Does It Ever Drive You Crazy

one of the things about Avatar the Last Airbender is it came out when I was a kid and I still enjoy just the same. <33

lol random question but does anyone else feel like they can't enjoy their life no matter how hard they try?

there are a lot of bad takes in the atla fandom (like, atla fandom may as well be a bad take generator) but something that has really been pissing me off lately is the assumption that you can categorize the fire nation royal family into good guys and bad guys. first of all, obviously, they're all bad guys. they are imperialists. but the idea that "sozin ozai azula bad" and "iroh lu ten ursa zuko azulon(?!) good" is actually insane.

lu ten died attempting to conquer the earth kingdom. lu ten was there because his father, iroh, was leading the siege. ursa laughed when iroh joked about burning ba sing se to the ground. zuko laughed too, mirroring his dear mother who taught him about the wonders of imperialism. and the fact that some people think that azulon was a good guy because he favored iroh is crazy. he favored iroh because iroh was the better imperialist, was more charming and tactically savvy as he bent the world to his will. people who think that azulon didn't like ozai because ozai was cruel literally have it backwards. ozai was cruel because azulon didn't like him. sozin shaped azulon, and azulon shaped iroh and ozai. azulon reigned for most of the war, and he was responsible for decimating the southern water tribe and colonizing the earth kingdom.

iroh only realizes the error of his ways well into middle age, after spending a majority of his life colonizing the world. he only stops to reconsider once he experiences the adverse effects of war for himself through the loss of his son. likewise, zuko can only gain empathy for the victims of the war by being one himself, as a refugee in the earth kingdom, and bonding with people who have been hurt by the fire nation. azula doesn't get that chance. ozai doesn't get that chance. azulon, lu ten, and ursa are dead, so they will never get that chance. but it's not like there is some ontological moral divide separating azula from zuko. zuko was a sensitive child whereas azula was better at embodying fire nation values of power and cunning. zuko was punished for his outbursts whereas azula knew how to keep her mouth shut. therefore, zuko experienced circumstances that led him to disavow fire nation imperialism.

but that doesn't mean that azula is ontologically evil. azula was the iroh of her generation to zuko's ozai, and iroh (eventually) disavowed conquest as well. there is no inherent divide between good and bad, monster and human. ursa was a warm and loving mother to zuko, just as iroh was a warm and loving father to lu ten, but they both laughed at others' suffering. their values were shaped by their circumstances and experiences. their ideologies do not make them less human, or less capable of change, just as their interpersonal behaviors do not negate their abhorrent ideologies.

bitch if Instagram doesn't stop deactivating me, I'm about to give up on that app as a whole. 😭💯

i hope everyone who sees this remembers that Lu Ten was an imperialist pig who died trying to capture Ba Sing Se and if you think he was someone likeable may i remind you iroh was just like his family and so was his son and before his own death the fire lord throne would have passed to him frm iroh so he was a pig. this is also to say that iroh was also a pig(and still highkey is) but thats a conversation you guys are too weak for!

tldr: if you even think lu ten was a good person block me.

I feel like ozai doesn’t get enough credit as a character because a) people see him as an individual actor as opposed to the product of a system designed to produce someone exactly like himself and ensure that they have utmost power within said system and b) his children are, by design, given more narrative space and depth than he is, making them much more compelling and sympathetic characters. but just because his limited screentime and lack of nuance makes him static and unsympathetic doesn’t make him a bad character. his narrative role is to represent the ideology of the fire nation, and he executes that role perfectly.

Lin Beifong | Requested by anonymous.

more legend of korra texts 🫡

you notice in the live action from what we can see of Ursa in this that she has a diffrent hair style and hair jewley. This is how i headcanon Ursa now with all those hair assories, as they were gifted from Ozai.

this one has a little kick !!!!