.

sigh, to think of all we could have had.

i will always hate that katara never came to terms with her bloodbending. especially given that it’s a symbolic representation of her own “darker” side, the fact that she was never able to find the good in it and accept it as just another aspect of her element, instead outlawing and demonizing it forever, makes me so sad because it perfectly encapsulates the person she herself ended up as: the shallow, shining trophy wife on aang’s arm, locking away everything he didn’t want and was never able to understand to become his perfect, flawless forever girl for the rest of her days.

and it’s so much more frustrating knowing that zuko — who knows exactly what it feels like to wield an element that can be destructive and violent, whose own arc about the duality of fire would have made him the perfect person to help katara understand that there is no such thing as inherently good or evil bending, only the bender who makes it so — was right there! yet instead of letting them have even one conversation about it, we got bloodbending being villainized till the heat death of the fucking universe and katara left forever unable to accept the complexity of her bending (and metaphorically, the complexity within herself) even though she had the exact person she needed right at hand to help and support her through the process… god it just drives me mad

hi!! i keep seeing posts/tiktoks about the fact that katara and azula are narrative foils and that katara is the sister that zuko never had, and that’s why zutara shouldn’t be shipped. I don’t know if this makes sense but like…I know it’s wrong (the premise isn’t but the conclusion is) I just can’t put it into words why it is. Does anyone have any metas about it? lmao

i really do love how a lot of zutara shippers on here get super into the meta and write whole dissertations on them and stuff and i'm over here like "hehe fire and water go brrrr"

there’s avatar and then there’s the blue people movie

timeofdeathnote.tumblr.com

oya oya oya

mostly Haikyuu!!, Jujutsu Kaisen, and ATLA/LOK