I Can’t They’re So Cute My Goth Children 💔💔

When Unalaq referred to himself as a “Dark Avatar” this is all I could think of.

People always say they want complex characters. They ask for nuance, for gray areas, for emotional depth and realistic growth. But when a character starts feeling too real, so much so that they stop acting like someone in a story and start feeling like someone you could actually meet – that's when the discomfort kicks in. That's when admiration often turns into criticism. And very few in The Legend of Korra walks that tightrope quite like Suyin Beifong.

Su doesn’t follow the typical “lesson of the week” formula. She doesn’t get handed a tidy moment of reckoning, followed by an instant transformation. Her arc isn’t flashy or obvious. It’s slow, subtle, and sometimes contradictory. Just like real people. Because the truth is, most of us don’t change overnight. We grow a little here, slip back there. We learn something, but that doesn’t mean we always apply it in every situation. That’s Suyin in a nutshell.

Look at how she changes as a mother. At first, she tries to micromanage Opal’s choices out of fear, mostly, and a need to protect her. But eventually, she lets Opal go and lets her live her life without trying to control her path. That’s a win. That’s real growth. But then Baatar Jr. betrays the family, and Su reacts by putting him under house arrest. It’s easy to point at that and call it hypocrisy, but that misses the bigger picture. Her deepest fears for her kids came true with Baatar, and so, of course, she tries to regain some kind of control in the aftermath. And yet, she doesn’t try to rope Opal back in. She lets her stay free. That shows her earlier growth wasn’t erased, just complicated by pain.

This is the part people tend to ignore. They rush to call her a hypocrite without stopping to think about what hypocrisy really is. People are full of contradictions. We want conflicting things. We act on emotion. We stumble. We grow unevenly. No one is morally consistent all the time. Su isn’t some moral failure she’s just human. And that’s what unsettles people. They want characters who get what’s coming to them or learn the “right” lesson. But Su doesn’t fit into that framework. She just keeps going, flaws and all.

That’s also what makes her so compelling. She’s not a straightforward hero or a satisfying villain. She’s a complicated woman trying to balance power, family, control, and identity in ways that are messy and real. When people critique her, it’s often not because she doesn’t make sense, but because she makes too much sense.

She’s too familiar. Too human.

Everyone says they want nuanced characters... until they’re faced with someone like Suyin. Someone who holds up a mirror. And when that reflection hits a little too close to home, people tend to look away. But it’s in that raw honesty where her character really shines.

the last but no the least alta power couple, completing the series ~

love them all 💚💙🧡

Ah yes. Me. My boyfriend. And his 500 pound nine foot long baby dragon.

i feel as if the atla fandom argues about a lot of meaningless shit but one of the biggest (and MOST inane) points of contention to me is that....katara didn't get a statue in lok. like. i could go on about how katara's presence in lok was way more meaningful than anyone else in the gaang appearing and how she was a steady solid presence for korra who had far more of an impact than just a quick punchy fight scene and was actually compassionate and skilled and her political presence sets SO much of legend of korra's worldbuilding up and how the fandom is really notorious for reducing katara to a poor helpless victim as much as possible because she had a complex and significant and emotional character arc that didn't always have the most "classic" #girlboss plot points but the truth is like. its a statue? its a fucking statue??? a fucking hunk of rock im sorry??? i could not care less about a piece of rock over a character's actual presence?

Angry again over the ATLA fandom's treatment of Ursa, one of the biggest victims in the entire series of the FN Royal Family.

People treat the Royal Family like it's just another abusive household, which results in the overly harsh treatment of Ursa, who was the most powerless person in that entire family by political standards. She was a lowborn, engaged to the younger prince as a test to merge the bloodlines of the Royal Family with that of an Avatar's. She was basically forced into an experimental arranged marriage to a disposable heir, cut off from her family, and thrown into a pit of vipers AKA the Royal Palace.

Imagine being in her shoes. Imagine having virtually no support or standing in an unfamiliar place where even the slightest mistake could result in either humiliation at best or death at worst. She is married to a horrible man who despises the fact that he doesn't even get a noble for a wife, that he is being ridiculed by being married off to a lowborn and basically being told that it was impossible for him to ever be the Fire Lord, since if he had a fair shot wouldn't they have ensured a better marriage prospect? He gains no supporters or additional backing through his wife, which he should have had as a prince, and doesn't that just sting? He's discredited in Azulon's eyes, and in the eyes of the nobility, so what chance does he have to rise above his station now?

Who do you think took the brunt of his shame and anger at his situation? Who would have suffered most at the hands of an angry young man who had no qualms with burning his own thirteen-year-old son for just daring to speak up unasked?

People claim Ursa had let go of Azula because she thought Azula was a monster and that she only helped Zuko because he was kind. Zuko was allowed to be kind because he was deemed weak, and Ozai didn't want to pay attention to him. He is only kind because of his mother's influence, which he wouldn't have had if he was up to Ozai's standards. If he had been, Ozai would have kept Ursa and Zuko separate to better control Zuko and ensure his son's loyalty. He wanted his heir to be a child that he could paint entirely in his own image to cover up the fact that their other parent was a peasant, which would cast further doubts on his rights and position within the palace.

People make it out to be like Ursa CHOSE to save Zuko, laughably assuming that this woman had the ability to CHOOSE anything, much less ANY sort of power within the palace. Even her own children outranked her in the nobles' eyes by virtue of having royal blood. She lived in the place where her husband worked and where all the servants answered to either him or his father, so she was never truly free to move or act. Every move was watched. Every interaction was noted.

Ursa was able to influence and help Zuko by showing him a form of kindness, but notice how she never said a bad word about Ozai or the Royal Family? She couldn't. She never twisted Zuko away or tried to outright call her husband wrong—she even defended some of his actions despite knowing otherwise. She could not act or speak freely. She knew she was being watched. She couldn't even pull Zuko away completely from Ozai—that's how utterly powerless she was. Her children loved a monster, and she could do nothing to stop them.

We are shown in canon that Ursa and Zuko spend time together, but that's just it. Ursa never tries to turn Zuko "good" or convince him Ozai is terrible because she CAN'T. She does her best by being stern and setting examples, and Zuko is desperate enough for love to internalize every moment with her, but the pond scene shows how Ursa was only able to do just that—play the role of a stern, kind mother.

And the thing is—if given the chance, she'd save them both. She loved them both, even if Azula reminded her too much of the monster that she married. If she had ever had the opportunity, she would have left with both. Except she couldn't because once Ozai had his prodigy, she was never going to be able to go near her child ever again. Ursa would try, through Zuko as we see in the flashback, to reach her daughter somehow, but it never worked. If she truly always thought of Azula as a "monster", would she let her "perfect son" go play with her? She could have shut Azula out completely and discourage her from ever coming close, Azula is young enough to still listen to her Mom, but we see both Azula and Zuko at her side reading the letter. Ursa doesn't lean away from her daughter. We see her hesitate but never flinch away when she is near Azula.

Ursa only spent time with Zuko because he was the only one she COULD have paid attention to, not because she CHOSE to. Ozai paid him no interest, so she was ALLOWED to spend her time with Zuko. If she had the chance, the allowance, to spend time with Azula she would have done it in a fucking heartbeat. People paint her as "saving" the one "who could be saved" or "throwing Azula to the wolves to focus on Zuko" as if she had any fucking choice, as if she didn't took what crumbs she could get to be close to her children. She didn't toss Azula aside, Ozai KEPT THEM APART. I REPEAT, HE KEPT THEM APART. He did NOT want his lowborn wife influencing his prized heir with her ways, so he kept them apart, READ THAT AGAIN.

It was never Ursa "choosing" which of her kids to save and protect. It was always her doing her best to use her limited, almost non-existent freedom of movement to reach her children in any way, and Zuko just happened to be free. If anyone was doing the whole "focusing on one kid and tossing aside the other" it. Was. Ozai.

ships so good they get official artwork depicting their connection as spiritual

Really sick of people calling the comics 'out of character' and saying fanfics are more in character. Like. I don't think you understand how this works. The creator of the content/characters decides who the characters are and what they're like. The comics cannot be out of character because the writers define what is in character to begin with. Your fanfics are not more 'in character' because you do not decide what the character is INTENDED to be like.

What they mean is 'the comics don't write the characters the way I wanted to see them or how I personally interpreted them'. That's not 'out of character', that's you being a fan of a personally idealized and/or old version of the characters.

Now, there can be talk about inconsistences in the characterization and then you start having a soapbox to stand apon but even then, I feel like people see anything that feels inconsistent and immediately go 'this is bad writing and the writers not remembering who their characters were' instead of asking WHY the inconsistency might be there because, fun fact, people and characters can be multifaceted and respond differently in different situations.

Case in point: Aang agreeing to kill Zuko. "That's out of character because Aang wasn't willing to kill Ozai."

1. That's false to begin with because Aang verbally acknowledge that if he had to do it then he had to do it.

2. This is a year later.

3. This is an entirely different situation.

This is not an unknown genocidal maniac, this is his best friend who personally asked for this promise. There are two ways you can interprete it and it still makes sense because, again, characters can be complex.

1. Aang doesn't kill because he believes all life has value. In agreeing to Zuko's request, he is not saying Zuko's life doesn't have value, he's saying the value of Zuko's life rests in Zuko's hands. This isn't a matter of life value, it's a matter of respecting Zuko's choice and right to his own life. Whether or not you agree with a stance like that doesn't mean someone can't have that stance. Many people do believe in the right to suicide.

2. (My personal interpretation) Aang is not agreeing to kill Zuko as a punishment, he is agreeing to kill Zuko as a mercy. The choice is not "kill or don't kill" it's "kill or strip bending and lock away to rot for years". It's like the zombie promise, where one character makes another agree to kill them if they turn because they'd rather be dead than be a zombie. Zuko specifies that he's asking this as a friend, as a personal choice for his comfort. Zuko would rather be dead than be like his father.

They literally go over this while Aang's talking to Roku, where Aang himself is like "Uh, so, that promise was kinda stupid because I couldn't even kill his DAD" and Roku goes "yeah, but you made a promise to Zuko" and that this was about Zuko's request, not about punishment or whatever. And then Roku starts trauma dumping as he do. And Aang goes "idk about that chief, friends be friends, just cause your friendship fell apart don't mean mine will" and multiple times people are like "yo Aang do it" and he insists that, nah, there's probably a better way or something he's not understanding.

This isn't out of character because the writers decide who Aang is as a character, and it isn't even that unbelievable if you stop expecting characters to be one note. This isn't Aang facing down whether or not to kill an enemy, this is Aang facing down whether or not to keep a fucked up promise to a friend.

Also, Aang gets pressured a lot in the comic and a regular flaw of his that we see in the show is that he's really fucking weak to pressure and regularly goes through this cycle of "I'm pretty sure this is the right choice" "everyone around me disagrees maybe I'm wrong" "ah fuck I'm wrong" "no fuck that no I'm not" "fuck all yall I do what I want", which is,,,,, literally his whole deal in The Promise.

But nOoOoOo, it's out of character because he didn't do what the fanfic writers would have had him do.

X

Zuko: Wow, the stars are beautiful.

Katara: Yeah they are.

Zuko: You know who else is beautiful?

Katara: *blushes* Who?

Zuko: Mai.