murglor

[murglor]

It's tempting to say Mai (because her "betrayal" is only a matter of choosing Zuko over Azula, and Azula's used to that) or Ty Lee (because her "betrayal" can be spun as a split-second decision, forced by physical proximity to be disabling Azula instead of Mai, or because Azula would have regretted hurting/killing Mai), but honestly, the one person we see Azula select over and over again despite the potential harm it may do to her and the complete lack of reciprocity is Zuko. I don't see why Zuko's special status with Azula would change.

[murglor]

Theater criticism of how others oppose fascism is wrong. If you care about people with disabilities — if you care about people at all — you should be more concerned with opposing those who are actively trying to harm than policing the language or approach of those also opposing the fascists. Faux-centrist, both-sides horseshit like this exalts form over substance and gives aid and comfort to the actual bad actors.

There's increasing talk of Trump possibly having dementia so this is your reminder that making fun of disabilities is still violent and ableist even if the disabled person a bad person. People with dementia and other forms of CI are not stupid, intentionally violent, or more bigoted than the rest of the population. There is also nothing funny or mock-worthy about incontinence, slurred speech, confusion, or word salad. You can have discussions about his ability to lead and declining health without throwing an exceptionally vulnerable disabled population under the bus.

[murglor]

(Prior to the incest jokes) this analysis is really spot-on but is also not how I'd previously considered Zuko's role in Azula's healing arc (even having seen the Ehasz post before). Of course your narrative foil is the person best poised to understand you and bridging that gap is the most powerful and rewarding growth arc. It's just not a direction I'd ever found intuitive because Zuko's redemption arc and personal growth are so incomplete in the show, and so neglected from what I've seen of the comics. But if Zuko has actually processed his trauma and abusive upbringing, and has started to recognize subtext and complexity (note: NOT depicted in AtLA), he really could be Azula's Iroh.

I don't think Zuko could understand Azula on the fundamental level. Azula's whole personality is a mask forged by severe emotional neglect. The best he can do is shut up and listen. The worst he can do is try to dictate how she recovers. The more power he holds over her the less trust she would have.

Ah yes, because if there's one person that can't understand being neglected by Ozai, feeling conflicted about his own identity because he can no longer remember what's really him VS what's just Ozai's insane standards for what his kids should be, feeling like he's too far gone, too ambitious and too broken to ever change from his fixed role as just Ozai's child, and also feeling like becoming a better person would be not only a betrayal towards Ozai, but also somehow greater than any offense he ever commited towards his family is... Zuko.

Ya know. The banished prince? The guy that literally spent an entire episode hallucinating when he did something Ozai would NEVER approve of and it literally broke his mind for a bit? The guy that rejected redemption when his uncle and the Gaang offered it to him because he just craved Ozai's validation THAT desperately?

He toooootally doesn't get Azula. At all. That's why he was winning against her in their Agni Kai by literally using her own tactics against her, right?

Ehasz didn't choose Zuko to be Azula's path to redemption out of laziness or just because he's a popular character. He did it because they're family. Not in the sense of "They're obligated to get along", but as in THEY HAVE THE SAME ABUSER. They grew up with the same parents, in the same household, in the same nation. In Book 3 Zuko even temporarely becomes Azula's equal, or even her superior, when he's placed as Ozai's right hand.

The golden child and the scapegoat are treated differently, but they are broken in the exact same way - that's the realization Zuko has when he witnesses Azula's breakdown.

They also heal the exact same way. Being supported but also being held accountable. By speaking up AND listening. By connecting with someone who might be doing okay now, but is not a saint and has made many of the same mistakes and is just trying to save them the pain.

As for this notion that, the more power Zuko has over her, the less Azula would trust him: she gave him the crown. Twice. In Ba Sing Se, when she brought him home like she promised despite not knowing Aang was still alive and despite having full control of the Dai Li and thus being in the perfect position to betray him with no consequence. Then again in The Headband, when she warns him to be careful when visiting Iroh so he doesn't end up banished again (or worse) without gaining ANYTHING out of it and after he just gave her actual good reason not to trust him by not being honest about Aang surviving.

Not to mention: Zuko is not only her legal guardian now, he's her Fire Lord. A Fire Lord that is friends with the Avatar.

Yet Azula is still alive. She still has her bending. And if she gets any help, from doctors, from their mom, from her friends, or from whoever, it'd be because ZUKO either allowed it or actively made it happen. Even after everything she put him through. You think she'd just not notice that?

(And Ozai, the person Azula loves the most in the world, is also alive, and Zuko even went as far as saying he's not rulling out the possibility that maybe Ozai will change too. Despite being that man's victim for years)

This is so obvious even the Yang comics couldn't fuck it up completely, as Azula was literally trying to make Zuko a "better" Fire Lord, and said that sooner or later he'd realize they're the same (and did it in a crypt belonging to a previous Fire Lord's most trusted advisor no less).

And in the MUCH better written comic by Faith Hicks? Azula is mad as hell, but can't keep Zuko's name out her mouth, which is acknowledged by the story itself, and even sees a younger, loving, unscarred Zuko in her ideal world. Only cowering before the angry, scarred, hit-by-her-lightning Zuko.

Zuko is canonically the person she loves the most after Ozai, and that was already true when he wasn't putting any effort into being a good brother to her. What do you think it's going to happen once he gets his shit together, right when Ozai is no longer in the picture and Azula is at her lowest?

Azula was created to be the other half of Zuko's character. His shadow, his superior, his evil(er) counterpart. The one that succeeded where he failed, and vice versa. In Zuko's Hero Journey, she's both part of his grief for his once happy life, the antagonist that is tempting him to make the wrong choices, and the final boss he'll either defeat or succumb to.

Her role in the story revolves around his arc, his flaws, his growth. OF COURSE it'd be ridiculously easy for them to trade places in the "who exists to motivate the other" category. Of course they both know what makes the other tick. She was created FOR him.

Must not make this a zucest post, must not make this a zucest post, must not make this a zucest post, must not mak-FUCK IT!

[murglor]

When you accidentally summon every Loth-cat in a 5km radius during Jedi training.

This one is for the first week of @therebellionevent (yay!)

[murglor]

I refuse to believe that Mai and Azula *actually* blow off Ty Lee and think she is stupid; the trio operate *far* too well together for such a fundamental misunderstanding. But Mai and Azula are far too clever and care far too much for Ty Lee to ruin her facade, and what we are seeing is a lifetime habit of performing their public faces at virtually all times for all three. It’s the same reason almost all of Azula’s kindness and care for others is cloaked in cruelty or arrogance; none of the girls are ever confident they are unobserved, and they can never unring the bell if they reveal or hint at the falsity of their chosen personas.

trivial question, but: do you think ty lee can see auras? i'm torn between a. yes but they're not actually "auras", she just calls it that to be more cryptic to azula. i like her having a parallel skill to toph, but i don't like theosophy being grouped with legitimate east asian cultural influences in canon lore. or b. no, she came up with that lie when azula drilled her on how she was able to know info she shouldn't, and just leaned into it. or c. she's just being a quirky teenager

lmfao I don’t think this is a “trivial question” at all! I think ty lee’s invocation of auras and the context in which she deploys it is actually very crucial to understanding her character. everyone (azula, mai, zuko) responds to her aura talk in the same immediately dismissive way. it’s a ridiculous notion on its face, even in a universe wherein spirituality is respected (it’s less respected in the fire nation of course, but they nonetheless tie a great deal of value to their overvalorization of firebending, which is fundamentally a spiritual practice). ty lee is uniquely trivialized for her discussion of auras, in a similar way to how I, for example, dismiss any conversation about astrology as simply being a load of bullshit. and similar to astrology, there’s a gendered element to that dismissal; it’s viewed as a silly and frivolous interest for girls.

ty lee is a girl who deliberately plays up her femininity to an almost parodic degree. she (ostensibly) loves the color pink, and makeup, and boys, and she squeals at pretty shells, and emphasizes the importance of having clear skin, and she talks like she’s always just sucked in helium. now, there’s nothing wrong with being a stereotypically feminine girl, but that’s not actually what ty lee is. ty lee is a carefully crafted lie. she is a performer, and a gifted acrobat at that. when she plays this role, it is with the intention of being dismissed so as to be underestimated. she deliberately plays up these feminine qualities, performs her gender in such a way that she courts misogynistic reception to her presentation. mai claims that only stupid girls would be flattered upon being given beach trash, that only stupid girls crave male attention, that only stupid girls care about auras. azula claims that ty lee’s technique for attracting guys is “shallow and stupid” (despite it working perfectly on her for however many years they’ve been….friends). ty lee does these things specifically because she wants to be seen as a stupid girl.

she is a better manipulator than azula, and in many ways, far more powerful. think of the scene where azula pushes her out of jealousy because ty lee is better at cartwheeling as a microcosm for their entire relationship. ty lee knows exactly how dangerous she is, and so she knows that to not be seen as a threat to azula’s uncontested authority, she must present herself as someone stupid and naive for her own safety. and it works perfectly, because she is a teenage girl, and no one close to her is wise enough to see past her facade. when the conversation veers into territory that is threatening to her, she can steer it back onto safer ground by bringing up auras, or something equally frivolous. she knows full well that it makes her sound dumb, and that’s why she says it; she knows exactly how she is received at all times. meanwhile everyone around her believes that she’s hopelessly naive for being such an unrepentant happy-go-lucky frivolous weirdo. and so does a not insignificant number of people in the audience, too. because she’s genuinely just that subtle, and brilliant, and terrifying.

[murglor]

100% agree but I think his sister dating his ex (Maizula) would actually drive him even crazier.

Zuko’s short temper and possessive streak aren’t played up for laughs often enough. Just imagine the comedic potential of his reaction if he learned that his sister and ex-gf are dating his two best friends. Arrange them either way—Sokkla and Maiaang or Maikka and Azulaang—but still there’s going to be plenty of screaming and cursing and fireballs being thrown. That man has zero capacity for anger management, and I can’t imagine anything that would turn him into more of a deranged rage monster than that.

[murglor]

Look I'm sorry to anyone who thought the Saja Boys were a real band, but it was obviously fake from the beginning.

Huntr/x has been doing this gimmick for years where they'll put on a performance and some actors dressed up like demons will "interrupt" it or get into some choreo fights on stage and stuff. If you're a fan you know, the demons usually symbolize things like industry corruption, Mira's struggle with her family, Rumi being in the closet, etc, and there's lots of hints and secret messages to the fans in what they're wearing or how they show up. Check out huntresx5evah on blsky they've got an extensive examination of the "demons" over the years and what the messages to the fans are.

In the concert before Golden was released, the demons were dressed like flight attendants. That was the indication that something new was about to take off. @/queenhuntrixdontmiss and I speculated that it was going to be a new single and low and behold, it was.

But then the live performance got cancelled. It's an open secret that Rumi was having vocal issues, so that was probably not planned. They needed to buy time for her to recover, so, enter the Saja Boys -- a fake band of guys really clearly pretending to be demons, they release ONE single, do a bunch of b-tier variety shows for a week, nearly all of their public appearances have Huntr/x right there, keeping the hype and energy up until Rumi can get her throat polyps removed and furthering the routine where Huntr/x are supposed to be secret demon hunters and the Saja Boys are supposed to be secret demons.

Then the whole thing culminates in the Golden live performance at the idol awards, the big act with Huntr/x fake "break up" and the subsequent theatrics to make it up to fans for failing the first Golden performance. Huntr/x takes their obligation to fans very seriously, I've no doubt that they all felt terrible about having to cancel, so a free show was the obvious recourse to try and make it up to people. And they pulled out all the stops!

But the Saja Boys were never real. I mean they got real guys to pretend to be a boy band and do the dancing and lip syncing obviously, but come on, most of them didn't even have names.

[murglor]

Depends on your head canon. She’s probably less likely to blame minions to begin with, and she saw Mai save Zuko. (I think. The confrontation with Azula was after the prisoners had escaped, so didn’t see them break with Azula.) But unless Azula was straight messing with Sokka (possible), she had to have interacted with Suki during her time as a prisoner. Which could have been taunting, interrogation, or even torture.

[murglor]

One option is that he’s the bridge. Sokka fought Azula, sure, and they had that weird moment during the eclipse, but it’s not really personal for him the way it is for Suki. And Sokka and Azula are both planners and strategists who make bad jokes and there is obviously *something* there for Sokkla to exist with some popularity.

But it’s hard to imagine Suki getting past the identity theft and the imprisonment easily. Having Sokka to mediate and help bring connection rather than conflict to the surface could certainly smooth the way for reconciliation.

[murglor]

Even with all of the personal and political baggage between Suki and Azula?

[murglor]

This isn’t even a top-5 Azula pairing for me, but I can’t get past how much I love the artwork. Just lovely.

[murglor]

the Barbie movie. Spectacular. Especially everything involving the mojo dojo casa house.

[murglor]

I was going to make some sort of joke about variability being the actual problem, and then my place of birth found another way to disappoint me.

i love checking the weather like it'll ever be different

[murglor]

Mai is a delight.

And for the record, loving Zuko more than she fears Azula actually says very little about how much she likes Zuko, because she fears Azula as much as anything else... which is to say, she doesn't.

i love that mai says azula can shoot all the lightning she wants at her but she refuses to go in the slurry pipeline with ty lee. i adore how she gives no fucks she's the best.

[murglor]

Screwed up my aunt's boyfriend's Dragon Warrior save with my cousin's help. He was wise enough to have made a duplicate save, so no harm was done (and he wasn't even upset).

also pls tag the first game you remember playing

[murglor]

Maybe? The only things I can remember getting about bloodline mattering are (1) Ozai being married to Ursa because merging in Roku's line will result in stronger benders (comics? apocryphal?); (2) Azula talking shit to Long Feng about how he wasn't born with the divine right to rule, but she was; and (3) Iroh thinking that Zuko being a descendent of both Sozin and Roku has some sort of impact on his personal morality (not applicable to Azula). And given that Azula has a strong tendency to lie as a battle / manipulation tactic when she is pursuing a goal -- which she is doing here -- I'm not at all sure that's a real representation of what the FN or even Azula personally think about rulership being tied to bloodline.

My understanding of the Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven is that it was gained/lost through righteous rulership; the Western concept of Divine Right of Kings was something you claimed by being crowned or ordained, not born. I don't think either concept was ever discussed outside the context of a sitting ruler (or the overthrow of a sitting rule); they aren't something you have as a mere heir and seem don't have anything to do with bloodline other than being positioned to inherit the throne in the first place.

Zuko attempting to "pick" an heir instead of being stuck with Azula or having a child can certainly be a ripe vein of conflict, and it could be interesting for him to try and fail, too.

Other interesting wrinkles that could be a source of conflict:

-- Does this need to be a secret plan? Can it even be kept secret?

I can see why adopting your niece or nephew (who would have royal blood) is way different than adopting someone outside the royal family, especially because if Zuko dies without issue, the crown falls to Azula and then to her kids. But why then does it matter whether Azula "gives" the kids over to Mai and Zuko to raise? She can abdicate the throne either way (and is just as much of a potential claimant if she gains popular support regardless).

Is the idea that Azula's children will be passed off as Zuko and Mai's (since Azula is genetically pretty close to Zuko), so that they are first in line as Zuko's heirs without needing to disinherit Azula? That raises a huge number of problems - how do you conceal, in a palace swarming with servants, that Azula is pregnant and Mai is not? I can't imagine that Zuko would deny Azula access to healers during pregnancy and delivery, if he wants these hard-won heirs to be born healthy, so that's another source of information. If you send both Azula and Mai somewhere away from public sight, you're still in need of healers and servants (possibly in two locations). Who is the father? Does the world of Avatar understand genetics well enough to sense something fishy with a Fire heir who is sporting a dominant trait that both Zuko and Mai are lacking? Neither have freckles, a cleft chin, or dimples - what if the kid does?

-- What does this mean for the interpersonal relationships between the characters?

-- Does Azula already have a romantic partner? Sure, maybe she's still in prison doing this because it's the only way out (though I'm skeptical, because I can't see Zuko successfully imprisoning her long enough to learn he and Mai aren't fertile without her acquiescence to confinement), but if she's NOT in prison? Azula is desperate to be loved and isn't going to want to be lonely or alone forever. Would her partner be cool with having children? With giving them away?

-- If she has one, is this even a possibility for Azula's current partner? Lesbian Azula is a pretty strong head-canon for me, but if it's not for you, what if her male partner isn't from the Fire Nation? Zuko's unlikely to be able to pass off a kid who is half fire nation or half earth kingdom as being his and Mai's, and the FN nobility are unlikely to accept somebody with foreign ancestry. If Azula's partner is a woman, you have the added complication needing not "just" her agreement to give away Azula's child(ren), but also her agreement to Azula sleeping with somebody else. Which I guess is also a possible conflict for any opposite-sex partner who wouldn't be acceptable to the FN as the father of the next Firelord.

-- And there are a host of other issues arising from surrogacy generally. What if Azula has a hard time getting pregnant, or carrying children to term? What if once she's pregnant, she feels connected in a way that causes her to change her mind about giving up the child? Is Zuko willing to force that? How? What if she has that change of mind after the kid is born? Does she try to take them back? Demand to be involved? What role are Zuko and Mai willing to have Azula play in their lives and the life of "their" child going forward? What are they going to tell the child once old enough to understand?

Kind of dark AU idea

Zuko is infertile and he needs/wants heirs, so he and Mai try to get Azula to agree to be a surrogate mother. She'll get pregnant, and after she gives birth, Zuko and Mai will adopt her babies and raise them as their own. It's a way to preserve the legitimate bloodline while bypassing Azula's own claim.

As a aristocratic woman, one of the primary "values" of Azula comes from her womb, and you could really lean into it.

[murglor]

I���m not clear on whether three-way shipping means “love triangle” or “all three are in a romantic relationship with both of the other two” or “sexual acts occur involving all three people, simultaneously.” Which are listed in ascending order of how much the idea squicks me out.

But I think two answers are head-and-shoulders above either way: Mai and Aang. Because both feature a new form of competition between Zuko and Azula over something they already desired and competed over (on some level, but romantically only if you really squint or add to canon). Maybe they can learn to share?

Warning: this poll is literally all incest