All aboard S.S. Zutara.

Humanity needs to get a fucking grip. Stop justifying injustice.

“LGBTQ+ people have plenty of protection,” says the straight, cisgender person.

“Women don’t feel harassed at work,” says the man. 

“Poor people don’t need more government help,” says the rich person. 

“Immigrants feel welcome here,” says the natural-born citizen. 

darklina + taylor swift songs pt. 1

+bonus:

Peonies, grapes, mint and basil, autumn and masala chai ;)

Lilies, peaches, navy blue, cinnamon, winter, green <3

Peonies and Orchids, Pears, Fuchsia, Opium by Yves Saint Laurent and just perfume in general, Autumn, and Earl Grey!

Hyacinths, raspberries, purple, petrichor, fall, and lapsang souchang

Peonies, peaches, green, petrichor, fall and rooibos. 🥰

Lilies, pineapple, teal, flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf, fall and coconut white tea

Of the many Zutara parallels, I’m surprised I’ve never seen anyone mention this one. We tend to focus a lot on “The Southern Raiders” and how important it was for Katara’s journey, but ignore the importance of “The Beach” in Zuko’s. However, these two episodes, as well as Zuko and Katara’s respective arcs in each of them, have a lot more in common than you might think.

At the beginning of “The Beach,” Zuko has been separated from his father against his will. He’s been sent away so Ozai can meet with his advisors in secret. Likewise, Katara is also separated from her father at the beginning of “The Southern Raiders.” Both instances leave Zuko and Katara feeling helpless. They are also distinct reminders of their biggest traumas. The last time Ozai sent Zuko away, it was because he had been disowned and banished. The last time Hakoda left, it was because their home had been invaded and Katara’s mother killed. Whether Zuko and Katara are aware of it or not, their fathers’ actions at the beginning of these episodes stir up old, festering wounds.

Zuko starts “The Beach” in a state of confusion. He doesn’t understand why his father sent him away. Didn’t he do everything right? Didn’t he help conquer Ba Sing Se and neutralize the Avatar?

He also doesn’t understand why he can’t relate well to other people his age. Why doesn’t Mai like seashells or ice cream? Why is Ty Lee so cheerful all the time? What about all those people at the party? How can they be so carefree?

Of course, with this confusion also comes fear. Zuko starts to worry that maybe his father sent him away because, deep down, he knows that Zuko didn’t do everything right, that he didn’t actually kill the Avatar. He worries about Mai’s feelings for him, wondering if she likes someone else.

From this confusion and fear comes bitterness and anger. Zuko tells himself that Mai does like someone else, some random guy from the party. He tells himself that Ty Lee is only cheerful because she’s never had to struggle—at least, not the way he’s struggled. The anger that results from this train of thought causes him to lash out, first to the guy at the party, then to Mai, then to Ty Lee.

Zuko (to Ruon-Jian): Stop talking to my girlfriend!

Mai (to Zuko): Your temper’s out of control. You blow up over every little thing. You’re so impatient and hot-headed and angry.

Zuko (to Ty Lee): You’re stuck in your little Ty Lee world where everything’s great all the time…(mockingly) “I’m so pretty! Look at me, I can walk on my hands! Whoo!”…Circus freak.

Katara is confused in “The Southern Raiders,” as well, but for different reasons. Her confusion stems from the Gaang’s quick acceptance of Zuko. “How can they trust him so easily after everything he’s done?” she thinks. Of course, deep down, Katara does understand how they can trust him so easily, because she trusted him in the Catacombs before anyone else did. Her confusion is less “how can any of them trust him” and more “how could I have let myself trust him?”

Like Zuko in “The Beach,” Katara’s confusion expresses itself as anger. The last time she trusted Zuko, Aang was nearly killed by a firebender. This reminds her of her mother, who was also killed by a firebender. As Zuko quickly recognizes, Katara connects her anger at both these events to her anger at Zuko himself. So she lashes out at him, just as he lashed out at others in “The Beach.”

Zuko: I don’t deserve this.

Katara: Yeah. No kidding.

Once Zuko’s anger erupts in “The Beach,” he flees the party and goes off on his own. He looks out at the ocean in the moonlight.

Once Katara’s anger erupts in “The Southern Raiders,” she flees the campfire and goes off on her own. She looks out at the ocean in the moonlight.

After Zuko’s initial outburst, he returns to his family’s old vacation home. He silently looks through old paintings and heirlooms, each one reminding him of a different childhood memory. He compares this happier, simpler time to the turmoil he’s living in now, and the comparison forces Zuko to accept exactly what went wrong. It was his father’s cruelty and lust for power that tore the family apart. This realization challenges the idealized image of his father that is stuck in Zuko’s head, and the thought of giving up that image is too frightening for him to bear.

So once again, Zuko expresses that fear as anger and confusion, perfectly exemplified in the line he says by the campfire:

For so long, I thought that if my dad accepted me, I’d be happy. I’m back home now. My dad talks to me. He even thinks I’m a hero! Everything should be perfect, right? I should be happy now, but I’m not. I’m angrier than ever and I don’t know why!

This campfire scene is a visual parallel to “The Southern Raiders,” as well. Notice the difference between Zuko’s expression while standing before the campfire in “The Beach” and his expression while sitting around the campfire in “The Southern Raiders”:

Zuko in “The Beach” is conflicted, angry, and afraid. Zuko in “The Southern Raiders” is relaxed and happy. The reason for this difference, of course, is that he’s changed sides and is now fighting for what he believes is right. But in order for him to change sides, to gain this happiness and peace, Zuko needed to first face the source of his anger.

In “The Beach,” Zuko claims that he is the source of his own anger, that the person he’s angry at is himself. While this is not entirely inaccurate—he certainly does direct some of his anger inward—the true source of his anger is his father. Ozai is who he needs to face to find peace. And he does.

Facing Ozai in “The Day of Black Sun” gives Zuko the closure he’s been searching for since his banishment. However, he still doesn’t forgive him. For Zuko, forgiving Ozai means excusing years of abuse, imperialism, and murder. He refuses to forgive that behavior, but he does learn to move on from its effect on him. He also starts taking concrete steps towards making sure no one else will have to suffer the way Ozai has made people suffer.

Zuko can see Katara going through an experience similar to his own in “The Southern Raiders.” He sees her anger and understands her trauma. He knows what worked for him—facing the source of his anger—and helps Katara do the same. Like Zuko, Katara also remembers her childhood, remnants of a happier time, as she works through her anger. However, unlike Zuko, Katara doesn’t have an idealized image of the Fire Nation in her head—quite the opposite. She has an extremely negative image of the Fire Nation as a whole, especially those who serve in its military. She refers to her mother’s killer as simply “The Monster,” the title of something subhuman. But when she confronts him face to face, she is forced to accept that he is not The Monster, he is a human being. A human being who is, in Katara’s own words, “pathetic and sad and empty.”

It is this realization that finally gives Katara closure. The Fire Nation is not a faceless mob of monsters and demons. It’s a country filled with people, people who are capable of good as well as evil. With this understanding, she is able to forgive Zuko, who has made significant effort to be a better person and own up to his mistakes. But she is not able to forgive Yon Rha, who showed little remorse for his actions. However, like Zuko with Ozai, Katara is able to let go of her anger toward Yon Rha and start healing from her trauma.

Like all Zutara parallels, what’s significant about the similarities between these episodes is not that they exist, but that they play an active role in helping Zuko and Katara relate to each other.

Zuko who broke free and has just been saved by his new friends, Zuko who, an episode prior, was the reason Mai and then Ty Lee betrayed Azula, leaving her, literally, to free fall alone.

But then you see the shot of Katara looking straight back at Azula. Her expression actually mirrors Azula’s, she’s standing up, she’s the one who just literally pulled Zuko onto the saddle and she’s looking back at Azula with the same slightly upward curve of the lips and challenging gaze like “I’ll see you in the thunderdome.”

If you look at the rest of the gaang’s expressions, Sokka is just like “SHADE” and Toph is all “I can’t see you but I’m sending some major bad vibes in your general direction” and Suki just looks concerned about the situation as a whole, but Katara was ready to fight then and there.

This foreshadows the climax of Katara’s arc, which involves Azula because Azula and Katara are foils, and calls to mind when Katara and Azula fought in “The Crossroads of Destiny.” It also highlights the differences between Katara and Azula, Katara as the mother of her group of friends and Azula who drove away all of her friends because she tried to control them.

And Zuko plays a significant part of this arc, he stood between Katara and Azula in Ba Sing Se, and he is literally between them here as well, and then in the finale when he takes Azula’s lightning to save Katara.

But what’s really interesting about this is that at this point Katara doesn’t even like Zuko, she doesn’t trust him and she hasn’t forgiven him. But the message in the way she’s standing, combined with her challenging expression and her arms spread and resting across the saddle, as if to encompass the whole group, with Zuko who has just been pulled into the group sitting in the middle and directly between Azula and Katara, seems to say “These are my people and if you hurt them I will hurt you,” and she’s including Zuko in that by directly challenging Azula, who came there for Zuko. She said much the same thing to Zuko a few episodes ago when she told him that if he gave her any reason to suspect he might try and hurt Aang she would end him. And even though Zuko and Katara haven’t yet had their life-changing field trip, we can see that she’s already started moving from seeing him as someone she has to protect the others from, to adding him to the list of people she needs to protect.

Hello, i’ve been financially struggling lately, this is embarrassing and i didn’t want to make a post about it because i feel so ashamed but please if you could help me out with at least $1 that would mean a lot!

An old doodle based off a headcanon @foxy-knowledgeseeker came up with

BONUS:

Aang: I just wanna sit here and feed my birds

Sokka: Monkey, monkey, monkey man

Katara: No! That’s the thing I’m sensitive about!

Toph: Okay, lets go over there and destroy the place

Zuko: I tought I was going to be murdered my entire childhood

Suki: Where was I? I’m not gay, but I might be

Azula: I’ll keep all my emotions right here and then one day I’ll die.

Ty lee: I was just shiny and dumb and easy to trick

Mai: You remember being 12, when you’re like “No one look at me or I’ll kill myself.”

additionally: