SHE’S SO CUTE

I'm in my Maiko feels today, and I gotta say: we don't talk enough about the fact that Mai is too shy to say she loves Zuko to his face.

On The Headband she says "I don't hate you." On The Beach she says "I care about you." In the finale she says "I actually... kind of like you." The ONE time she full on says the word LOVE, is at The Boiling Rock, when she's talking to Azula.

She can call him her boyfriend, act flirty, make out at any time, say he ripped her heart out with the break up letter and jokingly "threaten" him to never do it again... but she just can't say "I love you." She literally started blushing when she tried in the finale, and couldn't get the right words out.

It's such a cute little detail. She's not used to expressing how she feels, so she doesn't know how or when she should say it.

She'll 100% just let it slip someday, in some casual conversation. Zuko is gonna stare at her all wide-eyed and happy, and she's just gonna feel her very soul screaming in agony and embarrassement.

best siblings of their verse btw

🔥 Family Portrait 🔥

your honour i love them that’s all

i hate zutara and taang 🔥🔥🗣️

anyway… maiko and kataang > > >

save me characters who are still hated and mischaracterized in 2024 for the sake of a fanon ship save meeeee

me and gang

Ch 9࿐𓂃𓂃Ripples Make Waves!

@fanboyzuko Blue & Pink Spirits

\( θ_ θ)人(⌒ヮ⌒)ﾉ

Pose ref by @albanenechi

Referenced Aang's mask for Ty lee and made it Pink! & no mane around it.

second time I've made art for a 9 of your storys that's a funny coincidence ^_^

People really try and say Katara is Izumi’s mom like honey?? That baby looks nothing like Katara??? Someone got Zuko pregnant and I know for a fact it wasn’t Katara

They don't necessarily say Katara is the mom, but they try to go "Oh, Maiko broke up in the comics, so Mai can't possibly be the mom" even though Izumi literally has the same face.

It's a blatant attempt at downplaying the fact that Zuko chose Mai over Katara or whoever they ship him with.

And let me be clear, I don't mind people just using the character of Izumi, or at least the name, in fics and making her the child of Zuko with some other woman, I do that too. The problem is the blatant denial of reality.

She's a Maiko baby. Plain and simple.

I saw this and thought of the Royal Fire Siblings. I can't stop laughing at the accuracy 🤣

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.

Atla girlies... the women you are

like zuko was in the southern water tribe in s1e1/2 in his regular armor and didn’t need extra layers. and in e2 when aang airbent snow to cover the fire nation soldiers and zuko was covered in snow it started evaporating 😭

hypothermia scared of bro

Everyone loves Azula/Zuko freezing in the water tribe because they've never seen snow before and wear 8 layers of thick clothing, but I think what's equal funny is the idea of them sunbathing in swimwear in the snow because they're able to heat their bodies up so much that the snow doesn't bother them.