Your gateway to endless inspiration
I’m speechless
I literally cannot rest and it’s all because of this tiktok
The Avatar Reunion was AMAZING!!
For anyone that couldn't afford a ticket, I don't have a recording 🤷
Message me if you'd like some cactus juice though! 👀
Ya’ know how Katara (Better then Pakku) can keep up with Aang’s and Sokka’s antics? Look at Wang Fire, and when Aang was the old dude I like to believe that she can also fully lie to Toph due to being able to be completely calm in such situations, and a great hi jinks partner, but chooses not to because Katara would feel guilty for being able to do so. Tl:Dr Katara can lie just as good as Azula and get by Toph’s seismic sense.
The major arcana is finished!!!!!!!
I'm thinking of getting this printed in a mini zine. If you're interested please let me know since I'm looking for distributers for a copy for myself at least.
Commissions are open and info can be found here
My ko-fi is here
THE GAANG + MORE AS TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUMS::::
zuko: reputation or ttpd
sokka: 1989 or lover
aang: fearless or debut
katara: red
suki: speak now
toph: fearless era taylor when she throws chairs
yue: evermore
jet: reputation
azula: reputation
mai: folklore
ty lee: 1989
i genuinely dont think that the fire nation is discriminatory and that the water tribes are insteaf. eg. mai ty lee and azula are some of the most respected people in the fire nation. and two of then arent even benders. they fight better than most. they went to school for this and we see female soldiers/prison guards etc. but then look at the northern water tribe. katara isn't allowed to fight. period. idek but the fire nation is 100% not sexist. i do think that being gay is discouraged but only because it is encouraged to have children to better the nation. and as the most technologically advanced nation, i think they're also the most advanced in thinking. so like my final thoughts: fire nation is not sexist or homophobic, they fully support either but just want more bending/powerful children. water tribes (definitely northern, less so southern) is a bit less accepting of these things/ignorant. nwt is definitely sexist and we also see that sokka has grown up amongst misogyny or whatever. also zuko is gay. btw. just. my boy aint straight. and sokka had his bi awakening in boiling rock (when zuko breathes fire cause ughhhhh) but didnt know it was his bi awakening (sokkas the definition of 'no homo but')
imagine atla but zukos a girl. THE POTENTial. shes a moody lil 16 year old. with a half shaved head. and a ponytail. she gets periods (these always fall during the worst times). shes still an amgsty little boi but shes just female. this means that zuko and azula are sisters. THEIR SISTERS. that lowkey just makes their relationship even better cause they can fight over clothes etc. they would get makeovers and spa treatments together. BUT THEIR SISTERS SO THEIR ARGUMENTS ARE TEN TIMES MORE EXPLOSIVE. idk why zuko wouldnt be as good friends with mai and ty lee but the actual potential. and imagine uncle trying to raise a grumpy teenage girl. bro went through it with lu ten pretty ok but zukos more angsty than lu ten was. also iroh probably had to deal with zukos first period like LMAO THATS HILARIOUS HE DOESNT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH HIMSELF AND JUST BREWS A CUP OF TEA AND HOPES IT GOES AWAY. also if zuko was a girl everyone would 100% have shipped him (her?) with sokka cause atla came out in the 2000s and heteronormative things were m a j o r (said as someone who is younger than gordon cormier so thats basically an assumption based on my unhealthy amount of time spent on the internet)
inspired my this AWESOME AMAZING NEW FAV FIC: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385173/chapters/61556134
Roleswap AU slight redesigns featuring their melee weapons (Isolated vers and a doodle under cut)
homophobic lesbian icon fujozula strikes again
extra:
Posted this on tiktok but I think Tumblr will like this more
ref sheets for my roleswap au azula and zuko because i keep forgetting how i designed them but i'm posting them cuz i feel like it. if ur ever drawing them (me included) feel free to simplify the patterns and stuff
Azula always lies.
saw this post by @heavenly-dusk and kinda went insane thinking abt it so i drew it, i hope you don’t mind!
there are a lot of bad takes in the atla fandom (like, atla fandom may as well be a bad take generator) but something that has really been pissing me off lately is the assumption that you can categorize the fire nation royal family into good guys and bad guys. first of all, obviously, they're all bad guys. they are imperialists. but the idea that "sozin ozai azula bad" and "iroh lu ten ursa zuko azulon(?!) good" is actually insane.
lu ten died attempting to conquer the earth kingdom. lu ten was there because his father, iroh, was leading the siege. ursa laughed when iroh joked about burning ba sing se to the ground. zuko laughed too, mirroring his dear mother who taught him about the wonders of imperialism. and the fact that some people think that azulon was a good guy because he favored iroh is crazy. he favored iroh because iroh was the better imperialist, was more charming and tactically savvy as he bent the world to his will. people who think that azulon didn't like ozai because ozai was cruel literally have it backwards. ozai was cruel because azulon didn't like him. sozin shaped azulon, and azulon shaped iroh and ozai. azulon reigned for most of the war, and he was responsible for decimating the southern water tribe and colonizing the earth kingdom.
iroh only realizes the error of his ways well into middle age, after spending a majority of his life colonizing the world. he only stops to reconsider once he experiences the adverse effects of war for himself through the loss of his son. likewise, zuko can only gain empathy for the victims of the war by being one himself, as a refugee in the earth kingdom, and bonding with people who have been hurt by the fire nation. azula doesn't get that chance. ozai doesn't get that chance. azulon, lu ten, and ursa are dead, so they will never get that chance. but it's not like there is some ontological moral divide separating azula from zuko. zuko was a sensitive child whereas azula was better at embodying fire nation values of power and cunning. zuko was punished for his outbursts whereas azula knew how to keep her mouth shut. therefore, zuko experienced circumstances that led him to disavow fire nation imperialism.
but that doesn't mean that azula is ontologically evil. azula was the iroh of her generation to zuko's ozai, and iroh (eventually) disavowed conquest as well. there is no inherent divide between good and bad, monster and human. ursa was a warm and loving mother to zuko, just as iroh was a warm and loving father to lu ten, but they both laughed at others' suffering. their values were shaped by their circumstances and experiences. their ideologies do not make them less human, or less capable of change, just as their interpersonal behaviors do not negate their abhorrent ideologies.
made this and thought it was really funny for no reason
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.
im a taurus and i love azula so much
okay atla fans reblog with your sign and your fav war criminal from the series! i’ll start, libra + ty lee