Which Avatar is next?

Korra-era Avatar fandom veteran. Creating a new blog as a lot of new content will come out in the future. Ships are the canon ships, but all relationships are tagged.

[avatar-companion]

I did end up making a new tumblr account, so I think I will be blogging about Avatar from now on here: @avatarcompanion. Follow me there for commentary in the future!

I won't delete this blog (anytime soon), and it has a heck of a long queue still running with fanart and other content.

I won't really start posting so much on the new blog right away, but keeping it open for commentary in the future.

Whenever I check in with Avatar news, it seems there's nothing really going on currently... I do want to catch up with both the netflix live action interpretation, the Azula and some other comics, as well as read the novels and probably watch atla and (especially) lok again.

I also feel like I'm outgrowing ATLA a bit, being near 30, as much as I still love the series. ATLA more so than LOK, because the characters are kids, whereas Korra is an adult by the end of her series... It would be more helpful for me to engage with these characters more, probably, when we have adult versions of them coming out with fresh content that hasn't been beaten to death by the fandom already.

Also just having more time at hand (not living/travelling in different countries) as well as energy to deal with tumblr, which as I've said here I don't really love, as much as it's maybe the best place to post your own fandom related commentary...

You are more than welcome to follow me again, but please don't take it personally if I don't re-follow as I'm not sure I'm going to follow ANYONE on the new account. When I do post stuff I'll be more than happy to chat about it - I'll just check in to post my thoughts and talk to people there, I think. Actually, another reason for making a new blog is this account cannot even respond to comments on posts for a long time now which really killed the more chatty stay-in-my-lane vibe I was going for lol.

So I guess I will be back with some Avatar thoughts eventually at @avatarcompanion

[avatar-companion]

I casually moved to @avatarcompanion.

Probably will start posting there a bit more, because I want to (slowly) catch up with new content and do some re-watch again.

Preparing for the movie next year...

[bakedbeanchan]

AU where the timeline gets reset but Zuko still has all his memories. Now in comic form

The backstory for this drawing

[dooldebob]

[mothmanavenue]

went looking for a creation myth, ended up with a pair of crackled lips

[mayskalih]

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Zutara, romance novels, and the female gaze

Okay so I’ve been thinking about the female gaze a LOT so I checked out a subreddit about romance novels, despite never having read one. I came across this meme (which was initially a Tumblr post and then got posted to Instagram and then to Reddit and I’m now bringing back to Tumblr — Internet telephone, pls never change):

And…what is The Southern Raiders, if not a platonic grovel? Katara’s pain is central to the episode. It’s central to Zuko. Zuko asks Katara what he can do to make up for his betrayal; she demands the impossible. He reads between the lines, cockblocks her brother to get the necessary information, and then waits outside her door overnight (which he also did for Iroh, the one person we know for sure he loves). He basically makes himself a receptacle for her rage, and he holds space for her by coming with her on her revenge quest and carrying their bags and not saying a damn thing about what she should and should not do beyond like…asking her to rest. And obviously the grovel works! She forgives him and then they’re thick as thieves, bantering and fighting and saving each other’s lives, etc.

On a different note, I’ve been told that enemies to lovers is one of the biggest tropes in romance novels, similar to YA lit and fanfic. Here’s something else I found in the romance novel discourse:

And…yeah. In TSR, Katara really does show Zuko her worst self, because she doesn’t feel the need to perform for him. She doesn’t feel the need to perform moral perfection OR cold blooded vengeance. She bloodbends in front of him and he just goes with it. She doesn’t kill Yon Rha and he just goes with it. He doesn’t treat her any differently afterwards. Maybe they talk about it off screen, but I kind of like the idea that they don’t, because Katara doesn’t need to explain anything. And it’s so interesting, because some people in the ATLA fandom have a totally different read on TSR. They think Zuko was encouraging Katara to get revenge (by what, keeping his mouth shut?), and that Aang is the one who acts as her moral compass. I believe that either Bryan or Mike said in the DVD commentary that Aang is the angel on her shoulder the entire time. And this interpretation does make sense if you see it from the male gaze, where Katara as an object of affection is acting in an angry, irrational, threatening way. But if you see it from the female gaze, you recognize that actually it’s probably the most emotionally taxing experience Katara has to go through, and she doesn’t owe it to be nice or perfect to anybody. Katara’s formative trauma literally comes to a head, and she has to make a decision — no, a discovery — about who she is in relation to the tragedy that defines her life and even her identity (as a waterbender, as a parentified child who becomes the mom friend, as a genocide victim), and she’s accompanied by someone who trusts her judgement and validates her feelings.

I’m not saying TSR is explicitly romantically coded, but when it conforms so well to romance novel tropes…is it any wonder that so many people thought “yes this is her man?” And then he takes lightning in the heart for her and reaches for her when he’s literally dying, I will never be normal about that either

[durch-hali]

selfiessss ☺️📸

[beechu-beechu]

Crossroads of Destiny

[durch-hali]

that one scene

[bloomsbury]

good morning to zutara nation 🌊🔥 and the real yearners!!

[lotustiled]

the zutaras are back at it again !!

[bluecoffeebeanz]

adult Zutara brainrot era i guess

[qirarey123]

A tender moment <3

[muguathepapaya]

It’s Master Katara

After one too many officials dismiss Katara, she gives a friendly reminder :]

[mageofspace924]

THEM 🧡💚

[lugiadraw]

Here si Sunday of Fanart! This time I wanted to draw a fanart of Avatar the Last Airbender, one of my favorite series from my childhood ^^ (and more fanarts will come ^^)

Remember that I have open commission, for more info click the link in my bio ^^

[katanasonata]

hello, zuko here !!