The stars don't shine, they burn

she/her • side blog • fandom mess • main: @vodka-and-tvshows

[regal-dreamr]

Hi! I’m Lucy. This is a side blog mostly for whatever fandom I’m hyperfixating on at the moment and things I don’t want to put on my main. Currently Encanto with a sprinkle of atla & tlok here and there, but other fandoms might appear randomly. 

I also write sometimes, in case you want to check that out here. Most of the works on that list are for Kyalin (tlok)

[vodka-and-tvshows]

Jumping head first into the Criminal Minds/Jemily fandom with a 5k+ words fic

Here is the ao3 link if anyone would like to check it out :)

[gaynfl-moved]

princess azula of the fire nation | daughter by beyoncé

[evelynnblackwood-deactivated202]

This. This is peak Korra.

[locuas642]

The thing about Katara is that she was angry.

She was angry that the Fire Nation killed her mother.

She was angry that her father left them.

She was angry that she was the only Waterbender left in the south pole.

She was angry that the only person her age was her brother, who constantly disregarded her interests and her role in the tribe.

She was angry that what little waterbending she knew, had to be self-taught and how she struggled with that.

she was angry that a twelve year old instantly picked up what had taken her a long time to learn.

she was also angry that her tribe wanted to kick that twelve year old into the wilderness over a mistake.

she was angry over the earth-benders the fire nation had captured and put into a metal box.

she was angry.

And she knew she was angry.

Because she knew her own anger, she was the first to empathize with Aang when he got angry.

And it was because of it she could tell Aang forcing himself to lock his emotions up was not the answer.

Because she knew her own anger, she kept herself under control in the dessert, when everyone else was a mess.

Her anger empowered her. where anger was a tool of self-destruction for firebenders, for her it was what helped her push forward.

It was her anger that freed Aang.

It was her anger that helped her stand to Pakku.

Her anger was her strenght.

She was angry. And this was neither a mistake, nor a writing flaw.

[regal-dreamr]

I’m three episodes into Netflix’s atla live action adaptation. I get they needed to change things to fit characters and storylines in a shorter amount of time. I am not the biggest fan so far but i don’t think it’s bad like I was expecting it to be. I don’t hate it.

HOWEVER I do think it’s a great mistake that they toned down Katara’s character. She feels too much like a Disney princess to me and is missing that “fire” she’s always had. She’s too soft in my opinion. In the animation she literally releases Aang from the iceberg because she’s ranting at her brother for being sexist.

Speaking of, Sokka being a misogynistic guy and seeing his growth throughout the show is a huge part of his character as well !!!!

And my last complain for now. Aang not having a crush on Katara and him not being as playful feels like some of the charm of his character is missing too.

[regal-dreamr]

Damn whoever the show runner is was a BIG Kyoshi fan

[kat-rose-griffith]

I liked it better when Katara released Aang from his 100 year slumber through the pure unfiltered rage of a feminist rant at her brother

[regal-dreamr]

They had one job and that was Katara screaming at Sokka for being misogynistic and as a result getting Aang out of the iceberg

[regal-dreamr]

What the actual fuck was the reason to show the massacre of the air nomads ?????

[raspberrysgod]

we went from this one hug to korra wrapping herself around asami every chance she gets like they truly invented love

[lisaminnci]

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER 3x07 ➢ The Runaway

[26dgbt]

adult gaang coming soon 🥹

[theotheristhedoctor]

Ok minor detail but ...

So I noticed in A:TLA, and it’s carried over in LoK, that Airbenders always seem to have an advantage in a fight. And at first, it felt like plot armour, particularly in A:TLA.

But when Aang fought Bumi, he lost most of that advantage. And I realised that this wasn’t just plot armour. Someone had sat and worked it out: nobody has had to fight Airbenders for generations. 

None of the other nations have had to train to face them, or practised sparring with them, or anything. Apart from Bumi, no bender in the show has ever even met an airbender before Aang comes along. And in LoK, for the most part people still haven’t. We never see fights between those who have (for e.g. we never see Tenzin and Lin fight); when Korra and Tenzin use airbending, its a unique fighting style that people aren’t trained to manage.

It’s a really small detail, and it fundamentally works to give the heroes an advantage (and make up for Aang’s young age and lack of combat experience), but I love how it’s an advantage in combat for completely logical reasons.

The detail in these shows is amazing. 

[sindri42]

You can see the same principle in play whenever somebody fights somebody who uses a completely unfamiliar style. Combustion benders and lavabenders aren’t straight up more powerful, but they’re pretty much always something you haven’t dealt with which presents unique challenges. That red lotus lady with no arms is just a perfectly ordinary waterbender, but using forms and styles nobody else has seen before. Jet routinely smacks around benders and soldiers, but loses hard to the first person he met who had actually studied diverse styles of swordplay. When Toph invents metalbending, nobody can deal with that, but seventy years later the counters are pretty well known among people who might have to fight the cops.

And it’s why Azula, a genius prodigy who has thought long and hard about how to counter every kind of magic and martial arts out there, keeps getting messed up by a kid with a boomerang.

[ninjaotta]

it’s also a detail from the second ever episode

aang straight up says to the fire nation guards on zuko’s ship “you’ve probably never fought an airbender before”, because he in-universe figures out that, if what everyone around him is saying is true, and airbenders have been extinct for a century (or at least have gone to ground enough to make people think that) then he is a totally unknown figure in anyone’s calculations

this has been brought up before but it’s also one of the reasons why hama is so thrown in her fight with katara - waterbending is about energy exchange, keeping things flowing, throwing your opponent’s power back at them and we see katara and hama do this in their fight. however, when katara is faced with a powerful blast from hama, she stands her ground and blows it apart:

[image ID: a gif of katara in the puppetmaster. she is a teenage girl with dark skin and hair and blue eyes, wearing a red outfit. she turns and throws her hand out, stopping a blast of water and turning it into a huge shield. the background is a dark forest. end image ID]

why do i bring this up?

because it’s a move - and a mindset - influenced by earthbending, which hama has never faced (she went from the south pole, to prison, to the fire nation). it’s an indication not only of katara’s skill and power, but also how she’s learned from her travels, and from toph

[toughtink]

one of my favorite details of atla is how the main characters’ fighting styles adapt as they take on new enemies and make new friends with other bending styles. iroh straight up tells zuko about how he developed a technique for redirecting lightning by studying waterbenders, but if you watch closely especially in the last season, there’s a lot of this sort of thing happening unspoken with the gaang, using the bending forms of other elements like katara does above. it really shows the strength in differences and diversity coming up against a fascist regime that wants everyone to conform.

[biglawbear]

Look at Korra metal bending here

It’s completely different than anything we’ve seen from other metal benders, who bend metal with sharp movements like the derivative of earth bending that it is

But Korra is fluid. She is bending metal like it’s water. Because she is a water bender. And she is the first person in history to be able to bend both metal and water and so she is able to combine these styles into one and move seamlessly between them. This shows so beautifully how the Avatar is the embodiment of all bending

[ironbite4]

Every time I think this show has shown me all it can….it gives me more.

[northerngoshawk]

Let’s talk about Katara.

Let’s talk about Katara, who had been born to a culture already decimated by the war and bloodshed and violence, who had been born the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe because the Fire Nation took them all.

Let’s talk about Katara, who had to watch her mother die to protect her, who had to watch her father leave with every man left in the tribe - and with him, many of those who were keeping the Southern Water Tribe’s cultures and traditions alive.

Let’s talk about Katara, who had to watch her own brother become obsessed with surviving and fighting, who pushed again and again and again to teach the younger children how to fight, until all that the tribe’s culture became is fighting and surviving.

Let’s talk about Katara, who had forgotten (and how everyone had forgotten) what it means to have fun until Aang arrives (“Don’t you see? Aang’s brought us something we haven’t had in a long time: fun.”) because the war took that from her and her tribe and all they remember is how to fight and survive.

Let’s talk about Katara, who is the only one alive who could possibly understand what Aang has gone through, and how Aang is the only one who could understand what Katara has gone through. How they are both the last benders of their respective cultures, and how those cultures were destroyed by the imperialist Fire Nation. How they are holding on to every shred of their cultures in a world that continually rips that away from them.

Let’s talk about Katara, who lashed out in anger at Aang because he picked up waterbending so quickly (and it’s not fair, it’s not, it’s not, because she should’ve learned it growing up in the first place, but it was taken from her with every waterbender taken from the Southern Water Tribe) and she was the waterbender, what does it mean when she can’t even learn her own bending?

Let’s talk about Katara, who finally found a shred of her culture that wasn’t lost to the war, who sat in Bato’s tent that was built to resemble their home and joined in the ceremonial ice dodging as a rite of passage for Sokka - and how even then, it was tainted by the war (because Hakoda left when Sokka was supposed to do it and they didn’t dodge ice like they’re supposed to).

Let’s talk about Katara, who had traveled from the bottom of the world to the top in the hopes of learning waterbending - only to be told that no, you can’t learn because you’re a girl, who had to literally fight for her right to learning waterbending - her right to learning about her own culture.

Let’s talk about Katara, who learned that the necklace she and her mother and her grandmother wore was a betrothal necklace from the Northern Water Tribe - just another piece of her culture that didn’t truly belong to the Southern Water Tribe.

Let’s talk about Katara, who fought, and won, and could now learn waterbending alongside Aang, but all she is taught is the Northern style of waterbending. She will never learn the Southern style - the style native to her tribe, the style she should’ve learned (and yes, maybe it should be enough that she was even being taught, but war takes and takes and takes and you can’t help but grieve what was taken).

Let’s talk about Katara, who had been so eager to learn from Hama because she was the only other Southern waterbender, who had begged Hama to teach her their tribe’s culture, and all she was taught was use every resource at hand to survive and bloodbending - not even a shard of the Southern Water Tribe’s culture can survive without being tainted by war and bloodshed and violence.

Let’s talk about Katara, who looked Yon Rha in the eye - the man who killed her mother, the man who led the Southern Raiders in destroying every last piece of the Southern waterbenders’ culture - and chose to walk away instead (and maybe it’s because she’s strong enough to do it, maybe it’s because she’s too weak not to do it, but it’s more than he deserves).

Let’s talk about Katara, who looked Zuko in the eye and forgave him - Zuko, who had been part of the nation that instigated the destruction of her culture, who had been part of the royal family that commanded that destruction (and maybe she understands that it wasn’t his fault, not entirely, but maybe it’s also hard to see his face without remembering the ash and smoke and fire that consumed the Southern Water Tribe) - and that takes strength.

Because listen, listen. Katara is a character shaped by cultural genocide and loss and colonialism and assimilation. Her title as “The Last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe” defines her as much as how Aang’s title as “The Last Airbender” defines him. Every choice she makes, every action she takes, has always been built upon loss - of her mother, of her culture, of her people.

Culture has always defined Katara so intimately, and by missing that, we miss who she is and who she’s meant to be.

[ube-halaya-chan]

[ssuzu]

I LOVE LILITH. 😤💙💙 btw my comms are OPEN now OwO! all info is here ~