archived

atla sideblog (mama sideblog @linsbeifong) zuko is autistic and u can fight me on that

[professorsparklepants]

Man do you ever think about how many places Zuko has broken into? Like

The Western Air Temple (twice), which was canonically built so that it could only be reached with airbending

(It’s also implied he broke into the other three too)

The Northern Water Tribe, whose defenses hadn’t been breeched in 100 years and was also currently under siege

Pohuai stronghold, which was on high red alert after capturing the fucking Avatar

Avatar Roku’s temple, mostly notable because he broke through a naval blockade to get there (dude wtf)

Lake Laogi, the secret underground headquarters of Ba Sing Se’s evil secret police that is also crawling with Earth benders

(Ba Sing Se at large doesn’t count since they forged their papers)

The Fire Nation capital’s prison, where the main threat to the Fire Lord’s rule (Iroh) was imprisoned for months

His own family’s vacation home (this isn’t an achievement I just thought it was funny)

A thousand+ year old sacred site dedicated the first firebenders that was also full of booby traps, Indiana Jones style, because why not

The Boiling Rock, the highest security prison in the Fire Nation

The headquarters of the Southern Raiders, an elite naval force on an island in the middle of nowhere

The Fire Nation’s royal palace, which was admittedly mostly empty at the time but still had Azula in it

His own family’s vacation home (again) after getting banished (again)

[tanoraqui]

he’s…a rogue. How did I not realize that he’s a rogue. Who happens to firebend.

[cooltastrophe]

One of my favorite things about zuko is he thinks of himself as a failure for not being a firebending prodigy, but is actually INCREDIBLY competent (even prodigious!) At almost everything else

[makosbeifongs]

‘ you’re just a child ‘               ‘ well you’re just a teenager ‘

[xkatebishop]

“Her power is beyond anything I could ever hope to achieve.”

[comradekatara]

therapist: so how are you? 

me: the entire foundation of mai and zuko’s relationship was built on how miserable they were together, and how they would just sit there and hate the world together— letting their misery fester as they enabled each other’s depression— and I think that’s really unfortunate because they would work so well as friends if they weren’t trying to make their dumpster fire of a relationship work. similarly, what makes zuko and katara’s dynamic so compelling is that they share the same flaws, only as opposed to mai’s apathy and misery, it’s katara’s rage and guilt that zuko identifies with. they both share trauma over having lost their mothers, and both in a similar way (sacrificing themselves for them) and they both cope with their grief through rage, often misplaced. in the southern raiders, they both act deeply insensitively towards sokka by acting as if his grief over his mother’s death is somehow less valid simply because he is a lot quieter in his coping mechanisms and doesn’t project his rage & guilt onto everyone else. katara and zuko have a deep & profound friendship, but if they were to be in a relationship, they would only bring out the absolute worst in each other thru enabling each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision making. conversely, when they go to the boiling rock, it is shown that sokka and zuko make an excellent team, as they balance each other perfectly. sokka thinks big picture, and plans ahead, but zuko will charge into situations, and account for the details of the plan, such as when he breaks the lever for the gondola. in that same scene, we see zuko jump off the platform and sokka catch him without any communication that either was going to do so. zuko later catches sokka from slipping off the side of the gondola. when they’re fighting azula, again they fall into wordless trust with zuko on the defense blocking azula’s fire, while sokka takes the defense, using the opening zuko creates by protecting him to charge at azula with his sword. throughout the entire episode, zuko supports all of sokka’s decisions without question, telling him that it’s his call to make when he wonders whether they should stay another night, which is the kind of trust sokka always needed to receive as the leader. when sokka is about to give up because he’s afraid of failing again, zuko inspires him and even encourages failure, a lesson that sokka still needs to learn, especially after the shame he feels after losing the invasion. throughout the episode as well you can see the steady building of their friendship, and they’re shown to trust each other unconditionally. the next episode, zuko asks sokka to recount to him one of his most traumatic memories in excruciating detail, and even though sokka could easily say fuck no, he tells zuko about the death of his mother because it is important to him that zuko and katara get along. zuko also genuinely smiles a hell of a lot more than he does pretty much any other episode, even though the situation is incredibly tense, because he enjoys sokka’s company, even when he’s in prison. zuko and sokka have a lot in common, a lot of the same experiences struggling with limitations of masculinity and feeling worthless compared to their prodigious younger sisters. and that’s not to mention that they have a lot of interests in common, such as swords, and the arts (sokka likes to paint & draw, zuko is a theatre kid etc), not to mention they share a similar dry, sarcastic, offbeat sense of humor. as opposed to zuko and mai, who are two miserable people who make each other miserable, zuko and sokka are two miserable people who make each other HAPPY 

therapist: okay……..but how are you?

[homophobicavatarstyle]

Katara: I've done as much as I can for the lightning wound, but it's gonna leave a scar, sorry Zuko

Zuko: eh, what's another scar from a family member amirite lmao

Sokka: ...what?

Zuko: the scar on my eye? did I never tell you guys my father did that?

[Later in Ozai's cell]

[korraavaatu]

The Legend of Korra Edit Challenge ➵ Seven Episodes

5. The Last Stand

[la-vaniteuse]

[hermitmoss]

“I didn’t want to go to bed without you.” + makroh (i am a predictable bitch braigwen)

Mako more or less crashes through the door of his apartment.  He shrugs off his coat, and goes to throw it any-which-where, before hesitating.  He does throw it, but he carefully unpins the badge first.

The shining Chief’s emblem isn’t the only jewelry he wears - there is a ring on his fourth finger, in keeping with the Earth Kingdom tradition.  It bears a royal crest, two tiny golden dragons with a perfect, shining flame, made of amber and ruby.  In the last century or so, many Earth Kingdom traditions have quietly been taken up by the Fire Nation - one effect of the old military occupation.  Much more recently, they’ve been taken up in another way as well.

Mako thinks of the matching ring, with beryl and jade instead of ruby, on his husband’s finger.

United Republic of Nations indeed.

Speaking of his husband -

“It’s almost midnight,” says Mako, confused and slightly concerned, “I told you the meeting was going to stretch this late, why didn’t you -”

General Iroh flushes, very slightly, as they embrace.  Mako can see his ear-tips go red beneath his hair, and can feel the warmth of his cheeks, the heat more than their firebender’s norm.  “Maybe I didn’t want to go to bed without you,” he whispers, like a child confessing nightmares.

Mako might melt.  Just a little.  

Iroh’s hand is tangled in his hair.

“Let’s get some sleep now, then,” he says.

[princessannarchive-deactivated2]

[makosbeifongs]

for @zutaraweek day three -> shattered

[ivian]

evolution

[taeyongdoyoung]

#just bros being bros

[james-romanoff]

[makosbeifongs]

One thing, I don't know why It doesn't even matter how hard you try

[fyeah-team-avatar]

[o6scura-deactivated20130202]

 #best fucking fight scene in the history of forever #because it’s between the prodigy that slowly fell through the cracks in her throne #and the child who fought tooth and nail for everything he wanted #also the music #and the colors #and EVERYTHING #avatar: the last airbender

[korralations]

Will forever be my favorite scene in all of television. Breaks my heart every time.

[stormandozone]

Can you imagine the funt he animators had with it, too? So much LIGHTING and COLOR and auuugh favorite fight ever yesyes. I mean, with the plot, the visuals and the soundtrack, it’s just… stunning, a masterpiece.

[lj-writes]

Cultural appropriation and cultural sharing in Avatar: The Last Airbender compared.

[lj-writes]

Reblogging myself to talk about the ‘Disrespectful’ gif because Mai and Ty Lee’s disrespect in that scene is toward not only the Kyoshi Warriors’ culture but to the Warriors themselves as well. But that’s always the case, isn’t it? Cultural disrespect always goes with personal disrespect. Always.

Mai and Ty Lee’s attitude here plays into a really pernicious stereotype about women in colonialized cultures, that they are hypersexual seductresses out to sink their claws into men, especially men of the colonializing group. Of course the reality is that men of the colonizing group, and often women as well, hypersexualize and prey on the colonized people.

I mean, the Kyoshi Warriors were foraging in the middle of nowhere. They weren’t dressed up to look pretty: their clothes and war paint were their uniforms and ties to their heritage, not look-at-me-I’m-so-beautiful decorations. Yet so ingrained were the stereotypes Mai and Ty Lee had been taught about Earth Kingdom women, they took one look at the Kyoshi Warriors and dismissed them as exotic, sexualized creatures. The Fire Nation girls even seem to take OFFENSE at how the Warriors are dressed, as though their clothes are somehow demeaning or a provocation.

In the process Mai and Ty Lee subtly set themselves up as the more liberated women, the serious fighters as oppsed to these frivolous foreign girls. And I’m willing to bet a lot that the Fire Nation used its comparative gender equality for propaganda purposes, harping on the need to save the oppressed Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom women from Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom men. Sozin’s own stated motivation for starting the war was exactly what we would call a white savior complex if he were white. This is how white feminism and the white savior complex work to reinforce colonialism in our world.

While all the characters in ATLA are coded as POC, mostly Asians, these dynamics of colonialism and supremacy apply across culture and race. In fact I’m quite happy that ATLA depicts these issues between nonwhite peoples. Though colonialism by European and European-descended cultures is the most dominant currently in our world (hence the descriptor ‘white’), it has never been solely a European issue. Just look at how the Air Nomads are explicitly based on Tibet, which is suffering from decades of Chinese colonialism. China and other nonwhite colonializing powers have used their lack of European descent as a shield, but it’s not a defense. Just because European colonization has been massively destructive doesn’t mean other peoples can’t be oppressive as well.

[attackfish]

I’d like to add to this idea that Earth Kingdom women are treated to a gendered form of racial or ethnic prejudice, because it runs though more than just the interactions Azula and her minions have with the Kyoshi Warriors.  In “Zuko Alone,” for example, when Iroh sends Azula an Earth Kingdom doll, he writes, “And for Azula, a new friend. She wears the latest fashion for Earth Kingdom girls.“  What’s stressed are the aesthetics of her dress, and a hobby that Azula, and later Mai and Ty Lee, plainly associates with girlyness, not only femininity, but a childish, useless femininity.

This derision of Earth Kingdom girls and women as “girly” and overly feminine comes up again not only during the battle with the Kyoshi Warriors, but after as well.  Mai for example talks about wanting to get out of the girly disguise she has to wear, i. e., dressing as a Kyoshi Warrior, and when Ty Lee suggests that the Kyoshi Warriors have less depressing make up than Mai.

We can contrast this with what Suki says about her uniform: “It’s a warrior’s uniform. You should be proud. The silk threads symbolizes the brave blood that flows through our veins. The gold insignia represents the honor of the warrior’s heart.”

Later, in the Comic “Going Home Again,” Azula puts a brainwashed Joo Dee in nominal charge of Ba Sing Se because she is so pliable.  If the subjugation of Earth Kingdom girls is a rallying cry for public support for the war in the Fire Nation, it certainly does not trickle down to what happens on the ground.  Just as normally happens in real life, Azula is perfectly happy to take over exploiting Earth Kingdom women in a gendered way similar to the way Long Feng did.  There isn’t any enlightened spreading of feminist values here, not when gendered exploitation is so useful to the new colonial government.

The implied view that all Earth Kingdom women are oppressed also shows a cultural flattening of the Earth Kingdom.  It’s pretty clear from the series that Kyoshi Island culturally distinct from Ba Sing Se or Gaoling.  They have different gender roles and norms, and this is entirely ignored by Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee.  This is also common to colonial powers historically, and still common today.  Think of the way so many white western people treat East Asian ethnicities as interchangeable, especially with regards to and fetishization.  In many ways, the implied attitudes of the Fire Nation people toward Earth Kingdom women and girls functions as a G-rated version of that same fetishization process.

[lj-writes]

Yup, the thing about the colonialist savior complex is that there’s no actual saving involved. These women are exploited in rhetoric to justify colonialism, and also in reality as well. It’s no wonder the Dai Li switched allegiance to Azula–she perpetuated the same system they were part of and benefited from, she just played the game better than Long Feng did.

One of the things I really liked about ATLA was how it showed the Fire Nation’s distorted perception of other cultures compared to their perceptions of themselves. The Kyoshi Warriors are a good example of this as you point out, as is what Earthbending means for Haru vs. the prison warden’s contempt for Earthbenders in the episode “Imprisoned.” The Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe characters have prejudices against Fire Nation people, too, with nearly deadly results when Jet tries to wipe out a village, but it’s also clear that the harm isn’t equal when the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdoms are undergoing systematic genocide while the Fire Nation is facing, at its outskirts, insurgent pushback–some of it terrorist in nature, as in Jet’s case–from its aggression.

I like how the show’s response to all these complex issues was showing the diversity not only between common groupings but within them. Some Earth Kingdom women, like the Ba Sing Se upper crust, really are pampered and hyperfeminine, and that in itself isn’t a bad thing (though the system of economic exploitation underlying their luxury certainly is), the show’s subtle devaluation of girliness as bad notwithstanding. Katara, Toph, and Sokka all find something to enjoy in the Ba Sing Se high culture that caters to and is shaped by noblewomen. Some Earth Kingdom women are warriors and healers, others are everyday working class people like Jin. That kind of variety is a great antidote to the flattening view the Fire Nation imposed on other cultures, and in a way the whole show gives the lie to the idea of Asian interchangeability. (I mean it’s not perfect–it still follows the trope of “Asia” being primarily East Asia, with what could be a Southeast Asia analogue played largely as a joke and the Tibet stand-in presented as already dead and gone. But one story can’t do everything, and I can still enjoy it while seeing where it falls into common traps of thought.)

[unicornships]

the hilariously synchronized symmetrical reactions of Zuko and Katara