waywardavatarenthusiast

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

omg same!! not with the annotation post, but i started generating fic ideas literally as i was listening to the song.

“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me” was literally made for Azula.

#atla #azula #taylor swift #avatar the last airbender

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

Katara is never officially recognized for her massive war effort (she was just as essential as the war ending to Aang). Mai puts her life on the line for a man who continuously embarrasses her and shows that he has adopted many of his abusive father’s unhealthy relationship habits. Suki finally got her own comic and has still managed to receive absolutely no characterization.

I’m of the opinion that Azula has to be redeemed by the narrative due to the heinous message that anything otherwise suggests, and I also think using her as a character would open up much better story options. Despite Bryke’s flag-waiving, feminism crying image, they have shown you how female characters that they like are treated by the narrative. And with the particular positive attention that Azula brings (which they have all but openly said greatly annoys them) even as a villain, I really do believe they would snuff her out just to keep the spotlight on their favorite boys Zuko and Aang (don’t get me started on how they treat Sokka).

With the new atla movie approaching, it’s getting close to the time where they decide whether to treat her as an animal or an object.

p.s- i’m not anti- any of the ships i referred too. i actually really enjoy maiko, and kataang doesn’t bother me. it’s just that i will call a spade a spade in any circumstance.

#atla #azula #katara #mai #suki #anti bryke

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me” was literally made for Azula.

#atla #azula #taylor swift

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

I know I've asked this question before, but can anyone explain to me how a 12 year old monk who's culture does not believe in nuclear family units is able to hold a long term romantic relationship with the first girl he dates all the way to marriage with children despite the differences in the their core values?

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

idc about the repetitive zutara vs kataang ship war garbage but here's another example of aang stans who don't know shit about buddhism using "buddhism" to criticize aang hate, as if aang's very existence as a character isn't seen as offensive to actual practising buddhists.

aang is a monk who is a strict vegetarian but he isn't celibate for some reason even though celibacy is a way bigger deal to monastics than vegetarianism. the dalai lamai has publicly denounced married monks and the thai government bans depictions of monks doing drugs or kissing, etc.

and let's not forget that the buddha himself said that monks that have sex are damned to hell:

Worthless man, it would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a poisonous snake than into a woman’s vagina. It would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a black viper than into a woman’s vagina. It would be better that your penis be stuck into a pit of burning embers, blazing and glowing, than into a woman’s vagina. Why is that? For that reason you would undergo death or death-like suffering, but you would not on that account, at the breakup of the body, after death, fall into deprivation, the bad destination, the abyss, hell.

the irony of getting angry at people calling aang a white self insert because you think he's a "buddhist" when he's a caricature of buddhism made up by ignorant white men who claimed their biggest inspiration for the air nomads was fucking shaolin soccer.

it's not just aang ofc, all the air nomads are based on shallow western perceptions of buddhism since their society is the racist shangri-la trope, a theme park version of real-life buddhist nations. the worldbuilding for the air nomads makes no damn sense and is easily the weakest of the four nations due to bryke's shallow reference pools. their entire culture is monastic but also nomadic, and they practise sex-segregation...yet they still have sex.

bryke just wanted the aesthetics of buddhism without actually understanding it.

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

i think we all know what the strongest straight ship for azula is.

Azula Ship Competition Round 2 Results

Tyzula defeated Maizulee, 60.7% to 39.3%

Azutara defeated Sokkla, 66.1% to 33.9%

Maizula defeated Azulaang, 54.6% to 45.6%

Yuezula defeated Tophzula, 77.5% to 22.5%

#azula #sokka #aang

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

i knew we’d get overrun by the sapphic azula truthers 😭 just gonna be happy sokkla is the most liked het ship for azula

Azula Ship Competition Round 2 Results

Tyzula defeated Maizulee, 60.7% to 39.3%

Azutara defeated Sokkla, 66.1% to 33.9%

Maizula defeated Azulaang, 54.6% to 45.6%

Yuezula defeated Tophzula, 77.5% to 22.5%

#azula #sokkla

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

Yes I’m an Azula apologist—she deserved better; she deserved therapy and love and support and patience 🫶

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

Princess Azula

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

Sokka studies :D

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

Uneven Odds by Sleeping at Last is just about the perfect song to describe Sokka and Katara’s family.

#atla #katara #sokka #kya #hakoda #kanna

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

Am I'm the only person who thinks Azula's love language is really, really clear?

Like, what does she do?

Hugging her friends when she's sees them again.

Telling Mai that she's very glad to see her again.

Humiliating her friend's awful, abusive, neglectful parents in front of her.

Giving her (distinctly non-royal) friends seats on a throne.

Making the impossible happen and sacrificing her status as heir to the throne so that her brother can come home.

Openly telling her honor-obsessed brother than he's restored his honor in her eyes.

Repeatedly trying her best to comfort her super-angsty brother whenever he got worried or stressed or sad.

Using physical touch to try to make her brother feel better.

Getting her brother invited to a party.

Doing what she can to try to prevent Zuko from doing something stupid that will get him banished again.

When she screws up and makes her best friend cry, apologizing and using physical touch to comfort her in order to make her feel better.

Risking her life in order to protect her defenseless father.

This is not an ambiguous list. It's probably more clear and straightforward than what we see of Toph's love language, for instance, and if any character less demonized by the narrative than Azula did what Azula does, the fandom would have zero doubt about how deeply she loves people.

And sure, Azula is a bad friend who does plenty of other things which badly screw up her relationships, but I don't think Mai or Ty Lee or Ozai ever doubted for a second that she cared deeply about them. Zuko was the only one so oblivious he couldn't notice, and I'm sure it was blindingly obvious to both Ty Lee and Mai that Azula loved him very deeply.

And all this clarity of love language came despite Azula not having a single family member who ever showed her clear and unconditionally love and affection.

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

2. referring to Ursa and the royal family as “my mother” and “my family” right in front of his sister’s face several times.

3. not visiting his sister for almost two years until he wanted her help finding their estranged mother. (but he did visit their abusive father with tea for advice)

4. reassure his mother that their was no need to look for his sister who went missing in the forest because “she can survive on her own.”

5. abuse his authority and order his ex-girlfriend to come back when she tried to leave him.

6. manhandled katara only to say he “doesn’t want to hurt her.”

Zuko's Comics List of Cruelty

I wanted to create a separate list for comics! Zuko's list of cruelty, since I didn't want to tar canon Zuko with it. @waywardavatarenthusiast

I'll start it off.

Dangling his mentally ill sister over a cliff while telling her she ruined his life by being born.

#zuko critical #only comics acts #atla

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

It’s crazy to me that the comics put Azula in an abusive asylum that caused her mental state to deteriorate, turning a temporary mental breakdown into full-blown psychosis, and yet fandom still calls her “pure evil” and blames her for lashing out at hallucinations that terrify her.

How much abuse does this exploited teen soldier need to endure before this fandom is capable of extending a single ounce of empathy or understanding for her?

How can you read Zuko dangling a delusional Azula over a cliff, threatening her life, and think Zuko is in the right?

Is it that fandom hates Azula that much?

Or that society hates mentally ill women that much?

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

the crucial fact of zuko and azula's relationship that makes it so insanely compelling is not the tried and true facets of siblings on opposite sides of a war, sibling rivalry turned murderous, or siblings who are divided by their parents' favoritism; it's the fact that despite being the older sibling, zuko is the one who doesn't care about azula while azula cares about him even when it goes against her best interest to do so. i think this makes a lot of people who want to see zuko through the fanon lens of this awkward turtle duck who's just doing his best and isn't super angry and volatile deeply uncomfortable because it so directly contradicts that reading of him unless they completely strip azula of her sympathetic and human traits. but that reading is not only unsupported by canon, it's boring.

the truth is that azula cares about zuko (in a very distorted way given how her upbringing and trauma restrict her ability to express it in a way anywhere in the area code of healthy) to the extent that because she chooses him over herself in bringing him home (because it is an insane retcon that implies she is near omnipotent to say she knew for certain the avatar was not really dead and was just going to scapegoat zuko, not to mention it makes very little sense and is, again, boring), she loses everything. and zuko cares so little for azula that he only feels anything remotely close to grief about it all when he sees just how badly she's hurting.

as much as i think his redemption arc leaves to be desired in terms of the political implications of it, zuko does have a good heart. he does want to do the right thing. it's just that azula has always been his blind spot, and that makes their relationship so much more interesting.

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

I sketched out the Fire Nation royal family, it's curious to follow who resembles whom physically and which traits got passed

#just4me

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

15. Told on his sister to his physically abusive father (the guy who mutilated his son for speaking out of turn) that she’d lied to him about something very serious then left her with said abusive father with no warning.

I think we need to make a list of all the cruelest things Zuko does over the course of the series. Not the worst things he does but the cruelest and meanest. Just so we have something to reference when someone goes "look how mean Azula is, she's inherently evil."

#azula #zuko critical #atla #avatar the last airbender #zuko