#(they are very pleased when they hear minh adopted his apprentice

[ultranos]

Between the brothers, it sounds like Azula is closer to Minh to the point of being adopted. What's their relationship like, & why are they closest? What's the relationship with Thanh like in comparison?

They are, but to be fair to Thanh, he's an incredibly close second (the two of them joke that they did rounds of rock-paper-scissors to figure out which gets to "officially" adopt. Neither of them confirm if this actually happened or not).

Thanh is...incredibly ride-or-die for his little brother. Their parents and the rest of the family they grew up with more or less immediately accepted Minh when he came out. But outside the walls of the clan compound, in town, was a different story. There was a much heavier, Sozinist-leaning Fire Nation population in that colony, as well as a large military fort. When it became clear that Minh really wasn't going to get a fair shake at his career and decided to move away, Thanh gave up a very promising position as a junior smith to go with him.

When Thanh is closing up their shop one early winter evening and finds a half-starved half-feral teenager in the alleyway huddling next to the wall and looking about 3 seconds from literally digging through their trash for food...well.

What else are ya gonna do?

(In retrospect, Thanh realizes he probably saw echoes of his brother in Azula even before Minh did. He's not exactly a soft heart. But something made that connection in that moment, and that was that.)

Thanh’s a bit of a goofball and the more outgoing one. And Azula did eventually need someone to push them to grow a bit more and regain confidence in things. They trust him to have their back (and Thanh wouldn’t even think twice, because the kid is family).

Minh, though...Minh understands certain things about Azula on a level that no one else does. There’s the entire “not cis” part, but also the feeling of being trapped and forced to play a role you don’t want to and never being “enough” for some people.

And then there’s the glass.

There’s a very important thing for Azula that happens when you first start learning to blow glass. You see, you start out with plain glass. No colors. And inevitably, you fuck up at some point. You pulled too much glass, not enough, the glass fell off the pipe, didn’t transfer to the punti right, marvered it wrong, it shatters, etc etc.

You stare at those shards of glass on the floor, and then you get a broom. Sweep them up.

And dump the plain, broken glass back into the crucible to melt down again. Because if it’s plain, uncolored glass, it mixes in with everything else, like it never happened.

Mistakes cost nothing in terms of materials, and it is not time wasted because you learn.

Minh is the one who teaches Azula how to work with glass. Minh is the one who teaches them that mistakes are not failures, and flaws are often better than perfection. It’s the lesson they needed to hear from a parent that they never got.