intimacy.「zutara + reylo parallels」

❝So long as he's with her, he's on the right path.❞

[HD + earphones + small screen]

This is probably one of my favourite videos I have ever made (and if you know my self-deprecating self a little, you'll also know that's a hell of a lot coming from me). Still pretty simple, still not perfect, wish I had better quality clips which I can't get atm due to hard-drive space or rather lack thereof (and also wish colouring didn't murder it some more)...but I've been wanting to vid this concept for years now and I'm just excited to have finally gotten to it. A HUGE thank you goes, as it always does these days, to Kim for endlessly listening to me enthusing more or less coherently about how much the similarities between these four make my heart burst. (Girl, if you don't go finish ATLA after this, I'll make it my personal mission to hunt you down as soon as this quarantine is over u.u)
Also yes: someone still needs to pry Star Wars (and Reylo) from my itchy hands and snap me out of this particular vidding spree. Fingers crossed you're not bored yet.

Explaining how much these ships exactly mean to me would be quite long; but for starters, my freefall into the Reylo pit only truly started when my brain suddenly realized that, while remaining their very own thing, they were also building up to basically be a live-action reenactment of Zutara in so many ways – and one that had the potential to right the eternal waste Bryke had made by never going full canon with them. The parallels between ships only ever kept growing since, both on visual and thematic levels, both as couple dynamics and similarities between the characters on their own (even down to adorable irl details like both Mr Dante "I did fall in love with Katara" Basco and Mr Adam "sentimental and obvious" Driver being the biggest, dorkiest shippers there are), and I've never looked back since. These are atm, and will probably always remain, my favourite fictional ships in the entire world – for their being so intrinsecally meta and linked to myth and symbols and primal storytelling, and at the same time their ability to tackle real, raw, relatable human feelings; and for being the definition of all that is beautiful about enemies-to-lovers to me: that journey to mutual growth and the deepest understanding, acceptance and soul-searing connection there is. Unfortunately, instead of completing a trajectory never finished, these ships ended up both having something the other lacks – with Reylo getting that beautiful kiss, yes, but at the atrocious cost of Ben's life and with the added horror that was most of the writing in TROS (which ultimately makes Zutara the better pairing, imho; ATLA's character building and single arcs remain mostly perfect (Zuko's most of all), and "we didn't end up together, but you changed my life forever" is 1000x a better look than "I cannot feel half of my soul anymore and will have to live without it for the rest of my life"). But they remain special, the beauty of the journey only partially soured by the destination, and that is something to treasure ♥

A couple more notes:
-God knows how much I hate to quote murderer-of-scripts extraordinaire C.Terrio – but some on-point sentences were spoken in the TROS bts (even though I believe he has exactly 0 ideas what 'dyad' or 'soulmates' are actually supposed to mean), and I'll be damned if I don't use any little detail I have at my disposal against their cynical narrative;
-About the Finn/Aang parallel: I love both characters, they are the most loyal, brave friends one could have, and they are ultimately right in pointing out to Rey/Katara that they're not in their right state of mind in that particular situation – but they also tend to idealize their friend and reject her darker side / be involuntarily patronizing about it, something that Ben/Zuko, having faced Rey/Katara at their most violent in battle, never do and understand a lot better coming from a perception of themselves as "imperfect" already.

Whew. If you've actually reached the end of this rant, you're awesome.
Would really, really love to hear opinions on this!

Other inspiring masterpieces about these two ships from post-TLJ era:
speeding cars (by Alexa Lexie) –    • zutara + reylo || speeding cars.  
yin & yang (by starcrossed azure) –    • yin & yang | reylo and zutara  

Song:    • We Move Lightly  
Characters: Zuko & Katara (Zutara), Rey & Ben Solo/Kylo Ren (Reylo)
Clips: Star Wars (sequel trilogy), Avatar: The Last Airbender
Colouring: mine + SunnyVids
No copyright infringement intended; I don't own anything but my editing.
#fanvidfeed #zutara #reylo #rey #bensolo #kyloren #zuko #katara #starwars #ATLA #parallels