#And Azula definitely has the best features

[ur-frndly-neighborhood-memer1]

Okay but these are the exact same eyes of Ozai!

So much that at first glance, I thought it was him-

It's kinda scary tho...

I mean...

Like, the only difference between them is that Ozai has more wrinkles

It basically makes it look like the eyes of the older Azula🤔

[seyaryminamoto]

My latest completed commission may have been a bit ambitious... because I went wild with it. But I certainly relished in doing so :') Combining my favorite ship with my favorite-ever Disney movie is, uh... a dangerous concoction :'D

The commissioner specifically requested for Azula as Mulan, Sokka as Shang, and Xin Long (my OC dragon from Gladiator) as Mushu. The rest of the cast was up to me to choose, and I pretty much went wild rewatching this movie and picking out some of my favorite moments to recreate them in my style, with these characters. I came up with a lot of correlating characters between both ATLA and 1998's Mulan, but I couldn't hope to draw EVERYTHING, unfortunately. Still, if you want my reasoning for the cast correlation... check out the Read More! Beyond that, feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to commission me, or if you want to join my Patreon!

The Herbalist as Mulan's grandmother might feel arbitrary but she honestly felt like the ATLA elderly lady with the most similar personality to Grandma Fa. Fickle, with a unique connection with a seemingly perfectly ordinary animal, old and sassy? Figured it fit! So for once, the Herbalist is Azula's grandma! xD strange notion, I know, Azulon/Herbalist is not a ship I ever thought I'd accidentally put out in the world but there have been wilder ships than that in this fandom...

Momo became Cri-Kee, I wasn't 100% sold on it but when I considered that Avatar features soooo many hybrid animals... I figured he could be a hybrid cricket-lemur. Weird, I know, but eh? Better than nothing xD

Aang as Chien-Po was a no-brainer. He's the only character I settled on instantly, never even considered anyone else for the role. Their personalities line up really well, and Chien-Po's tendency to be OP and resolve things that are outside of other people's reach sounded like he was prime Avatar material! So, while their dietary preferences are an obvious difference between them, I decided to go for it nonetheless considering all their other similarities!

Kino (another Gladiator OC) is Ling, and he actually did give me a ton of trouble to choose. I considered many characters for the role right up until I realized that Kino's personality actually lines up fairly well with Ling's, down to being a class clown type (who ABSOLUTELY would have cut gym class!) and breaking out in song about the hypothetical woman he'd like to fight for? Yeeeeah that's right up his alley xD but there's another reason why I picked Kino...

... And that is my likely unexpected choice for Yao:

ZUKO.

ZUKO IS YAO.

YES.

I'M NOT EVEN SORRY.

(For the uninitiated, Aang, Zuko and Kino are best friends in Gladiator, very often together, and they make a really good team, so that's the extra reason why Kino became the obvious choice for Ling aside from having really similar personalities, definitely closer personalities than, say, Jet, for instance.)

People have likened Zuko to Shang a LOT since ATLA aired. This is the main reason why I'm even making this huge note! I suspect it's primarily because of the aesthetic, let's be real here, and because he becomes Aang's teacher, but people have exaggerated Zuko's alleged similarities with Shang, or taken them out of proportion, in many ways. I actually remember an AMV ages ago with "Be a Man" and it was Zuko "training the Gaang"?? It... didn't feel right to me. Obviously, someone might rebuff with "well, how does Sokka make MORE sense than that, though?" And believe it or not, I have arguments for that... (when do I not...?)

Not only is this what the commissioner specifically requested (and it obviously lines up with the ship we love!), but let's examine the actual reasons why Sokka as Shang adds up:

Sokka actually had to train a bunch of toddlers who weren't paying any attention to him. You know. Kind of how Shang had to train the unruly soldiers who weren't getting anything right. Sokka has a positive relationship with his dad (Zuko, ofc, does not). Shang also has a positive relationship with his dad! And not only this, but there's a military component to both relationships, specifically with Shang wanting to follow on his father's footsteps and aid him in the war... so much like someone else I know, who jumped at every opportunity to rejoin his father in the war, even wishing to join him as a child until Hakoda tasked him with protecting their Tribe instead (kinda like Shang is tasked with training soldiers rather than joining a battlefield).

And the final cherry-on-top that I'd loooove to hear Zuko fans try to argue against... is sexism :') didn't Sokka get characterized as a sexist guy for four episodes, which made people decide that this was his main character trait even if it went away that quickly? Um, yes, that happened. Shang literally sings the memorable song that's a crazy ode to masculinity, including the rather sexist line of "did they send me daughters when I asked for sons". Shang outright abandons Mulan once they discover that she was a woman all along (while, admittedly, choosing to abandon her rather than KILL HER, which as we saw from Chi-Fu, he was NOT supposed to spare her!)...

So, is this REALLY what Zuko fans, who willfully believe their boy is a feminist king (... why? beats me...) are trying to compare their unproblematic blorbo to? :'D Me? I have no problem linking Sokka with Shang due to Sokka's beginnings and due to the fact that both Shang and Sokka have similar growth when it comes to accepting femininity is as valid as masculinity, and as they both learn to respect women as fighters and potential heroes! (I simply do not believe Sokka's ENTIRE tenure in ATLA was about that, though, and that's what I continue to clash with the fandom over...) So... all this is why I've reasoned that Sokka is a VERY solid choice for Shang, in fact, better than Zuko could hope to be.

... but this isn't all.

Maybe some might accept my arguments for Sokka-Shang. And then, they might ask:

WHY ZUKO AS YAO, THO??

... And the truth is it took me long to see it, myself, but HOLY SHIT, DOES IT FIT!

What is the primary thing we remember about Yao in Mulan? This guy is constantly itching for a fight, to prove himself, surely riddled with insecurities that he exteriorizes through overcompensation of masculinity. He's funny as fuck, but he's taking himself 100% seriously as a manly man all the time, and he's always ready for violence. But there's one more thing...

He treats Mulan as his RIVAL.

And more often than not? SHE SCREWS HIM OVER. Intentionally or not.

What does that sound like? Why, yes, it sounds a LOT like Azula and Zuko's sibling relationship!

The fact that Yao is a temperamental dude who lashes out easily at things (oh, something he has in common with Zuko!), that he specifically resents Mulan (in this case, Azula, just as Zuko does!) and is either constantly looking to defeat her and prove his superiority over her (... wait, just as Zuko with Azula??), that he has a black eye perpetually across the movie, and it's his LEFT EYE (just as Zuko's scar is on his left eye! :'D), that he's friends with a pacifist he has basically nothing in common with, personality-wise (just like Zuko and Aang!), and that he pretty much has a REDEMPTION ARC in which he goes from a bitter, asshole rival to Mulan to treating her as a friend and ally, to the point where he was disappointed to leave her behind and THEN joined her at once when she says she has a plan? :') I have always been critical of Zuko's redemption arc, goes without saying. But if ANY of these characters redeemed himself in any significant way, it certainly seems to be Yao to me, and with people gushing NON-STOP about Zuko's redemption? Why, he ought to be the character who goes from bitter rival to loyal friend, right?

So. I'm not even sorry. Zuko is Yao. And I'd dare say that he should be flattered by the comparison, even, because Yao ends up being cool as FUCK!

I don't really talk about this much nowadays, but Mulan was my favorite Disney movie growing up, it ABSOLUTELY had a formative influence on me as a little girl, and Mulan was my favorite female character for a looooong time. Thus, any excuse to rewatch this movie makes me happy as heck. With the wisdom of age I know, of course, that it's not perfect, it's not what China wants, it's not the most thoughtful depiction of Chinese culture or the most faithful adaptation of Mulan's poem (... but I'd also dare bring up that the 2009 Chinese adaptation ISN'T all that faithful either...), but it has a kind of magic in it, a solid storytelling flow, so many memorable moments one after the next, that I could hardly choose which scenes to depict... Disney has never again seen the storytelling heights it reached with Mulan in 1998. I don't even care if that's a controversial opinion in any way... this is their best animated feature for me, and nobody can change my mind.

So... depicting Azula, my beloved, in all these scenarios as this character I adored and idolized as a child, was so damn fulfilling for me. While some might think that, personality-wise, these two ladies don't have much in common, the fact that Mulan is sent to a matchmaker who basically tells her she looks good but is going to be the worst wife ever...? Our girl Azula, with all those insecurities about being unloveable and a monster, probably would relate big time to that.

Mulan is also an INTELLIGENT soldier rather than a brawny one, which is how she starts to make progress in the army, it's how she manages to overcome the huns with that avalanche... and Azula's primary difference with most other antagonists in ATLA is that she's smart as fuck. She is very strong, no doubt, but a LOT of that strength comes from her intelligence, from assessing situations in unique ways, from planning and strategizing. The way Mulan finds the most unexpected solutions that still pay off reminds me a lot of how Azula achieves unexpected feats through rather unorthodox means, capable of taking over a city with basically no bloodshed while her nation has spent 100 years trying and failing to do so through major army incursions and who knows how much senseless violence. Obviously, I'm not saying what Azula did is GOOD and it's kind of dumb that we always have to point that out... I'm merely comparing the magnitude of the feats, and the fact that they both come from ladies who use strategy and intelligence to achieve their goals rather than muscle and physical power.

And while anyone would rage at me for the comparison between Fa Zhou (her dad) and Ozai, the truth is the dynamic between them CAN be compared, if loosely: Mulan literally goes to war to keep her father safe. Azula goes to war under her father's orders. Hell, she makes herself BAIT in the Eclipse to make sure the Gaang won't get to her dad?? While it's very much possible to say that both characters have different personalities and attitudes in life... I'd also bring up that their contexts are evidently completely different. I wouldn't say for certain that Azula, had she been raised outside a Royal Family, would be EXACTLY like Mulan... but they might have more similar traits than one might expect. Ultimately, though... I love them both. And this opportunity to swap their places was pretty much a dream come true!

Alright, that was plenty of rambling xD ultimately, I had a blast doing this commission, as I'm sure is obvious by now. So! If anyone wants to commission me, feel free to check out my prices right here and hit me up if you're interested!

[waterfire1848]

What would happen if Azula had died post-war and showed up in the Hazbin Hotel to be "redeemed"? What do you think she'd look like? Or how do you think she'd interact with the rest of the cast? (Just imagining all the shenanigans she gets them into on the path of redemption makes me chuckle)

Hello, anon!!! I’m so sorry it took me this long to get to your ask!! Finals had me swapped!

Azula definitely does have the singing voice to be on Hazbin Hotel. Grey Deslisle’s singing voice would be a perfect addition!

Hmmmmm🤔. That’s interesting. I can see Azula not liking that she’s not the princess anymore. She’s just a common sinner like everyone else and, while she certainly isn’t at the bottom of the pecking order, she’s not at the top either which doesn’t sit right with her. I think at first she shows up just to get an understanding of what Charlie is like but once she meets Alastor and everyone she realizes there might be something to gain from staying here to be “redeemed”

I think she’s be kind of like herself with dragon features. Like she has a dragon tail, wings, horns and claws and, maybe, some blue colored skin. Other than that she looks pretty similar to her canon self, same black hair, same gold eyes, same build, etc. Since Hell is made up of people from every era there probably is a place where she can buy clothes from her time.

She and Angel would be best friends. I take no criticism on this. She and Angel are friends and Angel takes her out for drinks/destruction (within reason) whenever she wants. Husk is the one who teaches her how to fly. He doesn’t fly much himself but he still knows how to work his wings and teaches Azula how to do the same, it’s caused more than a few slams into the wall. Vaggie and Charlie were the first people she met when she came to the hotel and, for the most part, she doesn’t interact too much with them. (They remind her too much of Mai and Ty Lee, but it’s because of that reason that she’s eventually able to talk about how she doesn’t believe a monster like her can be redeemed but she wants to be. She imagines her family is up in Heaven and she really wants to join them). Lucifer showing Azula what a good father figure is😊😊😊. Azula, in the beginning, doesn’t believe redemption is all that possible so she is more than willing to go out with Cherry Bomb and just party all night, like she never got to do when she was alive.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Denzel Crocker

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Nickelodeon has produced some of the most iconic animated villains you could ever hope to find. Plankton, Vlad Masters, Zim, Princess Azula, Queen Vexus… The channel had way more hits than misses. But one of the most famous and iconic villains to come out of the channel was the fairy-obsessed teacher from Hell, Denzel Crocker.

The chief antagonist on The Fairly OddParents aside from the babysitter Vicky, Crocker was a cartoonish caricature of the sort of horrible figures a kid would need fairies to deal with in their life, making him something of the male counterpart to the aforementioned Vicky. Obsessed with slinging out Fs and capturing Timmy’s fairies to harness their powers, Crocker was a fun and hilarious enemy who brought the show all sorts of hilarious scenarios…

...Until he didn’t. Crocker is unique among Nickelodeon villains in that he underwent some of the most severe character decay you could ever see from a villain in a long-running franchise. But does it detract from his iconic status and make him a worse villain, or is it just a particularly ugly footnote on a truly fun antagonist?

Motivation/Goals: Mr. Crocker has one single mission in life, and that mission is to once and for all show everyone he isn’t a delusional madman by proving the existence of

His main target right from his first appearance is Timmy Turner, which leads to some really interesting situations. Crocker knows Timmy has fairies, but he can’t exactly prove it definitively, and so we get no end of zany schemes as he tries to prove fairies are real. And as weird and insane as he is, he actually comes fairly close quite a few times.

He also really loves to fail his students. Aside from the fairy obsession, this is his main character trait. Essentially, he is the worst teacher imaginable.

Performance: Crocker is performed by Carlos Alazraqui, one of the MVPS of voice acting; my man was Rocko (whose Modern Life you may be familiar with), the titular Lazlo of Camp Lazlo, Spyro in the original PS1 game, and even the Taco Bell chihuahua. His Crocker voice is honestly similar to his Rocko voice, albeit a lot more nerdy and conniving, and it certainly suits the put-upon scheming teacher. He really is one lucky son of a bitch, getting to voice two of the most iconic characters in Nickelodeon history… and also Winslow on CatDog.

Best Episodes: Crocker’s proudest moment is undoubtedly Abra-Catastrophe, where for a little while he actually manages to conquer the Earth after harnessing the power of Cosmo and Wanda. His epic duel with Timmy across time and space is about as cool as a villain could possibly get on this show.

Another contender is definitely “The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker,” which features Timmy going back in time and witnessing the events that molded his teacher into the man he is today. It turns out the reason he’s such a weirdo is because Timmy fucked everything up and caused him to lose his fairies, which just so happened to be Cosmo and Wanda. Not only is this a pretty great and hilarious example of a character creating their own enemy, it also somehow predicted a major plot point in Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox six years early. I’m not kidding, the book involves time travel and Artemis ends up having to mind wipe his younger self, and said mind wipe leaves a lingering trace of an idea to kidnap fairies. Eoin Colfer, you’ve got some explaining to do.

Best Quote: You’re really going to ask that? Seriously? It’s obviously

There is at least one other notable Crocker quote, one that became a meme because Mr. Crocker sounds like he’s saying something he… uh… doesn’t really have a pass to say:

Final Thoughts & Score: Mr. Crocker presents to me an interesting problem. You see, if we are going by the earlier seasons, Mr. Crocker is probably one of the best villains on Nickelodeon. He’s funny, he’s zany, he can be a threat when it’s called for, and he has one of the best episodes of the series as his focus as well as an awesome movie where he gets to be the big bad. By all accounts, he should get to sit up with some of the truly great villains in animation history!

But Crocker is also the subject of some of the most intense flanderization imaginable. TVTropes defines flanderization as “The act of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Most always, the trait/action becomes completely outlandish and it becomes their defining characteristic, turning them into a caricature of their former selves.” It’s pretty undeniable Crocker got hit with this hard compared to a lot of the other characters, which is saying something because everyone on the show ended up flanderizaed. The big issue is in the later seasons Crocker ended up overexposed and put in ridiculous situations that didn’t play well to his strengths as a character. What was once a beloved villain became a character that half the fans can’t stand and the other half love, and both answers are honestly valid considering what we’re presented with.

For comparison, Vlad Masters is another Butch Hartman villain who underwent flanderization, mainly because Hartman is incapable of not running character traits into the ground for the sake of “humor.” The difference there, and why I’d still say Vlad is a great villain while Crocker is something of a fallen titan is because of consistency. It’s hard to deny Crocker peaked pretty early in the show’s run with Abra-Catastrophe and “The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker,” while Vlad managed to stay consistently a threat up until “Phantom Planet” despite suffering from Butch Hartman’s trademark bad character decisions. You don’t ever really feel like Vlad’s fucking around, but Crocker? This dude became nothing but fucking around in the twilight years of the show. It also helps that Danny Phantom is a more serialized show with stronger continuity than The Fairly OddParents, which means Vlad developing in any direction is a lot more palatable than in a show where the episodes tend to be pretty standalone and negative continuity is used when needed.

I think the villain I’d most compare Crocker to is Sideshow Bob of The Simpsons. Both are great, iconic villains with fun vocal performances and all sorts of crazy schemes… But both also underwent serious flanderization that led to them being stretched pretty thin and their roles in their respective shows starting to make less and less sense as they appeared more and more. But while Bob is still one of TV’s greatest villains despite his motives decaying thanks to plenty of strong episodes and the sheer power of Kelsey Grammer, The Simpsons knows to use him sparingly, unlike poor Mr. Crocker.

All of this being said… does it really hold him back from greatness? Does how bad he became reflect on how great and fun he was originally? This was actually really hard, and I went back and forth for a long time. I considered having him as low as a six for his poor later appearances and as high as a nine for his early ones, but I think we need to meet in the middle somewhere. So for the first time ever, I’m giving out a fractional score, awarding Mr. Crocker a 7.5/10, leaning a little closer to an 8. The later years of the show certainly handled him badly, but they handled everyone badly, so it’s hard to single him out as the biggest problem. It definitely doesn’t help him score higher, but nothing can take Abra-Catastrophe away from him.

Oh, and I suppose should mention the live action Crocker played by David James Lewis in those dumb Drake Bell TV specials. To keep it brief, he is legitimately one of the best parts of those specials, nails Crocker’s mannerisms, and he can share that score up there.

[biconickyoshi]

Sorry to bother you, it's just that your fanfic made a lasting impression on me. Which makes me want to chat and read fanfiction or learn as much about it as possible. So if it’s not difficult for you, you can answer my questions. 1) Will your fanfiction have a political background? I just read one fanfic in which not everyone was happy with the politics of the war and there were quite a lot of deserters. Will there be similar unwitting ones in your fanfic? 2) Will the duo of Zuko and Sokka appear again? I think they will be a good comedy duo. And in those chapters in which they interacted only with each other, it was very good. Moreover, their stories are quite similar and, it seems to me, they have a lot in common. It would have been nice to see more of them interacting with each other. 3) This is a spoiler, but will Zuko beat Azula solo? Because in the original I didn’t really like that the victory over her was given to Katara. This way Zuko could overcome his self-doubt and inferiority complex. At the same time, showing that hard work, life's difficulties, which hardened him, and training from the masters of fire magic, put him on the same level as a fire magician. that is born once every few thousand years.

No need to apologize! I love that you’re so invested in my story! :) I’ll do my best to answer your questions below:

1. I would say that yes, there definitely is a political background. Once I get to the point of adapting the comics, there will definitely be political plot lines since that’s a lot of what happens in the comics.

I’m particularly excited to tackle the plot line in The Promise, since it features a huge conflict between Aang and Zuko over colonialism and tradition vs. change/progress. It will be interesting to adapt the conflict in the context of Zuko and Aang being in a romantic relationship (because yes, they will be together at that point lol). I’m wondering about how I can maybe change some stuff about how everything went down, since there are some things about the way the comics addressed political problems that I have issues with.

As for additional deserters, I don’t know if I’ll end up having a specific storyline for them in my fanfic (maybe once we get to the Fire Nation I will), but I definitely think there are many more Fire Nationals who do not agree with the Royal Family and what their nation is doing to the world.

2. Yep, I definitely want there to be more Zuko and Sokka shenanigans in the future! They are a good duo to be paired off together when needed for the plot, and I love writing their interactions. They’re such good buddies lol. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed how I’ve written their interactions so far!

3. That is a very interesting question - I actually haven’t thought that far ahead yet, but I think you make an excellent point. While I love how smartly Katara defeated Azula in the original show, I do feel like it takes away from this being a culmination of the conflict between Zuko and his sister.

I actually am considering giving Azula an actual redemption arc in my AU since I feel like she was done dirty in the original series. I’d love for Zuko and Azula to maybe end up fighting, and maybe Azula gains the upper hand and has the chance to kill Zuko, but she breaks down and can’t do it, and that’s when she changes sides. We’ll see what happens when we get closer to the Fire Nation portion of the story!

[crellanstein]

Prodigious

I find it odd how the fandom focuses so much on Aang’s childhood being ruined when he learned he was the Avatar at 12, but there’s very little talk about how discovering she was the Avatar as a toddler affected Korra’s life and how she was raised.

But we’ll circle back to that...

Because this is a good starting point to talk about one of the most prevalent themes in the story, which the mainstream discussion of tends to only focus on a few characters -- That is the Child Prodigy. 

We’ll start with the two most obvious. The ones we always talk about.

Azula.

The clearest example of your typical child prodigy (if there is anything typical about a prodigy). Azula showed early mastery of very advanced Fire-Bending techniques, and is the only Fire-Bender to use blue flames, which was intended to make her stand out amongst the other villains but is also indicative that her Fire-Bending is more pure and powerful (blue flame is produced when burning pure O2 or fuel without contaminant at a very high temperature). 

All this lead to her being praised and favored by Ozai as a child, but as double-edged swords go, this also meant she had a lot of pressure on her shoulders to never fail, and she rarely did. Her ego matched her talent, and let’s be honest she was the baddest bitch the show had ever seen. Conquering Ba Sing Se, defeating the Avatar in combat, and dropping some of the most devastating lines of dialogue in villain history; she was a force nobody wanted to reckon with. 

And that become a problem for one asshole in particular...

Being jealous of his own child is just one item on a laundry list of reasons why this guy is the worst father in the history of fathers. Azula had begun to outshine him with her victories, and Ozai’s maniacal ego couldn’t handle that, so he left her behind to babysit the Fire Nation while he went out to burn/conquer the world, which also was her idea.

And while this wasn’t the only thing that aided in her demise, it certainly was the final straw which sent her spiraling down into this...

In the end Azula is a sad example of how certain unfair expectations are placed upon talented children, and the more they succeed, the more these expectations grow and weigh on the them until they either disappoint those looking down on them or surpass and embarrass their elders.

It is a lose-lose situation which inevitably destroys them.

There is a similar example of the child prodigy, but his story goes a little different.

Aang.

Even as a twelve/thirteen year-old boy Aang by far has the most impressive stats among any character in the Avatar universe.

Basically mastering 3 of the 4 Elements in less than a year, after mastering Air by the time he is twelve (not to mention inventing his own Air-bending move, the Air scooter). 

Aang is an example of a child prodigy who had too much thrust onto him at too young an age because of the talent he showed; because of this he panicked and ran away, and the world was worse off for it. 

Aang/Sokka/Katara’s story is all about how in times of War, responsibilities normally handled by adults are pushed onto kids who then have to grow up very fast in order to deal with it all.

The message is clear. War robs the young of their childhoods. 

Now, let’s talk about a different kind of child prodigy.

The Unacknowledged. 

Yes, of course I’m talking about Toph, the greatest Earth-Bender to ever live.

Because of her blindness, Toph’s family tried to keep her sheltered and safe by hiding her from the world. Refusing to believe she could ever be more than helpless. Anyone who has seen the show knows that is far from the truth.

But because her potential went unseen, there were some negative effects to her personality. Initially, she resented her parents, and rebelled; which established a certain level of independence, a bad attitude, and a hot-headed streak. Over time spent with the Gaang these behaviors subsided because she finally had friends and they accepted her for who she was. By the end of the series she was fully willing to accept aid from them when she needed it, like holding on to Sokka’s arm in environment where her bending couldn’t help her “see”. 

Toph’s story is a foil to Azula’s, both showed immense talent and badassery, but while recognition of Azula lead to ever-mounting pressure for her to succeed; the lack of recognition for Toph created a need for her to be acknowledged and set an undercurrent of frustration which leads to her acting out in the ways she does.

The lesson to take from Toph’s story is not to shelter your kid from the world out of fear for their safety, and to be open to recognizing their talents, not shun them.

Next are two more Unacknowledged.

Katara and Sokka.       

Their story, and the reason behind their circumstances, is one of the more complicated and nuanced ones in the series, so here we’ll focus on how it fits into the subject of discussion.

Because of the War, Katara was robbed not only of her mother but also of any Southern Masters to train her, and any role models Sokka could have looked up to left with his father to fight. Because of this Katara’s potential and Sokka’s genius went unacknowledged not due to neglect but rather due to circumstance. (Yes, I think Sokka is a genius, how many 15 yr olds do you know that can plan an invasion, design submarines, and spit poetry off the cuff?).

This is a further example of how War robs kids of necessary childhood experiences, and these two robberies had particular effects on both Katara and Sokka’s character developments.

Sokka had the responsibility of protecting his home put upon him at a young age. The men of his tribe leaving prevented him from completing his rite of manhood until the Gaang ran into Bato of the Water Tribe, and early on Sokka was constantly trying to prove himself as a man and a leader. Sokka is one of the smarter characters of the series, but he rarely got credit for it until the third season. Not to mention that because he wasn’t a bender he often seemed less useful than the others. The circumstances of war made his talent go unnoticed and because of that he often was unsure of himself and overcompensated to prove something.

Speaking of talent going unnoticed.

Katara is definitely one of the more talented benders of the series. After training herself for years with little progress, she essentially mastered Water-Bending in a few weeks under Master Pakku. While her anger towards the Fire-Nation mostly centers around the loss of her mother, it can’t be ignored that the delay in her training was a direct result of the Fire-Nations’ actions.  Toph’s anger and frustration vented itself as rebellion. However, the same frustration and anger is within Katara, but because she wasn’t as natural a bender as Toph she sought to learn and be respected, and when that was denied to her is when that anger bubbled to the surface in some terrifying ways. 

While Toph’s talent went unnoticed because of her families neglect, Katara and Sokka’s wasn’t acknowledged because there was nobody to acknowledge it. Because of that both brother and sister wanted to prove themselves to the world.

And then there is Zuko.

I know what you’re thinking. Zuko wasn’t a prodigy, his Fire-Bending skill didn’t catch up with Azula’s until the finale and he never mastered Lightning-Bending, but this section is about the Unacknowledged.

Zuko had many other talents besides Fire-Bending, he was a master swordsmen, and was able to successfully break into every secure facility he attempted in the show (which was almost every secure facility the show featured).  Unfortunately, these talents were never recognized, because the only thing the royal family cared about was bending ability (It’s possible the reason he learned the sword was because he lacked skill in Fire-Bending). 

As per usual with Zuko, this part of his tale is quite sad. Many can relate to being outshined by a sibling, and when it becomes all too clear that one cannot match another’s talent it’s quite understandable to focus on what they do excel at, but even then there is no promise of recognition for their own talent. Zuko was even mocked by his father during the solar eclipse when Ozai tried baiting him into attacking with his swords. 

This lack of recognition is one of many sad aspects of Zuko’s early life, but it is a definitive example of one of the hardest unacknowledged prodigy’s cross to bear. The Outshone prodigy, one whose talents are never noticed because a bigger and brighter star stands in the way of such recognition, and arguably the most frustrating type mentioned here. Toph/Sokka/Katara all came from situations were there was no recognition being given to them or anyone, but Zuko had to bear watching massive amounts of praise be piled on to his sister while he and his accomplishments went by the way side.

Ozai summed up the situation best.

“Azula was born lucky, Zuko was lucky to be born”

Alright now where have I been going with all this?

So, far we’ve covered a lot of wrong ways to treat a child, whether they show talent or not, and how the circumstances of war can also take many things from children.

But what happened to Korra?

(Before we get into to this I should state that I like Korra, and the purpose of this is not to bash her as a character or her arc, but rather to give a little of my insight into it.)

It’s well established that Aang was told of his heritage too young, and that was a detriment on his development into an adult, but what would have happened if he realized his powers himself not long after he could walk? We’ll never know, but we do get to see the effects it had on Korra. 

When she revealed herself as the Avatar, Korra set her entire life in a new direction, and because Aang tasked the White Lotus with finding and training her that direction was out of her control. There are two key differences between Korras’ and other Avatars’ lives.

1. She grew up in isolation on a White Lotus compound.

Every Avatar before Korra we know of spent a portion of their early lives traveling the world in order to master the elements; along this journey they not only learned how to bend the other 3 elements, buy also many things about the 3 other nations and the world they are tasked to protect as a whole. By confining Korra in safety and bringing the masters to her the White Lotus deprived Korra of this opportunity to learn and grow and understand the world and the people within in. It also deprived her of learning modern bending styles until she reached Republic City.

While this might have kept Korra safe from the Red Lotus, it grew within her a naiveté about how the world worked, and because of this when she actually did venture out into the world she was terribly unprepared for it.

2.  She was trained and mastered 3 of the elements by the time she was 16.

Most Avatars don’t know they have this power until they reach 16 and then they spend several years learning to control it. Korra’s natural talent in the bending lead to her training being expedited not by necessity like Aang’s, but due to her talent and eagerness. Korra excelled at the physical part of being the Avatar and because of this by the time she reached maturity she had become over-confident in her abilities and true to what her Fire-Bending master said in Ep.1 she lacked restraint.

I’m not saying her bending isn’t great, but rather because it is so great it’s her go-to solution to anything, and she enjoys that so she uses it with enthusiastic gusto and not a lot of thinking before striking.

This overconfidence coupled with her naiveté of the world is what lead to many of her rash decisions and actions, most of which had negative consequences, and I believe are the reason behind some fan are dissatisfied with her. Aang had been almost the complete opposite, even by the age of twelve he was an experienced world traveler and an incredibly humble guy. 

Some may have been dissatisfied by these character decisions, but they served a purpose, they are only the beginning of her arc. The internal challenge Korra must overcome through 4 seasons is to humble herself before the world, and learn from it. This was finally achieved in the 4th season when the metal poisoning in her body forces her to face others in the world as equals, only then had she completed her journey.

And why did it all go this way?

Because she is a very unique child prodigy, what she demonstrates in the first episode of LOK would be akin to a toddler playing the violin or hitting a three-pointer; she could bend 3 elements close to just after learning to walk. That is the kind of prodigious talent rarely seen because it is mostly impossible. How does a rational person handle a child like that? 

It’s a tough question, and something this essay has been circling around the whole time. Each example here is the wrong way to handle talented and different children, but what is the right way?

As always look to Iroh.

Who treated his surrogate son Zuko with both respect and compassion. 

Unlike Toph’s parents, Iroh worried over Zuko’s well being, but also allowed him to be independent, make his own decisions, and take his own risks.

Unlike the Nomad Leaders, he didn’t want Zuko weighed down by his position in the world and the responsibility that came with, and always encouraged him relax and take advantage of the moment.

Unlike Ozai, Iroh would always be there to support Zuko in his victories and his failures. Iroh shows him the right path but does not force him down it.

And even after Zuko betrayed and abandoned him.

Iroh was never angry with him, and embraced him upon his return.

He wanted Zuko to grow and be a better man. Even if Zuko wasn’t a prodigy like his sister. 

And that is the answer here. The way to raise a prodigy is the same way anyone should raise any child. Love, Support, a Guiding Hand rather than a Forceful Shove, Recognition of What Makes Them Unique, and Forgiveness When They Falter. The problem comes along when you start treating children differently because you see them as different or special. All children are different, all children are special.

Kids are kids, and they all deserve a proper childhood.  

[vickyvicarious]

do u have any atla fic recs? all time faves? can be shippy or not

Fun fact, I am incapable of holding back on reclists. In other words: brace yourself, anon. There’s a reason I put most of this behind a cut.

First off, these are almost all Zuko-centric, because I shamelessly play favorites. I’ll sort them by author rec, gen, shippy, and then by other characters because honestly the numbers break down well that way. Within those categories it’ll be more just as I think of it, so no special meaning to the order. I’m not always good about bookmarking even my faves, so some excellent stuff will no doubt be missing, especially since I haven’t read a lot of the more recent stuff yet/forgot some really old stuff, but this will definitely still give you plenty of fic to enjoy.

There’s a good number of FFN links on here so apologies to people who dislike it, but a lot of great stuff is still on there so give it a chance.

Author recs

Everything by @awesomeavocadolove​​  Such hits as Another Brother (Zuko adopted by Hakoda pre-S1), and currently has a Zukka soulmate fic I’ve been meaning to start reading, as well as Unchained Melody, one of my favorite Zukka fics ever. Always quality, you can’t go wrong.

Everything by KimberlyT.  I do not kid. She’s written a variety of ATLA fic ranging from Zutara/other romance to gen, seriously emotional to cracky cabbagebending. I think my favorite is probably Mismatched (S1 Zuko adopts a baby) but honestly just go read it all.

Everything by @emletish-fish​​. She has a very fun writing style and honestly her end-of-chapter notes on why she’s made the choices she has are fun minimetas worthwhile in their own right. Some of her top fics are the Stalking Zuko series (S3 suspicious Katara to Zutara) and The Worst Prisoner (the Gaang kidnaps Zuko in S1 and can’t get rid of him). I think there’s still a good amount of her fic that can only be found on FFN so check there too.

Everything by @botherkupo​​. Especially her Undying Fire series (healer!Zuko) but also just literally everything she writes, it is all so great. Tends toward Zutara but strong gen fics as well sometimes and a lot of fun. Check it all out!

Everything by @muffinlance​​. Loves to toy with her readers’ emotions in the best of ways. Tons of fantastic gen Zuko-centric AUs, I have adored every single fic I’ve ever read by her, can’t praise them enough. Very productive as well, her tumblr is a hub for the ATLA renaissance and her fics inspire lots of others. Has also organized a fanmade ATLA coloring book for charity so get that once it’s out. In the meantime read everything she’s written.

Everything by Haicrescendo. My favorite is What We’re Given (the series where Zuko finds more air bisons and raises them), but there’s a lot of good Zukka fic too. I tend to steer away from explicit works in this fandom unless it’s a smaller part of a much longer plot-centric fic, so there are a number I haven’t read, but I really like the Pokemon!AU Zukka.

Everything by @gaycinema. I really love the EK fight club series (Zuko fights in Rumbles/etc.) but all of it is a good read. Some Jetko, mostly a lot of introspective or emotional oneshots. Which isn’t really a great depiction of how good they tend to be, you’ll just have to read them and find out. You won’t regret it, trust me.

Everything by @captainkirkk. So far eight stellar fics, starting with kind Fire Lord Zuko and ranging to Floating Tea Shop!Zuko who doesn’t want to hunt the Avatar. I love her style and have laughed out loud at multiple of these. 

Gen Zuko fic

Bringing Out the Blue by maguena1. [unfinished, long] Definitely worth the read. The first ATLA fic I ever got really sucked into. The Blue Spirit never gets knocked out so Aang doesn’t know his true identity; he joins the Gaang on a recurring basis, while Zuko attempts to tell himself this is only for information on how to catch them, they definitely aren’t his friends.

It’s Impossible by Sandra Phillips. [abandoned, long] One of the earliest Avatar!Zuko fics (sort of) and a really interesting take on some spirit stuff.

Embers by Vathara. [complete, long] A landmark fic in the fandom, and for good reason. I didn’t love everything about this fic, but it is very well-written and an absorbing read certainly worth the praise. 

the art of description by incandescens. [oneshot, short] Five descriptions of Zuko and Toph’s field trip from various perspectives. Short, sweet, and funny.

Breaking Point by Kryal. [oneshot, short] Zuko isn’t banished but instead sent to serve in the Home Guard. I love Zuko loving his people, and alternate canon explorations, and this is exactly that.

The Alternative by Lunatique. [oneshot, short] The reason Zuko is so determined is because he fears what will happen if he isn’t the next Fire Lord. An idea I support in canon, to a degree, written well.

Hands and Knees by gigerisgod. [oneshot, short] Zuko reflects on the choices he’s made, and experiences he’s had, when joining the Gaang. A nice introspective fic.

Relative Misery by peroxidepest17. [oneshot, short] Toph complains about her family and Zuko takes her on a field trip. Not a fic I take too seriously, but funny in a sad way.

Second Nature by lazyartisan. [possibly abandoned, long] An AU stemming from Zuko’s capture at the North Pole. Well-written and characterized, an old favorite that I actually find needing to reread to give you more detail, but I can promise it’s good.

Year One by peroxidepest17. [oneshot, short] Lessons Zuko learns in his first year being Fire Lord. I really like explorations of Zuko’s journey as Fire Lord and this is a lovely little window into that.

Soft by PenPistola. [oneshot, short] Zuko and Toph bonding after the Ember Island Players. Short and sweet.

The New Phoenix King by JoeMerl. [oneshot, short] Fire Lord Zuko is overthrown, and no one but him is bothered at all. In fact they help. Hilarious crack.

First Name Basis by JoeMerl. [oneshot, short] There’s some popular posts going around Tumblr lately about Zuko not knowing the Gaang’s names, but this fic did it first back in 2008. As amusing as you’d expect.

Male Bonding by glamaphonic. [oneshot, short] The original ‘Zuko and Sokka bond and are also dumb idiot boys’ fic. Katara is permanently rolling her eyes.

it’s not the waking, it’s the rising by isamagicdragon, thegracious [ongoing, series, medium] Azulon tells Ozai to kill Azula instead of Zuko, which leads to heartwrenching fire sibs adventure. I haven’t caught up on the last chapter yet but god is it fantastic and also just a really interesting and new perspective on what could have happened.

Doe-Eyed by Anonymous. [complete, medium] Zuko is a baby, Azula is a loving big sister. More fire sibs and a great exploration on Azula’s POV of turning against Ozai.

kintsugi by discordiansamba. [ongoing, series, long] Zuko doesn’t have Iroh after being banished, and winds up hired as a guard to protect the frail Beifong daughter. Fantastic preseries Zuko+Toph found family fic.

Legacies by WildInkling. [ongoing, medium] Far in the future, a historian studies the journal of Fire Lord Zuko. Also, he was secretly a famous author but no one knows. A funny and poignant outsider POV.

#UndercoverZuko series by naggeluide. [complete, series, short] A completely cracky concept written straight enough to be actually quite touching in parts, but also just really funny. Zuko goes Undercover Boss on his ship pre-series.

Avatar Ficlets by JaggedCliffs. [series, oneshots, short] An ongoing series of disconnected oneshots, mostly post-canon and mostly Zuko-centric. Some a pretty fun, one is a great view on Zuko and lightningbending, all worth the read (and follow for when more come out).

The Blind Leading the Blue by BrusselsSprout. [ongoing, medium] An epic Zuko and Toph field trip set in S2. I love them and this.

half in the shadows, half burned in flames by r_astra. [oneshot, short] Iroh dies, Zuko gets caught on the Day of Black Sun, everything ends up all right but damn does it hurt getting there.

A Tale of Earth and Fire by chiiyo86. [complete, medium] Zuko and Toph are married for Politics in a FN Wins AU, and follows them slowly bonding as friends to beginning a revolution. They’re married but it’s not romantic, just some good friendship.

Eight Principles of Yong by psocoptera. [oneshot, short] An exploration of immediate post-show FN politics (sort of), calligraphy, and Zuko. Also has some lovely non-fighting firebending; I always love when people explore other uses of bending.

Healing Properties of Cinder Sage by Dawen. [oneshot, short] Zuko gets very sick in the Western Air Temple. Some good interaction when he’s new to the Gaang, and Toph+Zuko friendship.

We Ourselves Must Walk The Path by WinterSky101. [complete, medium] The Gaang agrees to make Zuko their prisoner in the WAT. Speaking of new-to-the-Gaang, tension, this fic has plenty of it, and also features some good Toph and Zuko.

Frozen by Aris Merquoni. [oneshot, medium] Zuko is captured in the NWT. Some politics, lots of angst, and eventually, healing. Also actually makes me somewhat like Hahn? Incredibly enough.

Reluctant Hero by PAW_07. [ongoing, long] Avatar!Zuko fic. I got to beta it way back when for a little while before I got too busy, and have always been a huge fan of this fic. Great concept, one of the best executions of it I’ve seen, and also one of the first. Definitely read this.

Morality Chain by Pureauthor. [abandoned, long] Azula and Zuko were always on each other’s side; how this changes canon. I love this concept and would happily read a lot more fics with it (please guys, I need more fire sibs).

A viper-lizard’s tales series by Yumi_Take. [ongoing, long] The world needs more of Zuko adopting pets and small children, and those are just facts. This only has one of the two, but it’s a EK baby! Jet plays a big role in this fic as well, a weird kind of uncle-ish to the baby/friend/murderer Zuko needs to watch closely and hold back kind of thing.

(life happens) wherever you are by howlikeagod. [ongoing, long] Katara doesn’t find Zuko and Iroh in the teashop, and canon takes a sharp left turn. Excellent Gaang fic.

The Best Path series by EudociaCovert. [series, ongoing, long] Zuko meets Jet in ‘Zuko Alone’ and winds up getting claimed as theirs by the remaining Freedom Fighters. Really really well-written, I got quite emotional over some scenes.

Shippy Zuko fic

Balm by Thyme In Her Eyes. [Maiko, oneshot, short] A sweet little fic about Mai’s thoughts on Zuko’s lightning scar.

The Black Games by Mrs. Pettyfer. [Zutara, complete, long] Hunger Games-esque AU. It’s the first in a series, and I lost interest after this one but I remember enjoying the fic and it was more personal preference rather than a drop in quality that had me leaving.

Lie To Me by Inkcharm. [Toko, oneshot, short] I’m not actually a fan of this pairing romatically (at least until years down the line), but this little fic of Toph and Zuko bonding through lying to one another is sweet. I choose to ignore the more shippy parts and enjoyed it.

Zutara? What the heck is that? by Ryxl. [Zutara, oneshot, short] Complete crack, have a good sense of humor and I think you will enjoy. Just the mental image of the Gaang finding a Zutara propaganda flyer had me chuckling.

The Three Chores series (1, 2, 3) by Fandomme. [Zutara, threeshot, short] Zuko and Katara slowly bond as he helps with chores. I will admit it’s been years and I barely remember this, but what I do recall is lovely and I always appreciate people lightening Katara’s load.

read the inscription by suzukiblu. [Zuko/Song, complete, series, medium] When Zuko is banished, he is left alone in the Earth Kingdom to fend for himself. Very touching, and I love Song in this.

Hooked by TGP. [Jetko, complete, long] A classic ‘Jet didn’t see Iroh warming his tea’ fic. They’re almost all this premise but so many well-written and very long ones. 

Something To Hold Onto by Wildgoosery. [Jetko, complete, long] The EK fell and Li stayed to fight with the Freedom Fighters to protect the city during its foreign rule. Jet didn’t see the tea fic that goes very AU from canon.

Foxfire by Rahar_Moonfire. [Jetko, ongoing, long] Zuko loses his memories Jetko fic, but with heavy spirit influence and lovable EK OCs, both of which I adore and should be in far more fics.

Once Upon A Teashop by anaer. [Zukka, Jetko, ongoing, long] Cracky Ba Sing Se AU that gets gradually more and more serious. Jet hits on Zuko a lot and Sokka gets a job in the teashop to keep an eye on both of them. Endgame Zukka but heavy Jetko, and both pairings are handled pretty well, not a love triangle that makes me too mad, although as always bear in mind Jet’s messed up. 

Names by TGP. [Jetko, complete, long] I feel like I’m forgetting some more excellent Amnesia!Zuko fics, but this is one I do know of. To be honest I don’t remember it super well because it may be mixed up with other Jetko/amnesia fics in my mind, but I think it was really good. I’ll have to reread myself.

Epistles by Lady_of_the_Flowers. [Zukka, ongoing, long] I love epistolary fic and I love Zuko and Sokka bonding earlier in canon. I will be honest I haven’t read this in a long time and been updating all the while, but the premise alone (Zuko and Sokka become messenger-hawk-pals in S1 and then fall in love) is fantastic. 

Ozymandias, King of Kings by Think_of_a_Wonderful_Thought. [Zukka, ongoing, long] Zuko rebels earlier and actually is sent to the mines, until he is ‘rescued’ by the Water Tribe. Dark but getting lighter over time, and more reluctant-to-rule Zuko which always wrenches my heartstrings. I prefer super loyal and dutiful to his people Zuko but this trope always makes me feel things.

Crossovers

Fallen Drops of Fire by Chasmfiend. [Fullmetal Alchemist, ongoing] Young Azula and Zuko somehow appear in Amestris, and encounter Roy Mustang. I adore the fire sibs, and their relationship in this strange situation is the star of this fic for me, but it’s also fun seeing the FMA perspective of these two.

The Dragon-King’s Temple by Kryal. [Stargate SG-1, long, complete] The best crossover fic out there. Zuko and Toph get stranded on the other side of a Stargate. I don’t know anything about SG-1 but it didn’t matter, the fic was fantastic, they were badasses, it explored language and culture from an outside perspective, and it was just a ton of fun. Must-read.

Other character fic

Loyalty by Julia451. [oneshot, short] The ship captain didn’t misspeak when he called Iroh and Zuko “prisoners” in the start of S2. A lovely look at a nameless character, giving depth to a small moment and humanity to a FN soldier which I always love.

The Only One by HarlowR. [oneshot, short] An excellent exploration of Azula’s mindset regarding Zuko, her desperate need to be loved and jealousy of him matching his own. I think Azula was one of the greatest tragedies of the show, and this fic makes me feel it.

Blood by theAsh0. [oneshot, short] Katara-centric thinkpiece on bloodbending and healing. Dark but really interesting.

Touch and Go by Cadence. [oneshot, short] After Iroh’s struck by lightning, Toph doesn’t let Zuko drive them all away. A momentary alliance and the seeds of friendship. More Toph-focused but still heavy on the whole Gaang.

Shortcomings by Menamebephil. [oneshot, short] Iroh thoughts during his imprisonment, on the theme of mistakes. I love this man and don’t understand why I am so drawn to fic about him that makes me sad.

Watch And Review, Please by Becca Stareyes. [oneshot, short] The Ember Island Players receive some constructive criticism... sort of. Funny and quick.

Azula Redemption Trilogy (1, 2, 3) by Mistress of Sarcasm. [threeshot, short] Second person and deeply introspective, three short little fics delving into Azula’s head and bringing her closer to redemption.

Echoing Refrains by catie_writes_things. [oneshot, short] I really like nuanced explorations of the whole FN royal family. It’s perfectly fine to write Ozai as pure evil bastard, but exploring  what might have been or how he got there, or even as in this fic his talent for music being inherited by Zuko is really interesting too. Iroh-centric.

our curse by ohmygodwhy, and the last dragon by thesometimeswarrior. [twoshot, complete, short] Stay away if you don’t like to cry. In the first Zuko learns Ozai is executing Iroh, and isn’t able to stop it; the second is even worse because it’s Iroh’s POV. I put this in the other characters section because honestly I adore the second fic even more than the first, but they are both fantastically written and will hurt you a very great deal.

Finally, I’m not quite bold enough to put my own fic on a reclist, but just shameless enough to mention I’ve written a few Avatar fics I quite like if anyone feels the desire to check them out on my AO3. ;) But seriously give love to all the rest of these, they deserve it. (And as I said, there’s lots more excellent stuff, this fandom is so prolific and well-written!)

[usedtobe-angstyoikawa]

Mask

Zuko x reader (tea shop au)

Summary: you become friends with the two baristas from your favorite tea shop and slowly start to fall for one of them (keep in mind this takes place in the modern day, covid is still around sorry :p)

A/n: I came up with this love story kind of idea while in quarantine since where I’m from things are still pretty messy (not just because of covid but the whole country is a mess lol) so it’s hard for me to imagine love scenarios that are so different from the reality I’m currently living in. That being said, this seemed to be good enough to make my brain enjoy it while also tricking it into believing maybe it could happen to me one day (even though I’m pretty sure I’m gonna die alone :’) Anyways I was thinking of making these a series? Don’t know maybe I won’t finish it I’m too busy but I’ll give it a try

Warnings: none at lest yet

———————————————————————

Being alive during a pandemic isn’t easy, not to mention how stressing it is to be a college student as well. The combination of trying to take care of yourself while also loosing your mind and dealing with anxiety isn’t the best. The student life is already tiring on its own, but the social interaction and good fun memories that come with it makes it a little less dreadful. Of course, that is gone now too, so we’re left with only the overworking-yourself-till-your-body-gives-out part of the experience. It may sound depressing but after a bit more than a year you learn to live with it, you adapt and find new ways to relax and have fun.

That’s why you’ve been visiting the new tea shop near your house. It opened a few months ago and since you first stepped foot in the warm, inviting place you haven’t been able to go a day without their so contagious good vibes (and tea too, obviously). Well maybe you don’t visit it every single day but at least three times a week, on mondays, wednesdays and fridays to be exact. It’s become part of your routine, not only is it good because it implies spending time outside of your room but the friendly, cozy atmosphere of that place also helps you concentrate on your studies and actually get the work done. And yeah maybe having to wear a mask the whole time isn’t super comfortable but it’s worth it, at least the shops were opened again. One of your favorite things about the tea shop is the staff, from the baristas to the waiters to the owner, this last one being the first one you met. This man is incredibly sweet and is capable of lifting your mood with such simple words and a warm cup of tea. Iroh, that being his name, moved to your hometown a year before the pandemic started with no intentions of working at any shop, let alone open one. It was the arrival of his two nephews in need of a helping hand that made him come up with the best idea of his life, and the best thing that happened to you later on. You don’t really know what his relatives coming to town has to do with him opening a tea shop but he never explained, so you never asked. He is very fond of his nephews, specially the older one, a boy named Zuko. The other is a girl named Azula, which you learned is the youngest sibling even though she seems a lot more mature than her brother. Both of them work with his uncle, Zuko as a barista and Azula as the cashier, but sometimes she likes to take and prepare your orders too, just to prove she’s better at tea-making than her brother. Every time she does so you play along with it, nodding to everything she says only to then confess to Zuko that you find his tea to be better warmed than her sister’s. You’d like to say that comments like that one make him blush, but there’s no way of telling with the damned mask covering his face. This place has very strict covid prevention policies, which you are glad of cause not many shops did, so you’ve never seen their faces (or at least not the entirety of them). It’s kind of weird cause you’re pretty sure they do know what you look like since you have to take yours off every time you take a sip of your drink or a bite of your food. You only once saw Azula with her mask off, hanging from her right ear. She was outside standing next to the entrance while smoking a cigarette, she had the prettiest face you’d ever seen. But you don’t know what the faces of her brother and uncle look like, though you try to imagine it from time to time. You’re pretty sure Iroh has a beard, you can see it poking out of the sides of his mask, but what really intrigues you is his smile. He’s one of those people who are able to smile with just their eyes, so you imagine his smile is the phisical representation of happiness itself. Now Zuko’s face was harder to imagine. He wore his dark hair right in front of his eyes, kind of like grown out bangs that covered the upper part of his face. You know his eyes are of this yellowish but also hazel like color, and you’re 99% sure he has dark bags under them. But apart from that you aren’t sure what to think of his facial features, you don’t know if he has a beard or a sharp jawline, nor if his nose is pointed like his sister’s or a bit round like his uncle’s. He could have no nose at all for all you know! This types of thoughts are the ones that roam your mind while you’re trying to solve the algebra problem sitting on the book page in front of you. Maybe it’s time for your you to take a break and order another tea, you think of trying out the new matcha one Iroh added to the list last week but instead you opt for the good old jasmine tea, the old man’s favorite.

You’re surprised when you see Zuko starting on your order instead of his uncle, even though he works as a barista too he usually takes care of the food orders. It’s not that he’s bad at making tea (like his sister states), he’s only extremely good at making a few variety of them and messes up any other order completely. Bobba, black and green tee are his specialties, with oolong and herbal coming right behind them, but jasmine is one of his worst. And you’re gonna have to be the one drinking a whole cup of it. You look to your left and catch Azula’s eyes fixed on his brothers back, then they move to you and even though words aren’t coming out of her mouth you know exactly what she wants to say. Shit, good luck.

“Here you go, a jasmine tea with three sugar’s” his voice breaks your staring contest with the girl next to him and it takes you a good minute and a half to react and take the cup. You really wish you had taken a seat next to the window instead of opting for the counter, now you’ll have to try the drink while he’s standing in front of you.

You can feel Azula’s eyes burning the side of your face, you know she’s either at the verge of tears or feeling sorry for you. Before chickening out you lift the cup and bring it to your lips, letting the liquid in and swallowing. Everyone behind the counter stops, waiting for your reaction. They don’t really know what they’re expecting you to do or say, but it definitely isn’t what is currently going on in your head (and mouth).

“Oh. My. Fucking god. This is amazing.”

a/n: this wasn’t proof read so thank you for making it this far :)

[patchofsunlight]

allergies | zuko x fem!reader smau

series masterlist | previous <- 7, get in loser -> next

tw: mild panic attack

summary: Y/N has no feelings for her best friend’s brother. In fact, she might just be allergic to him with how much she definitely doesn’t like him.

a/n: so uhhh this was,,,, a lot!!! i hadn’t exactly planned on doing this. but then i did. yeah!!! i don’t if you’ll like it!! but i hope you do!!! next part will feature a written scene!!! with azula and y/n being best friends!! i hope it’s good!! see you soon!!

[sokkalore]

What are your favourite zukka fics that you would rec (love your twilight au btw)

HELLO i’ve been waiting all day to be done with work/able to get on my computer to answer this so i’m going to just. try my best and i’m definitely going to miss some but here are SOME of my absolute favorites

(do you take this jerk to be) your one and only

Under the leadership of Fire Lord Iroh, the Fire Nation has made every attempt to restore peace and make amends for the harm they inflicted during the Seventy-Year War. Their newest proposal is a literal proposal: a marriage to unite the Fire Nation and the Water Tribes.

The Fire Nation offers Prince Zuko’s hand.

The Water Tribes offer Princess Yue’s.

Sokka is apparently the only person in the world who has a problem with any of this.

Blue

Iroh insists they create a new life and identity in Ba Sing Se. Zuko wants nothing more than to bide his time until his next opportunity to return home, until he realizes ‘Lee’ can get away with things Zuko never could. Zuko dons the mantle of the Blue Spirit again only to lose his focus when the Avatar comes to the city. This time, however, his attention is drawn to the annoying Southern Tribe warrior.

Mass Times Acceleration

[Zuko calls at three in the morning and says, tears in his voice and rage through his teeth, “I want to run away.”

It’s Sokka’s turn to carry the brain cell in his household but he doesn’t waste a second before he’s saying, “Tell me when and where—I’m coming too.”]

Or,

A road trip AU featuring two teenage disasters, abusing Ozai’s credit card, and A Lot Of Sea Lions.

it’s the illusion of separation 

Sokka takes a job washing dishes at the new tea shop in town. It's a great gig, until he finds out his only coworker is his old high school bully. Sokka really should quit, but he also really needs to afford rent.

Also, Zuko is kind of hot now.

Those Who Favor Fire 

After a failed attempt on his life, Sokka fakes his death, dons a disguise, and infiltrates the would-be assassin's ranks in an attempt to bring them down from the inside.

Zuko learns of his husband's tragic death, mourns, and vows revenge.

The Road Between Action and Inaction

Sokka does a shitty k turn in the parking lot across from the bus station, pulls up to the curb where the boy is looking determinedly at his phone, and rolls down the passenger window. “Hey! Which way were you going?” He may die, but at least his conscience will be clear.

The guy blinks at him.

“Don’t.”

Oh, he’s prickly.

---

Or: the hitchhiker au, featuring Sokka and Zuko falling in love without even realizing it.

Protective 

What Zuko wasn’t prepared for was something else, something far more animalistic. Every time he saw that necklace, he felt something clawing at the pit of his stomach: a sensation that was somewhere between “protective” and “possessive.” Although logically he knew it wasn’t true, the thought always appeared before Zuko could stop it: Sokka belongs to me.

Or, Azula kidnaps Sokka. That doesn't sit very well with Zuko or Katara.

(let me be) there for you

Sokka pulls out a clean piece of parchment and starts to write:

Reasons Why Sokka Would Be A Great Bodyguard for Lord Zuko

He smiles in satisfaction at the title. Seeing it in writing only makes him feel more confident in this brilliant, two-minute-old idea of his. Zuko is one of his closest friends, and Sokka is a great fighter, he would be the perfect bodyguard! He has the entirety of his trip in the Fire Nation to prove it to Zuko. This is going to be a piece of cake.

(or, Sokka mistakes his crush for just a strong desire to be a guard for Zuko, and Suki is amused)

Moving Mountains

Soulmates are chosen by the spirits and can hear each other’s thoughts. Sokka thinks it’s cheesy and dumb. Zuko thinks it’s poetic justice that he doesn’t have one because he doesn’t deserve it. Cruel irony is finding out that the prince of the Fire Nation (and the person currently hunting you) is your soulmate.

(Set during and after the events of ATLA, and during some of the events of the comics that follow. This was an excuse to write a slow-burn where Sokka and Zuko are soulmates)

Question Marks

Zuko pulls away first. He stares at Sokka and raises his one brow. “You do realise,” he says dryly, “that you just instigated a major international incident?”

Or: Sokka is impulsive. This is a problem. Especially when he ends up kissing the Fire Lord and immediately running away.

sirens & sleepless nights

Life can be pretty hard living in a city under a totalitarian regime. Between adhering to the ridiculous curfew, keeping himself from being gunned down by a passing patrolman, and paying his unnecessary tolls to the state for, say, breathing, Sokka has his hands full just getting to work. Add aiding a resistance group on top of that, and Sokka should really be getting paid for this.

Then, one night, Sokka finds an injured patrolman collapsed in the street, who tells him with blood on his lips, “If the patrol finds me, I’m dead.”

[sokkathebluewolf]

How will sokka and azula kids look and how many?

I probably have answered this question here or there, in the past... but as I have no idea how much you'd have to scrung up through my blog to find the answer, I'll just respond anyway :)

My current plans are for Sokka and Azula to have three kids. The oldest is a girl, the middle one a boy, and the youngest another girl. They're called Hotaru, Shun and Yuuna, respectively.

There's a few artworks I've drawn that feature the whole family, but I think the best one, up to date, would be this one:

There's other artworks where I can show you what they look like, if you want more... as well as a few sketches, namely for character design purposes.

As shown here, Sokka doesn't luck out at all and has to cope with three bending kids, no less! He thinks the last one, Yuuna, might not be a bender at all... then one day she starts waterbending :'D the bright side for him, however, is that the two girls do love his non-bending warrior fighting techniques so they both learn how to use weapons from him, no matter if they're benders.

This is another early design for them, muuuch earlier than the other ones I've inserted so far, Shun's hairstyle has definitely changed a lot since then (also, the ages written into this sketch may not be accurate anymore, I'm currently not too sure of how big the age gaps between them will be, but I do want Shun and Yuuna to be closer in age to each other)

Lastly... a take on the teenaged/young adult babies!

Not sure if this is the picture you were hoping for xD but it's probably my favorite sketch of the three kiddos, fully grown and taking after their epic parents in the best of ways. Yuuna will finally settle on a hairstyle that honors the Water Tribe's traditional styles far more than the Fire Nation styling of her older siblings.

Anyway! Hope that was thorough enough xD no idea if I've posted all these pictures before, but these are the three little Sokkla steambabies in this story :D

[seyaryminamoto]

Idk if u this is too spoilerly… but what’s Rei’s relationship with Hotaru, Shun, and Yuuna?

... Well.

I kind of answered that question in narrative form already (FF.net/AO3), but if you want me to talk about it directly...

Hotaru is their oldest sister, of course :D

I admit that, back when I started plotting things for the future and I started coming up with ideas for this family, Rei wasn't really in the picture all along because I wasn't even 100% committed to her character and role in the story yet. Hence, there's a lot of art that doesn't feature her with the Sokkla family since I didn't quiiiite know if I would find a role for Rei in the story after I started pondering to make her Zhao's illegitimate daughter. Of course, back then, Azula's Part 3 looked way bleaker than it has been (believe it or not...), precisely due to Rei's absence. I also didn't know for sure that I would find a way bring Song into play either, back then. So, once I finally realized the kind of role Rei could play, Azula's storyline became soooo much clearer and a lot more engaging than the non-stop miserable mess it was shaping up to be without Rei's presence, and Azula's bond with Rei has been one of the greatest highlights of her story so far.

Now then, the question about Rei's role in this family may be tricky to fully explain: Sokka, in particular, will do his best to give Rei space and respect her bond with Azula. He's had nothing to do with this bond and he doesn't want to push his way into Rei's life just because he's Azula's significant other. Once he gets to know Rei, he's going to be very proud of Azula for helping her as much as she did... even so, Sokka would never act entitled to having a parenting role in Rei's life just because Azula does, so their particular bond is one that will take longer to bloom into a full familial one, even if it ultimately will be positive too, but Sokka leaves it up to Rei to decide what kind of role she wants him to play in her life.

But you were asking about the kids rather than Sokka, sooooo...

Hotaru absolutely adores Rei. Rei will have been part of her life all along, looking after her and being a very loving big sister to her. Theirs is definitely a sweet bond, one where Rei is to determined to make sure this child has a safe place with her (tbh Hotaru has a lot of safe places, haha). Their natures are surprisingly similar, so, as much as Sokka and Azula may joke around and say that Hotaru surely takes after Kya since she's the nicest person in either of their families? Deep down I think they all know that Hotaru's nice and easygoing personality has been greatly influenced by Rei. Little Hotaru looks up to her big sister a lot, and she thrives in being with her as often as possible. Basically, they're wholesome beyond belief xD that's the way this relationship works.

Now, then, Shun... I wouldn't say they get along quite as well as Hotaru and Rei do, but Shun also looks up to Rei quite a bit and is often trying to impress her. Shun is a chaotic little one, admittedly, a born leader in many ways, has a certain effortless charisma... but that charm of his kind of doesn't work as well with his family? xD so he's a lot more careless, a sillier kid with his siblings and parents than he is with friends, as you may have noticed, particularly in Underneath Starlit Skies :'D his dynamics with Rei are definitely those of an older sister who can get him in line when he's being too chaotic. He really likes her and wants her approval whenever he's up to something, and he'll definitely beg her to check over his homework to make sure he's getting things right. He has other closer bonds than with Rei, but theirs is a healthy sibling relationship regardless :D

As for Yuuna, these two get along on a very particular level... that is, the scientific level! Yuuna's scientifically-inclined mind particularly vibes well with Rei's, and whatever crazy idea she gets, she knows she can bring it up to Rei whenever she feels the need to and she'll get a very rational answer from someone who will see the potential in Yuuna's ideas. Yuuna is very much comfortable with everyone in the family, which doesn't mean there's no conflict -- she particularly has a fair amount of conflict with Shun after all. But Rei is very talented at getting through to Yuuna and basically speaking her language, to put it in some way. She can give her challenges and ideas that will get Yuuna's wild brain running at full speed. They definitely operate on a similar intellectual level, these two, and that makes their relationship quite positive and unique.

In short, Rei will be the best big sister she can be, a very wholesome, supportive one who never fails to lift the spirits of her littler siblings. She finds them adorable, she cherishes them deeply, and she loves being part of their lives and family. Of course, as there's a big age gap, Rei can get busy and have certain things going on that stop her from being with her family all the time, but her place in the family is 100% cemented, as the story I linked above should give away. Girl is very happy to be the big sister to her three wild little siblings, and they love her very very much <3

[muertawrites]

Two Halves - Chapter Three (Zuko x Reader)

Part Two

Word Count: 2,450

Author’s Note: Something very important to note about this series is that in it Zuko has very long hair. I’m talking like feudal era Japan hair (use this post from @frogydraws​ for reference. It is *chef’s kiss* gorgeous). Also, I feel like I’m missing people who asked to be on the tag list - if you asked but don’t see your name, PLEASE direct message me so I can fix that! Other than that I don’t have much else to say about this chapter. It’s mostly exposition but who doesn’t love some good plot speculation?

~ Muerta

Everyone gathers in a sitting room in Zuko’s personal wing of the palace, clustered in groups or pairs in an attempt to create some sense of comfort after the night’s discord. Katara, Aang, and Sokka gather in the center of the room - their typical formation, still very much a reflex due to years of working as a team. You sit with Iroh and Toph to one side of the room, Iroh sharing a chaise with you and Toph seated on the floor beside you, one hand laid protectively over the top of your foot. Zuko stands at the room’s fireplace, passing a ball of flame between his hands; you watch him closely, already innately drawn to him as your partner, noting that while the others (mainly Katara, Aang, and Sokka) discuss the evening’s events, attempting to formulate a plan for whatever should come next, he remains silent, secluded deep within his own thoughts. He looks every part the leader you’re now married to, in a way you hoped you’d only see much later in your relationship. 

“It had to be someone within the palace,” Sokka states. “The gates were too heavily guarded for anyone to get in from the outside.” 

“But how could they commit a murder without being seen?” Aang wonders. “There were too many people around for something like that to go unnoticed.” 

“That’s just the thing,” Katara counters. “There were enough people to create a big enough distraction that nobody saw until whoever did it wanted us to.” 

“And we’re absolutely positive it was that specific guy who was the target?” Sokka proposes. “It wasn’t just a random attack to make a statement against the whole government?” 

“No,” Zuko chimes in. “They meant to kill him. When I proposed making someone from outside the Fire Nation queen, he was the only one in favor of the idea. He convinced the rest of the board to support me.” 

“Do you think maybe they wanted to make a statement against just you, then?” Aang asks. 

“It wasn’t just a statement,” you tell him, speaking for the first time since entering the room. Everyone turns their heads towards you; the only one who doesn’t show any surprise is Zuko. “It was a threat, meant for both of us.” 

“And probably on behalf of Ozai or Azula,” Toph adds. 

“Do you think he’d really still have followers within the palace?” Katara questions. “Everyone who served him was imprisoned after the war.”

“It’s possible,” Zuko responds. “My father radicalized more people than we could possibly know of. I expected his resistance at some point.” 

“If Ozai intended to stage any resistance, he would have done it much more gruesomely,” Iroh interjects. “He wouldn’t have wasted time with threats. He would have killed one or both of you, if not everyone in attendance tonight.” 

“But who else could hold that much of a grudge against not only the Fire Nation, but the alliance with an outsider?” Sokka asks. 

“It could be someone from the Water Tribe,” you suggest. Your words are deadpanned and grim. “It’s very possible they see this as another form of colonization.”

“Nobody else from either tribe is here, though,” Katara says. “It’s just me and Sokka.”

“I don’t think they’d be here officially if they planned to kill someone,” Aang reasons. “If it was someone from the Water Tribe, they’re probably in disguise.” 

“They couldn’t have been,” Sokka replies. “They’d have to have been inside the palace, and nobody got in without official documentation.” 

“Our concern right now should not be the manhunt,” Iroh speaks up in his firm, tepid way. “It should be the safety of our loved ones; our lord and lady especially.” 

“He’s right,” Toph agrees. She stands, placing a hand on your shoulder. “I think she should stay with me tonight. I have the best chance of seeing someone and stopping them before they can do any harm.” 

“She’s staying with me,” Zuko quips. 

The entire room falls into a heavy silence, the air itself seeming to drop to the floor. Everyone stares at Zuko in shock, yourself included. 

“We’re married,” he explains. “It’s our responsibility to look after each other. She’ll stay with me in my chambers.” 

Five sets of eyes shift to focus on you. You meet Zuko’s gaze, the steely determination within them only serving to remind you of the bond you now share. You nod, keeping your eyes locked with his as you speak. 

“It’s okay,” you affirm. “I’ll stay with him.”

After a few more minutes of deliberation, everyone parts ways for the night - Sokka is sent with Katara and Aang to provide them extra defense, and Toph goes with you and Zuko, moved to the guest chamber just outside his sleeping quarters so she can monitor any movement that happens during the night. 

You follow Zuko into his rooms, arms linked together in a mutual nervous embrace. His chambers are divided into three spaces; two rooms connected by a sitting room and a large, covered porch. Zuko leads you down a short hall off the right side of the sitting room, opening a set of doors to reveal an ornate bedroom - your things rest at the foot of the four poster bed, your sleeping clothes already laid out on the mattress. 

“This used to be a sunroom,” Zuko tells you. “But I had it converted into a bedroom. I figured it would be weird sleeping together, but also weird keeping you in your own wing across the palace, so… this seemed like a good way to be close to each other without making it too awkward.” 

You squeeze his arm in a gentle, appreciative hug, turning to look up at him. 

“Thank you,” you say. “I really appreciate all you’ve done for me.” 

Zuko nods, laying one of his hands over where yours rests on his bicep.

“Let’s get changed,” he murmurs. “I’ll call for some tea and we can try to have a normal night.” 

He leaves you, and you draw the curtains of the room’s sweeping windows so you can dress in peace; one side overlooks a garden courtyard, while the other gives a view of the ocean beyond the palace’s farthest wall. The sights are stunning, but the suspense you feel building in the pit of your stomach makes it hard to enjoy them in full. 

Your hands shake as you undress, letting the layers of your wedding robes drop to the floor and leave you naked at the foot of the bed. You stare down at your night dress, the pristine white fabric glaring virginally up at you. You warily slide yourself into it, then cross the room to the vanity that’s been set to the left of the bed. 

You can hardly control the shiver of your fingers as they work the beads out of your hair, taking the freed locks behind your head into the single braid you typically sleep in. You stare at yourself in the mirror, clutching the totems Katara gave you to your chest; your eyes are wide, your cheeks sunken, your knuckles white. A small voice, somewhere in the far reaches of your mind where the sound can hardly carry, tells you to have faith in your new husband; he’s treated you with nothing but kindness since even before the moment you set foot on his soil, and has showed nothing but the utmost respect for you - he wouldn’t be the man your family loved and trusted with your life if he shifted his behavior in such a sudden, drastic way by forcing you into his bed. 

Despite these cries of reason, all you can hear is the voice of the beautician who prepared you for tonight - she hovers behind you in the mirror, her face contorted into a heinous, scowling grin as she cackles with laughter. She reminds you of the children you’re meant to bear, her nails digging into your shoulders as she goes on to tell you that, as the Firelord’s wife, he’s entitled to all the pleasure your body can give him, and will take it at any cost. 

Your terror turns the man who’s been so endlessly sweet to you into a monster. 

Through the bedroom doors, you hear a servant enter with a tray of tea, followed by Zuko’s gentle voice thanking them. You swallow, taking the strands of beads in your hands and twining them together, forming a necklace which you place over your head and tuck into the front of your night dress. After a few deep, quivering breaths, you stand, making your way out to the shared sitting room. 

Zuko sits on the side of the room closest to his bedroom, head turned towards the now lit fireplace and eyes lost within its glow, his gaze distant and glazed with worry; he snaps back to the present when he notices you enter, giving you a faint, slightly defeated smile. His military uniform has been replaced with a simple set of pajamas and a robe, his long hair free from its knot, now hanging loosely about his shoulders and down his chest; he’s even more handsome this way, his features contoured by the darkness of the room and the light of the fire. You feel a rush of lightheadedness as you lower yourself across from him, nervously returning his smile. 

“Uncle took the liberty of preparing our tea,” Zuko greets you. His voice is soft and welcoming, tinged with a mirth that feels almost ironic given the circumstances. “He didn’t want to subject you to my awful cooking skills so early in the marriage.” 

You huff amusedly, sharing a genuine smile with him as he serves you. You sip the scalding liquid slowly, letting it ease down your throat and warm you from the inside out; it relaxes you, the shaking in your limbs disappearing. 

“I’m glad we have him,” you say. “I don’t think we’d know what to do with ourselves otherwise.” 

Zuko chuckles, his grin causing a manic tremble to erupt in your chest. 

“He’s definitely the romantic one in the family,” he agrees. “He hasn’t stopped talking about you since he met you. I think if he were forty years younger, he’d have married you before I could.” 

You giggle, a timid blush coloring your cheeks. 

“I never thought I’d be so popular among Fire Nation men,” you tease. 

Zuko smiles, wistfully and exhaustedly, letting out a soft breath of laughter; you can tell the nights events anchor his thoughts. 

“I’m sorry tonight ended the way it did,” he tells you. “I wanted your arrival to be a source of happiness for our people. Maybe I was too hopeful.” 

You sigh heavily, running a finger along the brim of your teacup as he meets your eyes; you can tell he blames himself for what happened. 

“A hundred years of hatred doesn’t end in a decade,” you console him. “It isn’t just here, either - many people in the Water Tribe feel just as divisive as people do here.” 

You cautiously reach forward and take his hand, letting your thumb stroke over his knuckles. His fingers tighten around your palm, and you can feel every callous and scar that marks his alabaster skin. 

“We have to stand together,” you say. “We have to show the world that we can overcome the past; that things are different now, for the better.” 

Zuko nods, raising the back of your hand to his lips and pressing a light, tender kiss to the knuckle of your forefinger. He smiles faintly, letting his mouth linger on the bone for a long moment before placing your hand back where it was on his knee, still twined with his. 

“I really did make the right choice in a queen,” he muses. Heat spreads across your skin, your lips curling up slightly at his endearing remark. 

“It’s late,” Zuko says after a beat, letting his fingers slip away from yours. “We should both get some rest.” 

He stands, leaning over you and placing a docile hand at the back of your head. Your heart leaps from your chest and into your throat, your fingers curling to grip the skirt of your night dress as anxiety rushes to your head. You deny every instinct you have that tells you to fend him off. If this is when he chooses to take you, you have no choice but to go willingly - you can’t form any rifts in a relationship that’s already somewhat fragile, especially when doing so would mean driving a wedge through the center of an already divided country. 

Zuko lowers himself and rests his lips to your forehead, etching the phantom of a kiss just below your hairline; he parts almost as soon as he arrives, leaving you dazed and flustered in his wake. 

“Sleep well,” he murmurs, offering his arm to help you to your feet. You accept it, feeling much smaller beside him than you did only hours before. “I’ll see you in the morning.” 

You each return to your respective bedrooms, your legs floating towards your bed of their own accord and dropping you backward onto the mattress. You stare up at the sheer, billowing canopy hung from the ceiling as the shivering in your limbs returns, your body completely unable to accommodate with what your mind can barely seem to process. 

He didn’t force himself onto you. He didn’t violate the comfort between you simply for the sake of tradition and lineage. The extreme relief you feel is overwhelming, so much so that you think you might throw up or faint. 

You fall asleep to the sound of the ocean beyond the palace walls, the danger that looms within them doing little to deter the peace that washes over you as you drift into a pleasant dream.

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[jyndor]

(Imperialism etc anon) Ok I get where you're coming from! Thank you for being understanding. While Zutara is obviously not inherently racist or anything there are zutara interpretations that *are* racist (example: fire lady katara which I can get into) and it does need to be acknowledged that Zuko's status as fire nation royalty does create a power imbalance between him and Katara. Now, this is a conversation that has a lot of nuance to it but it seems like the people harassing you are (1/2)

(2/2) just repeating some genuine critique they saw without understanding what it means just to say that they're right, harassing people in the process. I did not have that context when sending that first ask and I apologize, since anons harassing you and others are clearly doing it out of bad faith. I just didn't like the leveraging of concepts that really matter in real life (colonialism, etc), ykwim? But I get what you were trying to do.

hey anon I’m finally getting to you after 84 years XD

so first off, I want to be careful about how I approach this because I understand that as a white person (even if my ancestors experienced imperialism) in the US I absolutely benefit from imperialism and don’t want to like, idk, whitesplain XD so if anyone gets annoyed with any way I say anything, just lmk and I’ll rework it. and I also do understand that these are real world issues that are far more consequential than messaging in media (although I do think it’s very important that we challenge messages in media because of media’s influence on our thinking and politics).

but before I talk about zuko and his relationship to fire nation imperialism, and then later fire lady katara and why it isn’t INHERENTLY racist but definitely can be, I want to talk about the atla fandom and how we got here. like, why I assume that most anons who come at zutara shippers are asshats acting in bad faith. if you already know fandom history, skip this section.

1. atla and the fandom has always been kind of shitty and racist

so IDK if everyone is familiar with the history of the ship war in atla fandom, but it’s regarded as one of the nastiest ship wars in fandom history which I agree lol. atla’s creators were some of the first to interact with the fandom the way they did - back then it wasn’t all that common for creators to get into twitter feuds with fans and boundaries were respected more than they are now imo. but for better or worse, and it is a mixed bag, bryke interacted with fandom a lot. certainly at cons but also on social media.

but honestly things really got extra mean in fan spaces when bryke made a “joke” atla season 4 slideshow out of fan art (some of which was really sexual in nature and totally inappropriate) that mocked fans’ creations, but especially zutara fanart and zutara itself. it was pretty tasteless especially considering how most zutara fans were teen girls, and featured some art of sokka saying that if you think zuko and katara would be good together, you’re doomed to have failed relationships. that’s where the whole “dark and mysterious” bs came from, which does describe some zutara fic but not even most of it lol. I actually do respect bryke a lot despite my criticism of them, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over that shit. like even if you hate zutara, even if it’s a joke, we were kids. and they were adults, and the whole thing was nasty.

however, the ship war was chaotic and messy, but it does feel worse now. maybe it’s because back then the fandom was MOSTLY teens and kids, and I don’t think that’s true now. we were all trying to prove our ship was best with like, content from the show and theories and all that, and now it’s like... whose ship is ~problematic lol it’s a show by white us americans appropriating from various cultures impacted negatively by us/british imperialism that they then profited off of, of course it’s racist. that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about that, and in fact many poc have been saying this shit for years - that atla is racist and colorist at many times (guru pathik anyone?) and no one really listened.

if fans are complaining only about zutara, then I’m automatically writing them off as being insincere or ignorant. and since most of these people are anonymous, I have no idea if they are having substantive discourse about colorism in avatar or cultural appropriation (even if it is mostly appreciative). if you are on anon, I have no context about what you actually think except for what you give me. and that definitely is how I view anons in general but especially within the atla fandom because for all 13-ish years I’ve been in it, it’s been messy. that’s why zutara fans have isolated ourselves from the rest of fandom, because the rest of fandom has been really nasty to us. like did we give back some nastiness? absolutely.

but I would hazard a guess that most anti-zutara shippers don’t know about the conversations we have had in this community to make it safer for people of color, conversations that centered poc and woc especially. hey, that’s okay - not to compare zutara to r*ylo because eurgh but like, idk what discourse the r*ylos have about their community. no idea, I don’t go looking for it. and I don’t go to the tags and harass r*ylos - even though they harass the fuck out of everyone else.

2. so zuko and his privilege

undoubtedly zuko as fire lord is in a fairly privileged position LMFAO. but during the show zuko is very clearly exiled - he holds very little political power in the fire nation EXCEPT for during the first season when he is in command of a ship that ozai gave him on a punishment quest lol like yeah he does terrible things and he of all people would not excuse his actions even if he was a traumatized kid, that’s the point of his arc - that he got some exposure to the rest of the world and worked to be better. and the only reason he was exiled at all was because he cares about people - he didn’t question fire nation supremacy at 13, but he sure did question the morality of his people being lead to slaughter.

but after zuko and iroh defect from the fire nation and stop hunting aang, he has next to no power, in any kind of way. like the guy is a political refugee. and yes, he goes back to the fire nation for like five minutes before realizing that he hates everything about fire nation hegemony and that he wants to end his father’s reign of terror, like that isn’t exactly someone who is going to be well esteemed by the powerful elites when he returns and takes the throne.

and I disregard the comics because they suck lol but zuko does have power as the fire lord, but he limits his power. like compared to ozai, phoenix asshole? azula? for the rest of the world, zuko is kind of an ideal leader for a former colonizing/imperialistic nation to have - someone who worked to end that tyranny, who is anti-imperialist, who believes in justice and equality, who wants to make things right for the peoples who his family oppressed.

I do think it is important to talk about power dynamics and imbalances in relationships - for instance, one could argue that mai is at a significant disadvantage in her relationship with zuko. sure she is from a powerful family but not as powerful as zuko’s. sokka? hah forget it. he’s just as disadvantaged as katara is politically speaking. toph? well, she’s definitely not as powerful politically as zuko - her family tried to silence her for years because of her disability. and oh, she’s disabled so it might be ableist for zuko to strike up a relationship with her when they’re both adults. forgetting of course that toph and sokka and katara and suki and mai are not going to be shy about their wants and needs, that these relationships are not likely to be coercive by nature of the show they’re in and the characters they involve. this is not bill clinton with monica creepiness. like, you’d have to write the relationship that way.

the only person who arguably has more political power than zuko is aang. I guess zuko can’t ever be in a relationship with anyone other than aang. and zuko’s family massacred aang’s people so I guess we can’t ship zukaang. now I know you’re not saying that, context matters. power dynamics are important. but you can’t take away the agency of characters - katara, who is essentially a princess, has agency and can choose who she wants to be with. strictly speaking, aang is more powerful than anyone in terms of political power - he’s the avatar - and of course the dynamic is different by nature of aang not being from a line of oppressors, but there still is a power imbalance in their relationship. and I don’t know how many k/ataang shippers have discourse~ on that. not that I really feel like they NEED to, um idk what they talk about lol I’m not in those circles.

3. fire lady katara is in the eye of the beholder

so fire lady katara is not inherently bad or racist, it’s essentially like saying michelle obama shouldn’t have been first lady of the us (now I get that like the obamas being in power didn’t mean black people are not marginalized lol). you can have conversations about whether or not individual versions of fire lady katara are fucked up, and I’m superrrr open to that because I’ve seen it be kinda shitty before. i’m just gonna leave this link to @shewhotellsstories and her post on this.

but often times katara as fire lady is very dominant in global/fire nation/water tribe politics, she’s a game changer ambassador (that is probably the most popular headcanon I see), she holds on to her culture (and many fans have designed her being in her wt colors, zuko is respectful af to her, she and zuko spend extended periods in the swt, etc. like... it just depends on the way it’s written.

also leaving this response by @avatarnerdkiller to the idea of katara being a prize figurehead.

anyway, thanks for your patience anon and I am curious to see if you see this or even feel like responding after all this time XD

[the-melting-world]

Coco’s (Temp) Pirate Bios

Sorry this is very disorganized right now. Just a bunch of random info. I’m not going to present these ocs in the typical arcana-style bio format because 1. they are still hatching & 2. I don’t really know how integrated they will be in the Arcana universe. 

Here’s a teaser for the ring-leader, Sun Bai. The rest is below the cut!

***

Sun Bai, AKA “Mantis”

*

He/Him

Nicknames

Bai

Mantis - used by his enemies/rivals/potential employers

“Sun” is technically his surname, so when someone addresses him as such, he becomes very suspicious of the formality

Age: 31

Occupation: bounty hunter, wannabe con artist

Abilities: dysfunctional psychic

Appearance:

Face claim: Yoshi Sudarso

Ethnicity/Coding: Chinese-Vietnamese

Combination of East & Southeast Asian features – skin is on the darker side

Long salt & pepper hair (mostly salt) dark roots, wears it in a half bun or half ponytail, dark sideburns

He’s near-sighted as fuck and also very sensitive to sunlight, so you’ll almost never see him without a pair of round, shaded glasses that are honestly, too damn big for his face.

Has a septum piercing made out of jade stone

Bridge piercing also made from jade

There’s a beauty mark up by his left eye. Not usually visible with his hair and glasses in the way

Tall! 6’5

Very dark slate gray eyes. They look black most of the time. They are said to look like salt and pepper in the moonlight only

Fashion style/influences - punk-grunge era skater kid meets bodhisattva on rumspringa (working on putting together a moodboard so this makes more sense)

Personality

Professional Brat

whiny, complains constantly

cheapass motherfucker

a bit of a control freak (but in a very lazy, chaotic way)

paranoid as fuck

nervous, antsy, but tries his best to suppress it around new people

Clumsy!!! Seriously, if you know Bai is about to pay you a visit, you should go ahead and baby-proof the place

Good qualities???

He’s generous with people he cares about, very stingy with everyone else

He’s persistent, tenacious, doesn’t believe in quitting, tends to give out tough love peptalks that no one asked for. He doesn’t really do it because he cares, he just enjoys giving people a good kick in the ass if they need it

Knows a little kung-fu – specializes in Northern Praying Mantis style (but really sucks at it.)

The reason he’s called Mantis is actually because he can read minds and get close enough to gut/rob/catch you

Not very affectionate. He doesn’t like to be touched. He only touches out of necessity

Sun Bai has two sides. His daytime self is very paranoid, whiny and callous. But at night he calms down. He’s more lighthearted and relaxed. He also becomes more reclusive at this time. He goes without his glasses because his eyes work better in the dark, but there can be no modern light or even firelight present whatsoever

Shippable? Yes, but not very emotionally available. He doesn’t spend the night. He doesn’t cuddle. He indulges with you and then he’s gone. Hint: the best time to ask him out is after the sun goes down.

Trinkets

A bamboo quarterstaff (mostly for show and to keep people from touching him. He can’t fight worth shit. Currently trying to learn a little wushu to pair with his psychic abilities)

His glasses. They are always cracked, loose, or straight up broken. He’ll wear them anyway until his next appointment with Sascha.

***

Sascha the Oculist

*

She/Her

Nicknames – None really. Bai calls her “Cheza” sometimes, but that’s for him only

Occupation – Sun Bai’s oculist and unofficial personal manager/stylist

Since Bai is always accidentally breaking his glasses on the job, he decided to hire his oculist full time. He pays her handsomely. Loves to treat her to dinner whenever he can.

Sun Bai doesn’t ever try to read her mind, but they seem to have a language of their own

Abilities – some healing, but she hasn’t taken the time to develop it. Mostly relies on it to make her patients comfortable if she has to go poking at their eyes.

Appearance

Ethnicity/Coding: Filipina & Black

Height: 5’4

short, curly dark hair

dark brown eyes, wears glasses

always wearing dark lipstick. has different shades, but usually rocks a dark plum

Fashion style/influences - comfortable eclectic. Starchy solid button-downs, flowy, practical maxi skirts, soft ankle boots. Wears a shitload of jewelry in the form of rings, necklaces, bracelets and anklets from all over the world. Sun Bai always brings them back for her from his travels. Sascha never turns anything down and will find a way to incorporate it into her ensemble

Personality

Reserved, soft-spoken, very professional

Driven and focused

Comes off a little cold and distant. When she’s healing, she doesn’t have very good bedside manner either.

A woman of few words, she chooses her timing wisely. With that being said, her words can cut

Cares a great deal for Sun Bai, but will call him out for his dumbassery with a single look

Shippable? Technically yes, but she’s very career focused and ahem a little “biased” if you know what I mean. yeah she’s definitely in love but also denial with her boss whoops

Sascha is the only one of the temp pirates who is from Vesuvia! She has her office in the Heart District.

***

Rosario, AKA Mestra Adrenaline

*

She/Her

Nicknames

Don’t call her “Rosario” or you will get clocked. Period.

She goes by Rio, Adrenaline, or her full professional title

Only Bai and Sascha call her “Nali”

Age: 34

Occupation – freelance bodyguard. Currently works for Sun Bai

Abilities – A black belt (Mestre) in Storm Capoeira (also known as Capoeira Tempestade) Think Last Airbender’s Princess Azula’s style of lightning-redirection/firebending mixed with Brazilian dance-fighting. If it sounds very cool to watch, believe me, it is.

Appearance

PINK HAIR BITCHESSSS

She’s always wearing her hair in some kind of funky, playful style. Most of the time it’s two braided pigtails

Ethnicity/Coding: Afro-Latina

Height: 5’10

Though her skin is on the fairer side, her features lean Afro-centric, hair texture is a mixture of 3a, 3c, 3b. She wears it braided to keep it out of the way, but when she’s off the clock and going somewhere nice, she styles it into something that shows off her big and glam wave-curls

Dimple piercings!

Solid, curvy, tall (She’s basically my fantasy version of Megan Thee Stallion ok?)

Lots of power/strength in her legs and ass. She has to rely on her lower body a lot to perform Capoeira

Fashion style/influences – bubblegum pop streetwear with a touch of diy glam

Personality

LOUD.

Boisterous, energetic, playful, scrappy

She’s the most high maintenance of the three. One of the things she and Bai bond over

If you look up the phrase “Work hard, play harder,” Rio’s headshot is right next to it

A proud party animal. She can’t help herself. Once she’s had one drink, she will go hard and probably end up face down, ass up by the end of the night

Fiercely loyal. She doesn’t play around when it comes to people she cares about or even her clients. She will absolutely die for them.

With that being said, good luck trying to kill her. She’s built like a mountain.

Shippable? Yes, but she takes her job very seriously, so that will always be a priority. With that being said, Rio is definitely the most emotionally available of the three.

[paragonrobits]

Azulaang fic for @irresistible-revolution for the prompt ‘Azulaang + dancing’!

the premise is that this takes place several years after the events of ATLA, and Azula has been traveling with Aang as part of a long-term life-changing field trip, so she’s grown a bit from the person she was, but she’s still got a few things to learn

----

Azula is a woman of immense pride, and so, it wounds her to admit that she is less than perfect in everything. She has to be perfect, in everything she does; in the way she drops her words into place as neatly as the point of a blade, in the exacting movements of her Firebending forms, in the subtle methods in which she says only a few choice words to fill her enemy’s minds with doubt and uncertainty.

She has struggled long in the vicious political battlegrounds of the Fire Nation, and won out. She doubts that her brother would last long without help; he is poorly suited to intrigue. He is a more competent survivor that she had given him credit for, and his presence as Fire Lord alone has cast an unfamiliar curl of doubt that, maybe, she was wrong to assume she knew everything.

Rehabilitation, they called it as they commanded her to stay by the Avatar’s side until such time as he declared her suitable in his eyes to return home.

It’s a banishment. Yet she doesn't mind it all that much, and it’s not a comforting thought; it’s a rank feeling, a seething hot brand in the pit of her stomach. She has been cast away, her life and freedom at the mercy of an enemy who has little reason to share mercy with her, and it’s a foe she knows she has no way to defeat in a straight fight.

It should bother her more, but it does not. She doesn’t understand why. She is, however, coming to understand that perhaps she ought to watch her words around the Avatar.

He is… she’s searched for an appropriate word, and settled upon fickle. Or perhaps flighty. It’s not something that sets her entirely at ease, the way he flits from one thought to another with all the ease of a bird-cat alighting from one branch and then springing to another, or how his mood can shift from terrible graveness to sudden giggling merriment, with none of the between-moods there should be.

He changes like the wind. It’s strangely exciting, in his unpredictability. She has prided herself, in the past, on being good with people, even if she must admit now that (on the balance of evidence, and time has taken the sting out of what she had considered betrayal), but she does not understand him. She does not understand his ways, or the thoughts that lead him from one idea to an apparently unrelated one.

And this brought itself to the central point: that for all her efforts to be perfect in every way, she does not actually know how to dance.

-----

The Avatar (and it will be a long time before she, mired in the rigid political honorifics of the Fire Nation royal courts, can dare to speak to him by his own name, and her hair prickles in alarm and shock when he persistently asks her to speak to him so familiarly) had grinned.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” His voice was sing-song, almost teasing; gusting this way and that, as if to push her in directions at random. She can’t get a read on him at all, and it bothers her, and he knows that it bothers her, and so he plays his strange games with her.

Her head tilted up. “I do not know how to dance,” she replied, acidly. “You would be so very surprised to learn how it is not an essential skill in military conduct, nor the art of rulership.”

“Honestly, that sounds kinda boring. Learning new things is something to look forward to, not just because it helps you!”

It was important to note that at the time, for no apparent reason, he was spinning on a disc of air on his hands, only looking at her for brief seconds in his revolutions.

Her nostrils flared. “Dancing is for children and peasants who don’t have anything better to do.”

“Are you just saying that because it bothers you that I can dance, and my friends can dance, evne Zuko, and you don’t know how?”

Her silence speaks volumes. Irritable, bad tempered volumes.

He pauses, just for a moment, staring at her head-on. He’s still upside down, but his rounded features (so disarmingly like Ty Lee that some vague suspicions of blood descent and Air leaving behind a few embers, here and there, come to mind) turn towards her, his eyes so grey they are almost translucent.

“So you’ve never even tried?”

“Never.” She gazed into his eyes, trying to find a hint of whatever plan or plot he had in mind this time.

“Mm hmm.” He smiles, widening at the corner of his mouth as though he won’t be honest if it’s a grin or a challenging sneer. “It’s okay if you want to admit you can’t do it.”

“What?!” She stiffened up. “I certainly can!”

“No, no. It’s fine if you don’t think you can learn it at all.”

He has just outright challenged her. “I shall!” Her ego marches ahead of any other thought, and she’s already aware that she has gotten herself entangled in his schemes. Again. “Show me, if you dare.”

“All right,” he said, leaping upwards and landing in a full standing position, and she knows now that he is most definitely grinning, holding a hand out to him.

As she permits him to take her hand, she cannot deny an emotional flicker there, as his fingers brush across her hand.

----

And now, they dance.

Or rather, the Avatar dances, and she does his best to keep up, and part of her keeps thinking of it like a fight. A duel, and it seems strangely fitting.

A duel in which one fighter is a master who knows he has already won, and the other fighter is a novice, too stubborn to admit that she hadn’t the faintest idea of where to begin.

He moves so easily around her. Physical effort is second nature to her; sport games, Firebending, the many martial arts absorbed and devised by past leaders of the Fire Nation even in the days when the Fire Lord had only been leader of the Fire Sages; she knows them all, and picks them up so easily that it is as though she has done them many times over.

He moves more easily than that; he leaps across her, and as she turns to match his graceful movements (too graceful, so fluid and dynamic!), he is already facing her, bowing backwards, his feet leaving the ground and his hands catching him. Then he is spinning on both his hands, each revolution carrying him away from her.

“You’re too rigid,” he chides her. “There’s no secret formula to it. You just go with the flow and ride it!”

“Oh, is that Airbending philosophy?” Azula asks; her tone is bored, but the question is genuine.

The Air Nation is something of a blank spot in her knowledge. History books speak little about them; only that they were a military nation, bested during Sozin’s first military actions, and wiped out to the last man. And she knows that there never was an Air Nation.

There had only been the Air Nomads. As a younger woman, she wouldn’t have cared much either way. But older now, and wiser, and not quite the same woman under the Avatar’s tutelage and experience of the world…

She does not know how to feel, and that vast depth before her taunts at her. But she does know they were very different from the Fire Nation, and here lies an element of their philosophy.

“It’s just how dancing works, where I’m from,” the Avatar replies, now sliding closer to her. It’s a struggle to match his movements; there is no predicting them, there is no switch from one form to another, just a chaotic and ever-shifting flow of limbs and body, and she cannot outpace it, only match it. He grins. “So, you’re not wrong!”

She understands something, then. The thought has been working beneath the surface, chipping away and puzzling over it.

She knows the essence of fire is power; Zuko has spoken of drive and energy, and she still does not quite understand what that means. She knows other Bending forms draw power from other aspects of human nature and thought, and she finally understands that Airbending is freedom.

Fire burns hotter with anger, with drive and aggression. But as he allows himself to be free, to be detached from the tethers around him, he flies; the air around him buoys him upwards, or erupts around him, uncontrolled and truly free, destructive beyond measure or completely harmless without any apparent pattern.

She understands him a bit better, she thinks.

And then he leans in, his hand just below her own.

“A dance between two people is a partnership,” he says mischievously. “It’s not a battle you win. It’s something you do, together.”

Her hand moves, almost on its own, and pauses just below it, nearly ready to grasp his hand.

She hesitates.

She killed him once, she remembers. So why does he make her nervous?

He smiles at her, fearlessly, calmly, as though he is above petty things like grudges or memories of war. His eyes lock with her own, and she’s rarely seen someone so forthright with her, especially not a boy in her age range.

She’s never had peers, she thinks. Only soldiers and subordinates; never real friends, not anyone that pursued her company of their own accord, as he had when he had suggested this in the early days of her rehabilitation.

His hand is still proffered to her. She’s never known anyone who wanted to hold her hand.

And there is a feeling like electricity between his hand, and her own; a simmering tension, a feeling that she must either run away now before he changes his mind, or grasp and never let go-

Her fingers seize his hand, and he squeezes back.

He moves. “Follow my lead,” he says, head tilting up to look into her eyes, and she silently follows.

And, in that moment, it is freeing to simply move in that dance, without worrying about appearances, to let the wind carry her.

And his hand feels warm and soft in her grip. She has known power and authority, dominance and security. She has not known kindness.

She thinks she would like to know it a little better now.