WHOVIAN ARMADA @rosethi - Tumblr Blog

THE PAINTED LADY & BLUE SPIRIT

"The Water Falls, the Stones Emerge" - 2.04

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Live Action (S2)

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opheliaaesque

we’ve come so far……….

art-nimals

Tyrus Wong (1910 - 2016), Concept art for Walt Disney’s Bambi

miseria-fortes-viros

your weird obsession with moral purity is degrading your critical thinking skills and poisoning your ability to empathize with other people btw

miseria-fortes-viros

your weird obsession with moral purity is degrading your critical thinking skills and poisoning your ability to empathize with other people btw

scuttleboat

Zutara aka Katara-Zuko community on Livejournal

I used to be a mod on here when the show was airing (as @rashaka).

I read recently that Livejournal may be soon taken down entirely as a platform. It hasn't been itself in 15 years but I will be sad to lose all of the fandom content that existed there through the 2000s. Zutara fandom was a huge part of my fandom experience and I have a soft place in my heart for it.

If anyone wants a time capsule, look at this ship community and go back to the dates when the show was airing. See what people thought about the ships, the showrunners, the fandom.

Some highlights

Episode discussion: Cossroads of Destiny

Episode discussion: The Southern Raiders

Episode discussion: Ember Island Players

Episode discussion: Sozin's Comet

rec: large rec lists

fan-fiction

On a related note, you may enjoy the ATLA tag for the ship-manfiesto community, which has two Zutara manifestos and some for the other major pairings as well.

For reference, here's the tags on the katar_zuko community:

⚠️: Do not download anything from the ads on this site. Livejournal has been compromised as a platform owned by the Russian government for years now.

In that regard, some posts are likely gone/lost/deleted. Many of the links to videos or art no longer work. This is not a full snapshot of the community, but it can give insight into how ephemeral fanworks are when they live primarily in social media platforms. The internet is not forever after all.

perfectlypanda

AtLA + Onion Headlines 8/? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

frogdisco2021

Zuko is canonically a sappy hopeless romantic who enjoys romance stories like Love Amongst The Dragons, we know this because his problem wasn't that his mom would take them to see a gushy romance play but that they did it badly. You don't care about something getting butchered unless you like that thing.

He has trouble expressing himself but tries to make thoughtful gestures and give little gifts to people he cares about to show affection.

Early on when Iroh and he are living in a cave and he's going through one of his Robbing People With Swords phases he steals a fancy tea set for Iroh in a misguided attempt at showing affection.

In another misguided attempt at affection he gives the Earth Kingdom boy his knife.

After struggling the entire night to bond with Jin because he's socially inept he does his cute little gesture of lighting the lanterns and risking outing himself as a firebender because he wants to make her happy. And then gives her a coupon for a free cup of tea when she clearly wants to kiss him, because he's clueless.

We see this style of showing affection come out with Mai as well except she sneers at it and shuts him down and hurts his feelings about it. He is the kind of sappy bastard whose first instinct on seeing something pretty is "I'm going to give this to my girlfriend :)" but it seems like this is supposed to be showing us that he and Mai aren't a good fit. He tries being sweet and vulnerable and makes little gestures, like seeing a beautiful perfectly intact conch shell and trying to give it to her, and she verbally rolls her eyes at him and hurts his feelings about it.

Later on when he's with the gaang and starting to feel safe being his true self, he's showing them affection in his typical way by making and serving everyone tea (and on a more subtextual level I think this is a way to demonstrate humility to them, since he comes from royalty he's trying to show that he sees them as equals).

He does other kind gestures to show his new affection for them in the forms of leading a prison break with Sokka and taking Katara on a trauma closure (but murder not NOT on the table if she wants) mission and waiting outside her tent all night like a wet dog on her doorstep.

Dude is a piner and a yearner. And you know what, you know who would LOVE IT if Zuko found that seashell and gave it to her and wouldn't turn up her nose at it? A certain waterbender who he acts more in love with than his canon gf.

sokkastyles

Good point about serving tea to the gaang. It also shows what kind of political leader he wants to be and how he's going to approach diplomacy with the rest of the world. Which doesn't mean he's going to be a doormat, but serving tea in Asian cultures represents hospitality, harmony, and respect.

allnewalldifferentwildspider

To me, that's one of the saddest parts of Zuko's character. He WANTS to connect with people and show affection. The problem is that Zuko was stuck being surrounded by people like Ozai, Azula and Zhao who would destroy Zuko at the slightest show of vulnerability.

I'm so happy for him when he actually gets to make tea for the gang and they happily accept his token of friendship instead of throwing it back in his face

Like Mai always did

frogdisco2021

Which is why on this blog we remember that fictional stories like ATLA are contemporary myths and the nature of myths and legends and storytelling all throughout human history has been that they get reinterpreted and changed countless times and with every classic myth there are numerous versions of it that exist.

In some later versions of the story of Heracles, storytellers added in their own little side fic to it, where Heracles is getting force-fem'd and has to live as the maidservant of this wealthy dominatrix lady and this addition to the story got so popular in retellings that it's considered its own equally valid version of the myth. Literally someone's Heracles femdom fanfic that got so popular it was accepted as a "canon" part of the story by the people of the time, most of whom probably didn't know that it wasn't in the older versions of the myth because it was the only version they'd ever heard. So now someone's dominatrix OC they created to ship with Heracles is an official part of Heracles lore and listed as one of his wives on Wikipedia (with the caveat that she's not in every version). This part of the story arose at a time when ideas about gender and sexuality were shifting somewhat, so I think we can see why people in a time period like that found this addition to the story to be intriguing and wanted to explore them through a popular myth.

"Canon" is a modern concept born from a religious concept that was designed as a tool of social and mental control. Canon should be considered like draft 1 of the contemporary myth and all fanfic and retellings are just alternative versions of the same story just like how classical mythology has multiple versions depending on who's telling it and when.

Was Iphegenia sacrificed by her father or did the goddess Artemis step in at the last moment to spare her? Both, because both versions exist and are equally valid and real because both are fictional. The one where she IS sacrificed came first (I believe) but was changed in later tellings, probably because human sacrifice was a huge no-no in Ancient Greek religion and practitioners were probably not buying the idea that a god would demand a human sacrifice when such things were strictly prohibited, and they decided that they were ignoring and rewriting that part of the "canon" because they couldn't make sense of it in the context of how they understood their religion. Kind of like how I cannot make sense of a highschool aged girl wanting to make out with a 6th grader based on my understanding of teenage girls as someone who used to be one. It was one of the first ever instances of "she would not fucking say that," so the folk fixed the error they saw in the story, and we do the same thing today with fanon and fanfiction.

They weren't buying that Artemis would ask for a human sacrifice, they decided she was acting OOC and to fix it, just like how I do not buy that Katara wanted to kiss that little boy or that Zuko would be happy with Mai, and as a result I am changing the story in the way I retell it.

So if I decide that Zuko ended up happily married to Katara and they had beautiful steambabies, then fuck it, that's what happened. Because I said so. Because that is how telling stories has worked since the dawn of humankind.

The version of ATLA where Zuko and Katara end up together is just another version of the contemporary myth. It might not be canon, but it is just as valid and just as real, because neither are real, both are imaginary, and arguing that people aren't "allowed" to disregard canon and decide for themselves what happened is basically like arguing that your imaginary friend is more real than someone else's imaginary friend. Both are imaginary. Neither are real. These are not historical events they are fictional stories and no one can stop you from deciding that something else happened because thought crime is not real and you have free will.

Deciding to disregard canon and make up your own version of fictional events is using free will to its fullest extent tbh. More people should do it when a story they like ends in an unsatisfying way. It's very fun.

Ending this rant on some Henry Jenkins wisdom.

And this one:

"'Fandom' is a vehicle of marginalized subcultural groups (women, the young, gays, etc.) to pry open space for their cultural concerns within dominant representations; it is a way of appropriating media texts and rereading them in a way that serves different interests, a way of transforming mass culture into a popular culture."

Jenkins, Henry. “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5, no. 2 (1988): 85–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038809366691.

Thank you for listening. Zutara forever.

starlingkick

andor memes pt 2

leffiesart

Water 💙Earth 💚Fire ❤️ Air 💛 Available as foil prints in my shop ✨ link in bio

marcchurch

literaryera

I keep hearing John Green say he's retired from working and lemme just say John Green is the least retired retired person I've ever seen.

sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog

I am retired!!! I retired in October of 2017 and have kept my promise not to exchange my labor for money.

Since 2017, I have only done stuff that I thought was interesting or useful regardless of whether it pays, because we have more than enough money, and despite what billionaires might tell you, there is literally no difference between "more than enough" and "much more than enough."

So I no longer work for money. But in retirement one must keep busy, which is why I have taken on an unpaid gig as the social media intern for a coffee and tea business that donates 100% of its profit to charity.

I also sometimes travel to universities and other places to speak in support of Partners in Health and global access to tuberculosis care, and sometimes I write books because writing makes me happy, and every Tuesday I make a video on vlogbrothers, and I make a podcast about the world cup with my friends from high school, and so on, but none of these things constitutes work. These are just Retirement Projects, which are essential to a happy retirement.

avantegarda

video game and film fandoms will come and go for me but the Silmarillion fandom will never die. because that book came out like 50 years ago and we're all still trying to figure out what the hell is going on there.

hamletthedane

Average Silmarillion fan:

porcelain-rob0t

the european mind cannot comprehend the 48 oz dunkin bucket

derryderrydown

Excuse me while I look something up...

1.4 litres????

politenotice

interestingmistakes

xabura

Bryke gave Katara the same fate as Ta Min: women who marry male Avatars end up as sad widows, they are unable to find love again so they can remain "pure" for their husbands even in death, and have little else to do with the rest of their lives beyond mourning. Characters like Hakoda and Kanna can remarry because Bryke aren't emotionally invested in their romances, but not Ta Min and Katara, because they're the Avatar's "forever girls" and will always "belong" to them.

callmealioness

To add fuel to the fire, look at the difference between Zuko and Katara’s canon descriptions. Katara is “a wistful old woman who terribly misses her husband”. Meanwhile, Zuko is:

“The former Fire Lord who still seeks to help bring peace to the world”

“He has hardly been living a life of pure serenity, however, as he's kept himself busy supporting the policies of his daughter, Fire Lord Izumi, and promoting peace in the world. Outside of the Fire Nation, he is also heavily invested in the well-being of Republic City and the Southern Water Tribe.” (!!!!!)

“Zuko is quick to act when he can be of service, often traveling long distances on his dragon, Druk, to lend aid.”

“Zuko’s priority is his family and if danger strikes, he’s there. Since Zuko carries a lot of clout, he can also pull some strings on a hero’s behalf, especially in the Fire Nation, Republic City, or the Southern Water Tribe.”

Look how easy that was. In just 1 (one) short paragraph, Zuko was characterized as an active politician who deeply cares for his people but will make his family his main priority, and it’s explicitly stated that he is recognized as a hero and that he cares about the formerly colonized territories.

Why, why, why, WHY doesn’t Katara get any of that same grace? (I’m sorry but, at this point, anyone who argues that this isn’t sexism is being willfully obtuse)

jana-137

Just noticed how they described Zuko as a very good and involved father. Do they know that they just keep proving that they made the wrong choice by having Katara end up with Aang? And this also just proves that they really didn’t care about Katara when they were pushing for Kataang. They agreed to make Aang a bad dad but Zuko a great one, but sure, Katara is totally happier with Aang, why would she want a good dad to her kids?! *she says passive aggressively*