late-draft

[late-draft]

Been busy with IRL events in my country, sorry for being AFK! Feel free to browse my art until I make more!

[late-draft]

The founder of Jinko being a Zutara shipper makes so much sense.

[late-draft]

Here's my guess, since the episode was created way before the ending of the series was decided upon: the Fortuneteller episode was supposed to hold in itself the answers to the question but obfuscate them somewhat with Sokka's red herring comment about Aang being a powerful bender.

After watching the episode the viewer might think the narrative is showcasing Aang as being a potential candidate, but later on in the series the actual lessons in this episode (Meng's role was to be a vector of delivery of these lessons) would be called back upon, and only then would Aang learn and adopt them. Because if we remember, he didn't actually pick up on them and internalize them in the episode itself! And that's okay, stories are more interesting when characters have to struggle or take time in understanding some life lessons.

I can see why some argue that "The Fortuneteller" is an anti-Kataang episode since it makes no sense that Aunt Wu's prediction would allude to her being with Aang when the entire episode is about not relying on superstitions and Katara seems confused after Sokka calls Aang a powerful bender (the exact description for the person she's destined to marry). But, at the same time, Aunt Wu tells Aang that he has the power to shape his own destiny after saying she sees so no love in his future. Are Bryke telling that Aang has a chance with Katara or not? If it’s the former, then the episode is just another example of Katara's desires being ignored.

[late-draft]

Zuko's unkillability should be utilized more in post canon. Every fire lord Zuko headcanon is all "poor Zuko, having to deal with so many assassination attempts, this boy is hanging on by a thread." But listen, my guy has already survived being burned, blown up, electrocuted, fought three agni kais, faced the Avatar numerous times. It becomes something of a meme in the FN that no one can kill the firelord so you shouldn't even try, Zuko ends up surviving increasingly elaborate and unlikely assassination attempts. He develops an immunity to poison after having been poisoned so many times. He's just like "huh, you thought THAT would kill me?" at this point.

[late-draft]

Hoookay I didn't expect such a thunderous response! I may do all characters as coloured stickers so stay tuned!

Ever since I saw there are ATLA chibi shorts, my brain has never been the same

[late-draft]

Addendum, holy damn these animations and rigs in the game are actually so good. It doesn't matter that textures aren't hyper-realistic or that models are very low-poly, all those things are relatively unimportant especially back then when computers didn't have as much processing power so both these things were too demanding. The designers, riggers and animators were so skilled and knocked it out of the park!

You know, I just wanted to say that your drawing style gives me great nostalgia from childhood video game I used to play a lot when I was young. It’s called ��Jak and Daxter”. Everytime I see any drawings of yours or even just a little doodle, it’s just so cool and rad! That same vibe from the game. It’s just !!! Everytime! Sparks a lot of joy fr 🤝🏼

I love it! ✨

Omg wow this is great!! I wasn't very familiar with this series so I went to check it out, and I like it so much! Super glad you told me about it ^^ Yess I really enjoy this style and I'm glad my work brings you joy too! ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

[late-draft]

Shocking, but it seems I haven't posted this WIP animation here yet! Well here it is

[late-draft]

You know, I just wanted to say that your drawing style gives me great nostalgia from childhood video game I used to play a lot when I was young. It’s called “Jak and Daxter”. Everytime I see any drawings of yours or even just a little doodle, it’s just so cool and rad! That same vibe from the game. It’s just !!! Everytime! Sparks a lot of joy fr 🤝🏼

I love it! ✨

Omg wow this is great!! I wasn't very familiar with this series so I went to check it out, and I like it so much! Super glad you told me about it ^^ Yess I really enjoy this style and I'm glad my work brings you joy too! ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

[late-draft]

Toph's design for the Last Air Keyholder AU is here! She's not just incredibly proficient with the skateboard, she also manipulates the environment itself to her advantage to adjust her path and influence her movement! What else to expect from the greatest earthbender in the world?

Check out the other works in this Sci-fi ATLA AU!

[late-draft]

I constantly see art for Lee and Kya. Do you have an au written? If so, can you link it?

Hello! I started writing this AU some time ago, and have already posted the first chapter on AO3 under the name To Hesitate. You can read it here! ❤️

[late-draft]

The Fortuneteller thing.

I don't like how ambiguous and flippant the writing is about whether it A. does in fact feature legitimate predictions about the future in the atla universe B. is just making a joke and isn't actually giving any info so we should disregard everything Aunt Wu said C. actively insists that a person should make their own destiny.

Katara's prediction is THE problematic one, because Aang's is an empowering one as it says it simply cannot view his future love life, but assures him that he can carve out his own destiny.

By this logic, Katara's prediction should also have been that it's invisible and that she can make her own path and choices. But it doesn't, it says what it says. Unless Aunt Wu simply took a wild guess that Katara, a powerful bender, would like to imagine being with a powerful bender herself; but the series gives no hint, no visual clue through which we could spot that Aunt Wu was just guessing what her client would like to/should hear. For all intents and purposes, Katara's future prediction is framed by the series as actually legitimate.

I'm talking exclusively about metaphysics here, not about the narrative purpose of the fortunetelling it had in the show (because the purpose was to clearly position Aang as a possible option but still staying vague enough to allow it to not turn out to be true. Possible setup for a misdirect, a red herring.)

The vibes are off, that is, the framing of Aang's and Katara's predictions imply completely different things about how fortunetelling works in ATLA.

With all of that in mind, and if we accept Katara's prediction in the form it was given, I think the only, ONLY way I could consider it to be "okay", is if it resulted in Katara herself one day choosing to tell someone that she views them as a very powerful bender. This way it's her who is choosing, her who is deciding who to bestow with this description. It could be as a consequence of her becoming fully aware of what she feels for whichever person she describes.

[late-draft]

another day in which i'm forced to wonder how anyone could think oma and shu isn't a zutara parallel... two lovers torn apart and unable to find happiness due to belonging to two different tribes... it's so sad. animation is a visual language and look at these two scenes. to claim they were not drawn like this on purpose is denial

zuko and katara are wearing the same colors and oma holds a red branch like zuko's fire, they are standing in a cave the same color as the crystal catacombs, like it's been said over and over again, but wow, how can anyone not see this as romantic coding

[late-draft]

Well said! The story that ATLA tells, from start to finish of the 3 season long show, requires these two characters to diverge and end up in opposite positions. It's not about being fair to characters, it's about telling a story and showing a theme through those characters. They were designed as devices first, especially Azula, not meant to be fully realistic flesh-and-blood humans. However, a story is elevated the more these characters get depth and layers, but it's important to understand them first as tools.

ATLA manages to make its characters feel very layered and believable, and manages to make each of them able to stand on their own, without being a literal shadow or mirror reflection of another character. It is this collection of both thematic comparisons and solidness of main characters that is one of the things that make ATLA's writing so great. (Some secondary characters... are not so detailed but not all have time to be well-developed.)

The ending of Zuko's redemption requires Azula's fall. At that moment, story-wise she cannot even begin a redemption arc. The narrative just wouldn't function like that. (If we sliced the story at a different point, let's say Zuko's banishment and said "this is the ending", we'd see a snapshot of Azula on the top of the world sort-of-speak as the de facto heir and Zuko mutilated and exiled forever. But the story doesn't end there!)

After the ending of ATLA series however, when the context of the story changes - after the war, then she could begin a new arc just like all characters would. But it would still be just as valid if she never improved and stayed in her bad ways, as it would be if she decided to choose to improve. Based on that speculation about how a season 4 could have gone, it looks like it was the latter, that Azula would have been able to start improving after first hitting rock bottom.

the thing with zuko and azula that people, specifically azula stans, seem to forget is that they are intentionally and specifically characterised in opposition to each other.

i keep seeing discourse about how azula deserves a redemption arc & even leaving aside the fact that a) saying someone “deserves” a redemption defeats the purpose of what redemption is and b) there was no space in the original show for azula to redeem herself anyway, azula could not have been redeemed because part of her narrative purpose is to be a foil to zuko.

zuko and azula are each the metric against which the other’s evolution (or devolution) is measured, and it’s the striking disparity between their character arcs that makes said arcs as impactful as they are: the child who swallowed the poison vs the child who spat it out. the fire nation royal who perpetuated the cycle of violence vs the fire nation royal who broke it. the abuse victim who became an abuser vs the abuse victim who became a protector.

would zuko’s redemption have felt as satisfying and hard-won if we hadn’t seen in azula the alternate path he might have so easily gone down? would azula’s downfall have been as terrible and saddening if we hadn’t seen the possibility of a better future embodied in zuko?

thematically speaking as well, the fire nation royal family exists as a microcosm of the fire nation itself — the generational trauma and violence passed down from sozin to azulon to ozai to azula and zuko is symbolic of how the fire nation’s warmongering has turned inwards, back on itself, a self-inflicted wound that grows and festers and rots until they’ve destroyed themselves just as much as they’ve destroyed the world. but where zuko represents a way out — hope for healing, for peace, for an end to the self-destructive nature of war — azula represents the cost of that war, the damage that can never be undone, the danger of remaining mired in an ouroboros, forever the snake that bites its own tail.

a version of the show where both zuko and azula redeem themselves together would have lost the grave, sobering impact of that message: that getting out as zuko did is the exception, not the norm, because the system in which they exist is built to be a trap. and even when that system is dismantled, the destruction it’s wrought cannot be fully erased.

the point of zuko and azula’s story lies in its inherent juxtaposition: there was never going to be room for both of them to rise or even fall together, not in the world in which they were raised and the virtues it extolled. and it’s because zuko exists as who azula could have been and azula exists as who zuko might have been, that their individual arcs are so powerfully poignant, and their relationship so infinitely tragic.



[late-draft]

Ever since I saw there are ATLA chibi shorts, my brain has never been the same

[late-draft]

Said this to a dear and much-loved friend today, but I think maybe we all might need to see it:

Long-fic is not the rent you pay to be a part of fandom.

Fic, full-stop, is not the rent you pay to be a part of fandom.

Art is not the rent you pay to be a part of fandom.

Constantly creating is not the rent you pay to be a part of fandom.

Fandom is a community, not a corporation, your productivity is not a payment you have to make to be here.

[late-draft]

I'm actually a huge fan of enemies to lovers because I do think it's hot but to be clear "enemies to I think you're attractive and that's overcoming my hatred of you" sucks ASS the trope is about growing RESPECT and GENUINE AFFECTION the POINT is that they always found each other attractive but it doesn't MATTER until they also have a solid relationship built on trust respect and friendship!!!!! Do you understand my vision!!!!

[late-draft]

ATLA comics: *Teases that Zuko might not be Ozai's son*

Meanwhile, Ozai and Zuko: