A Thousand Broken Wings @jaycemae - Tumblr Blog

omghotmemes

it is complete, what happens now?

luisonte

jd666

Thought he was a retriever at first… but he’s obviously a setter….

callmeisabel

why is this dog 10x better than me and I played competitive volleyball at college

shymagnolia

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

shymagnolia

okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post

flagellant

…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment

likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post

quidditygenesis

Gonna try it. Need me some good luck.

nec-sanguinis-atramento

eternalgirlscout

it’s like, the first time you ever see zuko he’s flipping his lid because he saw… a light in the sky… over the south pole… you know, where celestial lights happen sometimes? and the only reason he’s RIGHT about it being the avatar is because that kid has spent almost 3 years wholeheartedly believing the same thing every time he sees a weird cloud

and considering how buck fucking wild stuff gets in the atla world i feel like it’s a reasonable conclusion that a habit of running full-speed directly at every single instance of mysterious weird phenomena is going to get you tangled in Spirit Bullshit sooner or later

anyway what i’m saying is the only reason zuko didn’t get his shop absolutely wrecked by a spirit 2 months into his banishment is because those spirits would see iroh over his shoulder and be like “ok he’s cool he’s cool”

babytimez

me, showing up to the pta meeting to flex on ozai with my lemon squares: have you met my new son?

ozai, seeing prince zuko behind me: you bitch.

babytimez

just realized this is what iroh did for real

brawltogethernow

(The lemon squares go great with tea and by the end of the night everybody is going to have been told this at least five times.)

wildpokemon

ATLA: Zuko and his dual swords

royaltealovingkookiness

I love watching how effortless it is for Zuko to wield the dual swords - he looks so balanced when he’s using them.

None of that emotional crap he has towards firebending - he’s calm, confident and composed. It’s like a whole another person.

emletish-fish

I always felt like dual swords was something that was just his. No one else in his family uses weapons. Zuko pursued mastery in private, was allowed to develop his skills normally, with a patient teacher in piandao and no heavy trauma associated with swords.

He is like a different person using them.

whimsyandmayhem

This makes me think about a talk I watched recently on education. The point of it was that you might be better off (emotionally, in terms of your educational attainment, and in terms of your coping skills) going to a good-but-not-the-absolute-best school no matter how smart you are because people judge themselves not objectively but subjectively against their closest peers.

In this case, Zuko is objectively one of the best fire benders in the entire world. But his sister is better, his uncle is better, his father is better, as are a small handful of others. So he thinks he’s terrible and a failure. But if I were the 10th best heart surgeon in the world that would still be an INCREDIBLE accomplishment.

There’s no one for him to compare himself to when it comes to his style of swordsmanship. I don’t mean that he therefore spends a lot of time thinking of himself as the best. He knows Master Piandao is better. He’s generally a humble dude. But there’s no metaphorical pond for him to think of himself as a small fish in.

I totally agree with @emletish-fish about the trauma related to fire bending not being there for swordsmanship. And I think that comes not just from his family context, but also from his educational and geopolitical context.

elimentals

it makes me real fucking emo to think of how Iroh always refers to Zuko as “Prince Zuko”. Not out of some false stuck-up sense of formality or to distance himself emotionally or something, but because Zuko has been kicked out of his home by his own father and stripped of his identity, has lost his birthright and nation and entire sense of self in one terrible blow, and all he really has left is his name and title, as defamed and mocked as it is. Iroh is probably the only person in the world to address Zuko as “Prince” and actually mean it. His nephew needs to believe he can return home, needs to maintain some scrap of hope to keep him going. The only time Iroh slips up is and just calls him “Zuko” is when he thinks Zuko’s been killed in the ship explosion.

similarly, it makes me real fucking emo to think of how Zuko only ever calls Iroh “Uncle”. Not Prince, not General, not the Dragon of the West, not even just Iroh – he calls him uncle. Because Iroh is the only member of his family who Zuko trusts enough to let his guard down completely. He knows he won’t be punished for being informal or vulnerable around him, knows that calling him “uncle” will never be misconstrued as a sign of disrespect. Even at his angriest, Zuko addresses Iroh as “Uncle”. In the end, his uncle is the only person with whom he feels truly safe.