#I love writing Azula being so happy what can I say

[seyaryminamoto]

Scenes of a Peaceful World: Sokkla Saturdays 2024

Day Nine - Power

Rated: T

On FF.net//On AO3

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

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

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

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

"B-but…! ACK!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is Dad okay?" Hotaru asked.

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

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

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

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

"Oh. Good."

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

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

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

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

"I'll give it another shot…"

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

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

"Say what?"

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

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

"Exactly!"

"And you did too."

"I… did?"

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

"Say what?"

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

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

"What? You? That makes no sense…!"

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

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

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

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

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

"Of course, of course I… hey!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Okay, now you're talking nonsense…"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Awww…"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Some do," Sokka acknowledged.

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

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

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

[rafesslxt]

DOBERMAN | Mattheo Riddle

summary: you and pansy go get some errands with hagrid in a store and on your way you find something really cute you wanna buy. When you come back with it, Mattheo isn‘t that convinced like the rest is.

warnings: cutest dog evaaa, new slytherin mascot hehe, mattheo being a softie and a dog dad, words: 806

notes: writing this in the honor of wanting a second dog, a doberman, even tho I got the most beautiful white Shepard ever

Mattheo honestly didn't knew what to say. This wasn't the first time you came back from shopping with things that surprised him. But this?

In front of him sat his girlfriend with her best friend Pansy and a fucking puppy. Even tho that puppy's head and paws looked so huge it could count as a little but matured dog. "What the hell is this?" he asks, looking down at it, sitting by his girlfriends feet.

"This is our new dog! And Pansy and I already named her!"

By the time half of the Slytherins were now in the common room, all standing and sitting around you and your dog. "What did you name her?" Theodore asks you. "Azula." "Azula?" he asks. "What does that mean?" a little girl asks, sitting on the couch.

"It's a name from a girl that can produce blue flames. She's a fire bender and really powerful." Mattheo sighs and shakes his head. "Does Dumbledore even know about this? And where do you even wanna let her be when we have classes?"

"I already figured everything out with Pansy!" Pansy nods in agreement and continues. "Yeah, we asked Hagrid and he says he would love to watch her whenever we have classes or are outside Hogwarts. Dumbledore said yes because officially it's Y/N's pet now. And well, we all know he likes Y/N so it wasn't really that hard."

"Yeah only Snape was a little unsure but then I told him I would teach her to catch rats and snakes for his potions." you say after smiling brightly at Mattheo.

"Oh come on Mattheo, she will be our little guard and new addition to the gang." you say, batting with your lashes at him.

"I like her!" comes from an Enzo who's laying on his back on the ground, already playing with Azula.

Mattheo rolls his eyes. " I am not going to feed her, walk her or do anything other. This is your responsibility, understood?" he gives in which leads you to jump at him happy. "Yes yes yes I promise! You will love her."

A few months passed by since you got Azula and to say Mattheo and her were enemys - one sided enemys - was an understatement.

She was now fully in her teeny phase which means she would not pee inside but now destroy everything her sharp teeth could reach. And to Mattheo's dismail, it were always his things. His ties, his hoodies, his belts, his shoes - especially his shoes.

He would always scold her for destroying his stuff but you told him every time that she was still learning and is now in her teeny phase. Like puberty. What the fuck does that even mean, was what he thought.

Azula on the other hand loved him. She was very picky about who she would let close to her but no matter how often she got pushed away by Mattheo, she would try again.

So it was when Mattheo came back really tired from his classes after he had studied all night long and got barely any sleep, when he fell down on the couch in the common room.

He slept so deep, that he at first didn't notice the little body that squeezed itself between his chest and arms. When he woke up from his nap, still alone in the common room, he gasps as he saw Azula's face right in front of his with her eyes closed.

That was the moment he fell in love, like hard. He would get her ANY toy he saw while walking through the pet store with you, originally to buy dog shampoo and a new leash.

No food was good enough for her but the one he got, the priciest of course and fresh food from Hagrid. He would barf her most of the time. (Barf is feeding your dog like raw meat, fresh fruits, vegetables and stuff.)

He would walk her every time you didn't have time or were still in class. Often he would let her chase Draco in his ferret form only to laugh at him when he hid on a tree or something different that Azula couldn't reach.

Oh and the pics you would collect of them both were so precious. Them playing together, sleeping together on the couch or when she was allowed in your dorm on your bed.

She also played a lot with the cats in Hogwarts as she grew up with them but she hates Mrs. Norris and always chased her through the castle, making Filch argue with you.

So now here he sat, with the love of his life and you. Joke joke joke. But no for real. He would love her to death and that's when it hit him.

"Y/n? I think I want a baby with you."

I just haaaaad to write this, hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you think. 🫶🏻

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xoxo sarah <3

[erinoma9]

Problems with "The Search" Comic

Retconning Ursa's backstory

Some old lore about Ursa, before the comic came out.

Admittedly, this page conflates "royalty" with "nobility," which extends to Mai and Onji's page.

Contrast these excerpts to the Search. (SPOILERS AHEAD! And Long!)

"Born to Fire Nation royalty [nobility] and - raised as such."

Search! Ursa: Her family went into hiding after Roku's death. She grew up as a commoner in Hira'a - a small, remote 'backwater village' located on the far edge of the Fire Nation. Her father, Jinzuk worked as the town's magistrate, and her mother, Rina was a master herbalist. Her mother is the daughter of Avatar Roku and has his headpiece in her possession.

"She was the perfect match for Prince Ozai and soon became his wife"

Search! Ursa: Azulon and Ozai track down Avatar Roku's (supposedly remaining) descendants and possibly monitor them for months. They (forcibly) propose a union between Ursa and Ozai for eugenics purposes.

In a nutshell, her relation to Avatar Roku is enough to qualify her as the perfect match.

"There was a time when it probably wasn't such a bad marriage. I think they probably started okay. Certainly better than it ended up."

Search! Ursa: She didn't want to marry Ozai, she wanted to marry her one true love, Ikem but she didn't get much of a say. And come the wedding, Ozai drops a massive bombshell on her.

In short, it starts out as a bad marriage, to put it mildly.

Someone on TV tropes (Fridge Horror section. Be Warned!) posited that "started out okay" can mean anything. And that "okay" doesn't mean happy or willing.

To that I say, it's a massive stretch to claim this scene is equivalent to "started out okay." Okay is not another word for utterly miserable! Words similar to okay can range from alright, pleasant, acceptable or tolerable. So, "started out okay" and the conveniently ignored "better than it ended up" doesn't apply to the Search.

"She is a very sweet woman and a wonderful mother, but she is also very protective -- especially of her favorite child Zuko" ... "Ursa spent most of her time raising her children to be good Fire Nation citizens and the ideal royal family."

Search! Ursa: The comics intentionally or unintentionally avoid portraying Ursa as an imperialist but don't contradict that she taught Zuko and Azula Fire Nation Propaganda offscreen.

She didn't seem to care about being the "ideal royal" herself, privately at least.

For instance, she writes that infamous letter falsely citing Ikem as Zuko's father to spite Ozai among other reasons. Most damningly, she sees her life in the palace as "a life that [she] did not choose for herself," leading to the infamous memory wipe. Both examples have attracted critics, hence the "infamous" connotation, and arguably butcher her 'protective mother' characterisation.

Zuko Alone Ursa: Zuko. That's what moms are like. If you mess with their babies, humph, they're gonna bite you back! [Later on] Ursa: Zuko, please, my love, listen to me. Everything I've done, I've done to protect you. Remember this, Zuko. No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are. DoBS pt 2Ozai: My father, Fire Lord Azulon, had commanded me to do the unthinkable to you, my own son, and I was going to do it. Your mother found out and swore she would protect you at any cost. She knew I wanted the throne and she proposed a plan, a plan in which I would become Fire Lord and your life would be spared. [Later] Your mother did vicious, treasonous things that night. She knew the consequences and accepted them. For her treason, she was banished. "She (Ursa) kind of saved Zuko's life by doing something not very nice to Fire Lord Azulon" ~ Mike "Ursa mysteriously disappeared on the same night as Fire Lord Azulon's death. Some say that she was somehow involved in Fire Lord Azulon's death -- and that she did it to protect Zuko. But the truth is not known."

Search! Ursa: Despite these quotes stressing her role in Azulon's death and clearly implying that she murdered him, that role is given to Ozai. Instead, Search! Ursa merely makes the plan and a deadly poison, all because the writers didn't want her hands dirty.

Is it just me or is this scene so rushed? What happened to the "swore she would protect you at any cost" line?

Why does she assume she'll get to take her children, even though they are his heirs?

And then there's Ozai's response: he calls them, his collateral and has no problem referring to them as your children. He even threatens their lives, along with Ursa's, if she doesn’t keep her word.

Aside from how stupid it is for him to say that, it begs the question of why he didn't kill Ursa afterwards? He just lets her walk free when she's a loose end to him. Plot hole much!

So, Ursa's mum taught her how to make that poison - okay, in the vein of "what kind of mother forgets her children", what kind of mother teaches her daughter how to make an extremely deadly poison? Literally, no one talks about that!

[azulas-daddy-kink]

Just to clarify some things...

"Ew, why do you ship Ozula?!"

I have been asked this question, and many variations of it over and again, and I am getting really tired of explaining myself. Despite that, I'm going to try one last time, so here goes.

First of all, do I think father/daughter incest is okay in real life? No, absolutely not... but Azula and Ozai are fictional characters. Shipping is not morality. Supporting/liking/writing/reading a ship says NOTHING about your personal values. It IS NOT the same as thinking said ship is moral and/or that these dynamics should be accepted in a real-life setting. In fact, I would be the first to say that the Azula/Ozai ship is morally reprehensible for a multitude of reasons: One, Azula is underage. And beyond that, it's abuse, it's non-consensual, it's grooming, and it's just plain toxic and unhealthy. Furthermore, there is a pretty disgusting age-gap as well as a power imbalance. All of these things are true.

"Okay then why do you ship it despite knowing all of this?!"

I do feel like a lot of people are confused about the purpose of shipping. It means something different for everyone, and it can also vary depending on what ship we're talking about. For example, I ship Kataang because I think it's cute, the characters compliment each other well, and I like the idea of them getting married, having children together, and living happily ever after. I ship Sokkla because it's hot, and because I like exploring the idea of Azula actually being in a functional relationship and being happy.

Ozula though? I ship that for entirely different reasons. There are many but for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to list the top 5:

It makes too much sense to ignore.

I love dissecting Azula and Ozai as characters, and what would drive them to commit incest.

It's infinitely more interesting than the popular pairings. While ONLY liking healthy and functional relationships is your prerogative, it ain't mine. A fandom experience made entirely of sunshine and rainbows is boring to me.

The potential for hot, kinky, sweaty incest sex. (Not sorry).

The tragedy of it all. Azula is and was always meant to be a tragic character. While a lot of her fans would like to see her get a redemption arc, I can't say I'm one of them. Not because she doesn't "deserve" it or whatever else her haters claim but because I think it works better for the narrative and her individual arc if she remains a villain and a tragic figure.

In conclusion, no one is out here shipping Ozula because they think it's "true luuuurve uwu", like that's just silly. Use your brain.

[drpoisonoaky]

Thanks for the tag @waterfire1848 !!

How many works do you have on AO3?

57 (mostly atla, but also dc and arcane)

What's your total AO3 word count?

365,604

Top 5 Stories by Kudos/likes

1. The Dragon Emperor (ATLA)

Azula is on the run from the Fire Nation after her escape from the mental institution, and what better place to take refuge than a place you once conquered?

or

A journey in which Azula learns what healthy relationships are, that being a prodigy is useful to make money and that there are so many things she has to learn to manage from her past.

2. What’s your favorite color? (Arcane)

“She told me it might be good for us to… you know, get to know each other better. Beyond just beating each other up and getting drunk together.”

“But that works for us! I’ve never felt closer to you than when you hold my braids while I’m puking or when I kick your ass in a fight.”

or

Knowing the favorite color of someone you care about is a good thing, but knowing why they chose that color isn’t always necessary.

3. But she is…soft and shy (ATLA) (i think cuz it’s the first short story but who knows)

"It's just that she has this whole femme fatale aura about her. So I can't imagine her cuddling or saying I love you".

“Azula is quite shy when it comes to relationships.”

“Azula shy? Is she teaching you to lie?”

or

A little Azutara one-shot about my own personal headcanon of Azula being all weird and shy when she and Katara started dating.

4. Can fire heal? Now it does (ATLA)

"Gran Gran always said a kiss on a wound helps to heal".

or

Azula develops new firebending sub-skill for Katara's sake, and Katara wonders why no one has bothered her for almost a week.

Basically Azula saying: “Katara isn’t taking care of herself? Not on my watch”

5. Found Family (Arcane)

Then the child signed, “My name is Isha.” Lux smiled back. “That’s a beautiful name.”

or

Sometimes you just have to write a fic with a mute girl, a tall blonde, and a crazy girl all being cute and happy.

Tags:

I’m bad at tagging so whoever wants to do it I dare you >:)

[calliopieces]

headcanon: Kiyi and Tom-Tom help Maiko get back together after Smoke and Shadow

(this post doubles as sort of a director's commentary on my latest fic that literally no one asked for, but I thought it would be fun to do! LOL)

So we all know that Mai and Zuko broke up in the comics... but their last panel together in Smoke and Shadow Part 3 is them holding their younger siblings, which we can argue leaves things on a pretty hopeful note

(and if we REALLY want to push the Maiko agenda, dare I say it's a foreshadowing of some sorts?)

Additionally, at Emerald City Comic Con 2017 (timestamp 17:52), Gene Luen Yang implied that the breakup is only temporary.

Anyway, shipping aside, I love this part in Smoke and Shadow where Zuko worries about Tom-Tom losing his innocence after getting kidnapped by the 'Kemurikage'. We also find out that him and Mai babysat Tom-Tom on one of their picnic dates.

Going off of this, I have a headcanon that the abducted kids would occasionally gather at the palace after the Kemurikage incident to essentially have group therapy sessions (an initiative by the Fire Lord, because he's worried that the kids might be traumatized). This is how Tom-Tom and Kiyi became friends.

One day, they heard that Mai and Zuko are 'boyfriend-girlfriend'. Here's how it went down on my fic:

“You know, I heard from Dad who heard from other guards who heard from the kitchen ladies that the Fire Lord and Tom-Tom’s sis are boyfriend-girlfriend.”  Hearing Guri, Constable Sung’s son, join in on the conversation made Tom-Tom hyper-aware that he probably shouldn’t say anything bad about Zuko, especially now after knowing that he’s the Fire Lord.

Between the events of the ATLA finale and The Promise Part 2 (which is where Mai breaks up with Zuko in the throne room), I think it's safe to say that Mai would be at the palace for a considerable amount of time. I think it would be funny if the news of their breakup didn't reach ALL of the palace employees---so Kiyi and Tom-Tom took it upon themselves to have their siblings spend more time together.

Another thing I had so much fun writing is this interaction between Mai and Kiyi:

“We already met before. That night in the graveyard,” Mai stated matter-of-factly, causing Kiyi to whip her head up with stuffed cheeks, noodle broth dribbling down her chin. She felt her previously strained smile give way to something more genuine, imagining her younger self.     Instead of scolding her for poor table manners like what her own mother would have done, Mai took out a handkerchief. And, driven by instinct, she wiped the girl’s face—the movements gentle and unhurried.  

Meanwhile, here's my favorite exchange between Zuko and Tom-Tom:

“Do you like my sister, Mister Fire Lord?”  The question took him by great surprise, the fact that Tom-Tom still refused to drop his title never even registered. But despite the unprompted nature of the question, it was one that he could give an answer to at any time of day—and at any stage of his life. “I like your sister very much,” he declared, staring straight into Tom-Tom’s eyes. It was a truth that he has stood by since he was twelve, deeply rooted in the fiber of his being. It was an innate warmth that he believed he would carry forever—one that beats in tandem with his inner fire.  

Near the end of the fic, Mai and Zuko also have a conversation about Azula, and how their messed-up nation didn't give her a normal childhood, while Kiyi and Tom-Tom happily chase glow moths in the background:

“Do you ever look at Kiyi and wonder whether Azula would have been as happy if this country wasn't so messed up?” Mai asked, her gaze curious.  “Every day,” he replied, and generations of siblings being pitted against each other flashed through his mind. “That's why I'm doing my best to give her a normal childhood—with a country that hopefully isn't as messed up.”  “I’m glad that kids today can at least have that much.” She looked at Kiyi and Tom-Tom who were laughing as they continued to chase glow moths, then turned to Zuko with a smirk. “Era of love and peace and all.”

If you've read my rambling all the way to the end, thank you! Here's the link to the fic if you wanna read (please give it some love)

[umbrum77]

Been thinking of a scenario for a while and I wanted to present it to you.

Scenario: Azula, Katara, Ty Lee, and Yue (who survived) all fall in love with Suki after the war.

Only way I can see this ending is either in blood or a poly relationship/Suki harem.

How do you think it would go? What would five of them say or do? How would the rest of the Gaang +Mai or anyone else react?

first off i love the idea of gang + mai as it implies when the gang goes to save the world mai just shrugs and goes back to like reading a book, i think the gaang would be surprised. mai would be happy she only has to go to one wedding. suki: i got what the ladies like, swords. i would write this where they all end up joining the kyoshi warriors after the war. Yue tries but she really cant keep up with the training but stays on the island. tylee is just gay for suki. katara has to figure out if she is into girls at all and azula has to learn what liking someone actually like...is.

naturally they turn to tylee who helps them figure out there hearts. suki overhears this and finds it interesting. but panics when katara is the first one who says her feelings are about suki. azula is confused as she likes suki and what the rules are for that and tylee has to take a deep breath to explain. suki panics a bit a runs to find yue who has basically taken over running day to day operations of the kyoshi warriors, getting supplies, planning diplomatic missions, paper work and such. suki tells yue the news and yue laughs and tell suki thats why she came here. suki just sits on the floor and yue sits next to her. "you make quite the impression" yue starts. "you are a good person and it makes sense so many people see that." suki rubbed her eyes, "just what the heck do I do now?" yue smiled "what do you want to do?"

suki turned to yue, "i want to hug you for being so nice to me." yue smiled and opened her arms and suki leaned into her. they stayed like that for a moment and suki just breathed. suki pulls away and looks and yue with a smile "well i think i will keep you at least." yue laughed "gee thanks."

they both laughed,

"well i guess, " suki stood up and offered a hand to yue. "if this, what ever this is, works out you would get some girlfriends too?" "the world is much more interesting outside the north pole." suki laughed. " im going to tell them i over heard there talk, oh gosh there is a group of people gushing about me, thats so weird, want to join me?" "sure, oh and I have an idea." _ azula raised her hand, "wait so question so like do we get a really big bed?" katara, "yeah what if one of you snore?" tylee took a deep breath, these two very sheltered woman had alot of questions. "ok lets, lets start over." suki and yue walked into to the sitting area. the three girls turned and suki saw each of them brighten up. she turned to yue who nodded. the kyoshi warrior smirked and walked over to azula, "i over heard what you 3 where talking about" she then grabs azula and kisses her, pressing hard, she feels the princess freeze and then go slack. after a moment she pulls away and azula wobbles before falling down. "sun set is in a few hours and there is a nice spot to watch it on the mountain if you all want to join me." suki then walks out of the room, yue giving the other three girls a smile before following suki. katara and tylee look at each other and at the dazed azula. before jumping up to follow. azula finnaly comes to witha big smile on her face as they leave the room. she jumps to her feet. "wait for me!"

[piperslovebot]

Tag game

(Stolen from @the-badger-mole lmao. This looked fun, so I thought I'd do this too.)

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

Bamon. I still love them, but I’m not invested in tvd anymore and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get back into it.

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

Mickey/Minnie

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

Bamon. I ended up making a redo, since I wasn’t happy about how my first attempt turned out. It’s on FFNET.

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

No

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

Yes. I wish I didn’t, but I have.

6. Did you used to have a NOTP or have it currently?

Nikki/Nate as a couple. They aren’t weren’t my fave in S1, but even after S2, I still don’t ship them. I love their friends with benefits arc, but that’s the only way I ship them. I’ve talked a few times on why I don’t want them to be a couple again (check my #anti niknate tag) so I’m not gonna repeat myself haha.

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

It was moreso a family fic, but Red/Kitty and Jay/Leia were the pairings.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

Too many to count: Jay/Leia, Gwen/Nikki, Eric/Donna, Jackie/Hyde, Eric/Jackie, Eric/Buddy, etc.

9. Is there any couple, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Bonnie/Damon & literally every Bonnie ship I have, but if they had been canon, I know for sure Plec would’ve fucked it up like she fucked up every good thing in tvd lmao.

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

Nikki/Nate, and Jackie/Kelso (not as much tho rn b/c I’m not fixated on them). Neither are endgame material imo tho in canon.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now would be canceled over?

Maybe Zig/Maya?? Idk.

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

Gwen/Nikki and Toph/Azula always. I'm not even fixated on ATLA anymore, but the latter will forever be a fave.

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

Honestly I've been writing more fic than reading it 😭😭😭

But out of all the ships, I feel like I read Gwikki fic the most.

14. What do most of your ships usually have in common?

Enemies to lovers. It’s just my thing.

15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

OH MY GOD I HATE ships with Person A going after Person B without taking no for an answer. Person B's agency isn’t being taken into consideration and it’s like they’re a prize for Person A.

Granted there are ships with that trope I do like, but it’s moreso b/c of the other good stuff in the ship and it outweighs the bad.

Like Kl*roline, there’s literally nothing about that ship I can say that I like except for the fact that the actors are pretty and I liked the paper scene (and even then, Caroline was shamelessly giggling with Klaus while her boyfriend was watching. Her boyfriend who Klaus killed, forced to become a hybrid, and made him into his slave).

Tagging: @randomwriter23 @disneymbti @berryzxx @astraeasilvers @blairwaldcrf @theonewithallthefixations and anyone else who wants to join

[ssreeder]

Hi, genuine question for Ur well being

Since this Is the last part/book of the Fanfiction i wanted to ask if u would be 'retelling' the whole series like if u would have to rewrite the whole season (cuz that would be SO MUCH WORK ITS CRAZY😭) or if u will like stop at some point of thr 'og timeline' bcuz from there on its almost thr same as the original (ex: aang's final battlr w ozai or the last agni kai of Zuko n Azula)

If u had to rewrite the og-show w a new timeline' how will the povs work? Like will u write aang's pov in the final Battle against ozai (cuz if u do ESP the part where he Is in the A.S the Kyoshi novels DID a pretty good job explaining It when Kyoshi entrrs It)

This Is Just for pure boredom 😭 cuz im so curious abt how u will write EVERYTHING (cuz its a LOT. Especially rewritin S3 tbfh)

LIKE thats ACTUALLY a LOT of work and i dont know if u have the sanity for that 😭😭 (NOT IN A NEGATIVE WAY IM JUST ADMIRINF UR MOTIVATION🙏🙏)

antways i LOVED the new chapter SM It was SUCH A chill n cozy One that now im so scared abt the next cuz Ur... EVIL(/j)

I also expected the cliffhanger to be DEVASTATING SND CRY ONCE AGAIN 4 THIS FIC but It wasnt ACTUALLY so bad but NOW U MADE ME CURIOUSSSSS

(will We get to see the Fire NATION Boys flashbacks back when they we're on the ship e zuko? Im still waiting to find out if IROH know abt jee.)

Now im even more frightened abt the next haha

Ok im done lol, love Ur work and KEEP UP (Sorry u had to read alltat:P)

Olllooooo!

ok anon so I’m not sure if you’re asking me if I plan to rewrite season 3 and the shows canon ending? But if you are, let me reassure you that I am absolutely not going to do that haha. LIAB won’t even end the same way the show ended so it wouldn’t even be possible for me to do that anyway

I love that you assume they’re gunna win the battle in BSS and go on to fight ozai -

what if they lose? Maybe the city falls and they have to leave it all behind and hide from the FN? Regroup, care for the injured, mourn the dead…

Speaking of dead. Fuck if what if Aang dies? Can’t fight ozai if he’s dead.

Azula loves to throw lighting & hates to lose so anything’s possible when you believe in yourself that much.

or maybe everything will be fine?! They will all be ALRIGHT because it’s liab and nothing bad ever happens in LIAB :D :D

sorry anon I won’t say what happens but I can promise you one thing FOR SURE - I will not be rewriting canon season 3 haha.

YAYAYAYAYAYYAYAAAA I’m super happy you enjoyed the last chapter haha the plot is beginning to move and we are headed towards the battle!!

as for flashbacks, the iroh zuko talk is an iroh pov and he’s super focused on the convo so unfortunately there won’t be much “flash-backing” but the ship will be mentioned so you never know haha.

thanks for the ask anon!!!

[the-genius-az]

You're welcome!

It can have lots of drama before the little pack has their happy ending. I think part of Azula's redemption + healing arc would involve her eventually understanding that they didn't think they had an option + didn't know it could hurt so much. (Original!Azula herself only realized what was happening in the night before she passed away). With the bond still there, Azula tends to be protective, and a little more forgiving once she sees Ty Lee and Mai do love and need her.

I already am thinking about a "Izumi is Maizula's baby" tbh, now that the A/B/O obsession has infiltrated the Azula-centric part of my brain.

Ty Lee needs more fics where she's not the silly, stupid little girl. In the KS AU, I'm making Azula much worse than in canon to make it work with the plot, considering how canon!Azula is a jerk but definitely not a psychopath or anything of the sort. I really don't like the way fandom demonizes her, for a few reasons, and it also makes me feel weird for writing AUs where she is, indeed, a monster.

Yes. Here's the thing, I like the parallel of Oh Sangwoo, a straight man, being SA'd by his mother & Azula, a lesbian woman, being SA'd by her mother (+ I think Oh Sangwoo hallucinates her at some point? So that's a good parallel). Like, something that works into this specific character hating women so much they abuse and kill them in horrific ways.

(I don't like it either, which sounds almost like a hypocrite with the way I have multiple OCs that have SA in their backstory and I do write fucked up content. And because I also have read a lot of fics that have it in them – thankfully they do tend to work it so, so well. Like, not as a torture porn kind of thing, but another layer of her character. Azula x Ozai CSA seems to be almost a must for Maizula fics, and I eat it up every time.)

When I say "everything possible", I do mean it. It's a dragon AU and when Azulon asks for Azula's life instead of Zuko's (because she's Ozai's favorite), Ursa kills Azulon + takes Azula out of the palace (and Azula's hatred comes from how they abandon Zuko in the palace). Like, Ursa up until that point gave Zuko lots of attention, but there's a silent agreement between mother and daughter that goes like "this boy is ours" because they're dragons and all of that. I can talk for days about this AU too.

- Ash 🔥🍌

Thank you for this, Ash!

Original! Azula herself only realized what was happening in the night before she passed away.

I wonder how sad Azula was at that moment, she must have been screwed.

I already am thinking about a "Izumi is Maizula's baby" tbh, now that the A/B/O obsession has infiltrated the Azula-centric part of my brain.

I have an idea about a baby Maizula, maybe I'll post it later!

Ty Lee needs more fics where she's not the silly, stupid little girl.

I needed to bookmark this...

I really don't like the way fandom demonizes her, for a few reasons, and it also makes me feel weird for writing AUs where she is, indeed, a monster.

I know, sometimes the Aus completely change the characters, that makes them interesting or worse.

I like the parallel of Oh Sangwoo, a straight man, being SA'd by his mother & Azula, a lesbian woman, being SA'd by her mother (+ I think Oh Sangwoo hallucinates her at some point? So that's a good parallel).

I see the potential! I still don't like the SA though, but it's because of the plot.

(Honestly, I'm glad that we agree that it is Ursa who commits the act, sometimes everyone ignores that she is not a saint)

I don't like it either, which sounds almost like a hypocrite with the way I have multiple OCs that have SA in their backstory and I do write fucked up content.

Oh, I actually hate that kind of stuff, any fics, novels, manga and more, I'll leave it quick and fly away! I can't stand him, that's why I don't like Bl very much, he always has those things and the fans normalize him.

Seems to be almost a must for Maizula fics.

They are the only Fics that keep me on a leash, there is little content and I am hungry for Maizula.

It's a dragon AU and when Azulon asks for Azula's life instead of Zuko's (because she's Ozai's favorite), Ursa kills Azulon + takes Azula out of the palace (and Azula's hatred comes from how they abandon Zuko in the palace).

You are a bomb from Au's Azula!

(Sometimes my mind spins because of so much information in English, please have mercy next time).

Azula is a VERY loyal girl, it makes sense that she would be a little confused and angry about abandoning one of her own.

Actually, I think I talked something about Azula/Dragon, and her possessions that are people.

Like, Ursa up until that point gave Zuko lots of attention.

What did Ursa change to leave everything for Azula? I'm not saying she doesn't love her, I just don't think she would leave Zuko for Azula.

[elitesheepi]

Thoughts on Mai (and why she's actually pretty interesting)

I actually really like Mai. Sure her first introduction is her basically giving zero-shit about what happens to her brother, but honestly that kinda added to her character for me. She was like a toned down Azula. While Ty Lee had to be...."encouraged" to join Team Azula, Mai was all for it just to escape the boredom. She wasn't as passionate about hunting the Avatar cause this was Azula's thing, but she also didn't shy away from doing a good job. (as long as it wasn't gross, aka the drill.)

Her design combined with her attitude makes her a really interesting character to me: someone who represented the crueler aspects of the Fire Nation in a casual form--a colonist who against it solely because it's boring--while also being Azula's strongest confidant. I think she was an even stronger confidant for her due to the fact that she never really seemed to be afraid of Azula like how Ty Lee and damn near everyone else was. Even when they were kids, she didn't hesitate to yell at her about their prank on her and Zuko.

And speaking of Zuko, I actually didn't mind her relationship with him...until it got a certain point.

Again, I wanna clarify something: I don't hate Mai. I don't even really hate hate Mai.ko. I think them getting together intially in Book 3 is a good thing as it sets the tone for Zuko's mind frame at this point: he's got everything he ever wanted, his father's "respect," he's home, the fire nation loves him, he's a prince, and he's got the girl, but he's still not happy. He's changed and he hasn't really come to grips with it as much as he thinks he has. Mai doesn't really acknowledge that, nor does she seem to want to. And that's really good, from a story writing perspective.

Mai despite it all, likes her life. She likes to indulge in ordering around servents and the opulent life being Fire Nation high nobility grants her. She got what she wanted--Zuko--and the avatar's dead so no more running around the world looking for him, so all that's left is to enjoy the high life.

'Cept, Zuko isn't going along with it. He's still troubled--wrecked with guilt and shame over betraying Iroh and the fact that Aang ain't dead and will come back--he can't indulge in same life she can. He does at first, but the moment reality starts to set back in well he starts rejecting it and subconciously rejecting her.

There's also an argument that he can't enjoy this because he doesn't find enjoyment ordering servants around like she does and only really did it because it was expected of him. When she sees he's troubled about being in the war meeting, first she downplays it then she genuinely tries to reach out and make him feel better, but does it by suggesting ordering around the servants some more and taking a ride in the palenquin. That isn't him. And she sees that, yet she can't come to the conclusion that it isn't him.

Mai doesn't really know Zuko--the real Zuko. The post-Ba Sing Se Zuko, not the perfect Prince Zuko.

This is basically my long winded way to say: they don't work as a couple, and that's perfect. From a story-writers perspective.

In the universe of Avatar however, yeah, it's obvious that they're doomed to fail because of how clearly different they've become and "opposites attract" can only take you so far. It's not even an opposites attract type of situation either, it's squarely a "I've changed as a person and you haven't." They've outgrown each other and they're no longer the same as when they were kids.

The fandom doesn't really get to know much about Mai's childhood in comparison to Zuko's. We already know Zuko's was fucked, but we don't get as much of an insight into Mai until "The Beach." She implies that her family is emotionally abusive and urged her to repress her emotions due to her father needing to keep a good image. We also see her mother being pretty kind towards her. Mai's pretty open about how much she hates Omashu with her mother encouraging her to keep an open mind since they're basically royalty amongst the people they're colonizing. You can read that as her mother being dismissive of her feelings, that's a fair reading too. (she also offered her dad some fire flakes, so maybe they get along now to her extent.)

It's hard to talk more about her childhood because Mai herself doesn't really open up on it beyond saying it was decent.

Again, we don't know for sure, because she doesn't open up at all. That's her character flaw and the biggest flaw in her relationship with Zuko. They're both two repressed people with one struggling to open up further and the other not wanting to try at all. Zuko is always reach, reach, reaching out for someone, while Mai just doesn't and is seemingly okay with that. That's not to say she won't speak her mind, but she's very controlled and blunt about it.

There's a scene that sticks with me that kinda encompases everything wrong with their relationship

Mai: Aren't you cold? Zuko: I've got a'lot on my mind. It's been so long. Over three years since I was home. I wonder what's changed. I wonder how I've changed. Mai: I just asked if you were cold. I didn't ask for your whole life story.

It's kinda dark comedy. But, like I said, shows exactly where they are mentally. Mai is happy keeping things simple, she doesn't have the energy or even maybe emotional empathy to deal with Zuko's long-standing problems that slowly got clearer the longer he was home. As long as she's not bored or inconvenienced, she's content.

And that's good. From from a story-teller's perspective. But not as his in universe girlfriend.

I don't necessarily dislike the way Mai is written in Book 3 for the most part and I like how the mai.ko relationship is written as not being that particularly great due to the various reasons listed above. And, despite Mai's apathy, I do think she really loved Zuko. She wouldn't be as hurt by his letter if she hadn't. How she reacts is not the behavior of someone who didn't care about their relationship. She's hurt by his letter and disappearance. She loved him and was hurt by the fact that, in her eyes, he didn't love her enough to even give her the courtesy of an in-person break up. (Ironically enough, the letter basically absolved her of his traitorous actions so, blessing in disguise.)

There's also this iconic scene.

So, Mai still loves Zuko. She sacrificed her security with Azula for him. She basically committed treason against the crown for Zuko. And yet....I don't think that's a strong enough reason for Mai.ko to have stayed together nor do I feel like this scene is particularly earned.

This leads to my biggest problem with Mai and her characterization going from Boiling Rock onwards.

Look, I won't deny that she did a massive act of service for him. But she did it, for him. Mai didn't do it because she saw his point of view, or even had a change of heart towards the Fire Nation. That's the biggest obstacle to their relationship, Zuko had changed and no longer saw the Fire Nation and their nobility as good. He saw the damage they've done and who they've hurt--who he's hurt--and wants to change that. All of it needs to change and Zuko wants to help the Avatar achieve that. Betraying his father, the FN was the cost and Mai sadly was the collateral damage that he seemingly didn't think much about until the Boiling Rock.

Mai never got that realization, or any character development really. Her feelings for Zuko were personal and revolved solely around him and her. If they were to begin dating again post-canon, this would be a massive hurdle in their relationship: Zuko's a passionate character who rejects the systemic oppression, colonization and overall Fire Nation crimes against the people of the world.

While Mai is fairly passive and more-so only cares about her own happiness and what keeps her content. It doesn't help either that the writers don't really give us greater insight on her feelings towards Zuko's change beyond "you left me and betrayed out country. But more importantly, you left me."

She's just added to the group cause she's Zuko's girlfriend and that's it.

This feels like an act of disservice toward Mai's character and she's not the only victim of writers misogyny. Mai, to a certain extent Katara and Suki, become written to revolve around the men/love interest int their lives.

Book 2 Mai was an intelligent, somewhat gloomy and apathetic girl who put up with Azula and Ty Lee shenanigans while also being pretty intuned with their personalities. She had mild excitement to get in a fight, but didn't go above and beyond. Her crush on Zuko is obvious, but doesn't swallow her.

Come Book 3, and she's designated to be just his girlfriend and a narrative device to show how unhappy he is. In the process, Mai gets denied a mini-arc and instead gets shoved in towards the end of the series with little care

Apparently the comics don't do her any justice either, but apparently no one comes out unscathed in it so eh. Not holding that against her.

Because the writers cut whatever story and character could've had short, the fandom fills in the blanks in typically fandom fashion which is basically "make her a mean goth bitch. And then flanderize the hell out of her." And yeah, she's mean, she's technically a bitch for siding with Azula up until the last moment, but so did Ty Lee, so that argument can easily be used against Ty Lee as well. But that's not all Mai is, and in the comings and goings of fandom, this all gets lost. She shouldn't be designated to being the cruel mean girl used only when a fanfic needs a villain, usually of the homophobic variety for the gay ships.

Mai is a decent character made victim of writing decisions and an unaccomplished story. Maybe with an extra season or something we could've gotten more into Mai, but as it stands now she's a very controversial character with a large fandom and hatedom.

I've always liked her, but I never truly liked the writing decisions taken for her, so my feelings lean more towards pity for what could've been.

Mai deserves to flourish as a character. Maybe one day someone can give her Justice and make gold from the nuggets we've been given.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

ANYWAY on less upsetting subjects. the fact azula can both genuinely care for her brother and also be happy with wanting him dead fucks me up. like it seems contradictory and i've seen people say the latter erases the former but like genuinely i don’t think it does? she's just got an absolutely twisted definition of caring for others, which is also shown with her friends. she’s been raised to see love as being useful, and to see others as pawns. to her, the greatest act of caring is to trust someone in completing the missions ordered, and that if you’re not useful it’s something that should be fixed by physical and emotional violence. the fucked up but really interesting thing is that while ozai is abusive out of indifference, azula is most abusive to people she genuinely cares for on some fucked up level, because her admiration towards her abusive father lead to her internalising that that was what love was. and if someone you love can’t be useful to you, then it’s best to get rid of them. she both wants zuko dead and also like, clearly adored him at one point before she was moulded into what she is now more throughly. like she was always trying to hang out with zuko when she was little, not in healthy or good ways but she was very close to him in a very unhealthy and often bullying manner. and considering she’s apparently threatened her current friends with electrocution (which, y’know, fucking kills people) if they don’t listen to her, yeah, she can absolutely care for people in a fucked up incredibly unhealthy and abusive way and Also be completely willing to fucking kill them. god like her psychology is so interesting to look at as someone who’s actually done like some reading on child development and abuse for writing before like she's what happens when you make sure every single pivotal moment of development in your daughters life since six years old (and let’s be real probably a fair amount before, bc she was already idolising and spending a lot of time with her dad) is like the exact opposite of what it should be for a normal healthy and functioning human being. and like obviously that doesn’t make abusing others or, y’know, war crimes ok but it certainly makes it very fascinating!

[waterfire1848]

🍦😈🤡🛒❌💞💔

Thanks for the ask @gold-fire !!

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

Probably Snow. It’s a fic about the Fire Nation Royal Family having a snow day and being happy. I just thought it would be fun to see them reacting to a snow storm.

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

I actually don’t think so. At least nothing I can remember.

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

Most of the stuff in Cat Princess (Cat!Azula fic) made me laugh just because the concept is absolutely hilarious.

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Azula & Zuko. That’s a tag I always include whenever I’m writing the both of them because I refuse to have them written as enemies. They are good siblings who secretly care, at least a little, for one another and I won’t hear anything to the contrary. Found Family is a pretty big trope I use because that’s basically what ATLA is.

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

Hmmmmm….probably a lot of I’m being honest. What’s coming to mind though is coffee shop trope or anything similar. I’ll write modern AUs (I’m actually in the middle of writing one) but they have to be combined with a trope I like and coffee shops/bakeries/flower store it all seems like of…bland (for lack of a better word).

💞 Who's your comfort character?

Azula, but second place is Katara.

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

I’m gonna say Daughter’s at the Cost of a Love which is a Tokka fic I wrote where Toph dies and Sokka takes Lin and Suyin. I’m sure if I continued it past one chapter I would have sobbed like a baby at some point.

[zuko-always-lies]

Why does nearly every longer Azulaang fic I read bother me?

I don’t mean this post to rip into Aang/Azula, or to people who like it, ship it, and write it. Still, it strike me that I’ve rarely ever liked longer Azulaang fics that I’ve skimmed or read, and I want to summarize what seems to be bothering me about them. And to be clear, most longer Azulaang fics that I have looked at me have rubbed me in the wrong way, so I haven’t looked at all that many. Thus, the sample that I am working off is probably not representative. 

Still, if you love Azulaang, you might not want to read on.

1. It’s a hetro ship.  It’s recently occured to me that all my favorite Azula ships are lesbian ones, so a hetro ship probably just is bothering me wrong.  Still, I tend to be much less bothered by Sokkla fics.

2. Many longer Azulaang fics I’ve read seem to have extremely screwed up power dynamics between Aang and Azula, with Aang having tremendious degrees of legal power over Azula, Azula being placed under his authority, Aang being Azula’s “warden,” even Azula being forced to marry him, etc. I don’t tend to like that.

3. A common theme in these fics seems to be isolation, with Azula often completely or largely isolated somehow from her friends, family, people outside Aang, etc. Often her relationship with Aang is her only substantial relationship.

4. In these fics, Azula often ends up being completely cut off from her native culture and society and attached only to Aang’s culture.

5. Canon Azula was ambitious, in the sense that she wanted to accomplish great things. Often, this fics, Azula comes off as happy devoting herself to fulfilling Aang’s needs, with no ambitions.

6. These fics often seem to engage in the “savior significant other” trope, with Aang “saving” Azula. To say that I don’t like that trope much is to put it midly.

Again, I don’t mean to launch a bitter indictment of this ship; I am just trying to explore why I have often ended up strongly disliking the longer fics I see for it, even when they’re written well. Admitedly too, some of the fics which formed my more negative impression are like a decade old. 

I can also point to at least a couple Azulaang fics that I remember liking, like Blue by WriteBecauseYouCannotBreathe, Ten Sides by TalesOfOnyxBats, and The Avatar and the Fire Princess by Loopy.

[theowritesfiction]

How’s it going? I wanted to inquire about two things with the Azutara Kitchen nightmare au. The firs, is how does Azula approach cooking?

Is it more a meticulous and tedious task that’s she’s be trained to do and to be damned good at, but does not personally enjoy?

Or is Azula’s approach to cooking similar to her approach to fire-bending in canon? Where she is a prodigy that loves cooking so much, that it becomes a part of Azula’s identity. This love for cooking, is raised by Ozai’s praise in a sense. Yet, is not complete dependent on him. (At least that’s how I interpret Azula’s relationship to Fire-bending in canon).

If answering this question hits spoiler territory though, please don’t answer! But also please do. (Paradigm of fiction you love no?)

Second inquiry is about a recipe. I know that you have posted about playing Baldurs Gate III before. In a similar vein, what is your opinion about the Elder Scrolls series of games? And in relation to the Kitchen nightmare fic I found a recipe blogpost by Taste of Tamriel. The “Rumare-Slaughter fish pie” recipe. I saw this and thought of the fic, after all what better way for Azula to get to Katara’s or Yue’s hearts than by their stomachs? Azula has already captivated Katara, Yue, and Suki via aesthetics (and who can blame them?) getting to the water tribe girls by making a delicious fish pie might work. It could also make up for Azula’s… interesting flirtation skills.

Plus there is a certain allure (so to speak) in making a video game lore dish. At least I find it so. Not that I can cook worth a damn myself.

If you are curious, I have provided a link to the recipe below.

-745th voice of the people

Ps: Thanks for writing (another) awesome Azutara story. Your stories, @juniperhillpatient and other Azutara stories helps brighten the day, and lesson the pain from college class and homework. Along with the lessening the pending doom of dealing with real world!

https://www.tumblr.com/tastesoftamriel/176571528529/rumare-slaughterfish-pie-anyone-whos-been

Hey, it's going well, thank you - alternating between work, writing and playing some Baldur's Gate 3 mostly.

I'm obviously always happy to ramble about my writing, so thank you for your questions. :)

Azula's relationship with cooking is an interesting question to think about. Most modern AU's will have Azula being useless in the kitchen because she's very spoiled and privileged, and it makes sense that she has little idea about what goes on in the kitchen. But what if her father was a world famous chef?

The way I imagine this, at first cooking for Azula (and Zuko too) was something they identified as a way to get their father's approval. I don't see cooking as something that Azula just instantly loved and was great at. It's something that she has worked on tenaciously over the years, and in the process, she has learned to love it.

And some might say, wait, cooking just doesn't sound like something Azula would be into. Well, ignoring the obvious parallel with firebending of heat/flame being involved, I think Azula has that kind of personality where once she gets immersed in something, she wants to learn everything there is to learn and become the best ever at it. At the top level, cooking is a very involved skill of great intricacies and many amazing techniques to master. I just think it's a challenge that someone compulsively obsessive like Azula would enjoy.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about Azula's relationship with cooking.

Quick answer about the Elder Scrolls or Bethesda style games in general. I think they're great games, however, I have never been able to really get into the whole genre of open world RPG's. I often feel like narrative gets lost among all this freedom to explore. I prefer more sandbox-y RPG's with tighter narratives, even if exploration tends to get sacrificed in the process.

Anyway, as far as Azula cooking something for the other girls in the Kitchen Nightmares story, that's an excellent suggestion and I'm happy to tell you that I already have some plans for it - if perhaps not exactly Azula making a delicious sounding fish pie for the girls. We are definitely going to see Azula in the kitchen and cooking, perhaps not in the next chapter, but very soon.

I don't think it will occur to Azula to purposefully try to impress Katara, Yue and Suki with her cooking skills, but you should expect that to happen anyway once the other girls see how Azula works and get to enjoy the results of her work.

Anyway, I'm glad that my stories serve as a helpful distraction from the drudgery of everyday life. :) As a reader, I find that stories by our friend @juniperhillpatient really brighten my day and provide a wonderful distraction, so to know that my stories do something similar for my readers is very flattering, thank you!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

https://www.tumblr.com/itshouldhavebeencanon/661890115241656320/siambre-fkef-crienselt-after-years-of?source=share

why do the zutarians continue to insist so persistently that Ehaz wanted to create aBook Four and make zutara a canon, but he was simply not allowed to do so? where did these rumors come from, which of them is true? and is it true that this is an official poster from a Korean studio?

"Why do Zutarians insist on (insert random thing that would somehow "prove" they were screwed over by Bryke) being true" because they are desperate for canon validation, and cannot enjoy their ship just for the sake of enjoying it. They made this stupid ship war their entire personality, so recognizing that it is totally fanon, but a fanon that they like, is not a matter of "ship and let ship" to them, it becomes "accepting defeat and being seeing as the losing side."

As for why they latched onto Ehasz in particular it's simple:

1 - He was the head-writer, meaning he was probably the person with the most influence on Avatar (except for the showrunners and the netwoork execs of course).

2 - He DID want a book four, and had some ideas that he wanted to see explored.

He's an "authority" figure that had been planning extra content and that created plenty of the content we already watched and liked. Having that guy on their side would be HUGE for Zutara.

Too bad he's a Maiko fan, and in fact repeatedly says he's glad Mai got her happy ending with Zuko, and was very moved by the letter of a fan that related to her and was rooting for Maiko. But that's okay, Zutarians "corrected" that by literally writing a fake interview in which he confirmed Zutara was the real planned endgame but evil Bryke made them change it at the last minute - the fact that Ehasz has already said "This interview is total bullshit" many times does not at all stop them from spreading that rumor around and using it as sword and shield.

It's a cope. Plain and simple. They think that if they convince everyone Zutara was supposed to be canon, they can get some of the new material or the Netflix reboot or literally anything to break up Kataang and Maiko and add their ship in it's place.

As for that Korean poster, I have no idea if it's real or not, but even if it wasn't that would just mean that the artist either liked the ship and wanted to push it a bit or it was just a result of the ancient art of "Bait a desperate motherfucker to buy what we're selling." Not exactly the big "win" Zutarians want to pretend it was.

Hell, I ship Zuko with his own sister, something Nickelodeon would obviously NEVER allow to be canon, and if you give me five minutes I could point to everytime the voice actors (ESPECIALLY Grey Delisle), writers and Bryke have mentioned the ship throughout the years, mention all the memes people who don't even like the ship made about how strange the bedroom scene in "The Awakening" was, quote a lot of lines from the novelizations that show there's more than just hate and envy between the fire siblings, and then bring to your attention that Ehasz has repeatedly said he wanted Azula to redeem herself, that Zuko was the person she loved the most (except for Ozai), and that in his mind book four would have Auzla hit her lowest point and find Zuko there to help her get back on her feet.

Yes, all of these things happened. Does that mean Zucest is the "real" canon ship for Zuko instead of Maiko?

No. Because no matter what ideas were thrown around, be it as a joke or seriously, the path canon would follow was VERY CLEAR for a long time. The show was pushing Kataang from the very first episode and Maiko from the very first episode we met her - even the occasional "distractions" like Jet and Jin and were obviously not going to be their endgame.

Does that mean I don't get to enjoy my ship anymore, and can't be happy when it gets mentioned?

Nope. It just means I need to keep in mind that shipping is supposed to be FUN, not a goddamn fandom war, and that something being fanon doesn't make it bad, inferior, or something that is "forbidden" to like - and in fact, I have every right to prefer it to what we got in canon. I just don't get to LIE about what we actually got in canon.

If only Zutarians had chosen THAT mentality instead of "We are totally the real deal and if you point out that this is bullshit we will send you death threats", I wouldn't have made this blog, and would still be just indifferent to the ship instead of hating it.