hey everyone! yo i’m super excited with how this turned out. RISD’s teaching me lots of stuff, it seems! anyway, this is based on a photo of i super awesome and gorgeous friend, who happens to look just like a real-life Sokka ❤
Tag: a:tla
remember how katara saw her mother die and was deeply wounded by it but still pulled together the strength to be there for her family and lead them to the point where she replaced her mother’s face in sokka’s mind
remember how she lived at the bottom of the world in a tribe the fire nation had decimated almost beyond recognition and had no resources and no one to teach her but struggled to learn waterbending and spent months learning basic forms with no guidance and never gave up on her goal of becoming a waterbender
remember how she found a strange boy in an iceberg and would have been fully within her right to treat the phenomenon of a massive glowing chunk of ice spitting out a live boy w suspicion but instead went out of her way to free him and show him kindness and compassion
remember how at fourteen she went penguin sledding with a new friend and commented that she hadn’t gone penguin sledding since she was a kid even though as a fourteen year old she still was a kid but it had just been that long since she got to act like one
remember how she was determined to save a boy she just met even though she was up against the fire nation and all she had was herself and her brother but she didnt give a shit about that she was going to save him anyway
remember how she dropped everything and left home for the first time in her life to help a relative stranger get to the north pole to learn waterbending and start to fulfill his destiny
remember how she was so ready and eager to talk to new people
remember how it pained her to see what the fire nation did to others and how she was determined to pass on some of her courage to them and served them the means to take back their freedom themselves
remember how she followed her best friend through a storm and sat with him and learned that he did something that facilitated one hundred years of war, a war that tore her tribe and her family apart, and instead of getting mad she showed him love and forgiveness
remember how she had the chance to see her father again but chose to stay by her friend’s side because he was her family too and she knew that she and sokka were all he had
remember how she fought tooth and nail for the right to learn waterbending and showed what she was worth with moves she learned on her own and showed up all her peers by advancing faster than any of them
remember how she occasionally clashed with people — strangers, group members, friends — but still tried her best to get along with them and show them kindness
remember how she kept her wits about her and kept her group together in what looked like a hopeless situation, not giving up until they found a way out
remember how she saw her best friend at his lowest point and walked through a maelstrom of wind and sand and was not only not afraid of the most powerful bender in the world at his most dangerous but pulled him into her arms and offered him comfort when the last living connection he had to his past had been taken from him
remember how she showed compassion to people who had wronged her and gave them second chances
remember how she loved fiercely and hated fiercely and held grudges and unleashed her anger on those who wronged her but pulled back before she lost herself to that rage
remember how she stuck it out with her friends to the bitter end even through death and fear and loss and suffering
remember
Look at her eyes. She’s terrified. She’s just talked back to her father for what is probably the first time in years, and she has no idea what’s going to happen next. All that she know is what happened the last time something like this happened-and she can’t imagine anything worse.
All her life, Azula’s world has rested on the knowledge that no matter what may happen, at least she is better than Zuko. At least her father knows she’s special. And now her father has pulled both of those facts out from under her in an instant, brushing her aside like she doesn’t matter. And if neither of these stone-ground truths, things that she built her whole life upon, are true any longer, than what is left? Who is she, when all of her self-worth has crumbled?
What’s going to happen?
Just… YES.
I feel like too many people ignore this aspect of her breakdown. People focus a lot on the betrayal of Ty Lee (and to a lesser extent, Mai) and on her complicated mess of emotions regarding her mother, because that stuff is obvious.
But all of that stuff was just setting up the house of cards. Ozai was the one who blew it down.
See, the whole thing about why Azula isn’t too keen on Iroh stems from the fact that Iroh very clearly neither understood nor appreciated her as a child. During the siege of Ba Sing Se, he sent Zuko a thoughtful, appropriate present that Iroh knew he would love, and he sent Azula… a doll. In Azula’s mind, it was as good as saying “Even though you’re smarter and more talented than your brother, you’re not as worthy. I don’t love you as much or care about you enough to get you a present you’ll actually like. You’re the second child, you’re a girl, you’re not as important. Here, little girl, sit quietly in your corner. Go play with your dolly.”
And years later, when she’s done everything, given everything, to her father because he assigned her worth on account of her prodigious skill, because he actually valued her for something, all she wants is for all that she’s worked for to be acknowledged. She’s ready to reap the fruits of her labor and stand proud by her father’s side. She’s pinned all her hopes and dreams on this exact moment. This is when she’s finally going to get the thing that’s going to validate her entire existence.
But then… then Ozai says no. He turns her away. And when she protests, he tosses her the crown as a consolation prize. Despite his self-appointment as the Phoenix King rendering the title of Fire Lord worthless, he pawns it off on her to shut her up.
“Here, little girl. Go play with your dolly.”
You can always count on Sokka 🙂
oh no now i want to cry :(((
SOKKA ROCKED YA what a good guy. what a wonderful guy. i love sokka’s quiet character arc throughout the series how he goes from being this frustrated teen struggling to meet this extremely limited definition of manhood to being happy and comfortable with the man he is: someone who respects women. who fights but likes to shop too and whose biggest role is holding people together and supporting them who plans and builds and likes to draw and still has self doubts and accepts too much guilt and too many responsibilities and claims t be a realist and a cynic but at the end of the day he puts a rainbow in where one wasn’t before
Endless List of Favorite Characters — Toph Beifong, Avatar: The Last Airbender
My daughter is blind! She is blind, and tiny, and helpless, and fragile! She cannot help you!