lucidzuchini

[lucidzuchini]

Reblog daily for health and prosperity

[lucidzuchini]

having a younger sibling is so embarrassing iwouldnt stoop this low for anyone but her im like quadruple texting "JUST TELL ME IF YOU WANT TO GO TO THE AQUARIUM ON DECEMBER 29TH SO I CAN GET TICKETS" and she leaves me on read 10000 times.

[lucidzuchini]

The Gaang's hands (with Team Azula and Yue) + headcanons

This series was inspired by @thyinum's Avatar's Hands series!

[lucidzuchini]

Azula started it

[lucidzuchini]

Some atla opinions that I feel like have been explained in old posts

Aang supported, respected, and comforted Katara throughout the series.

The first one to ever trust or help Zuko was Aang.

Everyone in the Gaang did chores, not just Katara.

Katara comforted many characters, not just Aang.

Appa should have been afraid of Zuko.

Sokka is not a good judge of character.

Sokka should have been the one to go with Katara to face Yon Rha.

Toph is bratty.

Toph didn't care about the war.

Haru showed a lot of hatred for the Fire Nation.

Hahn was a missed opportunity. And so was every ek kid.

Katara was the only normal one for not trusting Zuko.

There are more pros than cons in keeping Jet alive for the plot.

Jet was a great leader.

All the Freedom Fighters were fine with flooding the village.

Ty Lee can be cruel.

Mai was friends with Azula, willingly.

Suki deserved more development.

Jin should have gotten the chance to confront Zuko over Ba Sing Se.

Teo should have made plans with Sokka.

Hakoda should have praised Katara for her bending.

Hakoda should have been able to fight in the finale.

The White Lotus made a lot of characters look worse.

The only actions Zuko regretted were the ones against Iroh.

Zuko was fully prepared to capture Appa and use him as bait by any means necessary (ie firebending).

Iroh is a hypocrite.

Azula was abused.

Azula lost many times.

Bloodbending isn't evil.

Book 3 was rushed.

[lucidzuchini]

I really like the idea that a big reason why Iroh seems to resent Azula in Book 2 is not because she’s different from him, but because of how similar they are.

I think Iroh was likely very similar in terms of his ambition and dedication to serving his father in his Dragon of the West days, and it probably disturbs him to see those traits in Azula. It’s a reflection of his former self that he’s trying to run away from.

Meanwhile I honestly don’t think Iroh and Zuko have a lot in common personality wise. I think Iroh is attached to Zuko because he’s afraid of failing him like he believes he failed Lu Ten. After Lu Ten’s death, Iroh’s ambition shifts to fixing his past mistakes and one aspect is saving Zuko like he couldn’t save his own son.

Not getting my hopes up that the comics will actually explore this, but I think detangling this complicated dynamic between these three characters would be important in Azula’s journey towards healing.

[lucidzuchini]

I read your Azula redemption post, and I like it. It's kind of sad, but hopeful at the same time. I saw you said you had other ideas for Azula redemptions. Can you give us another? Is there a version you see where she and Zuko are still in each other's lives? One where she maybe still has some power, like as a general or advisor or something?

Thank you! Yeah, it was kind of bittersweet. I think it's also the most complete version of a redemption for Azula that I could think of working for her. The thing about her staying in court with any sort of power is that, to me, it feels kind of like letting a drunk run a bar. The reason I see Azula needing to either be in prison or in exile is because within certain circles, Azula would have a lot of people wanting to put her on the throne in Zuko's place. I think it would take a long time for her to not want to be on the throne in Zuko's place, and well, there goes the whole redemption narrative for her.

As for her having a relationship with Zuko, the version I put in that outline is probably the healthiest one they could have. In a redemption arc where she actually wants a close relationship with Zuko, I don't see her wanting to share him with anyone. At best, she would tolerate his friends and family. Mostly, I think she would resent the fact that he was all she had, but she wasn't all he had. I don't see her being the cool Aunt Azula to his children. She might form a bond with the child that is most like her, if she's allowed the time to spend with them, which I don't see being the case. Obviously, in any of my stories, the mother of Zuko's children is Katara, and I don't see Katara being okay with Azula being around her kids. Especially, unsupervised (completely understandable, btw). I mostly think she wouldn't want to interact with Zuko's kids at all. Her resentment for Zuko having people who love and support him apart from her would color their relationship and cause a lot of tension between them.

The one version of an Azula redemption where I could see her and Zuko having a "normal" relationship where she is actively a part of his life and knows and is known by the people most important to him is an AU story where she never tried to kill him.

The problem I have with most Azula redemption stories is that they don't tend to address the very real harm she did. They just kind of blow past the fact that she was a villain and excuse everything she did because of Ozai's abuse. First of all, canonically, the most abuse we see her get is being Ozai's Golden Child, which yes, I do believe is a form of abuse, but isn't enough to let her off the hook, which a lot of Azula redemption stories do. Second, blaming all of her actions on her abuse completely ignores any agency Azula had, which I think is insulting to her character. Azula was cunning, astute, and ruthless. Let her be those things. She hurt Zuko and made enemies of his friends. Let her have to face the consequences of that, too. An Azula redemption would be messy and inconsistent, and that is not only okay, it's necessary.

[lucidzuchini]

Am I the only one who thinks that an "Azula redemption" could heavily involve her reading philosophy?

Azula is a very smart and perceptive person, but she's also only been exposed to one real philosophy in her life, the official, authoritarian, monarchist, hierarchical, imperialist, and Confucianist she was indoctrinated into, and encountering other schools of philosophy and learning about them could be the "conservative kid goes to college, gets exposed to new ideas, and learns the world is way more complicated than she thought" moment for her.

[lucidzuchini]

I wanted to go a bit more in-depth with this piece that I did for zukka week 2023 because i got inspired to do more insane clothing details. ID in ALT.

Ramble about the influences/inspirations below:

Design inspirations for Sokka's clothing are mainly Inuvialuit and Yup'ik, with Nenets, Tlingit, and Chukchi inspiration for the tassels, patterns, belt and beadwork. I mixed these with the ornaments canon shows us used by the Northern Water Tribe, and also in Legend of Korra. I got particularly excited about drawing from Inuvialuit sources since the tassels we see in canon look like they could be inspired by this. Going beyond canon's animation-friendly colour scheme, I drew from Nenets patterns/embroidery/sashes and Yup'ik beadwork for accent colours. I think in the future I'd like to find ways to incorporate more Tlingit-style patterns since I rarely see them in fanart (which is a shame - they're stunning), but since they tend to be very big I ultimately decided to only include them as a nod in order to keep the regalia recognisable as 'Water Tribe'. I wonder if I could start using Polynesian influences as well?

Zuko's headdress and particularly the shoulder garment and beaded embroidery draw heavily from women's clothing styles of Lê Dynasty Vietnam. The other main influence is men's royal clothing in Tang Dynasty China, and patterns worn by Mongolian Khatun. Since we have a bit more to go on in canon as to what fire nation regalia looks like, I blended that in as well. I got particularly excited about the embellishments on Lê Dynasty clothes because I could give a little nod to Zuko's dragon-fire by adding more colours to the embroidery. In the future I think I'd want to make the Mongolian influence a bit more obvious... perhaps even push the envelope by incorporating some Bashkir designs, though I'm not sure how well that will go.

[lucidzuchini]

Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

ID under the cut

Keep reading

[lucidzuchini]

Been having some Azula thoughts (really, when do I not?) and every time I think about this girl, I'm in awe as well as baffled about how the writers just...got so many things right and wrong at the same time when it comes to her. Mostly in the way how she was abused, and how people both in universe and out react to that. Like, it's very clear that the writers themselves didn't realize that they wrote her as an abuse victim until way after the show ended, and it's evident by the way how she was handled during the show, as well as in post canon content. In universe, the two people around her who could have helped her (Iroh and Ursa) don't realize that she was being abused because Ozai favored her over Zuko, so they figured that she was safe with him, whereas Zuko wasn't. Obviously this wasn't the case at all, but it shows you just how fucked up the kind of abuse Azula suffered really is. Because it's subtle. So subtle that the people around the victim tend to not realize it until much later. And this unfortunately happens in real life too. What's so damn infuriating about this though, is the way how the writers just dropped the ball so damn hard with it. Because it's framed as being Azula's fault. That she rejected any form of help she could have gotten (which is a lie because she was never offered any help to begin with) and her circumstances are her fault. That the adults in her life didn't fail her actually. Even though they absolutely did. And I wish that canon would fucking acknowledge that, because man that would be one powerful story to tell. The adults owning up to their mistakes, and actually trying to do right by her for a change. And yet they just absolutely refuse to. It's almost like they really don't see Azula as an abuse victim because she was mean to people, and manipulated them. Which is such a black and white view of abuse, and a dangerous one at that. It's even more stupid when you realize that Zuko wasn't a picture perfect abuse victim, and yet they were still able to acknowledge that he was abused. Basically what I'm saying is that the writers have a perfect example in their hands of how being the golden child/favorite child of an abuser isn't a good thing at all, but they unfortunately fail to utilize this effectively.

[lucidzuchini]

I’m gonna be real, I think the writers simply didn’t want to give Azula a good ending or a good relationship with any of her family due to misogyny and ableism. I mean how hard was it to make her and her brother get along for at least a few minutes? So many ATLA characters had potential to be really good and they fucked them over because of how normalized it is to hate women and pity and praise men for the exact same thing women are hated for.

I’ve seen better dynamics between Zuko and Azula in FANFICTION than in the actual show or comics.

It’s like, you can give them moments of actually being siblings and STILL give them a complicated relationship and have Zuko feel inferior to Azula.

They grew up together, they had the same parents, they were both neglected by one of their parents, in Azula’s case BOTH of her parents.

And personally I feel like Ursa was kind of failing as a mother for Zuko as well but I won’t get TOO into that. She loved him, yes, but that doesn’t mean she truly did any good for him other than preventing him from being killed to be honest. If she genuinely cared for her kids she would have made sure they’d stick together and be there for each other. She would’ve taught him how to actually survive in the fire nation palace.

Ursa could have done so much for Azula as well. Ozai wasn’t present in their lives. In Zuko’s flashbacks, and even in the comic, we see that he is practically nowhere to be found half the time. Who was stopping her from watching Azula train? From complimenting her and giving her praise? From sitting with her by the turtleduck pond? She could have done literally anything with Azula and she chose not to.

Yes, Ursa was a victim but that doesn’t excuse the fact she failed as a mother.

But that’s just my opinion do NOT attack me about this I really don’t care.

[lucidzuchini]

I keep on thinking about Ursa's favoritism with Zuko and her neglecting Azula, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it was interesting to see the quote on quote "good parent" in this dysfunctional family also playing the favorite child game, when we're already shown that Ozai doing the very same thing is bad and you shouldn't favor one child over the other, because it will inevitably fuck up both kids. So it was shocking to see the parent who is supposed to be the exact opposite of Ozai doing what he's doing, even if it was for an entirely different reason. Ozai favored Azula over Zuko and neglected him because Azula was the powerful firebender that he wanted Zuko to be, and was disappointed when Zuko wasn't that. Ursa saw how much Ozai's rejection hurt Zuko, so she tried to fill in that gap as much as she could by spending more time with Zuko and making sure that he knew that he was loved, that she loved him. As a result of this, she ended up neglecting Azula and not really spending any time with her at all (and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if things were like this between them before Ozai began treating Zuko that way since Azula didn't really act like how a girl of her status should be, and Ursa didn't know how to deal with it) and this put a strain on their relationship. This is fine and even interesting because it makes Ursa a complex character and not the perfect mother that Zuko sees her as, who we as the audience are meant to see her as.

The problem comes when the narrative never addresses this. At no point in time is Ursa ever made to realize that she screwed up with Azula when we see her again in the comics, and the narrative frames it as being AZULA'S fault that the relationship between these two is so strained, which is absurd. She is in no way at fault for how the relationship between her and Ursa is like. She's the child. Ursa is the adult. You shouldn't blame the child for the mistakes of the parent.

[lucidzuchini]

I think a lot of people don't understand that Azula turning against everyone in her life who isn't Ozai is literally a symptom of Ozai's grooming. It is NOT a sign that "everyone failed her," especially when we do see people trying to reach out to her. But people who groom children work to be the only person in that child's life that they feel they can trust, because it's easier for them to then exploit that trust.

And do you know what? The grooming process does not stop with the child victim. It usually involves other adults in the child's life as well, as the abuser both gains the trust of their victim's trusted adults while also working to further that rift and isolate the victim.

Ursa is actually a really good example of this, because she was also being groomed by Ozai to the point where she was forced into a situation where the only way she could help her children would put her out of their lives forever, and by that time Ozai had already created enough of a rift between Ursa and Azula that Ursa's attempts to teach Azula kindness just increased that rift.

To look at this situation and say that Ursa, or Iroh, or Zuko, or anyone other than Ozai is at fault is to buy into Ozai's manipupativeness.

Btw, Ursa saying in the comics to both her children that she "didn't love them enough" and blaming herself for the things Ozai did to all three of them is also a symptom of being groomed by Ozai, not an objective admission of guilt, smh.

[lucidzuchini]

I now have an idea to write a one shot where Ursa and Iroh do not get along at all post canon, and whenever they're in a room together the tension is so thick that you can cut it with a knife. Zuko of course finds this very uncomfortable because he wants his two favorite people in the world to get along, meanwhile Azula finds it to be absolutely hilarious because finally, finally someone understands that Iroh isn't this perfect human being that everyone sees him as, and how ironic is it that the person who realizes this is her mother?

[lucidzuchini]

Something just occurred to me thinking about what Ozai does to thirteen year old Zuko and how similar it is to Ursa's banishment.

Because at the heart of it, Ursa's banishment was a way for Ozai to get the throne without having to dirty his hands, and then he gets a convenient scapegoat in Ursa, someone who can take the fall for Azulon's death, ensuring that the real story never gets out.

And like, Zuko at thirteen stood up against the regime, but he also stood up in a way that is very public, in a war meeting he was not supposed to be in.

What if the plan of what was supposed to happen to the 41st division was never supposed to leave that war room? I know the show is sort of simplistic in its political morality, but it isn't a stretch to say that Ozai probably would not want it to be known that he and his top generals were willing to use underhanded tactics and sacrifice their own men. It kinda puts a damper on the whole "glorious fire nation" propaganda angle.

But then Zuko is there, and he speaks up about it.

So Ozai makes sure that Zuko never tells anyone about the plan, and humiliates him so that even if he did tell, no one would probably believe him.

[lucidzuchini]

Someone had already posted about this but I can't find the original post, so if someone knows who posted it please tell me.

Anyways,

A world where Azula is born when Zuko is ten. Ursa dies a few months after her birth which leaves Zuko to take care of her. Ozai doesn't care about Zuko and he's Fire Lord so he's too busy to waste his time taking care of a baby. Zuko steps in and helps raise her. He teaches her how to walk, talk, say names, plays with her, etc. Three years later, when Zuko is banished, he takes his toddler sister with him to find the Avatar. Ozai allows it on the condition that he must he returns Azula if she starts firebending. Zuko definitely doesn't lie and definitely doesn't send letters telling him Azula's firebending is horrible.