#Ursa Beach

[quo-usque-tandem]

Ursa Beach, Sintra, Portugal

[worldtalks]

Praia da Ursa é nomeado após as rochas na praia.

'Bear Beach' is named after the rocks on the beach.

[biostatprof]

Praia da Ursa

[stardust948]

Trip to the beach

[zukosdualdao]

the way azula sounds so genuinely, sincerely baffled when she asks why? in response to zuko admitting he’s angry at himself.

azula genuinely cannot conceptualize this because she’s so thoroughly bought into the lies of inherent superiority ozai has instilled in her. she cannot imagine feeling angry at herself or guilty for her own actions because why would she when she knows she’s stronger, smarter, better? whatever she does, it’s because she has a right to it.

her bafflement is so strong that for a moment, she wonders why even zuko would ever feel that way, even though she sees him as someone so much weaker and less than her, so of course he’s subject to all those pesky emotions she would never possibly deign to feel.

(because things like regret and guilt and anger at oneself are an admission of being wrong, of some kind of fault, and azula could never admit to that.)

the way she recovers from that brief bout of sincere confusion and calls him pathetic for it, for feeling those things at all, for caring about what’s right and what’s wrong, and for daring to admit it.

the way the first time we see azula even get at all close to admitting anger at herself, she’s all alone, except for her subconscious appearing to her in the form of her mother in the mirror. the way she reels back from it and breaks the mirror, aiming for her mother but really shattering the image of herself, the part of her that might feel at all guilty or at least understand it was her own actions that led her here, that led mai and ty lee to betray her. and she destroys it and doubles down. because she can’t admit that. ever.

[sokkastyles]

I was reading your Azula metas. I kinda had in my mind that a redemption for her would come from her resolving her issues with her mother. I think because Zuko is similar to his mom (or at least more similar to her than to his dad) it's possible that she could understand her mother better by getting to know him more. I remember some bits on the show like when Azula warned Zuko about him visiting Iroh in prison, because of her tone I sort read that as she really trying to protect him and not just a threat or something. I think there's something there with him being the last connection to her mother. I wonder if she felt betrayed by him once he left the family and joined the gaang, not just because it ruined the plans or anything but because her mother also "left" her. Idk if this makes any sense lol I'm just rambling now. But what do you think?

I love the idea of Azula learning to understand her mother by getting to know her brother more!

I think that most discussions about Azula's relationship with her mom fall flat in two ways. One, people forget that Azula is an unreliable narrator, especially when it comes to her family. It is strange that when we hear Zuko talk about how Ozai will restore his honor, we know that he is unreliable, but people don't question it with Azula, who absolutely worships her father and blames her mother for her father's abuse because of course she can't blame Ozai. It's actually a pretty typical dynamic in homes with a parent like Ozai, for that parent to try to turn the children against the other parent, and since Ozai resents Ursa and treats Azula like his golden child, is it hardly a surprise that Azula also feels resentful of Ursa? Especially when Azula whole-heartedly believes what Ozai wanted her to believe about how she was better than her brother and deserved to be treated better. Ursa treating Zuko kindly is a threat to that belief, a threat to what Azula's father made her believe was where her sense of self-worth lay.

Two, what Azula says about how their mother "liked Zuko more" is really more about her relationship with Zuko than it is about their mother. Remember the context of that conversation in "the Beach"? It comes right after Zuko's big revelation where he realizes that he's angry at himself for making the wrong choice and choosing to go back to the Fire Nation. When Zuko says he's angry at himself, Azula asks him why, and the voice acting in this bit is interesting, because Azula sounds suddenly curious. Before she was dismissive, although this is also the episode where we get an Azula who does, deep down, long for a human connection. We see glimpses of this curiosity when she asks Ty Lee how she is able to get boys to like her.

Azula's response to Zuko is equally dismissive, because just like in the scene with Ty Lee, Azula can't show vulnerability for long, can't let others know that she wants something from them without masking it in dismissive language, but before that, the camera does something interesting. The shot is a closeup of Zuko, who says he's afraid he doesn't know the difference between right and wrong anymore.

But while Zuko is talking in the foreground, the camera actually pans to shift focus to Azula in the foreground, watching him.

The purpose of this kind of shot is to position Azula as equal to the audience, as we watch Zuko grapple with worrying that he doesn't know the difference between right and wrong.

Which implies that Azula is also thinking about the same thing.

Of course, she calls him pathetic a moment later, but remember that this is Azula masking her feelings of vulnerability. What's really interesting about this situation is that Azula usually seems to have the upper hand against Zuko, and she keeps it here by doing what she always does, and reasserts that she's better than him. He's "pathetic" and his trauma is a "sob story," which of course she doesn't have. But even in his moment of confusion, Zuko actually has more clarity than Azula has, because he's able to question the way they were raised in a way Azula never has been able to do. The positioning of the shot also emphasizes this by showing Zuko as dominating most of the frame while Azula appears small in the background.

And then of course what Azula says about not caring about how her mother thought she was a monster is her being an unreliable narrator again, and we know she's attempting to blow off something that deeply bothers her. But it's not her mother that is the source of this, it's Azula's own confusion. Because Azula also is starting to realize that she's not sure if she knows the difference between right and wrong, and she's not brave enough to admit it the way Zuko is (Zuko who can't help but wear his emotions on his sleeve, which is something Azula is normally able to take advantage of, but here it gives him an advantage over her). But she knows that her mother tried to teach her to do the right thing, and she experiences confusion over the competing demands of trying to please both parents when the parents' demands are not aligned with each other.

Because she couldn't please both parents, Azula made the choice long ago to please the one who was the most powerful, and of course that's Ozai. But that doesn't mean her internal conflict went away. When Zuko stops making that choice, it's a threat to her entire worldview. That's a big reason why she needs him to come with her in Ba Sing Se, why she sees Iroh as a threat, and why she's dismissive of the bond Zuko and Ursa had, and why she goes after Zuko when he joins the gaang, with intentions of killing him.

Which is also why I don't see Azula doing things like encouraging Zuko not to look at things that remind him of Ursa or telling him not to visit Iroh as beneficently as some. I do think it's more complicated than just a threat, and that there's some affection there, but it's also a way for Azula to affirm her own flawed beliefs. If Azula cares for Zuko, it's in a similar way to the way her father cares about her, as someone she can control and use to reinforce her own feelings of superiority.

Azula can't understand why Zuko would cling to the relationship with his mother, or Iroh, when these relationships cause him pain. But these relationships make Zuko strong in a way that Azula isn't, and she knows this, deep down.

There's an interesting moment in "The Search" when Azula can't understand why Zuko would still be fire lord even though he doesn't want it, and why he would try to help people who resent him. Which also has to do with his relationship with his sister, because in this comic he also offers to help her despite Azula trying to sabotage his search for Ursa the entire time, and Zuko tells her that she's still his sister. She tearfully tells him that "even when you're strong, you're weak," before running off.

Which reminds me of this quote from the movie "What Dreams May Come":

He was a coward! Being strong, not giving up, it was just his place to hide. He pushed away the pain so hard, disconnected himself from the person he loved the most… Sometimes, when you win, you lose.

The things that Azula regards as weaknesses in Zuko are actually the things that make him stronger than Azula in the end, and that's also at the heart of Azula and Zuko's differing relationships with their parents. Zuko learns to confront things from his past that are painful in order to make himself stronger, to free himself from Ozai's influence and embrace meaningful relationships that don't revolve around control and fear, whereas Azula is largely in denial about her own trauma. So yeah, I do think that if she could understand Zuko and learn from him, she could potentially repair her relationship with both her brother and her mother. There's a lot of contention about what Ehasz said about Zuko being "Azula's Iroh" in discussion about a possible redemption arc for her, and I myself have said some things against that idea - most notably the idea that Zuko needs to be responsible for "fixing" her when she is a huge part of and contributed to his own trauma - but there is some truth in Zuko being somehow involved in a possible redemption arc for her because Zuko has achieved what she hasn't been able to yet.

[reiraseju]

Chapters: 9/22 Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Tyzula - Fandom, azula - Fandom Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar) Characters: Azula (Avatar), Ty Lee (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar), Mai (Avatar), Ty Lee's Sisters (Avatar), The Gaang (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar), Ursa (Avatar) Additional Tags: tyzula - Freeform, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Lesbian Ty Lee (Avatar), Protective Azula (Avatar), Happy Azula (Avatar), Crazy Azula (Avatar), POV Azula (Avatar), Child Azula (Avatar), Firelord Azula (Avatar), Bisexual Ty Lee (Avatar), Airbender Ty Lee (Avatar), Minor Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Pansexual Ty Lee (Avatar), Tyzula Week 2020 (Avatar), Tyzula Week (Avatar), Fire Nation Royal Family, Fire Nation (Avatar), Yuri, Girls Kissing, girlslove, girlxgirl, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Bad Parent Ozai (Avatar), Mentioned Ursa (Avatar) Summary:

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞 火 𝐓𝐲𝐳𝐮𝐥𝐚 - 𝑃𝑠𝑦𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝐷𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑎, 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝐸𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐 - ❤️🔥

Azula and Ty lee had been best friends since they were kids, but after they graduated from the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, Ty Lee left the Fire Nation capital to join the circus and they stopped seeing each other for years. It wasn't until Azula paid her a visit one day, asking her to join her elite team with the objective of capturing the Avatar. So many years had passed that maybe they had forgotten how deep their connection really was...

A story of love and healing.

+18

[bearbrainrot]

his name is Sludge,,,, he loves going to the beach ✨️✨️

[radicalfemimist]

^^^^^

finally some good writing analysis.

When it comes to Azula, people seem to forget the basic rules of writing analysis— like, for example, the fact that what canon shows is the rule and not the exception. Zuko’s flashbacks had to accomplish a set of things to warrant him having those flashbacks.

1) Interpersonal relationships.

2) Backstory and Lore.

They used these flashbacks to establish the family dynamic. Zuko was close with his mother. That’s one of the first things they set out to establish with the turtleduck scene. With this scene, they establish that closeness— and they also establish Ursa’s protectiveness over Zuko, a sort of Chekhov’s Gun.

With Tiny Azula’s introduction, they establish that Mai had a childhood crush on Zuko, and that Azula and Zuko’s relationship has always been complicated— in the Turtleduck scene, Zuko references how Azula feeds Turtleducks in an amused manner— in this one, he doesn’t want to play with her and Azula is using her puppy eyes to convince their mother to make him so she and Ty Lee can matchmake.

In the flashback where Ursa gets the letter announcing Lu Ten’s death, they’re even playing together willingly and having fun, furthering that it’s never been black and white between them.

On the other hand, Ursa and Azula never have more than a neutral interaction in all of the flashbacks— which, as you said, is deliberate. They intentionally establish this distance between Ursa and her young daughter (who is like 6-7 in those flashbacks) as Ursa consistently scolds Azula but makes no real effort to explain to Azula why it’s wrong to say those things.

Worst of all, is that as these flashbacks are from Zuko’s perspective, it implies everything we see is something he remembers. Meaning that Zuko heard Ursa ask what was wrong with Azula, and he was farther out of earshot than Azula was. I mean that picture clearly shows, Azula was right there. At least wait 30 more seconds for her to be a little less right there, if you’re gonna trash talk your daughter.

I think Ursa did the best she could, and definetely loved Azula (and She also made Zuko play with Azula), she was a little more protective of Zuko but I think it was because Ozai was more of a direct threat to Zuko (not that he wasn't a threat to Azula, just in a less direct "I wish you hadn't been born" way)

I don’t know, I mean, if I left my child with the impression that I hated her, feared her, and thought she was an irredeemable monster only capable of destruction and violence, then I would consider myself a bad parent. Like rip to Ursa but I’m different. 

[benetnvsch]

been rlly sick these past few days but !! Made his ref finally :) my silly guy,,,,,,

this is a more general ref for him versus Kitson's highly specific AU one which,,, whoops,,, good for him...

In The AU that Kitson's ref is from, Koi is the son of the guy Kitson is trying to hunt down (a bit awkward) and Koi himself is a type of vigilante and the two work in a reluctant type of team to try and find his dad

[prying-pandora666]

Azula Respected Mai The Most

I just saw another Reddit comment saying Azula wasn’t friends with Mai and mostly only cared about Ty Lee. And I just gotta say…

I respectfully disagree.

The Boiling Rock proves Mai meant a lot to Azula.

First, Mai publicly commits treason and betrays the Fire Nation and Azula.

What does Azula do? Order the guards away and gives Mai a chance to explain herself. She even says “I never expected this from you” and “you of all people know the consequences”. Put a pin in that for a moment.

Giving a traitor who just publicly and flagrantly betrayed you and your nation to help an even worse traitor to your nation (Zuko, who on a personal level hurt both Mai and Azula by doing so) a chance to explain themselves is already significant. But even moreso is the fact that Azula doesn’t make a single move to harm Mai until Mai purposely and effectively hits Azula’s trauma weak point like the master marksman she is.

When Mai says “I guess you don’t know people as well as you think you do” this is already an insult. She’s putting down Azula’s intelligence and manipulation skills, things Azula clearly takes pride in. And yet despite how insulting that is, Azula still waits for Mai to explain herself. Even as Mai throws that barb at her, Azula wants to hear her out. Until Mai throws the even worse insult right at Azula’s weak point.

“I love Zuko more than I fear you” isn’t a statement of Mai being afraid really. It’s Mai throwing a powerful dig at Azula’s biggest fear and trauma, the one Azula tried to dismiss during The Beach with a joke to avoid showing her own vulnerability: Azula fears that Ursa hated and feared her but loved Zuko. It’s why during the mirror scene, a grief stricken and emotionally volatile Azula bitterly says to the hallucination of Ursa “even you fear me”.

Only then does Azula get triggered enough to lash out in return. Mai was only capable of hurting her so much precisely because Azula loves and trusts Mai so much, and precisely because Mai knew what to say to hurt her.

Even so, Azula does the forms for fire, not lightning. And after she is chi-blocked, Azula orders both Ty Lee and Mai jailed, not executed or banished despite having every right to do so since they just publicly committed treason against the Fire Nation.

See the quick strike? It’s more like when she attacks Iroh in The Chase with blue fire:

Lightning, by comparison, always has a wind up for her. Even when comet-boosted or otherwise.

Remember Azula’s line we put a pin in? Let’s go back to it now. Why does Azula say “I never expected this from you” and “you of all people”. What is the significance here?

We know Azula is a perfectionist. She can’t stand a single hair out of place. This informs her frustration with Zuko and Ty Lee, both whom she adores, but whom are constantly failing to stay in their place and play their role. Zuko messes up, gets himself banished. Ty Lee runs away and joins the circus. What does Azula do? Endeavor to use any means necessary to bring them back into the fold. It sounds crazy, but from her perspective, she’s helping them shape up.

But Mai? She’s different. Mai knows her place. She knows what’s expected of her. She says herself that she learned to be quiet and still so as not to risk her dad’s political career. She hates it and searches for any excuse to leave her stifling expectations at home, but she only does this in an acceptable way: when ordered by the princess to join her on a mission for the Fire Nation.

This is why Azula is especially shocked. Because of all people, Azula thought Mai was the only one of her friends who understood their duty to the nation and wasn’t a colossal fuck up.

Azula may be more affectionate with Ty Lee, but she definitely respected Mai more.

And I think the fandom doesn’t give their fascinating relationship or how it breaks down enough credit.

[biostatprof]

I greatly admired the brown mop of hair reading a book in just this location.

[zuko-always-lies]

Azula is the family member Zuko cares the least about, by far [and no, it's not because she's mean to him and no, this is not a post about Zuko's morality or anything like that]

So the entire premise of Zuko's arc is he spends years and years trying to regain his father's love and appreciation, that he spent three years trying to capture the Avatar so that his father would like him again. We even see in a flashback that exiled Zuko misses his father badly.

And when Zuko decides to completely break off his relationship with his father, he decides that this merits a dramatic confrontation, since his relationship with Ozai is so important to him. Even after that, the second to last scene of the series is Zuko visiting Ozai.

Zuko often takes Iroh and his support for granted, but even in Books 1 and 2 there are plenty of moments which act to reaffirm how much Zuko values and appreciates his uncle. He goes out of his way to protect his uncle on a couple occasions. And in Book 3, after Zuko has screwed up his relationship with Iroh, one of Zuko's core motivations becomes fixing his relationship with his uncle and regaining Iroh's love, trust, and appreciation.

Ursa is someone who Zuko talks about far less, yet the series makes it very clear how much Zuko misses her, with "Zuko Alone" and "The Earth King" and "The Day of Black Sun: The Eclipse." And the second to last scene in the series is Zuko trying to find her.

That leaves Azula. Zuko never seems to miss Azula the least, even though he hasn't seen her for years when the series begins. In fact, when she unexpectedly shows up and greets him, instead of being happy to see her, he's angry and suspicious (to be fair to Zuko, she did turn out to have ulterior motives due to Ozai's orders, but if he really deeply missed her, he'd probably be at least a little happy to see her regardless. Mai and Ty Lee reacted with joy the first time they saw Azula again). And in Books 2 and 3, there is essentially nothing to suggest that Zuko misses the better relationship he had with Azula when they were younger.

For instance, in "The Beach," Zuko angsts over an old photograph of his family.

His eyes focus on Ozai

and he remembers a happy memory associated with Ozai:

and then Zuko's eyes focus on Ursa

and he remembers a happy memory associated with her

Yet Zuko never looks at younger Azula in that picture, nor does he think of her at all. The "Happy Family" that Zuko misses includes Ozai, Ursa, and even Iroh and Lu Ten (shown in a separate memory sequence at little earlier), but not little Azula.

Ultimately, what we see in the first half of Book 3 is that Zuko is willing to take advantage of Azula's kindness, when she shows it to him, but he never acknowledges it, thanks her for it, or reciprocates in the slightest.

In the end, in the DoBS Zuko leaves Azula behind without a regret or even a thought. Ozai gets a big confrontation; Azula gets nothing. And after that, we see that Zuko misses Mai, and still feels complex feelings for Ozai ("Fatherlord," anyone?), but there's nothing to suggest he misses Azula at all or feels a deep attachment to her. The penultimate scene of the show even features Zuko visiting Ozai, not Azula.

Some people might point out that Azula is a bad sister to Zuko. That's definitely true. She says and does plenty of awful things to him over the series.

Yet that doesn't explain things. Ozai is far, far worse to Zuko than Azula ever is, yet Zuko cares deeply about Ozai to the degree that Zuko's entire arc is about it. Merely talking about "look how mean Azula is" explains almost nothing. Is possible to explain why

This does bring me to my main point. The ATLA fandom tends to believe that Zuko cares about Azula a lot and that he places a lot of value in having a good relationship with her, tends to believe that Zuko is obsessed with Azula.

However, the reality is that Zuko by far cares about Azula the least of any member of his family and that he places almost no value on having a good relationship with her. She is never a priority for him and is at most only an obstacle. All of Zuko's other family members loam far higher in Zuko's priorities and headspace than Azula. And if he is obsessed with her, it's not in a loving way. Maybe "Azula the enemy" and "Azula my advisor and emotional caretaker" are significant to him, but "Azula my sister" never seems to be.

Again, this isn't a moral judgement, merely a fact.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Have you noted that no one from Azula's family was shown to express love and affection towards her?

That is mostly true. Ozai's affection is clearly conditional (and full on manipulation at worse, like we see in the finale), Ursa canonically favors Zuko to the point that we never see her spending any alone time with Azula like she did with Zuko, and while Iroh gave her a toy like he did to Zuko the toy in question was so OBVIOUSLY wrong for a kid like Azula that it's comical AND show's he did not really know his niece at all.

But there is a constant exception.

Zuko's relationship with Azula is complicated. He clearly admires her strength and power, but he hates how she uses it. She lied to him many times, was seen apparently cheering Ozai on during the Agni Kai, tried to have him imprisoned and even said she'd celebrate being an only child - and then allows him to come home as a hero after Ba Sing Se, even though SHE had the control of the Dai Li and was not yet aware Aang could have survived, meaning she had nothing to gain from it.

And when she lets him know that if he's caught talking to Iroh people might think he is a traitor too, and explicitly says "Believe it or not, I'm actually looking out for you" Zuko drops his innitial suspicion that she wanted something and that's why she was helping him.

On The Beach, he just follows her when she say their old family home is depressing and they shouldn't waste their time there. When she's asking him who she is angry at, she mentions herself and Zuko explicitly says that is not the case.

He doesn't trust her and know she has a tendency to mock or full on lie to him... yet when he wants to know about Fire Lord Sozin he asks her about it, and lets it slide when she mocks him by saying he should make sure the royal painter got his good side - for a character as quick to anger as Zuko, that is a big deal. In Nightmares and Daydreams he also goes to her to find out if he'll be allowed at the war meeting.

More importantly:

1 - Iroh's infamous "She's crazy and needs to go down" line was only said because ZUKO, without anyone putting that idea in his head before, suddenly went "I know what you're going to say. She's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her"

2 - Zuko only jumped into the fight in Ba Sing Se when Azula was being cornered by Aang and Katara.

3 - Zuko looked genuinely shocked and even distressed when she was falling off that cliff. He just sounded so shaken saying "She's... not gonna make it..."

4 - In the writer's own words, Zuko felt no hate but only pity when seeing her breakdown. Katara tried to comfort him because, canonically, even though Zuko and Azula are enemies, this was never what he wanted because he still sees her as family. That's why the Last Agni Kai's music is not the epic you'd expect from a battle, but a tragic one.

5 - Aaron Ehasz, the lead writter for the show, probably the person with the most influence after Bryke, has REPEATEDLY said that he always felt Azula should have gotten a redemption arc, Zuko being an Iroh figure to give her advice and be the only one still by her side when all else was seemingly lost to her forever.

Even the comics (most of which I HATE, mainly because Azula's storyline checks nearly every box for "the mentally ill are inherently evil/less human, so it's fine if literally every other person on the planet mistreats them") didn't fully abandon their complex dynamic.

Zuko is not a perfect sibling, and for a long chunk of the story he seemed too focused on his own issues for Azula to ever be a factor in his mind (aside from the moments in which she was a potential/explict threat), but he DOES still feel a sense of obligation towards her, to the point that it made him do something no one else in their family had done before or since - actually look at Azula. Not the prodigious daughter/perfect weapon, or the problem child that is difficult to handle, or the pontentially deadly enemy that was in the way, but Azula.

His 14-year-old sister that got on his nerves a lot, was far from the kindest person alive, and that he had a ton of issues with, but that he could never fully hate or even be indifferent to. Because she's family. Because he remembers a happier time in which the gap between them didn't seem so big. Because if things had been slightly different he could have been her. Because he went from wanting to be her to seeing just how miserable her life ended up being - especially compared to the one he now had - and feeling deeply sorry for her.

Now if you guys excuse me, I'm gonna go cry in the corner. Have some wholesome/bittersweet fanart if you wanna cry too.

[umalvie]

as i said while discussing iroh as a character, despite the comics being a mess, i feel confident saying that at the end of atla, zuko not only realizes that azula has been harmed too, but he rightfully blames ozai for that harm (although ozai is not solely responsible for traumatizing azula).

as big of a win as that is for the possibility of the fire hazard siblings healing their relationship (zuko absolutely has to take the first step there in my opinon; azula would not be willing to at this point, and their relationship has been unbalanced in terms of care historically), their relationship is still quite tragic even with this realization.

there is no way that zuko actually understands what ozai did to azula. he doesn't even know what ozai did to azula. yes, he knows that ozai abused azula, but zuko only understands and knows abuse as he endured it.

there's also almost no way that azula is going to tell zuko about it. not only would she not want to discuss something so vulnerable in a serious or honest manner (see the way she discusses ursa in the beach), but she's also just had a serious psychotic break. it's very possible that she's not fit to see zuko at all right now, let alone discuss her trauma with him even if she wanted to.

so zuko is left to fill in the blanks about the how of azula's trauma. given his pattern of relating other people's trauma to his even when it's not actually the same (i.e. how he relates katara's trauma about kya being killed during the fire nation's genocide against her culture to his own trauma about ursa's disappearance after committing high treason), he would come to understand and conceive of how ozai abused azula through his own experience with ozai's abuse. while zuko's abuse was clearly always an implicit threat dangled over azula's head ("you can't treat me like zuko!") and ozai absolutely used some of the same tools against her that he did zuko, zuko was ozai's scapegoat child while azula was his golden child. their abuse did not look the same, it did not function the same, and it did not impact them the same.

it's also unlikely that he has the perspective at this stage in his own healing process to apply any of his (false) perceptions of azula's trauma to how it would have shaped both their childhood and his perspective of azula. he probably doesn't even realize just how deeply his perspective of her is colored by ozai's abuse of them both.

furthermore, since he's accepted his recollection of their childhood (which is not his fault. he is a victim of abuse who did not have the means or opportunity, as a young child, to see beyond ozai's more obvious abuse of him, which he couldn't even admit, to notice ozai's more subtle abuse of azula), he likely can only conceive of azula's childhood trauma in two ways:

as the byproduct of his own trauma, existing not because of azula's own traumatic childhood experiences but because of her witnessing his, such as the agni kai

as the product of his exile, occurring because he was no longer physically there for ozai to abuse and thus had to find a new target in azula

the former seems less probable given his belief that azula enjoyed his pain when they were children, so he would likely think that she was abused not when they were younger but exclusively after his exile began.

this isn't even touching on how zuko's perception of ursa and iroh clouds his ability to see how they both harmed azula too. that muddles things a lot more since zuko struggles with black and white thinking.

i think azula and zuko could heal their relationship with time and mutual effort, but as long as she refuses to confide in her brother and as long as he assumes she should experience and respond to trauma the same way he has, they're doomed to remain static in relation to each other.

[reiraseju]

Chapters: 17/22 Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Tyzula - Fandom, azula - Fandom Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar) Characters: Azula (Avatar), Ty Lee (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar), Mai (Avatar), Ty Lee's Sisters (Avatar), The Gaang (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar), Ursa (Avatar) Additional Tags: tyzula - Freeform, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Lesbian Ty Lee (Avatar), Protective Azula (Avatar), Happy Azula (Avatar), Crazy Azula (Avatar), POV Azula (Avatar), Child Azula (Avatar), Firelord Azula (Avatar), Bisexual Ty Lee (Avatar), Airbender Ty Lee (Avatar), Minor Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Pansexual Ty Lee (Avatar), Tyzula Week 2020 (Avatar), Tyzula Week (Avatar), Fire Nation Royal Family, Fire Nation (Avatar), Yuri, Girls Kissing, girlslove, girlxgirl, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Bad Parent Ozai (Avatar), Mentioned Ursa (Avatar), Sex, Lesbian Sex, Eventual Smut, Healing, Healing Sex, Redemption Summary:

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞 火 𝐓𝐲𝐳𝐮𝐥𝐚 - 𝑃𝑠𝑦𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝐷𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑎, 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝐸𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐 - ❤️🔥

Azula and Ty lee had been best friends since they were kids, but after they graduated from the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, Ty Lee left the Fire Nation capital to join the circus and they stopped seeing each other for years. It wasn't until Azula paid her a visit one day, asking her to join her elite team with the objective of capturing the Avatar. So many years had passed that maybe they had forgotten how deep their connection really was...

A story of love and healing.

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