BROS I CAME HOME FROM WORK TO FIND THAT SOMEONE HAD GIVEN US A WHOLE ASS TELESCOPE‼️‼️‼️ FOR FREE‼️‼️‼️

Zuko doesn't get worse before he gets better like with Catra, and maybe that's what throws people off with how Catra's story goes. Zuko's moment of change (freeing Appa) is one of a truly noble act that conks him out and causes him to slowly grow from there, with a setback or two. Catra's is her reaching an absolute nadir and having that collapse her to her base elements over the course of a season until her true feelings about Adora are the only things left.

Not to be snarky or anything, but Zuko is already at his worst before the show even starts. He spends all of season one trying to kidnap Aang, holds Katara hostage briefly, burns down villages, and is just a generally terrible person. The difference is that we don’t see his mental spiral as clearly as we do Catra’s.

I also think we see Zuko’s redemption through nostalgia filters. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good! And it set the example going forward of how to do and improve upon good redemption arcs. He doesn’t just have a setback or two, he has a couple huge fuck ups - i.e. turning on Iroh, Katara, and Aang in the cave and hiring an assassin to kill Aang. (and then forgetting to call him off - really, Zuko? Really?) 

And, probably most significant of all, he has the luxury of time. He and Iroh hide behind their tea shop while he figures his shit out. Catra hits bottom when Double Trouble calls her out, and is almost immediately abducted by Horde Prime and thrown into another situation where she needs to make the the big bad like her to stay alive - because she knows, unlike Glimmer, that Horde Prime doesn’t need her. At best, she’s bait for Adora. And she doesn’t even get to keep any of her bodily autonomy or agency through that - Prime mindwipes her and puts a chip in her neck and uses her as a puppet to taunt Adora when she gets there. And when she starts fighting back, he kills her (or tries to. I firmly believe she died, but there’s room for debate). From beginning to end she’s been informed over and over that her life is forfeit, to the point where she truly believes it and when she makes the choice to get Glimmer off the ship, she follows through without hesitation. No trying to manipulate Glimmer into wanting to rescue her. No messing with Adora when they talk. She finally accepts what she’s been told for years - she’s worthless, her life is forfeit, she’s beyond any redemption or forgiveness. It’s a very extreme difference from Zuko, who not only learns to accept himself and acknowledge his worth, but sets out to prove it by helping the gaang defeat Ozai.

And that difference, I think, is why I like Catra’s arc more. Don’t get me wrong! It’s admirable that Zuko found a way to break free from his cycle of abuse on his own and realized his life was worth more than what his father ever let him believe. Catra, on the other hand, is basically dragged kicking and screaming back to life by Adora and is left in this weird position of “okay well I didn’t plan on living this long, now what.” And I am not at all glorifying Catra more or less trying to kill herself. It’s just, to me, far easier to relate to and understand, which is why she sticks in my mind more than Zuko does, if that makes sense. And when she realizes she actually has to live and deal with things, she does the one thing that feels right - she reaches out to Adora.

I saw a really good comment somewhere about how Catra’s season five story isn’t a redemption arc - it’s the start of one. Zuko’s story, as far as we see in the show, ends with him getting everything he wanted - not just being the Fire Lord, but finally having a family (the gaang) that understands him and loves him for who he is. He still has shit to deal with, but even before LoK, it was easy to assume he went on and lived a full, happy life with his friend and Mai and was probably a great Fire Lord (there are all kinds of metas about how he’s the polar opposite of Ozai and they’re all excellent).

Catra’s story, meanwhile, ends with her standing at the beginning of a lot of work, and she starts with what’s probably the hardest but most important one - Scorpia. And yes, she did get to tell Adora she loves and that world-saving kiss (gay saves the world), but there’s still a lot of work to do (and yes, I know people are all about “aw they’re dating they’re girlfriends now” and I get wanting them to just have a happy ending, but that’s not really how I see things going. You can acknowledge you love someone without immediately jumping into a relationship. I have so many post-series Catradora headcanons...)

Sorry, this got long and I’m not sure I really addressed your point tbh ^_^; I just have a lot of feelings about this. At the end of the day, I feel like Zuko was meant to be the character who proves you can grow up being abused and still be a good person. Catra, on the other hand, is the character who’s abused and becomes bitter and angry because of it, and has to find her way out of that hole. She isn’t quite there yet by the end of the show, but she’s working on it.

(and this is why I’d love a movie or another season. Come on Noelle, I know you’ve got it in you)

Eyesagao: A mcfreakin Essay

Hi welcome to who’s angst is it anywhere, where the AUs are made up and the plotholes don’t matter

Edit: Listen eyesagao aint just me, so I may be forgetting some things or we might have had some ideas that didnt add up or isnt showing up here my ba  d........;;;;;

Because I info dump about completely irrelevant things, I decided to try and talk a bit about all the Eyesagao AUs that exist for all of our angsty needs, but before we get into that (if I can ever get into that without going off topic) here is some very minimal info.

Eyesagao is an Asagao AU. Asagao is a dating sim where you can date your choice of several bois from the Normal Boots ‘club’, aka Normal Boots dudes from youtube. Eyesagao followed with the idea that Jack (septiceye), along with his ‘Anti (septiceye)’ demonic persona asshat dude also goes to Asagao, and Manipulates Jack’s girlfriend (Ellie) and her frendo (Traci) into pretty much fucking going crazy in love and doing all sorts of shit, and basically it’s up to their other frendos Elsa, and Ian (brutalm//oose from the youtubes) to try and keep shit together as they try not only to undercover Anti, but try to get their friends back to normal before someone seriously gets hurt.

And seriously, that’s the simplest way I can put it. The void (from Brutal//moose’s Tele//void!) seems to be where Anti is from, and is also where Ian is held each night for unknown reasons (to ‘appease the void’, who seem to have separate motivations and goals from Anti). Ian is forced to bring Elsa along to the void to keep her safe from Anti, who constantly tries to intimidate her to leave Ellie and Traci to be pawns along with Jack to his game, whatever the fuck his game is.

See, Anti has done this before, at Jack’s previous school. Somehow, Anti gets his grimy little claws into anyone Jack cares about and just drives them c r a z y, and the last time this happened, Jack did not figure out he was possessed, cut loose from his old life, and moved to Asagao, hoping for a new start.

Of course, Anti seems to grow more powerful with attention (like we all tend to do, but he does so literally grow more powerful), so after duping Traci into believing that she loves Jack (and that Jack loves her instead of Ellie), he reveals himself, and by this time, Traci is so blind to what’s happening, she just… accepts that she’s loved Anti all along. This lets him get away with more shit, in and out of the void, including creating these… void gals based on our three heroines/victims. They are pale, initially lifeless copies of Ellie, Elsa, and Traci originally created to bully Elsa out of staying in relative safety of the void, but due to Elsa unintentionally giving the Ellie and Traci copies attention (romantic attention, much like Traci had done with Anti), as well as names (Kelly and Grace), they became their own beings, and though they (And Chelsa, Elsa’s copy who somehow developed differently from the other two) sort of became lackeys to Anti, they don’t try and hurt Elsa anymore. Does this mean anything??? No clue. Now they’re instead trying to convince her to stay in the void with them, still taking her out of the picture, but its less harmful and brute force.

Also, oddly, while being polar opposites, the void girls ARE based on the regular gals, so their behavior reflects what they really want. Chelsa is uptight and strict while Elsa is relaxed and cheerful, but they both want to be the right one- the one that saves the day- the one that can be depended on.

Ellie and Kelly could not be more opposites. Ellie is nice and Kelly is a bitch L M AO. What I mean is that where Ellie is a bit reserved (and a rad asexual), Kelly is like 94% raw sexual energy who uses said energy to get whatever the hell she wants, but they both want so desperately to be needed.

Traci is soft where Grace is rough and unforgiving, Traci also shy where Grace says almost anything without filter. They want someone to want them- to find use in them where they can’t find use in themselves.

That, my friends, is the ‘original’ AU, as untouched by other Eyesagao Aus as I think I can separate it. However, some of the AUs begin after this chapter has ended- After their years at Asagao has taken place. Let me try to make some sense of it?? Of course, there are plotholes to hell, questions and more questions piling on, but hey, we just want the angst, right? Alright, let’s talk some angst then.

DWC AU: Probably the ‘darkest’ au, in which Traci and Jack go missing right before their graduation. (For comparison, Hana, the main character of Asagao, Elsa, Ellie, and Ian are 3rd years, and Traci and Jack seniors). One by one, Elsa, Ian, and Ellie disappear going on into the summer, leaving a whopping 5 missing students between the years. I would say this AU probably involves some of the Asagao cast ‘the most’ because its thanks to them that the missing kids are ‘found’. Basically, DWC stands for Dark Wood Circus, a vocaloid song about a spoopy circus of freaks. Years later, friends of the eyesagao peeps are still searching for their old high school friends when Hana spies a poster of a ringmaster that looks like Jack. Though the group looking for their old friends is moderate in size (Such has Hana, Luke, Mimi, Mai, Satch, a few others), Hana and Mimi sneak away to follow on this lead, only to come to the shocking discovery of said missing friends, now twisted into mindless creatures of the void/circus, run by none other than ‘Jack’. Even this AU kind of sections off into whether they can get their friends out of the circus and the eyegroup (Ian, Elsa, Ellie, and Traci) having to try and remember their old selves. Have we come up with a happy ending to this yet? Nope.

Adult AU: Somehow, though the mysterious powers that be, they survive high school. (I think we initially decided that Jack, now having the knowledge of Anti controlling him, leaves Asagao) But this leaves both Ellie and Traci incredibly broken as adults. Ellie is afraid to commit to anyone else, in fear into falling into ‘old habits’, and remains single and lonely, even going so far as to alienate herself from her friends. Traci ends up with Hana, but is almost a shell of herself. She’s very withdrawn and struggles to come back to feeling comfortable in her own body. This all goes up in smoke when, at a casual friend-reunion/catch-up dinner, Jack accidently ends up being invited along with Traci, who is hellishly convinced that Anti is still with him when Jack is unable to faithfully tell her that Anti is gone. This AU also involves Mimi and Hana, who, a few nights after the dinner, start exhibiting classic symptoms of exposure to anti or the void. (nausea, nose bleeds, dizziness, etc.)

(TGR: another Adult au where they actually do get their shit together, and save Jack. Elsa, who is poly and bi, dates Traci, who is poly and pan, but Elsa also sort of date-mates with Ellie after jokingly asking her out on a date which comes to fruition, with the intention of getting her more comfortable with dating others (as Ellie hadn’t dated anyone since she had Jack had broken up way back when). At first, Ellie and Traci date Elsa separately, desperate not to get in each other’s way, so afraid to be friends after what happened, but eventually Elsa brings the three of them together, and they all date. This Is the gayest AU, I like to think tbh, but certainly the happiest so far. Named TGR aka The Great Rebound l m ao)

AMA Au: AMA (Asagao Monster Academy) is another AU that I sort of collaborated with others (much more widespread tho, it was just the three of us working on the train wreck that is Eyesagao) where everyone (but Hana) is a monster that goes to Asagao Academy to learn how to be around, or live with humans. Honestly at this point we just put the two aus together just to put the two AUs together, but Jack is another human who’s is mistakenly sent to this school, but is possessed by a demon by the name of Anti, making him a half demon. The story plays out the as the original, but with Anti playing ‘his game’ to get magic from Traci, who is a unicorn in this AU and usually can ward off evil or non-virgins. He uses his influence over her to cloud her judgement and eventually wants to just cut off her horn, yikes. For added measure, Ellie is a golden Hind, a creature who will actually die at the touch of a human, so in falling for Jack, they’ve doomed themselves to either a love where they can’t touch, or a love where they have to put up with Anti literally forever to keep Jack as a demon.

Cameo AU: Basically a short ditty where mr edgiplier/darkiplier is passing through the void, and runs into the void gals, Chelsa, Kelly, and Grace. And because dark and anti are little jealous shits who only want what the other has, Dark extends the invitation to the girls to leave Anti and come work for him. Chelsa is like ‘hell no’, Grace is like ‘you had me going there, but nah son, I know a bad boss when I see one. And I already got one of those’ and Kelly is like ‘um maybe’ and causes this ugly spat where Kelly is about to up and leave (and almost lets Dark kill Grace) when Anti shows the fuck up and makes Kelly know where the hell she stands with him. (clue: she probably got in A LO T of fucking trouble).

This actually leads into the most recent AU-

D AU: Dau, aka ‘That D AU’/ ‘Timeline AU’ What started as a simple ‘what if Dark and Mark came to Asagao Instead of Jack and Anti’ and it honestly fucking mutated (as Eyesagao tends to do). It went from just ‘Similar events but Dark and Mark instead’ to ‘eerily familiar events taking place with almost all the same players. How are the void girls here if Anti never created them? What’s with the déjà vu? Ellie isn’t dating Mark, so now do things proceed?’ So basically what happens is that… once again, Dark and Anti are little shits who have no regards for anyone’s lives but their own, so Dark does… I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT HE DID OK he collaborated with Kelly and pulled some fucking shit and suddenly we’ve back at the beginning of Eyesagao. Things are out of place. Ian isn’t a prisoner of the void, but Ellie is. Mark is ‘dating’ Elsa. Elsa is doing all these crazy things ‘hurting all these other people’. Ian is completely unreliable and even m o r e of a jerk than his lovable jerk-tendencies. He’s completely unwilling to even try to begin to help. What’s happening what’s happening?

Dark is playing a game. He knows of the original timeline. Of Jack, of Anti, of the girls, void or no. This is a new timeline. Here he makes Ellie the void’s plaything, and instead goes after Elsa, trapping her in this game of his. He just wants to see if he can break her by the end of the school year. He pretends to be her boyfriend while manipulating her life to make other Asagao students h a t e h er in an effort to break the strongest thing about her- her love of her friends and her heart. Dark is much more versatile- he can hop though dreams, pull nightmares and secrets from the very corners of your mind. He uses this to manipulate the whole school to play along. He uses Chelsa, and Grace, who believe they were created by him, to try and bully Traci into not helping Ellie out in the void. Ian is having flashbacks (forwards? Flash-sideways? WHAT IS THIS, LOST?) to the other timeline, which is actually driving him a little crazy because he can’t make sense of it, and doesn’t want to believe any of it. Kelly and Dark are the only one who knows the truth, and Kelly aint telling, although she’s grown very tired of Dark’s games already, and figures if she can kill Elsa (though using Ellie’s body when she’s weak) without Dark finding out, Dark will get bored, or whatever, and finally be done with this damn school and these damn children and they can leave once and for all. (I also jokingly refer to this au as ‘Traci gets scared’ au because Traci goes through a lot of trauma as dark tries to scare her off without hurting her, as per his deal with Elsa, before he just fucking hurts her anyway)

Other bits not as developed:

Body Snatcher AU: Anti creates the void girls, or rather, give them a form specifically like our regular girls with the intention of giving them the actual physical bodies of the three girls so they can exist out in the real world. What followed is the three of them acting weird, Grace being completely unable to play Traci’s part until they can leave, chelsa n o t w an t I n g to act like Elsa, and Kelly honestly just rubbing it in everyone’s face (especially Ian, who would be the one person who knows about it but can’t do anything about it). It’s only a tiny joke-y but still p angsty when it gets down to it.

Yandere!Elsa: P much after the ‘everyone survives end’ of school, but instead of developing into the Adult Au, Elsa just… doesn’t adjust, she just doesn’t she can’t handle not having to take care of/looking after her friends. I think we said the void drove her mad or something?? She can’t adjust. She first finds Ian after such a long time, and tries to convince him to take her back to the void to see if she can find Kelly and Grace again, but he refuses, seeing that she’s just trying to get empty satisfaction out of something dangerous. She then goes after Traci and Ellie bc she loves them ofc

Reverse AU: Uhm this one came out of nowhere and I think about it A LOT but basically it’s just a situation where Jack and Anti knowingly share a body. Unhappily, but they do it. They’re fucking stuck. At this point they’re like brothers, and Anti has no interest in human life, so usually he leaves Jack be unless he wants to stretch out. Then, as Jack moves and starts going to Asagao, he falls for Ellie…. And Anti falls for a human as well. Her name is Traci, and she’s human, but in this AU she’s a snake. Once Anti reveals himself to be a demon, just out of his love of her, she starts to manipulate him into doing shit she wants, just trying to see what she can get out it. She pretty much goes mad with power over him tbh, and Jack is struggling because he knows and Anti knows shit she’s having him do is w r o ng, but what’s better to the glitchy demon, satisfaction or morality?

The Dragon AU: Um Traci just fuckign accepts that Anti is a bad dude and doesn’t love her but does depend on her to get what he needs done so she just straight up becomes his right hand dude idk what the fucks going through her head Traci stop being b a d. “'Traci you know he’s using you' 'yea, I learned that a few years ago, but for whatever reason, he didn’t kill me or toss me to the curb and I guess some twisted part of me really appreciates that'” is literally the only dialog I have for that whole au

GenderSwap Au: Just literally everyone being the opposite gender can you imagine how fucking intense that would be, two guys in a full out brawl after one broke down crying in the cafeteria. Also, how fucking creepier does Ellie and Tracy’s actions get as males?? Just holy shit it just gets weirder the more you think about it.