v passionate abt aro headcanons

I can't post images that show too much of my stomach, because notable body fat trips whatever alarms are up in tumblr HQ. but advertisers can show me skinny white girls bouncing on it all day long bc like, they're advertisers.

getting tired of these kinds of responses. "you're only seeing porn because you look at porn and the ads are connected to your data huehuehuehue" like it's some kind of gotcha.

I am a sex worker - a porn creator. Yes, I spend a lot of time on porn sites! sometimes for work, sometimes for pleasure. I'm not embarrassed to admit it. Do you think I should be? I'm on testosterone, sometimes I jerk off four times a day. Get over it.

Dude spends the entire show moping around not doing anything of note, but Zuko still tells him stuff like “your constant jokes and happiness are annoying” even though dude is a walking depression factory. We see him in the original ATLA having come to terms with his past actions and mistakes, but in NATLA he’s just now realizing how bad they were? What was he doing in the meantime? Just nothing? Why is he treated as a mentor if he hasn’t even come to terms with his own dark history? That’s what makes him so inspirational in the original show! He’s been through it and is at peace with what he did, which allows him to come to Zuko with experience and a calming nature, not one that is even more sad. And the other characters via dialogue still insist he’s the Uncle Iroh from the cartoon? Trash.

Not to mention, Aang comes to him saying something like “I’ve been mean to my friends and selfish. I should probably be a better person.” And Iroh immediately says “No, you shouldn’t change who you are.” WTF!? Why would he say that? What does Aang being mean to his friends have to do with his destiny or achieving his goals? Does Iroh have vested interest in Aang treating everyone around him like shit? What the hell is even happening?

And make sure to miss me with that “Ohhhhhh he’s so much better here because he shows so much guilt in Ba Sing Se ooohhhh”. Fuck that. The reason the scene with him mourning his son and feeling the weight of his mistakes hits so hard in the original is because it all comes to him at once and is a break from the jovial character he is consistently beforehand. It hurts to watch, and you feel the weight of his mistakes so much. Now they’ve not only shoved in the song about his son into a random scene way earlier for fan service; they made him a moping sack of depression the entire show so we don’t even really get any effect from his moping here. This coming after he literally tells the criminal to just kill him rather than helping him like he did in the original show.

The whole point of Iroh is to show that his past mistakes help him to help others. He sacrificed any luxury of the Fire Nation to help Zuko. He randomly aided other strangers and even the children actively against his nephew. His passion is owning a tea shop and serving others. Having him be some depressed war veteran who begs for death doesn’t add depth; it permanently freezes him in a state he’s already grown past in the original series. He can help others in the original because he learned that he can help himself. In NATLA, he just spouts endless basic self-help phrases that he clearly doesn’t follow and did not come to through experience. It adds nothing to the story. And being constantly told by dialogue that he is, in fact, the same character from the original show is insulting.

Simply put: Hama had a family while hiding out in the Fire Nation territory. And then the family died because of the Fire Nation, underscoring the loss of family and community.

She found another survivor who escaped from a different prison. Hurt and traumatized, but alive. The other person was too scared to draw attention back to the Southern Water Tribe by heading home because what if what if what if someone else got home. Time passed as Hama and the Survivor found solace in each other; they don't have home but they have each other and that's enough given the journey home and safety there being too long and uncertain. (Maybe they eventually had kids? Whether they were drafted or fled, they're gone but hopefully alive.) The comb the Gaang finds is assembled from pieces each managed to hold onto - let's face it: the thing is HUGE for something supposedly hidden in her hair for years, and it'd be poetic if it was a whole remade from clutched fragments.

... and then one day a local boy from the village - one SO PROUD of the Fire Nation (so fearful not to be) - somehow realizes that Survivor is A Foreigner. Not the full extent of the truth, not even thinking that The Foreigner is dangerous in themselves or a spy or anything like that... just that somehow someone who "doesn't belong" is living in the Nation and there'd be trouble if anyone was found "harboring" them.

Local Boy was spoonfed propaganda until he choked on it, paranoid and fearful of any hint of Not Fire Nation / Perception of Treason and the problems that'd result if someone more volatile finds out.

So Local Boy abducts Survivor, ties up Survivor in a cave, and goes home panicking over what to do and how to solve the "problem". Survivor's trauma is back in full force over the imprisonment so they're blind to everything but the fear and the darkness. A week of misery results in their death.

Local Boy is panicking worse now. He doesn't think Hama knows what Survivor "really is", and is too scared to open up to friends or family. So he goes to the nice innkeeper who always has a smile for the kids and is so nice such a nice auntie that of course she'll know what to do.

Hama coaxes Local Boy to lead her to Survivor's cave. Sees what happened. And something in her breaks, but she's still smiling sweetly as she turns to Local Boy with assurances that she knows just what to do. And she does: Local Boy is the first victim of her revenge. Made to suffer exactly how Survivor suffered: fear, darkness, no water, no food, no idea if anyone is looking, not even Hama's presence to give some solace that he's not alone.

And then she turns on the rest. Hama has so much wasted time to make up for.

but the thing is: only *most* got filled to some extent

not all

because there used to be dragons

and now their niche is just *empty*

it's like i can feel the gap they left, in everything from open grassland ecosystems to isolated islands; the world we know is shaped by the absence of a truly big flying predator

no bird could ever fill their niche, because of plain and simple anatomical constraints

because they cannot use their wings to jump

birds could never be azdarchids

they could never be dragons

there are no more dragons

but there used to be