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i honestly still think about this post daily

The true reason why Ozai banishes Ursa from their family and the Fire Nation!

Ozai most certainly didn't want Ursa influencing Zuko and Azula especially. Azula is the perfect tool and heir for the Fire Nation as a genius and later on, becomes a perfectionist. Azula's natural skills and abilities far supersede expectations and that of her older brother. Ozai doesn't want Ursa to make Azula "soft" hearted. Ozai wants Azula and even Zuko to be ruthless, vicious, cruel Imperialistic enforcers for the Fire Nation and his reign.

Ozai probably had some role of involvement in HYW and probably served as Fire Lord Azulon's Wrath and ruthless enforcer. Ozai probably had to burn and slaughter villages in Azulon's name if they defied Fire Nation's Imperial rule and conquest. I can see Ozai being the Grand Admiral of Fire Nation's Navy Fleet just like Iroh would be the Supreme Commander of Fire Nation's Army.

I can see Ozai leading Fire Nation Blockades during the Seige of Ba Sing Se given that manpower and war supplies are needed during a 600-day seige. I could see a Teenage Ozai leading and commanding the Southern Raiders during his Avatar hunting years as a mission to bring glory and receive recognition, respect, and reward in Agni and Azulon's name!

Unfortunately, Ozai cares more about the Fire Nation's imperialistic ambitions than the happiness of his wife and children. At the end of the day, Ozai doesn't understand and value the unconditional and pure love of a parent because he probably has never gotten to experience it with Fire Lord Azulon probably being butthurt over Fire Lady Ilah's death in childbirth! (headcanon/theory)

Ozai never wanted Ursa's morality to "infect" their children considering they are supposed to be ruthless, cunning, manipulative, and cruel imperialistic overlords for the Fire Nation. Also, Iroh is the Black Sheep of their family ironically morality-wise. Whereas, Ozai is a brainwashed imperialistic fanatic warmonger just as Fire Lord Azulon desired and wished for him to become during his childhood. Ilah probably instilled morality values into Iroh's youth in comparison to Azulon who obviously doesn't care about morality in war which he inherited from Fire Lord Sozin. Ilah probably managed to break the ruthless, cruel, and aloof imperialistic personality in Iroh which passed on to Lu Ten as well! Unfortunately, without Ilah's guidance, Ozai became a carbon copy and a small degree worse morality-wise in comparison to his forefathers (Coldness in regards to pursuing and usurping Iroh's birthright and throne post-Lu Ten's death...granted Azulon order his innocence grandson Zuko to be murder by his own father!) because of a lack of love in his youth.

Also the search conveniently dodges the fact in the show we legit see Ursa laughing at Iroh's letter about wanting to make Ba Sing Se his bitch. This just proves to me the present girl backstory in the comics was a recton because Ursa in the comics never seemed all too nationalistic, or at least we don't see it on screen. Seriously Ursa in the show was clearly feeding Azula and Zuko the imperialist Koolaid, albeit a 'softer' flavor compared to Ozai's since I don't think Ozai was going out of his way to interact with his children outside of training, especially if that kid is Zuko. He probably let Ursa do the more tedious tasks since he probably doesn't have the patience to sit down and talk to his kids anyway. We don't even see Ursa dropping the imperialist beliefs in the comics so if anything Zuko and Ursa should not be seeing eye to eye given these differences in political beliefs after the war though the narrative swept this under the rug.

X

Dick, Jason, Duke and Damian in Batman #33

Is there any canon basis for the theory saying that all of the trauma and hang-ups Azula has with regards to Ursa are just imaginary issues that Ozai brainwashed her into having? Because it feels like a hat on a hat to make an easy hate sink out of a man who already does way worse, just for the sake of removing the depth that exists in a complicated mother-daughter relationship.

X

the villiages were enemies so they could not be together

During Jason’s crime lord era

Dick: “I’ve pinpointed all the locations where Jason was sighted. Maybe there’s a pattern and we can see where he’ll turn up next.”

Bruce, staring at the map, very clearly spelling “fuck you”: “…There certainly is a pattern.”

I genuinely love how in batfam fanfics….

Dick is like: little D (Damian), Timmy Tim, little wing (Jason) I’m on my way my baby bros!!!

And then in canon….

Dick: *perpetually perturbed by his codependent siblings but knows he’ll never not answer cause who else is gonna pull their dumbassses out the gutter*

I find it really funny when people say that Azula hallucinating her mother saying she loves her is proof that Ursa really did openly love her and that the way Ursa is in the hallucinations must be the truth, because it reminds me of this music video by Tooboe where a mother is in a poor situation and remorsefully but deliberately abandons her daughter to be abused so the mother can start anew and make a new, better family with a new daughter and forget about the yoke of the old one. And the music video is framed in this split screen of the first daughter fantasizing/hallucinating about an alternate world where her mother didn't abandon her in order to help her cope with how awful the life she's been left with is. But the imagined scenario there isn't something that was ever going to realistically shake out or show how the mom actually felt about her, it's just a coping device.

The idea that the framing device of a fantasy/hallucination during a mental spiral must necessarily be a interpreted as a reflection of the objective truth of reality is pretty strange.

X

some people love zuko despite book 1… but you would never have your book 2 or 3 zukos without him… no one is doing it like book 1 zuko. no one!!! 

Help a writer out-

I have deleted a very large number of my fanfics from AO3 over the years, and I would like to recover as many of them as I can. If you have ever downloaded a fic by Soozen or BearsandBeans, I would be extremely grateful if you'd be willing to share it with me. You can DM me here or message me on discord @ soozz.

These would all be ATLA fics, most focusing on Ty Lee, Azula, or Jet (or any combo of them), if that hekps to jog anyone's memory.

And before anyone suggests checking my email for the copies that ao3 sends after a fic is deleted, those emails are gone. I have a very bad habit of punishing myself when my depression is thickest, and deleting all traces of my writing is unfortunately a way that manifests.

But seriously, I'd be overjoyed to get some of my fics back. Thank you!

Another dumb thing about Smoke and Weed: Zuko giving up on finding Azula after weeks of searching for her proved fruitless. This boy spent 3 damn years searching for Aang with little to no leads whatsoever, and then spent an entire year hunting him down. As Sokka said when they were trying to find Zuko and Aang in that blizzard "Zuko never gives up". And yet he gives up on finding his little sister who is mentally unwell after a few weeks have gone by? It will never cease to amaze me how much Yang just messed up his character.

Azula the Scapegoat

I've talked before about how the Fire Nation in the comics were heavily whitewashed. How any and all moral ambiguity and their crimes are swept under the rug as all the characters are presented in the best light possible. The fact that they did any wrong doing in the past is gently brushed aside about how much progress and prosperity they brought to all that they...uh..."touched".

Thing is, you can't exactly have a post-war canon where there's no conflict. And since the Fire Nation were clearly the aggressors in the war, we can't exactly have them be squeaky clean morally either.

...not without a scapegoat.

In order to create conflict yet keep the Fire Nation morally white, Yang designates Azula as the scapegoat. The person that's responsible for all of the Fire Nation's woes as opposed to the natural consequences of a literal century of warfare. She's the old remnant. The enemy. The last vestiges of the old order that needs to be destroyed for the Fire Nation (Zuko, Mai, Ty Lee, Ursa, etc.) to fully redeem themselves.

And to make sure she becomes that much more of a tempting target, her insanity and instability are brought to the forefront as all other characteristics and sources that made Azula her are quietly retconned into oblivion. Can't have squeaky clean heroes if their villain might be sympathetic after all.

Neither is she alone since her entire posse is made up of girls who were broken out of an abusive mental institution:

Let me repeat that.

A group of mentally ill teenage girls who were likely the victims of a system that the narrative keeps trying to push as squeaky clean...are the bad guys.

To give you an idea of how horrendous this is, we see the same story in the real world. Whenever there is some societal ill or upheaval, the mentally ill are almost ALWAYS used as the scapegoat. Even though in reality it's usually the ones on top or the system who are to blame. It's just people who have been historically stigmatized are almost always the first target. Granted this treatment is not exclusive to the mentally handicapped (I mean there's racism, antisemitism, etc.), but I don't think it's a coincidence that Yang tried to play up Azula's insanity in order to make her a scapegoat.

Especially when instead of addressing the actual issues with the Fire Nation (inherent colonialism, rampant militarism, the amount of power the Fire Lord wields), they'd rather blame somebody else instead of helping themselves. That doesn't exactly make the post-war Fire Nation people you want to root for.

I remember that other people have brought this up before, but the way that Mai(Zuko's closest confident prior to her breakup with him) and Suki (Zuko's closest confident after that point) talk Azula as a " "prisoner" and being "in prison" suggests that Zuko committing Azula to the (abusive) asylum wasn't intended to heal her mental health, but was instead intended as a convenient way to control her and to (punitively?) imprison her. This squares with Zuko being completely unable to undestand that Azula is mentally ill in The Search, even when she keeps haulicinating right in front of him. He didn't put her in the asylum because he thought she was mentally ill; he did it as a way to get rid of her even though he didn't actually believe she was mentally ill.

I can't believe that it's even considered an unpopular opinion. It is freaking canon.

Unpopular opinion: How Azula behaves during Sozin's comet is ABNORMAL for her and a sign written in flaming letters that something has gone deeply wrong, not her "true nature" finally revealed.

Azula is not a loose cannon. Azula is not a rabid animal. Azula is the goddamn princess, and she fucking acts like it.

Her general deportment is more like Yue's than it does with Zuko's.

CHUBBY BABY BRUCE

WE HAVE A CHUBBY BABY BRUCE

The interview with Aaron Ehasz about Aang and Katara relationship:

“We decided to do that in symbolism and actions instead of words”

In short words, the writers have been showing Aang and Katara romance in all series with actions, not words.

Oh, and Aaron ships Sokka and Toph.

And Aaron supports Kataang with this:

Confirmation that Gene Yang's a Zutara shipper

Maybe it's just me, but I really feel like Mai should have heard Zuko out in this scene:

Like I get being mad at him for not confiding in her about what was going on with him, but going as far as to break up with him over it? The Mai from the show would have at least asked him why he was going to visit Ozai in secret and listened to his reasons. Maybe even give him some advice of her own on the matter. Not...whatever the fuck this is.

And it's even more stupid when you have this scene from part 1 of The Promise:

Yang made Mai go from caring about Zuko's well-being (not to say that she still doesn't care, she quite obviously does since she doesn't want Zuko visiting Ozai, which comes from a place of love and care because she knows that Ozai can hurt him) to breaking up with him because he didn't tell her that he was going to see his father for advice on how to be the Firelord. I swear this man really loved including pointless drama into these comics.

Side note, I remember hearing that Yang is apparently a Zutara shipper. Is that true? Because if it is then it definitely explains how he wrote Mai and Maiko.

Ursa in the show: No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are.

Ursa in the comics: *Literally erases all her own memories of who she was*

Ursa killing Azulon is way more badass than letting Ozai do the deed. 😌

Toph: Favorite horror movie?

Mai: It.

Azula: Saw.

Katara: Annabelle.

Sokka: High School Musical.

Zuko: Wha-

Sokka: After watching it I spent all my high school years terrified that the entire school would start singing something and I’d be the only one who didn’t know the lyrics.

Someone said Zuko's 'I rise with the sun' line wasn't a Zutara thing but a form of japanese imperialist propaganda because of the 'rising sun' flag and holy fucking shit they're so right