i'm non binary and aroace. my pronouns are they/them for you all, and sometimes I use he/him for me. no one else can use he/him unless i say so (THIS IS NEW DON'T FEEL BAD IF YOU MESS THAT UP BEFORE YOU READ THIS)
i am a minor. all ages allowed, but i will block people who are creepy, cross my boundaries, or even just kinda piss me off a lil. i won't disclose my age or break people's DNIs for age (or anything else). (if i have sorry)
on the note of blocking people: i don't have a DNI particularly, but i do block people. that said, if you're a bigot, i'll probably block or not engage. that's my main thing, but i also believe that you should curate your internet to your preferences, so things like discourse can lead to you being blocked (if i know you irl or we've been moots fir a while, you're unlikely to be blocked because i love people and like to be around them). see below for the biggest thing.
i'm disabled, mentally and physically.
i post shitposts, endless reblogs, and sometimes... uh... stuff that isnt those things?
tagging system:
for the moots -> exactly what it sounds like
astra adlibs -> original post tag
astralart -> art though i don't post a lot of it
astra est in aquam -> swimming posts! also tagged swimming
i don't tag reblogs
i tag all my thoughts about swimming 'swimming' (this is like the only thing i'm well consistent on)
i don't tag a lot of triggers, if something is like super deep i will, and i try to get a variety (always tag as 'tw blank' and then some varietes)
i also try really hard to tag every flash warning and eyestrain etc. if i miss one let me know i will update it!! don't be scared
interests (subject to change, updated sometimes)
OPERATION MINCEMEAT (musical)
space, project hail mary
bears in trees (band)
writing! hey you! update! i've got a sideblog for this now: @astra-carmina i'll be rbing all my poetry and fanfic stuff there from now on :)
theatre (i'm a techie, esp costuming, but i love acting too!!)
books! i'm a huge reader (fanfic too) and have a very not-updated sideblog @the-tome-gnome for book recs (i never use this cos i forget)
gay stuff (im gayyy)
sports, esp trans activism in sports, mostly just swimming things (i'm a swimmer. 50/100 free, if you're curious)
i write fanfic! astral_duck on ao3, post with all my fics here (some of my older fics. just go check my ao3)
favs:
music: bears in trees, IDKHOW, felix hagan and the family, olivia rodrigo, noahfinnce, chappell roan, ajr
books: brandon sanderson, phm, assorted childrens books i'm still very attached to, legendborn
tv/movies: nimona, pjo, the princess bride, frozen, holy grail
one big thing: suicide jokes (‼️specifically jokes‼️)aren't my thing. i generally don't engage with them. i won't block moots over them, but might block random ppl for them. if you treat it like a punchline or are like "omg ppl should kill themselves" that's pretty much an instant block (not strictly if in a reblog tho).
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Posted: 20:45 UTC 31 July, 2026
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if anyone's reading my theatre kid mince au i need you to know that joyce is fully an emo kid. she appears in one chapter very briefly and isn't a big character sadly (in this iteration: stuart the 'normal one', joyce is emo, monty's queer, and ivor (and monty too) is a theatre kid)
Mary Watson (BBC Sherlock) vs. Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Mary Watson
Azula
Remaining time: 5 days 56 minutes
Propaganda below the cut:
Mary Watson:
She got in the way of Johnlock, and was therefore the devil incarnate
it doesn’t help that she was in a deeply misogynistic show, but speaking firsthand, the fandom absolutely demonised her just because she got in the way of johnlock. even when she wasn’t in the way she was villainised by the fandom and the show itself
There was some truly cruel fanfic written about mary
Mary just… got in the way of Johnlock but she is such an amazing character and I love her so much ???
Azula:
She is often given very little grace for her actions in comparison to her brother. I think people tend to forget that the only reason Zuko gets his redemption arc is because his banishment gave him access to an environment outside of his abusive home, as well as a support network who helped re-contextualize his experiences. Comparatively, Azula is younger than him, she's a girl in a patriarchal society, and she is systematically denied access to support and education that would inform her of the issues with how she is treated. Yes, the way she treats Zuko and her peers is often cruel, but she is also only 14 years old and lives under the constant threat of neglect and violence from a man who intentionally encourages competitiveness and conflates violence with authority. Any apparent delight she takes in Zuko's mistreatment is experienced alongside the understanding that if it wasn't him, it would be her. She does plenty of horrible things throughout the show, but I think her inability to understand the morality of those actions is more of a tragedy that people like to give credit for.
She is a child! Give her access to a support network, therapy, opportunities to learn about new people and places and the world outside of the bubble she has been kept in her whole life. She deserves a chance to deconstruct her experiences, to learn that how she was treated was wrong and that she deserves better, and that she has the opportunity to makes amends for her own actions and to break the cycle should she choose.
She's treated as an irredeemable war criminal and abuser at 14 while Iroh, a 50 something-at-youngest man who spent most of his life participating in a century of imperialism and besieged Ba Sing Se for 600 days before hanging up his hat as a general only after he personally lost his son and then proceeded to not actually take any steps whatsoever towards ending the war despite being the rightful heir, is a beloved fandom figure. People deny her humanity in every way they can at every chance they get and think she deserves to be psychiatrically abused and is incapable of being redeemed. Even a lot of the people who think she can be redeemed think more or less putting her on a leash so she can be Zuko's guard dog is "redemption." People won't even acknowledge that she's also a victim of her father's abuse.
Despite being a fourteen year old child soldier, she is adultified constantly. This usually comes in two forms - as an evil seductress or as evil incarnate, worse than even her father, Ozai. Some people even claim this fourteen year old girl SLEPT TO THE TOP. Or she is painted as evil and irredeemable despite her breakdown on screen. She is constantly hated on in order to prop her brother, Zuko, up.
She is clever and ambitious. She was able to restore her brother's honor, conquer Ba Sing Se, and kill the Avatar in one fell swoop. Evil actions? Yes but damn she did it well. She's been abused all her life and deserves a chance to heal from her trauma. She's the only one we see in the series wield blue flames, immensely powerful. She slays every outfit and scene she appears in. Insanely quotable. "Do the tides command this ship, or do I?…Then I think you should stop worrying about the tides, which have already decided to kill you, spend more time worrying about me, who's still mulling it over."
I don’t know if this counts as Azula propaganda, but some people are using the actress who plays her in the Netflix remake as the face of NATLA’s mishaps, such as using her exaggerated facial expressions in YouTube thumbnails. They hate her because she’s a bad actress and doesn’t look enough like Azula because she has a rounder, human face.
Azula is such a classic case of 'if she were a guy you would adore her'. She is a traumatised victim of abuse raised in an environment where the "affection" of her only remaining parental figure was conditional on her ability to achieve perfection in every aspect of her life (something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve, right?). She's isolated, intentionally pitted against her brother, obsessive, and is one of the (if not, THE) most skilled firebenders of her generation, despite being raised under a patriarchy that consistently devalues women. She's so wondefully complex, has some of the best lines in the show, and she's assertive and confident. But because she's never afforded the opportunity by the narrative to reframe the way she has been treated as abuse, to learn and grow and to form healthier bonds in the way that her brother is allowed, she's irredeemably evil and a bitch and we should all hate her (at least, that's how some people seem to think.) Her emotional breakdown at the end of her final fight with Zuko and Katara is one of the most harrowing scenes in the show, because it is such a painful and tragic example of a child who has been driven to the brink by an absusive upbringing and is now trapped completely alone with their pain. Why is it that Zuko's experiences and destructive reactions to trauma are given so much grace and he deserves the chance to redeem himself, but his younger sister is "getting what she deserves" when her trauma brings her nothing but suffering? Well, we know the reason. It's misogyny.
And this is just in reference to the animated show! The absolutely horrific things that have been said about the live action actress is genuinely disgusting. Fat shaming, a slew of abuse over her acting choices, the near constant commentary on her body (Mai's actress has also suffered a lot of the same treatment.) I remember when the first season came out and the amount of discussions going around about how she wasn't "pretty enough" to play Azula, as if these grown adults were genuinly offended that this ACTUAL CHILD wasn't attractive enough for them. There's so much commentary going around about the writing in this show and how the characters are being represented, but whenever Azula comes up it is an actual struggle to find any discussion about her role in the story that doesn't devolve into a poor-taste dissection of her appearence.
Free her!!!
