seyaryminamoto

[seyaryminamoto]

Preview: Gladiator Chapter 381

Sokka and Azula make the journey to his old house, where all bad memories are kept at bay by the pleasant ones. Sokka approves of the changes in his home, but as exhausted as he feels upon sitting on the couch, the Gladiator and the Princess must fulfill what they set out to do.

Sokka begins his explanations, to a predictable enough result once he retells his near-death experience upon Azula's departure. Azula struggles to tell her story, reliving the mistakes she can't forgive herself for, as they share shocking revelations, one of which will catch Azula entirely unawares...

Read Gladiator HERE or HERE

For a snippet of the new chapter, support me on Patreon!

[seyaryminamoto]

Okay. I wasn't gonna respond to this, but considering it's in the only tag I visit on Tumblr and this was right up there at the top, it feels like pretending I didn't see it isn't a strat I should stick with :')

I hope I understand where you're coming from. I am perfectly willing to give you the benefit of the doubt in terms of NOT thinking this is some attempt to tell Sokkla fic writers or artists what to write or draw.

Nonetheless, while some of your reasoning is clear here, I think it would be fair to explain at least my point of view, and my position, pertaining as to why I portray Azula as I do.

This is bound to get long (as everything I do always does...).

First point: my tomboy credentials. For all my childhood, I was far more likely to relate to boys media, to enjoy stuff that was classically marketed to boys, to like action toys over dolls, and, of course, despise the color pink (ngl... I still am not a fan :'D). I resented family members who should have known I was NOT into feminine things and still proceeded to give me traditionally feminine clothes or toys (particularly makeup) for my birthday or Christmas that I straight-up never used because I didn't like them.

Now that I'm grown? I still wear no makeup. I still wear comfort over fashion (I in fact do not understand fashion, we are incompatible, I suck at designing clothes because I simply do not have a sense of fashion as refined as that of many other fanartists). Any friend groups I'm part of, predominantly comprised by guys? I'm not the girl they wanna date, I'm the average girl who's "one of the boys". To go even DEEPER into Seyary lore? I straight-up had a period during my teenage years where I questioned my gender identity without even knowing I was doing it. It took a ton of introspection, lots of thought pertaining gender roles and dismantling my concepts of traditional masculinity and femininity to realize that I was fine with my assigned gender and to accept that society's constraints and expectations did not codify who I was, or how I related to being a woman.

All this to say... if I were the kind of writer who exclusively writes what she knows, and nothing more, my version of Azula would probably align with what you've outlined here. Because that way, my version of Azula would just be a projection of myself. But I'd dare say... that would not be compatible with my idea of fiction, of character exploration and development. If every single character I write about is just me in a different universe, I'd never get to experience and explore what life could be like if I'm in someone else's shoes. And that's what fiction has always been for me, ever since I was an 8yo and the most exciting book in my life was White Fang. If a book could show me what life was like for an Alaskan wolf, a life I would NEVER experience personally, then it felt like the perfect means to produce empathy and improve my ability to relate to others, by experiencing thousands of lives that were not within my reach.

Writing Azula as a feminine character has made me a better writer. It has forced me to look at a character I relate to in many other regards, and appreciate the way she approaches her femininity, canonically. It has allowed me to understand that while some classic feminine things will never be my cup of tea, they don't have to be stuff I systematically reject, the way I used to back when I solely wrote tomboy main characters (which... is what I used to do right until I started writing about Azula). So that's one personal reason why this characterization of Azula is something I genuinely care about and cherish!

Second point: while you're not saying all available content is pointless because of Azula being feminine, I'd dare say that the best way to show us the virtues of a more masculine Azula would be to write her yourself. Maybe you already have, and I haven't seen it. But along with this, there are other things to consider: anything you post online will reach a massive audience that may not enjoy your ideas as much as you do. Much as you like the idea of masculine Azula, other people won't, and they might just drop by your favorite fics or the ones you write yourself to say the classic fanfiction reader line: "this is OOC". I've seen people rage at the characterization of Azula, when paired with women, because she's characterized excessively masculine and it only enforces stereotypes and heteronormativity, where two women cannot possibly be feminine and in love, since one pretty much needs to be "the man" of the relationship, a notion that a lot of people take issue with (rightfully so, imo).

Point here is to say... you have your reasons to want this. Other people have their reasons not to do it: mine were exposed above. While I can tell your intent was to bring up the possibility and compel people to try something different, I have to say in my personal case, my portrayal of Azula isn't the way it is out of instinct or impulse: I have given it thought, I have put in plenty of effort to characterize her as I do. Not everyone's cup of tea? That's fine by me. There's plenty of fics out there, and I'm sure something will eventually work for people who can't stand what I do. But my personal characterization choices have been given plenty of thought, and I'd like to think this is the case for most writers, whether they adhere to your interests or not. If you give this version of Azula all that thought and decide on portraying her that way, all the power to you. That doesn't mean our "empowering feminine Azula" is any lesser. All interpretations and headcanons are valid.

Third point: I am not entirely sure why this is a subject exclusively and personally expressed towards Sokkla and Sokkla alone. I saw someone else bring up something along these lines recently, also specifically leveled at Sokkla, and I don't have a clue if that post is what inspired you to make this one... but I struggle to believe that Sokkla is the only ship that portrays Azula with evident femininity. I doubt Jetzula makes her look any manlier. I've never seen anything Azulaang where it looks like Azula is more masculine than in Sokkla. And this is just talking about straight ships: most lesbian ships I've seen for Azula actively avoid portraying Azula as more masculine than she canonically was. They've had discussions and arguments about it too, as far as I know. Why is the Sokkla community the only one that needs to address the "masculine Azula" concept? Characterization is not locked down to shipping preferences. I'd dare say you'll find a lot of differing characterizations between different fic writers within Sokkla alone, more so all fic writers who work predominantly with Azula. It's hard to believe we're all doing the same thing. Ultimately, targeting this expressly towards Sokkla doesn't make a ton of sense to me since I don't think we, in particular, are portraying Azula in any way that breaks belief that much more than what other ships do (say, if our feminine Azula felt more like the most obvious feminine character in ATLA, Ty Lee? I'd get it. But... I've never felt like that's what we're doing. So I don't think I understand why Sokkla in particular needs to change this).

Now, then... perhaps the part that's most important:

Fourth point: the specific statements you wrote in your post.

"Would she clash with her mother if she returned?" Nothing about this statement requires for Azula to be more masculine. Azula's relationship with Ursa is canonically contentious regardless of how feminine or masculine she is. I think their problems were not about how Azula carried herself in that sense, and they were juicy enough on a storytelling level that adding this extra flavor to it might just reduce a complex dynamic between these two characters to "I can't stand that you're so manly when you should be a traditional girl like me", which takes away from the very fucked up fact that canonically, Azula lines up PERFECTLY with what Ursa and the Fire Nation should have wanted out of a princess, and even then, her mother never showed her the love and affection Azula was led to expect based on her culture and society.

"Would someone like Iroh or Zuko show sexist tendencies?" This one in particular bugs me, because even if I expect it was not your intent, it very much sounds like only if Azula were more masculine would she fight against sexism. As someone who very much wrote her embracing her femininity while being down to fight anyone who looks down on her for being a woman, I think I can attest that fighting sexism is not a masculine trait. Beyond that? Zuko and Iroh absolutely show sexist tendencies in the show already. Iroh did, Azula was disgusted by it (doll scene?). His preference for Zuko absolutely can be read as having sexist undertones, his dismissiveness of Azula for being a dangerous and active element in the war, rather than a wallflower who sits pretty in the Palace doing nothing, also can be read as sexism, especially considering how adamant he is about Zuko taking her down.

As for Zuko, he mocks Katara for being a "big girl", he dismissively acts like Mai should like seashells because "girls like this kind of stuff" and gets angry when she doesn't (even though he has a scene in the previous season where he dismissed seashells as trash, meaning he should be HAPPY to have something in common with Mai but instead he's angry because she's not conforming to his idea of what a girl should be like :'D), he tells Aang that "little girls won't save him" in the Kyoshi Warriors: in short, Zuko canonically is sexist enough that Azula, canonically, would be such a wrench in his worldview, feminine as she is, that he'd likely resent her plenty already for branching out of the traditional femininity he expects she should abide by and won't. Which... is why he'd want to "put her in her place." It all ties up rather neatly.

My point here is that Azula would not contend with sexism against those two in any more significant ways than she already does: there's enough sexism canonically, coming from those two, that a feminine Azula already has to deal with, whether directly or not. There's no reason why they would suddenly become MORE sexist if she's written to be more masculine, they're bad enough as it is already.

"Would her own struggles with misogyny lead to a deeper understanding of Katara?" I'd rather not repeat myself by saying Azula doesn't need to be masculine for this to happen, hence, I'll focus on the flip side of this statement: Katara, if anything, is the one who would get a ton more growth and development if this happened because, as much of a poster child of feminism as she is portrayed? The only sexism she ever contended with was the very blunt and direct Water Tribe sexism. And the shallow way in which it gets resolved (Sokka gets over it because a single girl beats him up, Pakku trains Katara after realizing she's the granddaughter of the girl he had feelings for, and then isn't shown taking ANY other female students in the same class as Katara and Aang anyway) doesn't suggest that Katara gave that much thought to sexism besides whenever it affected her personally. She never acknowledges Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom sexism. In fact? Her readiness to support Zuko when he asks her to "help him put Azula in her place" even tells you that Katara isn't paying attention to the sexist undertones in anything that isn't directly affecting her. While yes, Azula and Katara absolutely could build a rapport and a respectful relationship based on fighting sexism and dealing with this crap, this actively requires for Katara to expand her understanding of sexism and actually realize that it doesn't always turn up in the easy-to-detect format she's been dealing with thus far. So the sexism Azula would face would not look like what Katara has faced: we very much saw what Fire Nation sexism looks like already, and we saw Katara being utterly uncritical of it even when it was right in front of her. This is a bigger deal for Katara than it would be for Azula, masculine or feminine.

"Sokka's arc of unpacking his sexism would be further showcased here. With a partner that eschews gender norms." Considering how poorly handled and quickly resolved Sokka's sexism was by canon? I don't even think this is necessary or even something that the story, as was told, requires to be explored much more. I mean, it COULD be, but namely if you're not working within the constraints of making post-canon or parallel-canon stories. He never displayed any manner of disapproval of Toph's more masculine tendencies, which should go against his idea of gender norms if his sexism had been any deeper than a matter of pride or a means for pissing off his sister. So you'd have to write a version of his story where Sokka's sexism comes from a deeper, more complex place, so that a single encounter with a warrior girl isn't enough for him to just change his mind permanently, to the point where he never picks on his sister over sexist reasons again. You absolutely could argue that swapping Azula and Suki as "the one who made him stop the sexism" is doable (I know I did it!), but again, it's not something beyond his grasp with a feminine Azula, and considering how utterly unbothered he is by Toph's tomboyish, far more classically masculine behavior, it doesn't feel like Sokka is particularly adverse to girls who showcase any kind of affinity towards masculinity (... conversely, he and Aang are by far the male characters with the most "feminine" traits, and he doesn't exhibit any kind of embarrassment or shame over that either, meaning, he's nowhere near as dreadful when it comes to gender norms as many sexist assholes are nowadays.)

"There is also the whole unpacking of fire nation customs and what Azula would follow and what she would break away from." In this specific subject? There's a lot of stuff Azula needs to change her mind about in the context of a redeemed or on-her-way-to-redemption, as she usually is in Sokkla stories. The FN sexism that canon refuses to acknowledge can be acknowledged in fics, but you'd definitely risk what I think a lot of people thought I was risking when I started my big fic: Azula's agenda to defeat misogyny should not be the crux of her development, not in place of actually understanding the many regards in which the Fire Nation is fucking up and needs to change that go far beyond the subject of sexism. I personally used sexism as the first thing that triggered Azula's dissatisfaction with her nation... it was only a starting point, though. While it's not a subject that should be set aside or ignored in the long run, the Fire Nation's militaristic, invasive, violent culture requires for so much inspection, reflection, deconstruction and reeducation that I feel like, if done right, the sexist elements would fade in importance as Azula comes to understand all the levels of wrong her nation is/was incurring in.

Fifth point... yeeeeeeeeeeeeah, I told you this would get long...

The truth is that Azula exhibits very few "masculine" traits while exhibiting many feminine ones throughout ATLA's canon. And I put masculine in quotation marks because... what exactly is so masculine about her? She's ambitious. She's ruthless in combat. She's a great military strategist. She's arrogant. She's a leader. She set a doll on fire as a child. Lots of girls I know who are perfectly content with their gender identity as women have told me they beheaded their Barbie dolls as kids. Me? I didn't do it, actually, wild as that may be considering I 1000% would label myself as a tomboy who liked action toys far more than Barbies. Which makes me think that even the burning of the doll isn't a specifically masculine trait... much like the others aren't. Ambition is not exclusively male. Ruthlessness isn't, either. Military competence isn't (in fact, I'd dare say this show proposes it's female, since the only Fire Nation leader who gets anything done is the fourteen-year-old girl :'D). Leadership isn't. Arrogance also isn't. There are other female characters in fiction who embody some or even all of these traits. There are women in real life who do, too. None of it sounds straight-forwardly masculine to me. You'd have to adhere to extremely restrictive traditional feminine and masculine values to read any of this as exclusively masculine and nothing more.

And just so, you have Azula seemingly perfectly comfortable wearing a very feminine swimsuit, as well as a very feminine party outfit afterwards. She's shown wearing make-up most times she's onscreen. She goes to the spa for hair combing, to have her nails filed, her feet scrubbed. When told she's the prettiest and most perfect girl in the world, she says that Ty Lee is right about all those things, and she says she loves being a Princess who gets worshipped by people...? I'm just saying... I don't see remotely as much rejection and distaste towards traditional femininity in this character, IN CANON, as I do in one like Toph, who, even as a tomboy, would wear dresses on occasion and allowed Katara to put her through a spa day that, while in the end she enjoyed, clearly isn't something Toph is anywhere near as interested in as Katara is.

None of this means your interpretation is baseless or not allowed: what I'm saying is Sokkla fans are not interpreting Azula as they do out of nowhere. The show's characterization supports this interpretation fairly well. If you want to explore a more masculine version of Azula, that's fine, if you want stories where that's how she's characterized, good luck finding them and better luck yet writing them yourself... but this portrayal is not coming out of nowhere. It's not fickle, it's not a matter of projection or forcing of traditional feminine values where they don't fit: you actively would need to construct a masculine Azula from the ground up. I'd honestly think setting up a masculine version of her would require far more thought and work and careful writing than a feminine one, because you'd need to be very thoughtful about how she's portrayed or risk making her feel like a whole other character (as always, I fall back on Toph. I feel like the contrast between Azula and Toph is the perfect example that shows the difference between being a driven, violence-ready feminine-leaning girl and a driven violence-ready masculine-leaning girl).

So. Yeah. If you got through all that, great. Sorry for taking up that much of your time, and I hope this helps you see my side (at least mine, no idea if other Sokkla shippers feel as I do). I'm not saying your idea has no merit... I'm just saying our work across the past decades has plenty of merit of its own.

As a last thing... if you didn't want this kind of discussion (I don't know that you did), do keep in mind that tagging posts with ship names this way very much invites discussion. I wouldn't have said anything if I hadn't come across the post in the Sokkla tag as I did. You're welcome to continue headcanoning whatever you'd like, but while some people who see your posts may resonate with your ideas, others won't, and if you're not interested in dealing with the second group, probably consider the effect your post will have if you drop it in a fandom tag before posting it.

Sokkla fics almost always have Azula being a feminine woman. Most times in an empowering way.

But consider:

A more masculine Azula. She rejects some traditional aspects of the fire nation culture and gender norms.

Would she clash with her mother if she returned?

Would someone like Iroh or Zuko show sexist tendencies?

Would her own struggles with misogyny lead to a deeper understanding of Katara?

She could wear her hair short and if she marries into the SWT could wear a wolf tail.

Sokka's arc of unpacking his sexism would be further showcased here. With a partner that eschews gender norms.

There is also the whole unpacking of fire nation customs and what Azula would follow and what she would break away from.

@latetree123 @chaosmagetwin @wingchunwaterbender @zuko-always-lies

[seyaryminamoto]

Preview: Gladiator Chapter 380

The meeting to resolve the loose ends of the war begins, and ideas for the future are exchanged in a tense atmosphere: the greatest source of tension of all, however, is the latent matter of who shall inherit the Fire Nation's throne, Princess Azula or Prince Zuko.

With either sibling backed by opposing forces, the Head Sage proposes a traditional solution that displeases many. But once Aang intervenes, offering what he imagines is an agreeable suggestion, an overwhelmed Azula storms out of the room. The Gladiator follows, fearing what she might have to say...

Read Gladiator HERE or HERE

For a snippet of the new chapter, support me on Patreon!

[seyaryminamoto]

Fic-to-Art #46: Azula's lightning backfires

It's been forever since I posted art because of a very simple reason... I forgot to! :'D frankly, we're at #47 by now but THAT ONE is a little bit inappropriate for the Tumblrs so... as proud as I am of how it turned out, you'd have to join my Patreon to see it since Tumblr is Dumblr. It'd get flagged instantly if I posted it at all :')

Anyway! This prompt was meant to be a scary scene, and to my surprise, my patrons voted for an old one: Azula's confrontation with the White Lotus members in the Palace. I specifically chose the most daunting moment of the whole thing for me, as in, just before Sokka turns up, right after Azula's attempt to bend lightning, while sick, goes really really poorly. I hope the spooky shadows work well here, I kinda worried that they wouldn't make enough sense. I figured nothing's quite so scary as not seeing the scary thing? So... this seemed the best way to go about this one :'D

Anyway! If you'd like to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a $1 pledge is enough to make you eligible for suggesting prompts and voting for them, as well as reading Gladiator snippets 6 days before the new chapter is published!

[seyaryminamoto]

...

Check if you think the removed bits cleared up what upset you, though I will say I don't even know why we're doing this publicly to begin with xD at any rate, I'm not mad, it's just the usual writer frustration of feeling you failed when you have to explain things you hoped might either not require much explanation or be better off as vague and mysterious. I can understand, of course, the position of a reader who wants clearer answers. I suppose I'm on this end of the spectrum this time, so no excuses for me on this front.

At any rate... power hunger is the wrong way to put it. Corrupt chi is not evil, like I said earlier, it's more of a force of death, and as much as we living beings fear death and flee from it as much as we do, death itself is not moral. The circumstance of it can be, 100%, but the specific concept of death itself isn't evil or good. There were some explanations in-story about disruptions in chi, problems, issues in its circulation, which manifests in diseases. None of this is fully factual to real life, hence, I'm just going with what feels right based of what I know about energy and how the original story established it.

My idea of corrupt chi is massively inspired by something I wanted to write into another story, an original one, where magic was very dangerous and there was this whole dark side to it where, if you failed at the casting rite, made any significant mistakes there, it backfired, in one instance, causing a character's internal magic to be annulled... at least for a significant amount of time. The idea was for it to be much worse depending on how much magic was used. This particular original story had a few things in common with Avatar, which might be why I was ripe and ready to jump into this fandom when I did, as I was devepoling that whole other universe at the time and this sounded like a fun thing to work on while I waited for my writers block over THERE to go away. Haha. Well. Funny how that worked out.

Seyary lore notwithstanding, the point is I borrowed this concept for Gladiator once it seemed suitable: corruption in chi is not intended by anyone, the force of corruption itself is just a force, as much as gravity is. It feeds on the good and the bad, it's kept at bay with neutrality and indifference above all else. It's kind of like the principles of bending lightning: Zuko, when he developed his personal method to bend it, did it through balancing his positive and negative feelings rather than reaching for that neutral point. Seethus, in a sense, is in that situation every single moment of his life. He's not bending necessarily in order to do this, this is a struggle within his own body, in his chi stream, 24/7/365. He was pretty much actively fighting his own death from the moment his corruption started and he stopped fighting it once he gave in to emotion, allowed the corruption to consume it all, and it exploded as it did because of the bombs.

The corruption in Seethus's case was developed with no moral connection. The corruption in the Spear's case is the vindictive, wrathful remnants of the spirit of a betrayed man, which possessed the Spear and made it so it would actively, constantly, aim to fulfill the betrayed warlord's revenge. There's no real term of conclusion for this revenge either, it's basically just the intent of destruction, consuming every bit of chi, draining everything, until it was sated for a while, namely once there was nothing alive nearby for it to feed on. Seethus doesn't come from this kind of origin or background, I can tell you that much for sure. Without having worked it out completely, my gut instinct about how he spliced his chi so badly comes from his explorations with lightbending when he was developing as a bender. He tapped into the destructive power of fire in the wrong way, his inner flame got twisted out of its usual nature, and he can no longer firebend normally as a result. The ambitions I mentioned in the chapter before he dies, the greed... all of it was basically ambition pertaining bending and what kinds of possibilities he could find if he just pushed his luck further, which triggered this whole situation for him. But it was... scientific, even. It wasn't evil in itself, it was pretty much a man who reached far beyond what his body and spirit were ready for.

So, he was not powerhungry, not in the sense as someone like Shaofeng qualifies as powerhungry anyway: Seethus's suicide is achieved because of his grief over Ozai's death. He didn't die because he let himself want more... he died because he sat in that basement and allowed himself to fully feel the grief and sadness of knowing that the man he had devoted himself to across so many decades was dead.

I know that I may have taken my sweet time due to final exams... but

"So, while I always appreciated the art, our interpretations of Seethus are very different and I think they always have been. He's meant to be a mysterious character, but maybe I made him too mysterious in the end, enough that it caused wild discrepancies in how I wrote him and how he came off to people who wanted more answers than I was ready to give when it comes to him." [From the private answer]

Would you care to explain what do you mean by this, if you have time, please?

When we asked twice about the who and what he is some time ago, your answers were guidelines and concepts provided by the original creator. In the story, he was vague and bland, and therefore we projected ideas on him, and tried to slove a mystery that may was not there.

In the end he may unsurprisingly have been a tool for the narrative like he was a tool for Ozai, for I simply couldn't think of any other link to better understand his malfunction (if this was the right word to use). The monster whose humanity has always been futile.

So, while he's unimportant and hardly relevant, I'd like to discuss him some more. I wish to understand what you had in mind, if there was anything notable, and share some of my perspective as well, if possible. There have always been very little information in either sources.

@seyaryminamoto

[seyaryminamoto]

Preview: Gladiator Chapter 379

A quick detour before the meeting allows Azula to check on Xin Long, who has found a dutiful helper to keep him fed while he recovers from his captivity as well as the battle. After a heartfelt conversation, the Princess and the Gladiator will have to prepare themselves for the meeting Jeong Jeong has organized.

Renkai and Chan ensure to find Aonu, intent on recruiting more allies so Azula won't stand alone: for what they hope will be the last time, Azula and Sokka stand on opposing sides of the war, this time in the hopes of negotiating peace between all factions...

Read Gladiator HERE or HERE

For a snippet of the new chapter, support me on Patreon!

[seyaryminamoto]

Welp...

Seethus is a mysterious character by design. It was interesting to keep him vague and unanswered in many regards, but most of my characters' relatively straightforward "theories", in-story, were meant to be guiding lines pertaining the many mysteries regarding this character that I didn't intend to answer fully clearly (because he's not the main focus of this story, so I was under no obligation to answer them). Therefore, while the specifics of how he turned out as he did are not clear, not even for me, the idea I've been working with all along is that his firebending is corrupt, as a result of an internal chi corruption, rather than external (as has been Azula's case). He wasn't wounded by a supernatural spear or so, but something inside him pretty much snapped out of place when he attempted to branch out to lightbending, which kind of sundered his soul and left him fighting for his life, day in and day out, against the corruption in his own body.

For me, this means Seethus is an entity whose life was hanging by a thread. The corruption would have consumed him (as it did) if he allowed himself to give in fully to human hopes, dreams, emotions. This doesn't mean he had NONE of those things, but that every time he did, he had to rope them in or they would fuel the corruption inside him, and it would devour/kill him. The way I see corruption of chi, Gladiator-wise anyway, it means that there are two forces in any individual who deals with corruption: the common one that generates positive, normal chi (everyone has this), and one that generates what you could think of as a vacuum of chi, that feeds on the normal chi and consumes it perpetually, growing stronger the more positive chi it can feed on.

In Azula's case, the corruption (even with the spear) was mostly physically extracted and didn't lay roots within her chi pools or anywhere crucial that could have caused a greater problem. It was already bad enough as it was, but after the extraction, and after her unorthodox recovery methods, the positive chi regeneration far outdid the corrupt chi vacuum, which, in consequence, wound up shrinking and kind of... becoming a small, inactive pocket of corruption. Meaning that even if she wasn't 100% fine right away, her strength was returning and her power would be restored gradually, which doesn't mean there were no remnants, but that these remnants aren't as invasive and corrosive as Seethus's are. In his case, the corrupt chi and the pure chi were in disturbingly perfect balance: he needed to keep it that way, because any slip-ups, any pushes towards humanity, and his own corruption would kill him at once.

His fullblown loyalty to Ozai comes from a place of discovering a purpose once he found something other than rejection and disgust when a person met him. Yes, he cares about Ozai, more than about anyone else, no doubt, but he couldn't let his investment in Ozai's life take over him completely. Otherwise, he would have been consumed by the corruption as soon as Ozai gave him a chance to join his side.

Finding that you were this displeased with his outcome immediately brought me to wonder if it was precisely because you grew too emotionally invested in a Seethus that isn't on the page and never was? He was Ozai's soldier, the only one who was uniquestionably loyal to him, and him alone, and Ozai certainly was the most important person in Seethus's life, which creates a clear, straightforward imbalance between them.

Seethus, for all his OPness, wasn't invulnerable, wasn't impossible to defeat (proven as early as in Fire Lord's Shadow arc), wasn't beyond reproach or errors of judgment. He wasn't above or beyond going against Ozai's wisheswhenever he thought it would be beneficial for Ozai to do so (didn't we spend multiple arcs with him hounding Azula for the hopes of confirming Hotaru wasn't Zhao's kid?), even if Ozai expressly didn't want him doing that. He has a mind of his own: how good or bad it is, how smart or dumb he is, is a whole other matter. But it's precisely because of how emotionally stunted he forces himself to be that when the impactful moments arrive (Ozai's death, for example), Seethus reacts to them without the criteria you might come to expect from a more... complete, to put it in some way, human being.

I'm sure one of the main things that bothered you was him blowing up everything at the end, especially when Ozai had surrendered. Yes, Ozai may have done that... but the last order and command Seethus ever received from his lord Ozai was: "if I die, you will go to that basement and make sure they all go down with me." I never expressly stated it, did not show it, but that's very much what Ozai told him to do, partly because he assumed Azula would be dead by this point, and because he believed that, if Sokka was capable of killing her, he did not deserve to win this war at all. But there were no special terms beyond this, no clarifications, no guidelines as to what to do if Azula lived and Ozai was dead. Thus, in a rather samurai-esque demeanor, Seethus chose to fulfill that order in the wake of his grief upon finding his one purpose in the world was gone for good. Was it a GOOD decision? Obviously not! But it very much is the point where his humanity became the perfect prey to his own corruption, and he allowed it, openly, because he no longer cared to live in a world where his lord and master was dead.

I can absolutely understand anyone expecting more out of Seethus than what we got because of course he could have been a much bigger character with much more impact... but if that had been the case, our story could have shifted towards some kind of battle between pure and corrupt chi, where all bending arts we know would fundamentally stand for the GOOD side while Seethus stands for EVIL! Something I would never even consider doing, especially seeing how poorly these simplifications have turned out in countless franchises (let's be real, LOK is bad enough an example of how "good" and "evil" in this setting can result in the DUMBEST storytelling you could find), but also because we're well aware that the Fire Nation is the one that needs to be stopped: suddenly making Seethus a bigger problem than the Fire Nation's warmongering would completely defeat the purpose and direction of the story so far. He was one man, there weren't others like him, and he was Ozai's subordinate, who used him because his skills were damn helpful as a spy and assassin whenever it suited him.

Seethus absolutely could have been a bigger kind of final boss... I'd argue he doesn't need to be. As bad as his choices were, as many fucked up things he did, ultimately he was not intended as a monster but as a man weaponized by someone who realized what an advantageous position he'd be in if he had a sneaky invisible assassin who could help him out in pinches. Seethus was a man in conflict with his own nature, at a much worse war with health and sickness than anything I've ever written, where even the slightest missteps on the tightrope meant he would go down exactly as he did (just, without bombs to amplify the effect, of course...). By the time Ozai is dead, Seethus embraces that corruption because he has nothing left to live for. His loyalty, for all you might have thought more of it, was very straightforward and specifically intended for Ozai alone. I really think a samurai comparison is apt, maybe I'm wrong to say so, but to him, there was no moral standing, no ideological position involved in his choices: his loyalty was about serving one man and one man only. Without him, there's no point to his survival anymore.

As for humanizing him further? What his favorite foods and colors are, what kind of cologne he liked best, what he would have done in life if he hadn't been a spy/assassin? All those things are yours to elaborate on if you want to. I know I'm not going to. I would not say his purpose in this story is simply to be "a weapon", he's more of a strange mirror to Azula in many regards (as very clearly stated in their final conversation): he's pretty much the kind of monster Azula believed herself to be in her younger years, stifling her humanity, serving Ozai faithfully, being ready for ANYTHING if it's for his sake. His corruption also helps see where Azula's own could have brought her, unless it had outright consumed her immediately, if it had gone any further. And in a more functional sense? This guy is one of my personal explanations for why Ozai rises to the position of Fire Lord with so little resistance, so few signs of rebellions and unrest. We may not have seen it happen, but Azula certainly commented on the likelihood of this enough times: Seethus has been protecting Ozai in a myriad of ways for ages. He even had a crucial role protecting Ursa when she had to leave the Fire Nation, something we'll see some characters figure out all the way in chapter 402 :')

His choice to die as he did can even be seen as atonement for failing to stop Shaofeng, for reacting so slowly to a threat against his lord's rule. But he's not some inheritance that Ozai would have handed down to Azula, much as he handed the crown... not only would Azula NOT care to employ him (and as Ozai said ages ago, she has "her own assassin", Sokka, already), Seethus would not shift loyalties even if Ozai straight-up asked him to. He could work to protect Azula under his orders, sure... but that's not the order that was given anyway. And his grief blinded him, he opened himself up to it completely, and that's what consumed him and caused the explosion of corrupt fire that consumed the Palace.

Too often it's said that if you need to explain something to this extent then you did something wrong as a storyteller. I am not beyond mistakes, nor am I beyond acknowledging I made them. If none of this is palpable or possible to be interpreted out of how I wrote Seethus, even though I had thought I'd left the hints and implications all across his presence in the story, then it's on me. But... I'm not responsible for headcanons. I had and still have no power over how you choose to elaborate on Seethus's character.

And I wouldn't even say that the idea that there's something good about him somewhere is wrong: there WAS humanity in him. His loyalty to Ozai is something any military leader would envy. The guy was absolutely devoted to his lord and never wanted to be anything else. Whether you see that as goodness or no, that's where the issue lies... but for me, he's an exploration of a darker side of bending (one that wasn't canon until Kyoshi's novels which, I'll say, was not intentional, I honestly didn't even know they'd done anything like this until a few years ago), of a complex balance between life and death, because ultimately, for me, pure and corrupt chi are not "good and evil", they're "life and death" in a perpetual battle, and eventually, as all beings decay and die, the pure chi always loses out since death is our common destiny, corrupt chi is basically a speedier/more dangerous version of the natural, gradual, lifelong decay of pure chi.

If none of this is as interesting to you as the goth boyish version you'd wanted him to be, it's a shame, but I'm afraid he was never built up, in text, to be that Seethus anyway. I never wanted to be completely devoid of compassion towards him anyhow, part of the point of giving him weaknesses and vulnerabilities was precisely because he would feel more human for that, and not as much of a single-minded weapon/monster/machine, but if that failed, that's too bad. Ultimately, though, Gladiator was never about Seethus, he was not intended as the greatest thematic villain of the story, let alone was he meant to be our hero to look forward to as he saved the day. I'm not saying this is what you saw him as, because I really don't know... but this story was always about so much more than him. He's an element in it, every bit as much as Shoji or Unnuaq or Kanna or Jin might be. There was never a version of this story where everything would revolve around him. His final act was one hell of a horrible thing for him to do... but even then, he is not meant to be the final enemy to be defeated. The true problem here is a war that needs to end, a world that needs to be brought back to balance, and the journey of our two main characters as they grew to become the right people to address all of this.

I know that I may have taken my sweet time due to final exams... but

"So, while I always appreciated the art, our interpretations of Seethus are very different and I think they always have been. He's meant to be a mysterious character, but maybe I made him too mysterious in the end, enough that it caused wild discrepancies in how I wrote him and how he came off to people who wanted more answers than I was ready to give when it comes to him." [From the private answer]

Would you care to explain what do you mean by this, if you have time, please?

When we asked twice about the who and what he is some time ago, your answers were guidelines and concepts provided by the original creator. In the story, he was vague and bland, and therefore we projected ideas on him, and tried to slove a mystery that may was not there.

In the end he may unsurprisingly have been a tool for the narrative like he was a tool for Ozai, for I simply couldn't think of any other link to better understand his malfunction (if this was the right word to use). The monster whose humanity has always been futile.

So, while he's unimportant and hardly relevant, I'd like to discuss him some more. I wish to understand what you had in mind, if there was anything notable, and share some of my perspective as well, if possible. There have always been very little information in either sources.

@seyaryminamoto

[seyaryminamoto]

Scenes of a Peaceful World: Sokkla Saturdays 2024

Day Nine - Power

Rated: T

On FF.net//On AO3

Nighttime didn't always offer a spectacle as glorious as the one they would be privy to on that very special occasion: a meteor shower, witnessed from the heights of the Dragon Springs, a location unaffected by nocturnal lights that hid away the weakest stars, for the Dragon Springs stood at the peak of a grand mountain chain, distant from grand cities and settlements.

It was, thus, a place out of reach for most people, and only one peculiar human family was bound to visit it frequently.

"Alright! Snacks are here!" Sokka announced, proudly: he opened the first bag of sizzle-crisps only for the youngest children and their dragons to rush him, nearly tearing it to pieces. "Hey! Behave yourselves, you wild fiends! Azula! Azula, help!"

"You can hold them off, love! I believe in you!"

"B-but…! ACK!"

Unsurprisingly, Sokka wound up on the ground, overcome by their onslaught: Yuuna and Shun cheered as their dragons growled happily, everyone vying for the bag of snacks, as expected. Hotaru watched them with amusement, unwilling to involve herself, whether to help her father or join the younger children. Azula kept an eye on them as well, whereas Rei continued to work hard at their day's main attraction…

"I'd say he should be here helping you set up instead, but… watching him goof off that way never gets old," Azula told Rei, who laughed at her assessment.

"I've noticed. You seem a little smitten with him, I'd say," Rei teased. Azula gasped.

"Me? With that handsome, funny, strong man? Why… don't tell him that, of course. It'll go up to his head," Azula said, dramatically. Rei laughed, shaking her head as she continued working, tweaking the gears as she set every piece of her remarkable invention in place.

The telescope Rei had spent the past years crafting was finally complete: a beautiful work of engineering and science, with a polished metal finish, stylish and considerably large. By this point, she only had to calibrate the finishing touches, but by all effects, the telescope was as good as ready.

"I wonder how much we'll see tonight… the weather's clear," Rei said, excitedly. "I hope it will be amazing. I watched the meteor shower last year too, but the telescope wasn't ready…"

"You did a great job with it," Azula smiled, squeezing her daughter's shoulder. "And we're grateful that you wanted us to use it with you, too."

"Well, now… I think it's natural to want to share your biggest academic achievements with your family first," Rei grinned, peering through the scope and smiling. "Okay! It's ready now!"

"Is it?!" Sokka asked, sitting up again. Azula smiled, glancing at him.

"I thought you were moribund after being mauled to death by a little princess, a little prince, and two fearsome dragons…"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Of course I am. I'm dying…! Come save me, Azula…!" Sokka groaned dramatically, stretching his arms and legs out to further enhance his performance. The kids giggled, still devouring sizzle-crisps as though they weren't even slightly spicy, and sharing them with their dragons, too.

"I suppose I have time to spare to save him from this nefarious fate… it'll still be a few hours before the meteor shower, right?" Azula asked Rei. She nodded.

"Can I look already, though?" Hotaru asked, eagerly. Rei beamed.

"Of course! Come, come, this way… here's how you can calibrate the lenses," Rei explained, bringing her younger sibling to sit before the telescope.

The playful chaos between the kids and Sokka wouldn't dwindle easily: with Azula in such a cheerful mood, the children were perfectly content to disregard her requests that they gave their father a break and eased up on the food. Even so, Azula had a good enough card in her sleeve worth using against Shun, in particular.

"Ah, but what have they done to you, my handsome stud?" Azula said, kneeling beside Sokka. He stuck his tongue out.

"Murder. That's what they did. I'm all… murdered," he said, stiff. The kids giggled at his statement. Azula hummed.

"Well, that's a shame. Here I thought you'd get to witness the meteor shower properly with the telescope, but if that's impossible, then I must send you off the right way…!"

Shun cried out in disgust when his mother leaned in to kiss her husband, fully. Yuuna groaned once Azula's body obstructed her access to the sizzle-crisps: the mother slowly but stealthily clasped the bag and snuck it out of their reach before breaking the kiss. Her amused husband couldn't seem to stop smiling.

"Damn. I'll have to play dead more often, that was fun…"

"Oh, my! I'm so powerful I brought you back to life! That entitles me to the rest of the sizzle-crisps, then…"

"No! Mom!" Yuuna gasped, mortified while Shun gagged, still annoyed over witnessing the very brazen display of affection between his parents. Sokka, of course, was delighted and dazed, unable to stop laughing.

Their evening continued to be joyful and boisterous, as they enjoyed their picnic dinner while they waited for the right hour to arrive for the meteor shower. After the meal, Rei ensured to teach all the children how to look through the telescope, which Yuuna naturally took to, her curiosity ever triggered by anything related to investigation and science.

"What a loud, messy, fun family," Sokka smiled, wrapping his arms around Azula, who sat on his lap. She smiled too, closing her eyes and relaxing against him. "I think we did a decent job, didn't we?"

"Hmm. Decent. I suppose that's one word to describe it," Azula said. Sokka chuckled. "Think we could've done better?"

"More like I don't want to boost our ego that much. You think I shouldn't know how handsome, smart and funny I am for that reason, after all…"

"You… how dare you listen in to conversations I was holding publicly? Shame on you, Sokka," Azula huffed, playfully. Sokka chuckled, kissing her cheek.

"I love you so much," he said, earnest. Azula's smile grew gentler upon hearing those words. "I refuse to fathom any world where I wouldn't."

"Hmm… do you, now?" Azula smirked. Sokka huffed.

"I said I did. You don't believe me?"

"I mean, I constantly marvel over the fact that, despite everything, we made it this far," Azula said, with a soft chuckle. "It didn't seem likely, at multiple instances in time. Our troubled beginnings… neither of us ever imagined we'd wind up like this."

"Well… no. But all relationships do start by being strangers," Sokka pointed out. Azula snorted.

"Strangers and enemies are entirely different concepts," she said. Sokka smiled guiltily. "I'm just saying… the world where you somehow decided not to love me might actually exist."

"Pfft. Any Sokka who meets you and chooses not to love you, or to love someone else, is an idiot. So… not me, not whatsoever. He is now deemed unworthy of being called 'Sokka', and that's that," Sokka declared, proudly. Azula laughed, shaking her head.

"Very well, then any Azula who doesn't fall for you is no better. Our alternate selves are idiots, we've made that official now," she said. Sokka snickered.

"You know… there are so many stars up there," he said. "And there's stuff like… theories of the universe, you know? Rei's told me about those before… multiple worlds like ours, where matters play out differently?"

"She's mentioned those theories before but… I can't say I follow. It feels rather arbitrary for countless possible branches of choices to create parallel worlds every time. It's like… say your sister chose between eating papaya or mango during breakfast one day, and whatever choice came from it, it results in one world where she married Aang and one world where she married… uh, I don't know, Jet, maybe."

"Jet?" Sokka repeated, with a disbelieving snort. "I'm not sure Jet's the marriage type, but fine. Let's pretend she reformed him that much, huh? All because she ate… papaya. Or mango."

"See? Doesn't that seem strange?" Azula asked, amused. "It would imply that at some point or another, I could've made an entirely stupid choice much like it, like… eating something that sat wrong with my stomach."

"Azula: nothing sits wrong with your stomach. It's made of solid steel or something. All the spices you eat prove it."

"Not true, you said that once, Toph tried to bend it to prove you wrong and she couldn't do it, which means…"

"It means it's made of a stronger metal than anything she can bend," Sokka laughed. Azula cackled, shaking her head.

"Well, then…! Say that I never became such a big fan of spices. That, as a child, my parents refused to feed me any. Which means my resistance to spices was insignificant, and then because of that, on the day we were supposed to meet for the first time, I ate sizzle-crisps and… I got diarrhea."

Sokka burst out laughing, dropping on the ground as his shoulders shook: all four of their children glanced in his direction, astounded by his reaction. Azula smiled and waved a hand dismissively at them, even if their attention flustered her slightly.

"Is Dad okay?" Hotaru asked.

"I may have broken him, but… we're just theorizing on things. Nothing more to it," Azula said, with a carefree smile.

"He's so goofy," Shun smiled, shaking his head before focusing on the telescope again.

"What's so funny?" Yuuna asked, curious.

"Diarrhea," Azula said, with a wicked grin. Yuuna smirked.

"Oh. Good."

It didn't surprise Azula that their youngest would react as she did: if someone was entirely above being disgusted by gross subjects in their family, it was her. Yuuna giggled to herself, unaware of what the actual joke was, but delighted by whatever thoughts of diarrhea that she, somehow, found amusing.

"Okay… that was a good one," Sokka chuckled, shaking his head and sitting upright to hug Azula again. "Alright, well… maybe in the diarrhea world, we got together faster because we met later, in wholly different circumstances, and… we weren't enemies at all at first!"

"Huh. Damn. Now you actually make me wish I did have it," Azula said. Sokka laughed against her neck. "Oh, well. We'll never know. But… hey. We were discussing the notion that maybe there was a world where…"

"Nope. I won't allow it," Sokka smirked. Azula rolled her eyes.

"I'll give it another shot…"

"You will fail every time, love. I'm not going to lose against you on this one…"

"How about… a world where we were arranged to marry?"

"Say what?"

"Indeed. And because of how stubborn we are, we would have fought against the marriage, come hell or high water…"

"Uh. I see…" Sokka hummed, biting his lip. "And… say I ran away."

"Exactly!"

"And you did too."

"I… did?"

"Because you didn't know I'd run away as well, which means we bump into each other on our respective escapes. So… in this setting we don't even know what the other looked like. Which means that we ended up running from each other, but together!"

"Say what?"

"Hear me out! It'd be hilarious, because then we wouldn't realize that we were with the person we were supposed to marry, and we'd fall in love on our own terms, running from our families…! Only to end up discovering, in the end, that they'd arranged our marriage to each other and that the whole thing was a lot more agreeable than we thought at first."

"Y-you…" Azula scowled, glaring at him from the corner of her eyes. Sokka smirked giddily. "Okay, well…! How about a world where… where I got banished instead of Zuko?"

"What? You? That makes no sense…!"

"Makes enough sense if, say, my mother wasn't the way she is but… if she was much more cutthroat, you know? Maybe she… she killed my father too, and not just my grandfather. Maybe she went for both… and she was actually the big hazard to defeat. And because I knew what she did to my father, or I had strong suspicions about it, she banishes me…!"

"Well… that means you'd travel by the Water Tribe eventually," Sokka reasoned. Azula raised an eyebrow. "And you're smart, so… you wouldn't be traveling aimlessly. You'd look for allies. You'd go to the Water Tribe to find them and then we'd strike a deal to work together and overthrow your mom! There you go! We fall in love in the process, and…!"

"Goodness," Azula groaned: she couldn't stop smiling, despite herself, as Sokka beamed brightly.

"And you become Fire Lord Azula, and the world is bright and perfect after you take the throne!" he declared.

"Isn't that so smooth and easy?" Azula smiled at him. He snickered. "And you're the Fire Lady, of course."

"Of course, of course I… hey!"

"There's no reasoning with you," Azula smiled, shaking her head. "How about a world where I married someone else?"

"Pfft. Big mistake. You'd meet me and regret it in a heartbeat," Sokka smirked.

"And what if you married someone else?" Azula asked, amused.

"Same is also true, wouldn't be long before I filed for divorce and ran into the sunset with you. Easy as that," Sokka declared, smugly. Azula laughed, shaking her head.

"Alright, then… what about the most miserable possible option, then? A world… where you and I never met."

He raised his eyebrows. Azula waited eagerly for his reaction… and it didn't take long to arrive, in the form of a dismissive blown raspberry.

"Boo! That's a shitty world, is what it is. I don't want it. Bad idea, Azula. You should feel bad," he said. Azula chuckled. "Can you imagine how boring that would be? A world where we'd spend our lives knowing something's missing, but not knowing what it is, exactly?"

"A world where we'd always envy this version of ourselves, I suppose," Azula said, closing her eyes.

"Yikes. Nope. Awful. Stop giving me terrible nightmares. If I wake up in the middle of the night after a nightmare about this specific scenario, it's on you."

"Fine, fine. I'll bear the consequences," Azula chuckled. "Not that they'd be that bad, knowing you. You'd likely just… huh. Hmmm… well damn, I kind of want you to have that nightmare now, come to think of it."

"I can still wake you up for a random fuck in the middle of the night without nightmares involved, you know?" he whispered by her ear. Azula laughed and nodded, pressing her face to his neck.

"I'll appreciate it if you do. Sorry if that was a really awful scenario, though…"

"If? No 'ifs' about it, girl, that's the worst possible timeline," Sokka shook his head, certain. Azula smiled, leaning close to kiss his lips softly.

"Well, we have no idea if it ever happened… if any of those worlds we discussed are possible," she said. "So we can just… use the powers of our imagination to dismiss any such notions and cling to yours, alright? In any world, in any event…"

"Any version of us who chooses anything but this is a loser. That's my conviction," Sokka grinned. Azula chuckled, shaking her head.

"You're adorable. But… convincing, anyway," she said, glancing towards the kids. "We really did a good job. Took a broken world and set it on a new course… pretty much picked up the pieces of this mess to build our own. And because we did, we have our chaotic progeny… and a love people now write ridiculous tales about, elaborating on every little element of our relationship."

"We're just that much fun," Sokka smirked. Azula smiled and nodded.

"You know… I don't really care much, if those other worlds are any different. If those versions of you and me are smarter or dumber than we are," she said, turning in his arms. "I think the fact that every choice we made brought us here… it's something I can't help but treasure with everything I am. The lives we've built… I'm proud of everything that has gone into bringing us this far."

"And I know what it means for you to say that," Sokka smiled sadly, stroking her hair affectionately before kissing her lips softly. "It hasn't been the smoothest ride, but we did make it. We get to witness so many wonderful things now…"

"Indeed," Azula smiled, huddling against him. "Every day we spend together is another day where we can witness… well, I suppose I could call them the scenes of the peaceful world we built. And it's all because… we changed everything."

"We found the power to do so," Sokka nodded, hugging her tightly. "And who knows? Maybe we can transform more worlds besides our own… could be we can get Rei to put in some kind of magical power into her telescope, you know? And then we can reach into that world where we never met, and tell each other where to go and who to find…!"

"Okay, now you're talking nonsense…"

"We could, though! It'd be like reaching through the Spirit World, you know? C'mon, it's not that crazy…!"

Azula laughed, shaking her head as Sokka continued trying to convince her. His fingers nudged her, teasing her flanks, his lips peppering sneaky kisses over her cheek and neck…

She loved him so much, and that feeling only ever seemed to increase further as she processed just how much he loved her, right back. There was no denying that their love had changed their world… and as much as she had teased him, she wanted to believe that it would do so in any world, any universe where their paths crossed anew. They had endless potential, she remained certain of that… and it seemed to her that there was no better way to explore it than to do so by each other's side.

"I saw one! Rei, Rei, Hotaru, I saw one!"

Yuuna's voice startled her parents: the youngest girl was currently looking through the telescope when the first flashing meteor crossed the skies above.

"I wanna see! Me next, me next! Come on, Yuuna!" Shun exclaimed, eyes widening eagerly at the sight of the shooting stars.

"Well, I'll go after, then," Hotaru smiled, looking at Rei. "I can…?"

"Sure you can," Rei smiled. "All of you have one round each… then, the telescope's all mine!"

"Awww…"

"I have research to do, kids! It's my job…"

Azula chuckled upon hearing the siblings protest but submit to Rei's straightforward terms. Sokka nudged her gently, kissing her cheek softly anew.

"Think we're part of that group? Do we get a chance at the telescope too?"

"We'd better get over there if we want one, I fear," Azula smiled.

"We can always sneak a glance when she's taking notes, though…" Sokka snickered. Azula rolled her eyes and smiled, clasping his hand firmly.

"Come on. Let's wait for our turn," she said, pulling him to his feet.

Sokka clasped her wrist before she dragged him towards the telescope. He pulled her back towards himself, catching her in his arms. Azula raised her eyebrows… then, she smiled into the eager kiss he pressed against her lips. She didn't hesitate to return his affection, not even when she heard Hotaru's gasp, let alone Shun's groans of disgust: her hands cupped his cheeks as she pressed her brow to his.

"I'd choose you in every world, too. Any Azula who wouldn't… is certainly an Azula I'd pity," she said. Sokka smiled. "Her loss, really. There's no better husband…"

"No better wife, either," he said, kissing her softly again. "Not in this world, or any other…"

"True for you as well," Azula whispered against his lips. "We… we ought to make the most of those shooting stars. Don't people usually make wishes with those?"

"Some do," Sokka acknowledged.

"Might be the way to do it. That's how we'll fix the worlds where we never met," Azula smiled. Sokka smirked.

"Is that so? We're gonna use all the stars to wish to be together in every world possible?" he asked, snickering. "Okay, then… I really need a round at that telescope now."

Azula laughed, kissing him one last time before leading him the rest of the way to the telescope: Shun's disgusted faces faded quickly once his mother messed his hair, pulling him into a quick hug. Hotaru grinned at them, and a rather enthusiastic Sokka hoisted her with an embrace, startling her with his powerful grip. Yuuna giggled, pointing at the skies, and Rei sat behind her, stroking her messy hair affectionately, failing to tame it – for no one could ever succeed at doing so. A blanket of placid darkness spread across that blissful night, dotted with sparkles of infinite possibilities, all spread out before them… but out of so many lights, the peaceful world they'd built seemed to be the brightest one out of them all.

[seyaryminamoto]

Preview: Gladiator Chapter 378

Once Azula and Sokka leave the room, a number of reunions await them still within Mai's house. The combatants, finally at ease, can enjoy the temporary tranquility and peace, but it doesn't take long for Azula to decide to see the Capital's current state for herself.

Jeong Jeong speaks with the Head Sage. Their conflicting notions pertaining who shall be the true heir to the Fire Nation's destroyed throne, the Fire Lord of a new era, emboldens the Deserter to call all faction leaders for a meeting in which the fate of their world will finally be determined...

Read Gladiator HERE or HERE

For a snippet of the new chapter, support me on Patreon!

[seyaryminamoto]

Scenes of a Peaceful World: Sokkla Saturdays 2024

Day Eight - Intuition

Rated: T

On FF.net//On AO3

"Do you ever get the feeling that mom and dad haven't told us everything?"

"Everything? What do you mean, Shun?"

"Well, it's just… I don't know. They have a lot of big friends, and they're all important people. Isn't it weird? Most my friends in school… their parents aren't like that. Ah, and all their parents know our parents, but our parents don't know theirs. Does that make sense?"

"I mean, our parents are famous. That's obvious, right?"

"But why?"

Hotaru bit her lip. She had no answers for that particular question… none that made sense, anyway. Shun pouted, sitting beside her by the fire, as Yuuna worked on some mysterious sculpture with a pile of ice, by Hotaru's other side.

"Dad's from the Southern Water Tribe," Shun said, glancing about himself, at the ornate, beautiful igloos, the strong ice walls, and of course, the beautiful fireplace they sat by. "This is where he was born. So why did he ever marry… w-well, someone from Fire Nation royalty?"

"Because they fell in love," Hotaru responded, simply.

"But how? Why? Are you sure it makes sense that they just…?"

"Why don't you ask them yourself?" Hotaru asked, with a wicked smile. Shun tensed up, cheeks heating up at once.

"B-because…! They're going to get all mushy and make fun of me for asking about that kind of thing," he grumbled. Hotaru chuckled. "See? You're making fun of me already!"

"You know, there's nothing wrong with admitting you're curious about romance," Hotaru said. Shun pouted, cheeks redder still. "If that's what you want to know…"

"That's not it! I've heard more than just… well, weird stories that make no sense about their relationship!" Shun exclaimed. "It's also about… how the war ended. Have you learned about that in school, Hotaru? B-because…!"

She had learned some things about it, certainly, but… not that much. Not at length. Hotaru frowned, eyeing her brother warily. He knelt by her now, careless to sink his knees in the snow.

"I don't know much about it. And everything I hear… doesn't sound real," Shun said, softly.

"I know," Hotaru sighed. "The Fire Nation lost and surrendered… Fire Lord Ozai was defeated. Our grandfather…"

"Mom doesn't talk about him much," Shun mumbled. "Everyone else says he was, uh, well…"

"A son of a bitch," Yuuna interjected: both her siblings winced.

"D-don't just blurt that out like that, Yuuna!" Hotaru said.

"We're not supposed to curse…" Shun swallowed hard.

"Nobody's listening. Doesn't matter," Yunna continued: the ice sculpture she worked on only continued to grow in size… though its shape still made no sense to her siblings.

"Either way…" Shun sighed, shaking his head. "I just don't think any of the stories we hear make much sense, you know? They're so… ridiculous?"

"But we have seen some of it ourselves," Hotaru pointed out. "Mom told us about the Spicy Ramen Challenge…"

"That's the only believable one."

"And the Spirit Library?"

"W-well, that's…! Very cool. I suppose. B-but do you seriously think our parents singlehandedly convinced a scary spirit owl that humanity wasn't that far gone and deserved a second chance?" Shun said, eyeing Hotaru skeptically. "We're talking about our parents here, you know? Just this morning they had an argument about the right way to pronounce 'leisure'… for twenty minutes!"

"They can take nonsense really far, that is true," Hotaru conceded. "But… they're really respected at their jobs, you know? People look up to them."

"That's what I don't understand. That's why… well, I want to know, but at the same time, I don't know if I do," Shun sighed, glancing towards the mountains. "Whenever we come here to visit grandfather… they always go on their own for a while and leave us here. Why… why do you think they do that? Are they keeping some big secret from us until they decide we're ready to hear it?"

"Thing is, Shun…" Hotaru sighed, folding her arms over her chest. "I have the feeling we've been hearing the truth since ages ago. You know… those bedtime stories they always tell us?"

"Oh, Princess Jing and her champion, Wentai?" Shun asked. Hotaru bit her lip. "What about that?"

"Don't you think it's weird how most people haven't heard of them? No one in school told us about those two great heroes of old…"

"U-uh, I guess not, but… I kind of figured mom and dad made them up?"

"They didn't!" Yuuna exclaimed, frowning. "Princess Jing and Wentai are a real legend!"

"That's what I think too," Hotaru said, with an awkward smile. "But… I just think their actual names aren't Jing and Wentai. And maybe they are hiding a thing or two anyway besides that, maybe they don't tell us the full story anyhow, but I think…"

"Heh? Heh?!" Shun's eyes widened, glancing between his sisters. "Y-you're not saying… Princess Jing is mom, and Wentai is dad? T-that's…! That's impossible!"

"You know, the more you believe it's impossible, the harder it will be for you to accept those secrets you're so worried about," Hotaru pointed out: Shun, however, was entirely beyond being reasoned with now.

"Wentai is so cool! He's like… the coolest non-bender ever! He fights and kicks so much, u-uh…"

"Ass!"

"Thank you, Yuuna, but… I mean, there's no way our goofball dad could be him! And Jing, w-well, she's nice, and she's the best firebender of her age, but I'm sure mom's cooler than her!"

"Well, I think they're both awesome," Hotaru smiled. Shun shuddered, shaking his head.

"There's just no way. There's just no way…!"

Hakoda smirked, witnessing the children's discussion from a safe distance – he supposed he'd have to report on Yuuna's curses to her parents, but he doubted it would make a difference, considering how the child tended to disregard any scolding that lacked logical, solid reasoning she could accept.

"So much intuition… and yet, always stopping just short of an uncomfortable truth. Sokka's son, that's for sure," he chuckled, dropping his head against the frame of his igloo's front door.

Should the kids sneak off now, following the tracks their parents left behind, they would be certain to find them in a whole different light right now. In the ruins of an old building, long demolished, by the bay where a dangerous battle had been won by the Southern Water Tribe…

"Still don't think this is the right way to go about this tradition of ours, love. We didn't have swords back then, remember?" Sokka smirked. Azula scoffed, raising her white blade in his direction.

"Humor your wife. What's the point of coming all this way without a rematch?" she smirked. Sokka laughed.

"I really shouldn't have put that thought in your head, all those years ago," he concluded. Azula chuckled, as he unsheathed his sword as well. "But it always feels right… coming back to where it all began with you."

"Just how far have we come this time, Wentai?" Azula asked, teasingly.

"Let's figure that out, Princess Jing," Sokka smirked. Azula huffed, twirling her sword in a teasing flourish before diving forth.

Their duels were never truly dangerous, if simply because they knew each other all too well, so used to sparring together that they would always be effortlessly synched. They moved smoothly, almost as though they danced, as though they were fire and water swirling side by side, never snuffing each other out, never clashing fully, only brushing together so lightly, causing sizzling electricity to bloom between them in consequence.

Their outcomes were seldom predictable, but this time, it was Sokka who found himself disarmed, with a blade by his throat. He smiled, raising his hands in surrender.

"Now… don't you dare yield," Azula teased him, stepping closer to him, without setting aside her sword. Sokka chuckled, basking in the tenderness and danger alike. "That would be no fun."

"I can think of a better way to settle this, then," Sokka teased her: Azula smirked as his arms slid around her body.

Her sword clattered over his once she dropped it, fully enticed into his embrace, kissing him deeply as the pale sunlight of the South Pole bathed them. Sokka pressed their brows together, nose gently nudging hers.

"Still think this is the right way to finish any arguments," he said. Azula scoffed.

"You're still pronouncing 'leisure' wrong."

"Am not!"

"Oh, please…!"

He dove in again, as though to prove his earlier words correct: Azula laughed, hands cupping his face first, then slipping around his neck so she could hug him tightly. Their careless laughter echoed across the pristine landscape, the place where so much had begun for the two of them, and where their ever-growing love never failed to find renewal and strength, providing the best warmth in a frigid landscape… highlighting the beautiful balance between fire and ice that the two lovers had long discovered by each other's side.

[seyaryminamoto]

Preview: Gladiator Chapter 377

As the chaos in the city eases up and the sun rises, Sokka takes to sitting vigilant by Azula's bedside, waiting for her to wake up. Mai intervenes briefly, and Katara pays him a visit as well, intent on healing her brother.

Once Azula stirs, Sokka checks on her at once. The consequences of her new spiritual corruption have yet to fade entirely, but the Princess and her Gladiator will have their first opportunity to speak privately... until the time comes for Azula to introduce her two daughters to an emotional Sokka.

Read Gladiator HERE or HERE

For a snippet of the new chapter, support me on Patreon!

[seyaryminamoto]

Scenes of a Peaceful World: Sokkla Saturdays 2024

Day Seven - Sudden Changes

Rated: M

On FF.net//On AO3

Sokka swallowed dryly, eyes wide. Azula challenged him in numerous ways across their lives, far more than he'd dare count… but she was taking it to a whole new level on that day, and without the faintest awareness of it, too.

"I'm not imagining things, am I? Just look at them!"

Oh, he was looking. He absolutely was looking. Nothing could possibly convince him to tear his eyes off Azula's perfectly exposed chest.

It had started that morning: she had said she felt uncomfortable, and she didn't particularly like the way her clothes had fit her on that day. She asked for his opinion a thousand times, and he reassured her that he found her as breathtaking as ever. In true Azula form, she had disregarded the compliment and obsessed over what was bothering her for most of the day.

Now, the day was out. Night had come. And now he sat at the foot of their bed, his shaft hardening quite effectively as his topless wife squeezed her breasts before his eager eyes, with absolutely no intent of seducing him, yet succeeding at it anyway.

"I swear they weren't this size last night. They weren't yesterday!" Azula huffed: she let go, and they bounced. Sokka suppressed a shiver as best he could… his manhood, however, twitched quite noticeably over the visual stimulation. "I've heard… well, it's obvious, isn't it? Women gain weight over life and that affects all their body parts… maybe my ass is like this too. M-maybe…!"

"Azula, y-you don't have to…!"

She shoved off her bottoms next, rushing to their full body mirror to inspect, wide-eyed, the size of her rear.

"It… doesn't look that big. I think. Not much more than I think it was, anyway," she concluded. "Which makes this… stranger. Doesn't it?"

She glanced at Sokka: his uncomfortable, pleading eyes were accompanied by an awkward smile quickly. Azula sighed, meeting his gaze with uncertainty.

"I'm not saying I'm sick or so, you don't have to worry…"

"You don't look sick to me, but if you do think there's a chance that… w-well, whatever you're feeling isn't normal, you can always ask Katara. Or Song," Sokka said, averting his gaze and closing his eyes: he could say responsible things if he didn't look at her, yes. She didn't need to know her very serious concerns over her body's sudden changes were pushing his basest needs to the forefront. Her peace of mind was the priority here, not that of his dick…

"I don't think it's… abnormal. But I'm not pregnant again, that's for sure," Azula pointed out, hands on her hips, glaring at her chest again. "This isn't the first symptom, I'd have been puking my innards out well before this happened, and I haven't been doing that. So… whatever this is, it isn't pregnancy. I'm certain."

"You've had the tea every day… so it shouldn't be," Sokka said, with a small voice.

"So why?" Azula growled. "Do I need more physical activity? That might really be it. Maybe working out more often would ensure I burn off enough energy and reduce them back to normal…"

"I'm not sure it works like…"

Sokka dared open his eyes again: Azula was cupping one of them again, still with that serious scowl… squeezing, no doubt looking for any anomalies, but finding nothing so far. The urge to offer to look in her stead choked in his throat. This was a cruel, beautiful spectacle, and he was to behave himself and hold back and…

"What do you think, though?" Azula asked, glancing at him. Sokka stiffened. "Are they… different? Bigger?"

Sokka swallowed dryly again: he needed so much water. That the woman he had been sleeping with for as good as twenty years would still produce this effect in him might be something to be grateful for, but right now, he wished he could blind himself to her sex appeal if that would make him a better husband…

"I… don't know for sure," Sokka said, slowly. "But they… look… fuck, they look amazing."

Azula froze. Sokka grimaced, burying his face in his hands.

"I'm sorry but you're driving me crazy here. They're… perfect. Always were. But if they're bigger right now, t-then that just means more perfection, and seeing you touch them like that and show them to me, I…! I'm just a man, Azula. Just a shameful, stupid, perverted man who's looking at perfection and blinded by it… more than I would be by the sun, surely, and… oh, this is too much. Have mercy on me, woman…"

Azula watched him for a moment, eyebrows raised. Sokka didn't dare look at her again, cheeks lit up with his fluster, waiting for her judgment to strike him down.

She stepped closer to him. Wearing nothing but her panties, she should have been anything but intimidating… but this was Azula. There was no chance a woman like her could stop being intimidating.

"The only bright side in all this… was the hope that you'd be pleased with the changes, if there were any."

Sokka tensed up. He jerked his head up, out of his hands, to find Azula towering over him, still with that unreadable expression across her golden eyes.

"W-well…" Sokka chortled. Azula smirked.

"Didn't know you'd be that affected by seeing me hold my own breasts, though. You do realize you're not the only person allowed to touch them?"

"I do, and… I just… didn't expect it to affect me this much either," Sokka said, eyeing her with uncertainty. "But you know you're hot as hell, Azula… and no, don't start, I'm not saying it because of your firebending, alright? Which, yes, is hot too, but still…!"

"If my husband still thinks so highly of me in my forties, why… I really should be grateful for it," Azula smiled. Sokka bit his lip and smiled a little too. "Not missing the old days when we were younger and more energetic, are you?"

"I feel quite energetic right now, I can tell you that much," Sokka admitted. Azula laughed.

"Who'd have thought that sudden changes would wind up proving that, in the end, you and I somehow just… stay the same?" she said, cupping his cheek and raising his head so she could lean over to kiss him.

Sokka responded gladly, letting Azula push him down over their bed: his hands couldn't help but move to her waist, caressing her ribcage, stroking her skin circularly with his thumbs…

But then her lips left his. Her body shifted further, and she smirked playfully at him as she held herself above him: her breasts dangled teasingly right over his wide, hungry eyes.

"I think… I need a more thorough second opinion, if you'd be so kind?" she teased him. Sokka's perverted smile brought a delighted blush to her face. "Now, please be gentle, they might just be more sensitive too…"

"I'll be… I'll be good. Just… get over here."

Azula burst out laughing once he pulled her down over him: he as good as smothered himself in the valley of her breasts, groaning with bliss and relief, his face squeezed between both mounds.

"Not the most orthodox testing method, mind you…" Azula chuckled, hugging him to her chest as they rolled on the mattress.

"Okay, okay. I'll be… professional now," Sokka teased her, hands rising to cup each of them: his wicked smirk already told her exactly what he meant to do…

And the truth was, she was ready for it, entirely.

She had spent most of the day feeling foolishly uncertain of herself. Sokka had never rejected those sorts of changes during pregnancy, but it was rather odd for it to happen without one along the way. Part of her dreaded that she could be imagining growth where there might just be sagging, instead… was she that old already? Was this around the point in life where such a thing would start happening to her?

It would happen eventually, she knew… but with Sokka eagerly devouring her nipples, testing her chest in a most inappropriate yet still quite helpful manner, she allowed herself to believe that, as the reach of old age did start to take its toll on them, the reckless, loving man atop her would never fail to see beauty where she might see flaws, just as he always had. She knew she'd be no better, no different, pertaining him and his own body's changes, should he go through any…

He'd said it many times: marriage was indeed a matter of spending their lives together, of basking in every spark of joy their bond would bring. Every smidge of affection her lover had offered her since the moment they'd started their relationship continued to nourish her, just as it did now… and she hugged him tightly, willfully giving herself to him, heart lightened by the love they shared, a love she had long known not to second-guess… for as many sudden changes as they might face, Sokka always found a way to surprise her even more wonderfully than life ever would.

[seyaryminamoto]

Preview: Gladiator Chapter 376

As the Palace is vacated urgently, Sokka and Azula take an essential detour to Xin Long's refuge: the dragon awaits them, eager for his freedom, more so now that all their lives are endangered by Seethus's final mission.

The Gladiator ponders how to limit the destruction, but the Princess comes up with a potential solution for their predicament: as Sokka lingers on the ground, leading allied and enemy troops alike to contain the damage, Princess Azula takes to the sky, in a final bid to defeat Seethus's spiritual corruption, whatever the cost...

Read Gladiator HERE or HERE

For a snippet of the new chapter, support me on Patreon!

[seyaryminamoto]

All very valid points and ideas! And yeah, I actually relied a lot on the fact that Toph relished in her life as a fighter in underground rings when I built up her character in Gladiator (it was a core element of her identity all along). That this aspect of her life seemed to be that important in her first episode and then goes ignored the rest of the show is definitely... A Choice.

This is a pretty solid list of ideas for what more to do with her character, all could've given us great possibilities with Toph and absolutely could have expanded on her character within canon's constraints... it's really not necessary to go too far to find lots of things that can be done with Toph as she was in canon. Whether a long-term arc or occasional standalone episodes about some of these subjects, it would've been really satisfactory for her character to be exploed so much further than it was.

Any thought on Toph's writing and "arc" in ATLA? I personally think Toph was the most stunted and underdeveloped character. She never really develops at all and is mostly just a walking joke. It's clear that the writers loved her but also clear that they never did anything with her.

If you mean stunted and underdeveloped character in the main cast, definitely yes. A lot of minor characters were done a disservice by the show, given next to no complexity, so I wouldn't rank her as #1 altogether, but among the main cast, absolutely.

Now, I wouldn't say she had zero growth, it's just... not an arc. I also don't think she was only a joke, though they used her for comedy a lot. It's part of why it weirds me out when the fandom acts like Sokka, and only Sokka, was comic relief in ATLA. Toph, Aang, Iroh, even Zuko whenever the narrative wanted to poke fun at him, provided comic relief often, so it's kind of stupid to pretend it was only ever Sokka.

... But that ridiculous perception, then, caused the not-so-funny LOK phenomenon of "Bolin is the funny one", where basically all comedy was meant to be about/around this one character, which didn't work nearly as well as they expected it to, and did nothing for the team's synergy and bonding, but I digress...

What do I think about Toph's story and journey in ATLA?

Toph starts out as a girl who wants nothing more than to be independent and for people to stop underestimating her. When we consider that, in her final action scene in the show, she's clinging by her fingertips to someone else, and that her survival and life depend expressly on HIM, it suggests that she's learned that she doesn't have to go at everything alone, and also that she doesn't have all the answers to all situations. The first time we met her, it doesn't really feel like she wants to work alongside other people, as shown in her conflict with Katara in The Chase, where Toph felt absolutely no need to chip in and help out with anything but her personal needs.

I will say, in Toph's defense about that last thing, it's perfectly common for a child who has spent most her life being cared for, not having anyone expect a single thing out of her, to not understand why she needs to contribute ANYTHING to the team. It doesn't hurt that she's new, which implies that the others have been setting up camp, finding food, traveling across the world, without needing an earthbender's contributions. So it's fairly easy to see her side in this: why does she need to help at all? Why can't they handle things on their own when they always did?

But in her chance encounter with Iroh, Toph is given a chance to think on things and ponder that there's nothing wrong with relying on others. It's so effective that this scene concludes with Toph telling Iroh that maybe he should tell Zuko that he needs him too. This might even be one of Toph's strongest moments in the entire show, honestly. She has no idea who she's talking about, has never met Zuko or Iroh before, but what she tells Iroh doesn't sound like it comes only from having determined that IROH needs Zuko: it sounds like self-reflection, based on Toph realizing that maybe she can open up to needing her friends, too, and working alongside them isn't such a bad thing.

I think this is decent writing. Really!

The issue is... this is about as good as it gets with Toph.

I really like her character, she has a lot of good jokes, some interesting moments of vulnerability here and there, but this scene with Iroh is the only instance of the show I can think back on that actually features Toph questioning her strict ideas and reasoning with them, choosing a different path and abandoning something else she wasn't ready to forsake (complete and utter independence). What's more, this isn't even the kind of growth where Toph has COMPLETELY abandoned her individualistic mentality: she's adjusted it. She allows herself to consider she could be part of a team, to have friends, to work with others, but that doesn't mean she's tied down to them. It never stops feeling like Toph is more than ready to do things on her terms, in her own ways. No matter how much she bonds with the others, she will rely on them exclusively when she needs them (see how she clings to others when she has little to no visibility), or when they need her in combat and such, but outside of such spaces? It's unlikely that Toph will be the type of person who feels the need to be accompanied all the time, who feels better if someone is constantly watching over her. Her friends allow her to find some kind of balance between her need for independence and the comfort of having allies and friends to connect to... but that doesn't mean that she'll never break off on her own when the urge hits her, when the big battles are settled, when problems are resolved.

And I'm the last person to think Yang, of ALL PEOPLE, has any solid understanding of these characters, but whether it was his idea or Bryke's to feature Toph as a teacher, and to have the Gaang drop by to pick her up during The Promise? Ultimately, this just proves she doesn't feel the need to be with Aang, Sokka and Katara non-stop. If even someone like Yang thought she'd go do her own thing (... the quality of what he wrote is, of course, forever in question), down to even leaving her out of The Search entirely? It's clear that they're not trying to promote the idea that Toph is forever clinging to her friends now. She's still independent.

But like I said earlier... this balance Toph finds between her friends and her freedom isn't the product of multiple episodes and lots of hard work and bumping into obstacles to achieve. This... is literally just Toph's second episode. That's the last time the show actually challenged Toph on a PERSONAL level that doesn't involve "becoming a more powerful bender".

Take her relationship with her parents, for instance: the fandom is convinced they were abusive as fuck and that Toph would hate them forever. Ironically, the show DOESN'T promote this notion at all (which makes The Rift kind of insane when compared to the show's treatment of Toph's parents), for it features her parents as two idiots who underestimate Toph immensely and who simply want her to come home and stay out of danger. This could be deemed as abusive in some people's minds, as usual the word needs to be taken more seriously nowadays... they're not good parents, there's no denying that. They don't understand their daughter, outright. They allow their preconceptions of her disability to determine who they think their daughter is. There's nothing in the show that suggests otherwise.

So why, exactly, is it that every instance where Toph considers communicating with her parents or meeting them, she seems to be perfectly content with doing it?

Xin Fu's trap for Toph was completely cemented on the notion that Poppy Beifong had come to visit Ba Sing Se and that she finally accepted her daughter for who she was. Toph's reaction isn't some kind of jaded dismissal because there's noooo way her mom would ever accept her... she outright goes to see her. Which allows Xin Fu to trap her. Which then results in Toph discovering she can metalbend. But the thread that started this whole plotline? It... goes nowhere. Of course, Toph's parents AREN'T there, there's no real reason to assume they've changed, and this was just a trap... but we get no reaction from Toph when it comes to this. We see no conflict. She simply embraces her new abilities and runs back to Ba Sing Se. A quick glance through the transcript shows zero focus or interest in what she went through. Hell, there's not even any acknowledgement that she learned to metalbend. It's all about Aang's struggles with the Avatar State and Katara being in danger.

Next time? The Runaway. A very frustrating and annoying episode. What happens here? Katara decides to dig into Toph's old wounds regarding her parents, tries to psychoanalyze her and decides that all of Toph's rebelliousness against authority boil down to having a bad relationship with her parents. Which... maybe it's true? Doesn't really justify Katara trying to act like her mother anyway? And then the episode ends with Toph asking Katara to help her send a letter to her parents, which sounds like Toph has made her peace with them and like she's ready to accept that she would like them in her life too, and that she wants them to accept who she is. Yay.

... The issue here is there's no follow-up. This doesn't feel like development because nothing comes from it. Nothing really changed. It doesn't come from organic writing either: it comes from Katara's forced "mother friend" role that she didn't use to hold at all (as I said in the ask about why I think Katara loses her appeal as a character the deeper we go into ATLA), and it never actually confronts Toph with her parents again. It doesn't feature a deeper reflection from Toph regarding why she feels the way she does about her parents, nor does it feature Katara realizing that Toph's parents actually did fuck up a LOT with her and that she has every right to push back against them. It merely makes Katara calm down because she realizes the others care about her (while eavesdropping, ofc) and are ready to accept her for who she is... even though she, too, merits a LOT of reflection regarding this mom friend role and nobody else should be comfortable with that, let alone her :'D

Point being, the show really just holds this as the only thing about Toph that wasn't actually resolved, but it acts like it's fine because Toph sent a letter. What growth did we see in Toph that actually means this letter makes all the difference, though? We have no idea how it affected her parents -- as much as Yang acts like it didn't affect them at all, it could have made them rethink some things, or it could have made them mount an even more desperate search for their child, who knows? And it's a pretty solid thread to pull at, to tug loose, to TRULY challenge Toph's character... aaaaaaand they just don't do it at all.

The way I see it, that's really what it boils down to. The show doesn't challenge Toph in any significant way after her... second episode. This isn't the case for most main characters, and I'm not even asking for Toph's story to feature an intense, horrible, super harrowing and difficult plot...! Just, make some things complicated for her. Show her frustrations, show her difficulty to grasp things she hasn't experienced before. Confront her with realities that she, a sheltered girl from a pretty well-off city, has never really needed to face before. Her attitude towards Ba Sing Se is never questioned or challenged narratively: she's constantly proven right about the city being fucked up, and about her reads on all high society people. While all this makes Toph feel smart to a viewer, the issue really comes where this character basically only has her admittedly sizable charisma to win us over. She succeeds! But what does this show give her to work with besides a very quick "I don't wanna work in a team-I learned to work in a team" conflict that is resolved even faster than Sokka's sexism, which pretty much died out within 4 episodes?

There's definitely a component here were Toph is successful not only because of her personality, her abilities, her strength... but also because of the message she conveys regarding disabilities. A LOT of disabled people have clung to Toph as an example and inspiration to not allow whatever ails them to define them or hold them back. Whether the comparison between a blind girl with magical powers and a disabled person of our world without them is valid or not? The effect Toph has had on a lot of viewers who related to her struggles is undeniable. In a sense, it almost feels like the fandom's worship of Toph suggests that in not giving her further challenges on a personal level, they actually hit some kind of jackpot as far as social messages are concerned... but once you actually scope in and pay proper attention to her character, you might find she's got so much more potential that went ignored by this story in favor of presenting her as this unquestionably strong girl who relies on others when she really needs to but otherwise is independent and free from all of society's restraints on her.

Personally, I know this to be the case because of the pushback and reactions my version of Toph in Gladiator initially resulted in. She had no reason to think anything of Sokka and damn near killed him when they first clashed in the Gladiator League... and this horrified a LOT of people! They couldn't BELIEVE Toph could be like this! An older Toph, 7 years older to be precise, who broke free from her parents' hold, struck a bargain with her would-be-captor to get him MORE money than he'd find if he turned her in, and who wanted nothing but to measure her strength against other powerful fighters. If she doesn't have Aang's group's influence on her as early on as when she's 12-years-old, is it REALLY that crazy for Toph's problems with her parents and authority to fester, for her craving for independence to reach new heights, for her readiness to prove herself stronger than anyone to actually be a hazard for other people who stand in her way?

Thus... a lot of the work I've done with this character has been deconstructing these flaws, building her into someone who understands herself better. It's in learning from the examples Sokka and Azula set for her that she starts to realize what kind of person, what kind of LEADER she wants to be. One of my favorite scenes to write about Toph is when she's setting her city free from Fire Nation control, extending her earthbending reach all across Gaoling, putting a stop to the FN army while focusing on creation rather than destruction. On building up her people, on leading her forces with the power of her seismic sense, on capturing the enemy leader, all of it without razing her home city to the ground. Early Gladiator Toph? She wouldn't have cared one bit to join the war to begin with, and if someone had told her that her city, the place she associated with rules, limitations and restraints would be razed to the ground? She might have even encouraged it. Yes, a part of her would have felt guilt over her parents... but she would have been so emotionally stunted that she would have forced herself to ignore any part of her that still cared about them.

And worth noting? One of the biggest personal issues Toph faced was actually nearly killing Azula and Sokka because of her absolute determination to win against them during an event. They were already friends, but they were also each other's biggest rivals in the League... neither side holds back when it comes to this particular competition, and Azula and Sokka had actually beaten Toph and Iroh on their previous encounter! Which meant Toph's desperation for victory was driving her a bit crazy. But once Toph takes it too far at one point, she freaks out. It triggers guilt that actually jumpstarts a much deeper and more complicated arc than anything she'd been through before. Her determination to win at all costs, her pride over her lifelong winning streak within the League... she's suddenly facing the possibility that all this shit she used to cling to, so damn hard, means NOTHING when she could lose two of the people she cares most about if she continues to privilege all that stuff over their wellbeing and safety.

And this doesn't mean that she didn't like fighting as a Gladiator anymore... it means she really came to terms with the fact that other things mattered more. Later on? She realized there are BIGGER fights out there, too, than what's going on in the League: she was the last line of defense against a brutal attack by a rogue waterbender who killed a lot of people and could have killed many more... and after the fact, she spends quite some time worrying about what could have happened if she had failed to protect everyone, if her strength had faltered when she needed it most.

Yes, touting my own horn a lot... but everything I've typed about my own story is exactly why it can even piss me off, at times, to see Toph's potential as a character squandered to the extent it is in canon. I've done so much more with her than they ever did, and granted it's a huge story, but Toph ISN'T the main focus on it and I still managed to give her more to work with than canon ever did. It makes no sense, does it?

I don't think she was given the respect she deserved, and partly, I feel this happened with a lot of female characters who straight-up don't have arcs at all. There's this latent fear that in questioning a character, showing they're flawed, they could become unlikeable... ironic how this is seldom a concern over male characters, but it is with female ones. And mind you: it DOES happen to male characters, because Aang himself is the most egregious example of a male character showcasing flaws and people spiraling over them, turning them into something they never were, all be it to pretend SOMEONE ELSE (*cough* Zuko *cough*) is that much better than him. But they WEREN'T scared of writing Aang into complicated situations that showcased his flaws and resulted in his growth, though. They are with Katara, Toph, Suki, Mai, Ty Lee... :') wonder why, huh?

Ultimately, Toph is a much better character, boiled down to basics, than many characters I tend to talk about and criticize openly. The issue with Toph, for me, isn't really that she fails as a character, or conveys wrong messages, or that the narrative is biased in her favor (though sometimes it is...).

The problem with Toph is she has no chances to truly grow into her own. That her biggest growth comes from a singular conversation with Iroh in episode 2x08 is incredibly unfair to a character who can provide SO MUCH if you simply give her a chance and let her be... human. Flawed. Complex. There's so much more that can be done with her, and if given a chance? She really could have been the best character of the entire show. Too bad they didn't have the guts to let that happen.

[seyaryminamoto]

Any thought on Toph's writing and "arc" in ATLA? I personally think Toph was the most stunted and underdeveloped character. She never really develops at all and is mostly just a walking joke. It's clear that the writers loved her but also clear that they never did anything with her.

If you mean stunted and underdeveloped character in the main cast, definitely yes. A lot of minor characters were done a disservice by the show, given next to no complexity, so I wouldn't rank her as #1 altogether, but among the main cast, absolutely.

Now, I wouldn't say she had zero growth, it's just... not an arc. I also don't think she was only a joke, though they used her for comedy a lot. It's part of why it weirds me out when the fandom acts like Sokka, and only Sokka, was comic relief in ATLA. Toph, Aang, Iroh, even Zuko whenever the narrative wanted to poke fun at him, provided comic relief often, so it's kind of stupid to pretend it was only ever Sokka.

... But that ridiculous perception, then, caused the not-so-funny LOK phenomenon of "Bolin is the funny one", where basically all comedy was meant to be about/around this one character, which didn't work nearly as well as they expected it to, and did nothing for the team's synergy and bonding, but I digress...

What do I think about Toph's story and journey in ATLA?

Toph starts out as a girl who wants nothing more than to be independent and for people to stop underestimating her. When we consider that, in her final action scene in the show, she's clinging by her fingertips to someone else, and that her survival and life depend expressly on HIM, it suggests that she's learned that she doesn't have to go at everything alone, and also that she doesn't have all the answers to all situations. The first time we met her, it doesn't really feel like she wants to work alongside other people, as shown in her conflict with Katara in The Chase, where Toph felt absolutely no need to chip in and help out with anything but her personal needs.

I will say, in Toph's defense about that last thing, it's perfectly common for a child who has spent most her life being cared for, not having anyone expect a single thing out of her, to not understand why she needs to contribute ANYTHING to the team. It doesn't hurt that she's new, which implies that the others have been setting up camp, finding food, traveling across the world, without needing an earthbender's contributions. So it's fairly easy to see her side in this: why does she need to help at all? Why can't they handle things on their own when they always did?

But in her chance encounter with Iroh, Toph is given a chance to think on things and ponder that there's nothing wrong with relying on others. It's so effective that this scene concludes with Toph telling Iroh that maybe he should tell Zuko that he needs him too. This might even be one of Toph's strongest moments in the entire show, honestly. She has no idea who she's talking about, has never met Zuko or Iroh before, but what she tells Iroh doesn't sound like it comes only from having determined that IROH needs Zuko: it sounds like self-reflection, based on Toph realizing that maybe she can open up to needing her friends, too, and working alongside them isn't such a bad thing.

I think this is decent writing. Really!

The issue is... this is about as good as it gets with Toph.

I really like her character, she has a lot of good jokes, some interesting moments of vulnerability here and there, but this scene with Iroh is the only instance of the show I can think back on that actually features Toph questioning her strict ideas and reasoning with them, choosing a different path and abandoning something else she wasn't ready to forsake (complete and utter independence). What's more, this isn't even the kind of growth where Toph has COMPLETELY abandoned her individualistic mentality: she's adjusted it. She allows herself to consider she could be part of a team, to have friends, to work with others, but that doesn't mean she's tied down to them. It never stops feeling like Toph is more than ready to do things on her terms, in her own ways. No matter how much she bonds with the others, she will rely on them exclusively when she needs them (see how she clings to others when she has little to no visibility), or when they need her in combat and such, but outside of such spaces? It's unlikely that Toph will be the type of person who feels the need to be accompanied all the time, who feels better if someone is constantly watching over her. Her friends allow her to find some kind of balance between her need for independence and the comfort of having allies and friends to connect to... but that doesn't mean that she'll never break off on her own when the urge hits her, when the big battles are settled, when problems are resolved.

And I'm the last person to think Yang, of ALL PEOPLE, has any solid understanding of these characters, but whether it was his idea or Bryke's to feature Toph as a teacher, and to have the Gaang drop by to pick her up during The Promise? Ultimately, this just proves she doesn't feel the need to be with Aang, Sokka and Katara non-stop. If even someone like Yang thought she'd go do her own thing (... the quality of what he wrote is, of course, forever in question), down to even leaving her out of The Search entirely? It's clear that they're not trying to promote the idea that Toph is forever clinging to her friends now. She's still independent.

But like I said earlier... this balance Toph finds between her friends and her freedom isn't the product of multiple episodes and lots of hard work and bumping into obstacles to achieve. This... is literally just Toph's second episode. That's the last time the show actually challenged Toph on a PERSONAL level that doesn't involve "becoming a more powerful bender".

Take her relationship with her parents, for instance: the fandom is convinced they were abusive as fuck and that Toph would hate them forever. Ironically, the show DOESN'T promote this notion at all (which makes The Rift kind of insane when compared to the show's treatment of Toph's parents), for it features her parents as two idiots who underestimate Toph immensely and who simply want her to come home and stay out of danger. This could be deemed as abusive in some people's minds, as usual the word needs to be taken more seriously nowadays... they're not good parents, there's no denying that. They don't understand their daughter, outright. They allow their preconceptions of her disability to determine who they think their daughter is. There's nothing in the show that suggests otherwise.

So why, exactly, is it that every instance where Toph considers communicating with her parents or meeting them, she seems to be perfectly content with doing it?

Xin Fu's trap for Toph was completely cemented on the notion that Poppy Beifong had come to visit Ba Sing Se and that she finally accepted her daughter for who she was. Toph's reaction isn't some kind of jaded dismissal because there's noooo way her mom would ever accept her... she outright goes to see her. Which allows Xin Fu to trap her. Which then results in Toph discovering she can metalbend. But the thread that started this whole plotline? It... goes nowhere. Of course, Toph's parents AREN'T there, there's no real reason to assume they've changed, and this was just a trap... but we get no reaction from Toph when it comes to this. We see no conflict. She simply embraces her new abilities and runs back to Ba Sing Se. A quick glance through the transcript shows zero focus or interest in what she went through. Hell, there's not even any acknowledgement that she learned to metalbend. It's all about Aang's struggles with the Avatar State and Katara being in danger.

Next time? The Runaway. A very frustrating and annoying episode. What happens here? Katara decides to dig into Toph's old wounds regarding her parents, tries to psychoanalyze her and decides that all of Toph's rebelliousness against authority boil down to having a bad relationship with her parents. Which... maybe it's true? Doesn't really justify Katara trying to act like her mother anyway? And then the episode ends with Toph asking Katara to help her send a letter to her parents, which sounds like Toph has made her peace with them and like she's ready to accept that she would like them in her life too, and that she wants them to accept who she is. Yay.

... The issue here is there's no follow-up. This doesn't feel like development because nothing comes from it. Nothing really changed. It doesn't come from organic writing either: it comes from Katara's forced "mother friend" role that she didn't use to hold at all (as I said in the ask about why I think Katara loses her appeal as a character the deeper we go into ATLA), and it never actually confronts Toph with her parents again. It doesn't feature a deeper reflection from Toph regarding why she feels the way she does about her parents, nor does it feature Katara realizing that Toph's parents actually did fuck up a LOT with her and that she has every right to push back against them. It merely makes Katara calm down because she realizes the others care about her (while eavesdropping, ofc) and are ready to accept her for who she is... even though she, too, merits a LOT of reflection regarding this mom friend role and nobody else should be comfortable with that, let alone her :'D

Point being, the show really just holds this as the only thing about Toph that wasn't actually resolved, but it acts like it's fine because Toph sent a letter. What growth did we see in Toph that actually means this letter makes all the difference, though? We have no idea how it affected her parents -- as much as Yang acts like it didn't affect them at all, it could have made them rethink some things, or it could have made them mount an even more desperate search for their child, who knows? And it's a pretty solid thread to pull at, to tug loose, to TRULY challenge Toph's character... aaaaaaand they just don't do it at all.

The way I see it, that's really what it boils down to. The show doesn't challenge Toph in any significant way after her... second episode. This isn't the case for most main characters, and I'm not even asking for Toph's story to feature an intense, horrible, super harrowing and difficult plot...! Just, make some things complicated for her. Show her frustrations, show her difficulty to grasp things she hasn't experienced before. Confront her with realities that she, a sheltered girl from a pretty well-off city, has never really needed to face before. Her attitude towards Ba Sing Se is never questioned or challenged narratively: she's constantly proven right about the city being fucked up, and about her reads on all high society people. While all this makes Toph feel smart to a viewer, the issue really comes where this character basically only has her admittedly sizable charisma to win us over. She succeeds! But what does this show give her to work with besides a very quick "I don't wanna work in a team-I learned to work in a team" conflict that is resolved even faster than Sokka's sexism, which pretty much died out within 4 episodes?

There's definitely a component here were Toph is successful not only because of her personality, her abilities, her strength... but also because of the message she conveys regarding disabilities. A LOT of disabled people have clung to Toph as an example and inspiration to not allow whatever ails them to define them or hold them back. Whether the comparison between a blind girl with magical powers and a disabled person of our world without them is valid or not? The effect Toph has had on a lot of viewers who related to her struggles is undeniable. In a sense, it almost feels like the fandom's worship of Toph suggests that in not giving her further challenges on a personal level, they actually hit some kind of jackpot as far as social messages are concerned... but once you actually scope in and pay proper attention to her character, you might find she's got so much more potential that went ignored by this story in favor of presenting her as this unquestionably strong girl who relies on others when she really needs to but otherwise is independent and free from all of society's restraints on her.

Personally, I know this to be the case because of the pushback and reactions my version of Toph in Gladiator initially resulted in. She had no reason to think anything of Sokka and damn near killed him when they first clashed in the Gladiator League... and this horrified a LOT of people! They couldn't BELIEVE Toph could be like this! An older Toph, 7 years older to be precise, who broke free from her parents' hold, struck a bargain with her would-be-captor to get him MORE money than he'd find if he turned her in, and who wanted nothing but to measure her strength against other powerful fighters. If she doesn't have Aang's group's influence on her as early on as when she's 12-years-old, is it REALLY that crazy for Toph's problems with her parents and authority to fester, for her craving for independence to reach new heights, for her readiness to prove herself stronger than anyone to actually be a hazard for other people who stand in her way?

Thus... a lot of the work I've done with this character has been deconstructing these flaws, building her into someone who understands herself better. It's in learning from the examples Sokka and Azula set for her that she starts to realize what kind of person, what kind of LEADER she wants to be. One of my favorite scenes to write about Toph is when she's setting her city free from Fire Nation control, extending her earthbending reach all across Gaoling, putting a stop to the FN army while focusing on creation rather than destruction. On building up her people, on leading her forces with the power of her seismic sense, on capturing the enemy leader, all of it without razing her home city to the ground. Early Gladiator Toph? She wouldn't have cared one bit to join the war to begin with, and if someone had told her that her city, the place she associated with rules, limitations and restraints would be razed to the ground? She might have even encouraged it. Yes, a part of her would have felt guilt over her parents... but she would have been so emotionally stunted that she would have forced herself to ignore any part of her that still cared about them.

And worth noting? One of the biggest personal issues Toph faced was actually nearly killing Azula and Sokka because of her absolute determination to win against them during an event. They were already friends, but they were also each other's biggest rivals in the League... neither side holds back when it comes to this particular competition, and Azula and Sokka had actually beaten Toph and Iroh on their previous encounter! Which meant Toph's desperation for victory was driving her a bit crazy. But once Toph takes it too far at one point, she freaks out. It triggers guilt that actually jumpstarts a much deeper and more complicated arc than anything she'd been through before. Her determination to win at all costs, her pride over her lifelong winning streak within the League... she's suddenly facing the possibility that all this shit she used to cling to, so damn hard, means NOTHING when she could lose two of the people she cares most about if she continues to privilege all that stuff over their wellbeing and safety.

And this doesn't mean that she didn't like fighting as a Gladiator anymore... it means she really came to terms with the fact that other things mattered more. Later on? She realized there are BIGGER fights out there, too, than what's going on in the League: she was the last line of defense against a brutal attack by a rogue waterbender who killed a lot of people and could have killed many more... and after the fact, she spends quite some time worrying about what could have happened if she had failed to protect everyone, if her strength had faltered when she needed it most.

Yes, touting my own horn a lot... but everything I've typed about my own story is exactly why it can even piss me off, at times, to see Toph's potential as a character squandered to the extent it is in canon. I've done so much more with her than they ever did, and granted it's a huge story, but Toph ISN'T the main focus on it and I still managed to give her more to work with than canon ever did. It makes no sense, does it?

I don't think she was given the respect she deserved, and partly, I feel this happened with a lot of female characters who straight-up don't have arcs at all. There's this latent fear that in questioning a character, showing they're flawed, they could become unlikeable... ironic how this is seldom a concern over male characters, but it is with female ones. And mind you: it DOES happen to male characters, because Aang himself is the most egregious example of a male character showcasing flaws and people spiraling over them, turning them into something they never were, all be it to pretend SOMEONE ELSE (*cough* Zuko *cough*) is that much better than him. But they WEREN'T scared of writing Aang into complicated situations that showcased his flaws and resulted in his growth, though. They are with Katara, Toph, Suki, Mai, Ty Lee... :') wonder why, huh?

Ultimately, Toph is a much better character, boiled down to basics, than many characters I tend to talk about and criticize openly. The issue with Toph, for me, isn't really that she fails as a character, or conveys wrong messages, or that the narrative is biased in her favor (though sometimes it is...).

The problem with Toph is she has no chances to truly grow into her own. That her biggest growth comes from a singular conversation with Iroh in episode 2x08 is incredibly unfair to a character who can provide SO MUCH if you simply give her a chance and let her be... human. Flawed. Complex. There's so much more that can be done with her, and if given a chance? She really could have been the best character of the entire show. Too bad they didn't have the guts to let that happen.

[seyaryminamoto]

You just did the impossible. You got me to shed a tear over a fanfiction of all things (Violently smashed down soapbox and jumps onto it then takes a deep breath) "I DEMAND YOU WRITE AN ALTERNATE HAPPY ENDING VERSION OF THIS CHAPTER, AND WITH MORE SHAOFENG BEATING UPPING TOO! YOUR GHOST KING COMMANDS YOU!"

Okay so in my defense I was left unsupervised...

IN MY DEFENSE...

I actually spent ages on the fence about how to handle... THAT. Like... I considered keeping him alive but comatose. Then, he could've been brought back, but powerless (politically) so that he wouldn't be much of a hazard to society and balance anymore :'D

... But then I wrote Part 2's final arc.

And I was so mad. He just made me so mad. I found myself so infuriated by what I was writing that I just... made up my mind. I thought maybe I'd change tunes eventually, but heck, if I managed to get this BASTARD to a point where I felt like MAYBE keeping him around would be okay...? That would be enough of an achievement on its own, if his death doesn't feel like a reward but like a low blow. Seriously, if after the DEEPEST LOWS he sank to, any of us still grieved for him when he kicked the bucket? Well...

It meant I would've done my job as the stubborn writer who always hoped she could take an irredeemable bastard like Ozai and actually flesh him out into a complex asshole whose death would not feel like a triumph.

😬

I'm not gonna lie, I didn't expect to see so much grief for him XD if anything, I've had the most uncanny situation going on lately. I'm hardly immune to hesitation and self-doubt... but it's been A WHILE since it hit me as hard as it has these days. I was sooo nervous about posting this arc, wondering if anyone but me would find it satisfactory...

This, after YEARS of being perfectly confident that I was headed to the ending I've been building up towards.

So. Ha. It's been an emotional rollercoaster.

But if the main point of agony for readers right now is wishing Ozai's downfall hadn't come around as it did? I think I can finally breathe easy again, haha.

Sooooo... yeah. The AU where he's not straight-up dead but comatose and got brought back years later did exist in my brain and maybe one day I can write out more of how it would've turned out, if I had stuck with that concept. But first I'd rather you guys see how things turn out this way, and then I'll explain things :'D

Also, maybe we can blame Ursa a lil for his death because she partially convinced me that this would work due to a future development involving her...

[seyaryminamoto]

Scenes of a Peaceful World: Sokkla Saturdays 2024

Day Six - Discipline

Rated: T

On FF.net//On AO3

The Preservers were a unique faction within the White Lotus. The group had been built, by Sokka's express demands, all training overseen by him, so that they could see to the protection of a unique location in their world.

The hardest part of such an endeavor, of course, was taking his leave from his family occasionally in order to see this enterprise succeed. If asked, of course, Sokka would always claim that the average period of time he could endure without them was five minutes, but where the world's progress and stability were concerned, both he and Azula were ready to make whatever sacrifices were necessary.

Now, the world reaped the benefits of such sacrifices… of the success of a venture many would have considered too dangerous, too worrisome to be carried out at all. Humanity could not be trusted with this kind of responsibility…

Truthfully, Sokka agreed with that notion: thus, Sokka ensured to set all kinds of boundaries and limitations around any visitors who sought to enter Wan Shi Tong's Library.

"It's amazing that this is even possible…" Aang laughed, standing in the grand, golden halls of the library, eyes glancing over the Preservers, standing guard by the Library's entrance and its main halls. Katara smiled, looping an arm around his. "But humans and spirits are actually working together."

"I might just be crazy, but… it almost sounds like there's greater balance between our nations, and worlds, than there ever was," Katara said. Aang smiled and nodded.

"It's not effortless… but the hard work is worth it. We can teach people better… show them the right path," he said, with a proud smile.

Wan Shi Tong had been persuaded to trust humanity one more time: the grand building rose out of the desert anew. The grand doors had spread open once again. Even now, however, there were limitations to the spirit's leniency: he still probed and tested newcomers, and whoever failed to earn his approval, whoever answered his questions poorly, would have to settle for waiting for another visitor to make a copy of whatever books they wanted to check or borrow.

It could be a complicated system, but one that worked fairly well: Sokka had come up with many of its solutions, including the rather obvious one of crafting safekeeping copies for every tome, for Wan Shi Tong's reassurance. The owl spirit seemed pleased with his support and cooperation… enough to allow what Sokka had never imagined he would, once he asked it of him:

A large family, either astride or walking beside dragons, crossed the Library's golden gates on the morning when the Preservers began serving in the Library.

"Wow… wow!" Shun gasped.

"This is… it's a miracle!" Rei gasped, tears in her eyes as she covered her mouth with her hands.

"Where's the owl?" Yuuna pouted.

"So many books…!" Hotaru gasped. "N-no one would be able to read them all!"

"Fortunately, Wan Shi Tong's helpers will be around to ensure you find the ones you're interested in," Azula smiled, clapping her daughter's shoulder. "Now, then… keep your dragons in check. I'm afraid that when he turns up, they'll…"

On cue, all the dragons tensed up: a dark presence, lower down the hallway, caused Yuuna's nervous dragon to squeal, jolting back with the child riding on his back.

"Hey, hey…!" Sokka clasped the dragon's reins, ensuring he wouldn't topple backwards. "No need to worry. He's not going to dissect any of us: he promised."

"It's illegal," Yuuna said, firmly. "No one can dissect a dragon."

"Yeah, I'm sure Wan Shi Tong would feel bound by that law… right?" Sokka said, turning around with an awkward smile: the owl approached gloomily, eyeing their family with an unreadable expression. Xin Long, while also tense, appeared to reassure Hotaru and Shun's dragons, though they still shivered while hiding behind him.

"I see you have arrived. The Avatar and the Preservers said you would be here today, Sokka… and you brought your family, indeed."

"Hey there," Sokka smiled, waving at Wan Shi Tong. "Guess introductions are in…!"

"No need. I know who they are," Wan Shi Tong stated. "Rei, the eldest, a scholar. You are welcome to browse my collection."

"I… I am?" Rei gasped: Azula smiled as her daughter shivered with excitement. "Y-you'd let me…?"

"Provided you do not stay until after the doors close. Our service hours are much stricter nowadays," Wan Shi Tong declared.

Rei couldn't contain her excitement, hugging Azula eagerly at the thought of examining countless books she'd had no access to before. Wan Shi Tong turned to the next child, though:

"Hotaru. You may find our collection on firebending and swordsmanship to your liking… though I suspect you would prefer to read fantasy books, today."

"I…! W-well… maybe a few. I can… I can study and have fun, right?" she said, looking at her mother expectantly. Azula smiled and nodded.

"You're free to do as you wish, provided you follow the rules," Azula assured her.

"Shun. You may browse the firebending section with your sister," Wan Shi Tong continued: the boy blushed upon being addressed, shrinking in place. "It has expanded thanks to your parents' contributions. Ensure to thank them for it."

"I-I will. I… thank you," Shun said, bowing his head towards the owl.

"Yuuna… zoology section: third floor, fifth wing."

"Good."

The child didn't bother waiting to check with her parents: she spurred her dragon to take flight, and the whole family gasped as they took off through the floors of the Library, right towards her favorite subjects.

"Sorry about…! Oh, hell," Sokka groaned.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Rei laughed, clapping Sokka's shoulder before setting out to the third floor, too.

The children scattered, with Hotaru and Shun lingering not too far from the entrance, meeting up with Aang and Katara, while Rei chased down the restless Yuuna. Wan Shi Tong watched the two kids, though it seemed his attention lingered on their dragons.

"You fulfilled your many vows to me, in your last visit," he said, turning his head towards Azula. "I feared I shouldn't have risked trusting any of your nation anew… but I took a gamble with you, and you did not disappoint. Where I have seen much of the worst of humanity… I appear to have discovered the best of it, through the two of you."

"That might be too flattering," Azula smirked. "We're hardly upstanding in every sense…"

"Indeed. Ensure not to sully my Library with improper acts this time."

"H-hey!" Sokka squeaked. "We weren't doing anything that bad! I mean, well…!"

"He walked in on us getting slightly too comfortable in his planetarium room, Sokka: he's not going to forget that," Azula said, with a dry grin.

"Indeed," Wan Shi Tong confirmed. Sokka's cheeks flushed. "That being said, you have been rather successful across the years, building a family, bringing back the dragons, as you promised… you reclaimed peace in a world that seemed beyond all hope. While I remain vigilant, and the Preservers will continue to keep tabs on all who may enter the Library's premises, I find myself at new ease with your kind. History shall always remember what humanity owes to the both of you. I will make certain to make records of it."

"Thank you," Azula bowed her head. "And… for letting my family browse your collection. We told them what a great honor you had bestowed upon us by allowing this. I know they're hardly the most disciplined children…"

"We'll keep an eye on them anyway," Sokka smiled reassuringly. "Thanks, Wan Shi Tong!"

"It is I who thanks you. Truly."

Wan Shi Tong bowed towards them, stunning Azula with the gesture: he spread his wings after, taking flight across his Library anew.

The place truly was different compared to Azula's last visit: the whole place appeared brightened with knowledge, with renewal, with the promises fulfilled between the regal couple and the ancient spirit.

"So… what do you think?" Sokka smiled, throwing an arm around Azula's shoulders. Xin Long shook his head before pressing it against Sokka's chest, startling him. "H-hey! He's gone, no need to be scared anymore…"

"He's thanking you," Azula smiled, reaching over to stroke her dragon's fur. "For everything you've done for this place… and, of course, for successfully fending off the big owl, too."

"He'll never stop being unnerved by him, I'm sure," Sokka chuckled, hugging both Azula and Xin Long with each arm. "So… what section do you guys want to start with?"

"How about we find out if anyone has written stories about us yet?" Azula smirked. Sokka snorted. "I'm curious! There's bound to be so many outlandish tales about how on earth you and I wound up together…"

"I'm sure there's a lot of sordid, raunchy ones too…"

"Eh, well. Either we've already done those things, or it'll serve as useful research for the future, right?"

Sokka snorted and cackled: Azula's mischief never failed to delight him.

They took off together, meaning to explore the place on their terms, to enjoy themselves, keeping tabs on their kids while under the watchful supervision of the Preservers, who greeted Sokka respectfully: humanity had succeeded at reconnecting with its most ancient valuable knowledge, and they had finally learned the wisdom, as well as the discipline, to honor the vows that had finally built true peace between the imposing owl and humanity at large.