I Knew It Was Time To Get Off Tiktok For The Night When I Saw A Post Where Someone Said They Would Feel

i like the lore that piandao trained zuko but i don't think it was exactly the wholesome adoption that people like to do with zuko and any father figures. like in my mind piandao receives a letter from the fire lord like "the crown prince sucks at firebending and you're the best swordsman in the nation so we are sending him to be trained. this is non-optional" and piandao's legitimately contemplating committing treason rather than compromise his values and then the end of the the letter is like "we know you're usually selective we'll pay whatever" and piandao's like. okay FINE please pay me an absolutely ridiculous amount. and ozai agrees bc anything to get his failson out of his hair and piandao sends the money to the white lotus to fund a resistance group in the earth kingdom

and baby zuko, that turtleduck-loving mama's boy theater nerd, arrives on his doorstep and this is where most people would have him change his tune but piandao's just like "sure he seems cute now but he'll grow up to do imperialism". he teaches zuko the dual swords, a commoner's weapon, bc the ideal path for this kid who seems way too nice to be part of the royal family is to give it all up. but he doesn't think that's gonna happen. like iroh comes for a visit and he also seems nicer than the rest of the royal family but he did the siege of ba sing se so like. what does it matter that zuko likes theater and turtleducks and his mommy? he can still hate the earth kingdom and water tribes.

all of this is going on in his head, of course. in his actual interactions with zuko he's a very kind and patient teacher. he knows ozai's a bad dad and he wants to at least try to help this kid onto a better path. but it's not until he hears about the banishment and reports of a guy in a theater mask with dual swords committing treason that he's actually like "oh shit maybe there's some hope for this kid after all"

and he only really adopts him post-canon when iroh fucks off to ba sing se and SOMEBODY needs to help this poor kid navigate fire nation politics and i guess that's gonna be me. okay actually i like him now :) maybe i'll set him up with sokka

Rainy day

heyo, its been a long time since i did an analysis!! this time on a more controversial subject: Rook Blonko. And how I think he was robbed.

When you actually look at the way Rook is written in omniverse, they dont give him very much to work with. like revvonaganders and their culture are cool, but rook feels so underdeveloped as a person outside of his culture. hes kind of a gwen in a way; hes got bare minimum flaws but he's treated like hes in the right when hes doing something actually flawed. hes never condemned for treating ben the way he does and he doesnt even have a consistent arc. he doesnt feel like a teenager, he doesnt feel like he has any sort of character progression, hes just kinda there, and his lack of depth in character-to-character situations is only amplified by the lack of holding him accountable for negative traits he possesses, instead punishing ben or ignoring the behavior. Instead of writing a scenario where Rook is in the right and ben is in the wrong, or showing rook behaving poorly and have him learn from his actions, i can hardly think of a time where rook was shown to be wrong for his treatment of ben.

For example in a scenario where Ben is keeping personal information from Ben, and rook wants to know it for the sake of their partnership, instead of portraying Ben in the wrong properly by showing his keeping of said information being harmful to the public or his friendship to rook, or have the information be personally important to rook making Ben's keeping of it harmful, instead rook has scoured Ben's file for all information and is asking about something that is of no matter to him entirely because he doesn't know it. He pesters Ben incessantly even when Ben has told him firmly no. Tjis is a recurring issue, where it seems like the story wants rook to be right but is ignoring context and the way he goes about it.

This would be an aggravating issue but ignorable if rook had anything resembling a consistent arc, but he doesn't. the conflict of rook idolizing ben and meeting him and realizing hes not what rook thought he was is interesting, but its always treated as if bens in the wrong for not living up to rooks expectations. rook overstepping his boundaries with ben due to being a huge fan and maybe cultural differences is interesting, but its never portrayed as a flaw on rooks end, more like bens fault for keeping the information. his struggle with his culture and staying connected with it, his conflict with his father about his career path, his relationships to his siblings, him slowly watching revvonah be plundered for its resources as the series goes on, i love that, thats genuinely interesting. but they never talk about it outside of those episodes. rook is in the wrong often and it brings up a lot of interesting questions about him as a person, but they dont talk about that in favor of treating him as bens babysitter, or setting up a joke where ben is the punchline.

It's disappointing to me that rook was never given the attention he deserved. Like i said, there's a lot of good stuff in his framework that's just begging to be explored, but his lack of an arc makes him feel so one note after a while and really dampens his relationship with ben. Since rook is not a character on the same level as ben, he feels less like an equal like they tried to illustrate and more of a plot device. They even threw away the most interesting conflict between ben and rook; rook being book smart and ben being street smart, experience over training. Ben and Rook hardly ever have issues based on this other than rook misunderstanding a joke. This is why rook and ben feel like such a flat relationship to me.

all of this to say: rook fans. Please, for the love of god, work your magic. He's got all the pieces there, and i am certain you can do something special in fanworks about him. Don't let the show being lackluster hold you down.

1 against 1 is a rivalry.

You know. Like what Harry and Draco had.

4 against 1 is not a rivalry.

It is 4 bullies against 1 victim.

The marauderers and Snape had no rivalry going on.

4 of them were bullies and 1 was the victim.

I hope i explained this simple enough so that the snaters may understand;)

Have a blessed day.

you’re too sweet for meeeee 🕺

the final glorious ovulation ,, or wtv tf he said

the sillies

abandoned wip, but I still find it cute.