#I’ve talked abt it before

[comradekatara]

hey, so. people on twt (ugh, I need to delete that account) started to compare Zuko and Azula’s relationship to Sokka and Katara. So, I jump in like “they are not comparable in any way” then people are like “Sokka and Katara do have issues even though it’s not the same as Zuko and Azula” (even though the original tweet did imply that but, whatever). and I’m all like “sure, they both have trauma from their upbringing and they fight like siblings and that trauma probably has effected their relationship but it’s still no way like it’s being compared… they love and care for one another” and then they’re coming back like “it’s not the same but they still have issues” and citing the southern raiders (which I have my own opinions about and I feel like people totally miss read that scene) but all in all to say; I’m annoyed because I feel like people are being disingenuous and I feel like your thoughts would be interesting

okay yeah obviously I don’t know what the full arguments were (and I never will because I loathe twitter. I mean X sorry) but i can definitely talk about this more generally. I mean they are the central sibling pairs configured in a similar way for obvious reasons. they are definitely comparable.

sokka and zuko have superficial similarities as older brothers who feel undervalued, struggle to live up to a harmful patriarchal standard of gender (specifically masculinity/manhood) as shaped by imperialism/colonialism/war and the expectations their fathers placed on them to “be a real man” within a very limited framework, and ultimately find their worth via other avenues beyond the limited scope of patriarchal imperialist logic. azula and katara have superficial similarities as younger sisters who are placed on a pedestal by their culture community, are the best benders of their respective elements and outclass all the older more established (male) masters who dismiss and look down on them for being teenage girls, and who feel a deep sense of grief due to the loss of their mothers that informs everything they do and fundamentally who they are as people. and then obviously the REAL foils who are foiling are katara and zuko, and sokka and azula. these pairs are each very obvious mirrors, both in terms of their personalities (as developed differently by their respective environments) and their arcs. zuko is fire nation katara. azula is fire nation sokka. so obviously their relationships are similar in this way. they are narratively constructed as parallels.

that said, I think the key primary difference between these sets of siblings is that zuko and azula are directly opposed due to being pitted against each other by ozai’s abuse, whereas sokka and katara are extremely codependent, to the point that sokka’s entire identity is shaped by his role as katara’s brother and protector. so if you read zuko as a foil to sokka (which he certainly somewhat is, but is not the primary foil to sokka) you’ll get confused because he doesn’t live for others and he doesn’t look out for azula at all. but azula, like sokka, does define her identity through her loyalty and her ability to best serve others, so she does try to help zuko as best she can, which is obviously hindered by the incredibly limited of scope of what she considers “helpful” (much in the same way that sokka’s protection of katara is often limited by his own narrow worldview and unhealthy sense of duty as it corresponds to his identity). azula wants zuko to be a “perfect prince” in the way that she is a “perfect princess” because she refuses to acknowledge how specifically harmful that paradigm is to both of them until it is too late. so her intentions are actually good (don’t @ me), but she’s just deeply misguided and her level of cognitive dissonance is off the charts generally (again, much like sokka).

meanwhile katara and zuko, despite loving their families a lot and feeling defined by their families in many ways, are still very self-focused. which isn’t to say that’s a bad thing or that they’re selfish (they are both defined by an incredibly passionate and outspoken sense of justice for others, of course), but rather that they understand that what they want is to further their own interests for their own benefit even as they are seeking justice for the entire world. (in katara’s worlds: “me. me, personally!”) but like. if anything, the fact that azula and sokka never think in terms of the ego but only in terms of servitude to the point that they are actually detached from their own humanity is deeply unhealthy and awful, which is why so much of sokka’s arc is about getting him to understand his intrinsic worth as a human being and the value of accepting help, and azula’s tragedy and downfall is precipitated by her acknowledgement that she has been deliberately isolated her entire life and now she is alone and utterly helpless.

I do see katara and zuko as quite heroic, inspiring characters, to azula and sokka’s quite tragic, heartbreaking characters (especially azula of course, but like. I don’t think sokka’s deep-seated, copious issues have somehow been magically resolved just because “the boiling rock” is his apotheosis. you get it). but katara was always the “valued” sibling whereas azula began as the valued sibling and zuko rose above her by disrupting/transcending the paradigm that valued her only to end up in the position that she felt teleologically entitled to (not to say that she thought she would become fire lord, but that he does become the most powerful player in the fire nation, at least in name). and a large part of that is the fact that katara and sokka grew up in extremely different conditions than azula and zuko did, even if both their worldviews are informed by imperialism and patriarchy in some way. so katara was valued as a sort of cultural artefact who represents the last hope of a dying people, whereas azula was valued as the obedient daughter of a powerful abusive patriarch. it’s still a way of ascribing “value,” but the criteria are completely different in both cases. which is why I still think that azula and sokka are functionally more similar, because even if azula is valued, it is with the expectation that she function in the same way that sokka is expected to function, as a depersonalized vessel for the good of their people.

so there are similarities for sure, but also those similarities are constantly being complicated through locating their respective cultural contexts as they informed their upbringing, psychologies, and sibling relationships. I will say that it’s true that both of these relationships are unhealthy (to an extent), and both sets of siblings parallel each other in very significant ways, but the ways in which their relationships are in fact “unhealthy” are nonetheless almost diametrically opposed.

[otrtbs]

here’s the thing. the absolute joy and wonder i feel whenever someone tells me they came across ahb! and are now taking an art history course / majoring in art next year / went to their local art museum for the first time in ages is exponential. when yall send me your favorite artworks and tell me about them or tell me you went to x museum to see x painting mentioned in ahb??? it’s just so so wonderful. because never did i think something i wrote out of love for art and love for art history would lead anyone else to research art or talk about it or seek it out for themselves and that’s so much more than i could ever imagine would come out of a very timid first attempt at creative writing/fandom involvement.

i wrote it out of love and y’all have all reciprocated that love tenfold and ran with it to talk about art and explore it and share it with me and those around you. and it’s just been a very special incredible thing that makes me emosh. :,)

[the-meme-monarch]

shipwrecked 64 is fun :] also scary. know this. also frankenbugs’ streams are good (second and third images are Loosely based on their most recent stream here! second being bc olivia shows up in the border, which is where their pngtubers are :] the first img is even more loosely based on their previous one iirc, where one of them mentioned how the girl rabbit stumbler has a crush on doesn’t have a name or model and i thought up a-little-mostly-joke-theory that ……….what if it’s hornz………..

[driftingballoons]

Some creatures are more difficult to perceive than others

[soupwalker]

he makes me so fucking insane for no reason. like. Yes this is my favorite character. he has one whole scene of semi-animation and no voiced lines, but he has two whole emotions and suddenly I’m crazy insane

[zana-art]

a scene from The Courage of Stars by @hella1975

idk why its so dark but u may need to turn brightness up to see it

[ID: a semi-realistic digital portrait of yue and suki from atla. they’re facing each other, faces close, looking each other in the eyes. suki is wearing her kyoshi warrior outfit and yue a parka. behind them, the stars and the full moon shine through a circular window. /end ID] (ID by @maileesque <3)

[silkjade]

yapper gf x bf who shuts her up w his dick

[idiot-mushroom]

can’t wait until they the tmnt franchise comes out with a mutant guy that’s a chihuahua with a spanish accent and they’re like ‘oh so you were a hispanic guy who got mutated into a chihuahua?’ and he was like ‘nah fam i was just a dog that got mutated, also i was born breed and raised in new york’ and then they go ‘then why the accent’ and the chihuahua mutant goes ‘what accent’

[fuck-kirk]

I feel like my main beef with the Danny Phantom fandom is that they’re always torturing Danny when Vlad is RIGHT THERE

[danothan]

what level of brainrot is it to wish your blorbo was real so you could stretch their ears

[surface-asses]

kept reworking this cause i felt like it was missing something but im just gonna post it cause fuck drawing a proper background. enjoy

[Image description: Ocelot straddling Kaz’s back holding a riding crop behind himself. They are both naked except for Ocelot wearing his boots and gloves. Kaz has albinism, is not wearing his sunglasses and is blushing heavily. He has numerous marks on his back and ass from the crop. Ocelot is holding his head up with one hand, with his thumb in Kaz’s mouth. Ocelots hair is gray and he does not have top or bottom surgery. The whole piece has a purple filter over it and the background is a dark dusty purple. End ID.]

[abigail]

btw besties !!! i did meet my favourite musician and he did write the thing for me that i wanna get as a tattoo :-) yippie !!! ♡ ♡ ♡

[the-meme-monarch]

my brother and i have been going on walks a lot lately and have been checking out public buildings if only to see them, and in one it finally happened where someone thought my brother and i were a couple. even though Earlier in the conversation i mentioned ‘our little sibling’ like twice while gesturing to my brother and i both times. this wouldn’t have been so horrible and i could have easily brushed it off as her just not having caught that, if not for the part where after clarifying We’re Siblings she said “well even if you did have kids…” and kinda trailed off and didn’t complete that thought. she was talking to us about our futures/careers bc this was the town hall building so she probably meant it like If We, Individually From Each Other, Have Children but. i didn’t press for clarification but was ready to Leave after that. she was talking for a while still, after saying that. i had a cold soda and it was room temp by the time we finally left

[deathishauntedbyhumans]

WAIT i’m. oh man.

in the new timeline. fred’s name is still fred. there’s NO reason for this bc he wasn’t raised by fred jones sr and he wasn’t named fred jones jr. his last name is, presumably, chiles or some hyphenated chiles-reeves situation. but everyone is still calling him fred. the doylist explanation for this is obviously that they didn’t want to change his whole-ass name bc he’s a very well-known cartoon character and that would be one helluva schtick to pull in the last 5 minutes of the show. HOWEVER. as a watsonian explantion: do you think brad and judy named him after fred sr anyway? he would have been their teacher… if he had a strong positive impact on them, maybe in the new timeline he’s still named after his not-dad, too :’)

[arolesbianism]

Some very lazy concept doodles for my swap au Wendy

[transmechanicus]

A-!