#fire nation

[sailorluna15]

idk if this is considered an unpopular opinion but I hate when I see fics on Azula redemption or Zuko's reign and it's written in a way that makes it seem like the Fire Nation hates Azula. Azula was the pride of the Fire Nation and royalty, the Fire Nation wouldn't have hated her. If anything, they would've felt like it was some sort of injustice that Azula was removed from the throne. Y'all have to remember that Zuko was seen as a traitor of the Fire Nation. If anything, people would've hated HIM in the beginning and even towards the middle of his reign.

Deconstructing colonialism takes a long time. Truth be told is would take DECADES for the Fire Nation to dislike Azula and even after decades, she probably would still be socially acknowledged for her prowess and dedication to the Fire Nation by many.

It would go something like this:

"Yeah, Azula capturing Ba Sing Se was bad, but you can't lie, she did in 3 days what General Iroh tried to do in 600. That's fucking amazing."

That's how people talk about some conquerors now, why wouldn't they talk about them like that in ATLA?

FYI: I deleted the last paragraph of this bc I didn't like what i wrote. I stand on everything else tho.😭

[invictusunbrokenunbowed]

zuko who no one but azula can see trying to drag his sister into being a good leader IF ITS THE LAST THING HE DOES

azula slowly going, zuzu actually has very good points…..

azula the sun queen brings in a age of glory for the fire nation finds her thought to be dead brother and brings peace. All while being her cunning self

I also feel that when zuko is not a ghost they keep having the awkward moment that zuko keeps forgetting everyone can see and hear him now and keeps making comments to azula while others are talking

Half-Ghost zuko AU where the diplomats are all meeting to discuss ending the war and reparations but Azula keeps bringing her dead brother with her and acts as if he’s advising her and the only reason no one try’s to call her out is because they all think it would be a dick move to tell a grieving teenager to stop using her coping mechanisms

(He’s not fully dead but his body can’t wake up until Azula is considered a good leader due to spirit shenanigans)

Back to my cave where I will think about AUs I will never fully write myself

X

[queen-morgana91]

Avatar the Last Airbender beautifully told the story of how imperialists lie and have to be called on it and yet somehow certain people missed that message and turned into fire nation apologists

[demaparbat-hp]

Arsonist's Lullaby

[soulsticee]

Random ATLA screenshot ft. Sokka and a gang of enemy birds🐧🌊

Not really a fan of this one because I didn't capture his exasperated face and the bad attempt at drawing a bg🥲 (First day of school ended and instead of studying i drew this XD)

[firenaition]

thinking about what zuko means to azula and weeping. he's a traitor but he's your brother. he held you when you were born. he's banished for being too weak to hurt your father and you learn to hate his goodness. he is somewhere in the world carrying your eyes. he misses your absent mother more than he loves you but that is the price you pay for being the one who stayed. he never grants you this same kindness. you are faster and deadlier and better but it doesn't change the fact that your brave big brother used to tell you stories of dragons every time it stormed because you were so afraid of the thunder. he is the only one who understands what it means to bear the brunt of your bloody inheritance. he crumbled under the weight of it, but you stayed. you always stay. he is half of you. you hate being betrayed.

you don't love him. he's your big brother. who could you possibly love more?

[stormbornnn]

[late-draft]

This is continuation of this thread with great ideas that inspired the art: Post

Zuko hasn't (yet??) blocked Azula, not even temporarily

Iroh's photo is blurry because OF COURSE

Zhao keeps editing his stuff

I debated placing "Ozai: Seen" but it turns out he probably wouldn't even be looking at this social media

Please help me name this lame Fire Nation social media for boomers

Zuko's "On a quest" status is pure copium

Next part

[3cosmicfrogs]

I wanted to go a bit more in-depth with this piece that I did for zukka week 2023 because i got inspired to do more insane clothing details. ID in ALT.

Ramble about the influences/inspirations below:

Design inspirations for Sokka's clothing are mainly Inuvialuit and Yup'ik, with Nenets, Tlingit, and Chukchi inspiration for the tassels, patterns, belt and beadwork. I mixed these with the ornaments canon shows us used by the Northern Water Tribe, and also in Legend of Korra. I got particularly excited about drawing from Inuvialuit sources since the tassels we see in canon look like they could be inspired by this. Going beyond canon's animation-friendly colour scheme, I drew from Nenets patterns/embroidery/sashes and Yup'ik beadwork for accent colours. I think in the future I'd like to find ways to incorporate more Tlingit-style patterns since I rarely see them in fanart (which is a shame - they're stunning), but since they tend to be very big I ultimately decided to only include them as a nod in order to keep the regalia recognisable as 'Water Tribe'. I wonder if I could start using Polynesian influences as well?

Zuko's headdress and particularly the shoulder garment and beaded embroidery draw heavily from women's clothing styles of Lê Dynasty Vietnam. The other main influence is men's royal clothing in Tang Dynasty China, and patterns worn by Mongolian Khatun. Since we have a bit more to go on in canon as to what fire nation regalia looks like, I blended that in as well. I got particularly excited about the embellishments on Lê Dynasty clothes because I could give a little nod to Zuko's dragon-fire by adding more colours to the embroidery. In the future I think I'd want to make the Mongolian influence a bit more obvious... perhaps even push the envelope by incorporating some Bashkir designs, though I'm not sure how well that will go.

[official-sokka]

Don’t forget we invade the Fire Nation today

[samleewins]

Kyoshi's fiery girlfriend, Rangi.

[waves-after-dark]

looking for a beta reader for my urzai fic

please message me if interested. any help is greatly appreciated

[wileycap]

I think we in the A:TLA fandom have missed the absolute potential of the fact that Ozai Firelord is canonically a fucking idiot. I mean the dude's straight up stupid. And I want to be very clear that this isn't a plot hole, this isn't a flaw in the show, this is a fantastic and super realistic element that honestly enhances my enjoyment of it! Dictators are often stupid and breed a culture of cronyism-over-competence. Any similarities with real world leaders, dead or alive, are coincidental yet inevitable.

What do I mean?

Well, let's take the Drill. When faced with the problem of Big Wall, Ozai's Fire Nation comes up with Big Drill. One singular Big Drill. Which, as anyone except an idiot could have predicted, immediately breaks down and accomplishes nothing. And if the Fire Nation had made it past the wall, then they would have been fighting through a narrow opening against people who can hurl long distance rocks! Which, if your face or body is vulnerable to high velocity rocks, is a bad thing for you and also for the battle.

Not to mention the resource cost of that thing! It's so insanely gigantic, it must have cost the Fire Nation the equivalent of trillions. For ONE drill. Not ten smaller drills. Just ONE drill. (Fanfic fuel: how much did Ba Sing Se profit off of stripping that drill for parts? Did they reverse engineer it? Did Long Feng keep that for himself?)

And you might be thinking, fairly, that it was War Minister Qin who came up with the drill and you'd be right, but it's Ozai who's approving all this shit. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and asking Qin if he et the whole edible, or even the in-character thing of burning him to death, Ozai just goes... big drill. Makes sense. We should have the biggest drill, because we are the biggest nation. Drill, baby, drill. sorry

It's not the first time, either! He also approves Zhao's invasion of the North Pole, apparently just because Zhao is good at kissing ass and hates Zuko? I couldn't tell you what merits Zhao has. We do not see him lead a single successful mission. The closest he comes is Pohuai, and even then its the Yuyan archers who do most of the work. (My longstanding headcanon is that the reason we don't see the Yuyan archers again is because Zhao blamed the whole thing on them and they were disbanded. This is great fic fuel for displaced Yuyan archers just, wandering around, being elite.)

He approved a massive naval invasion of the North Pole, surrounded by and made of water and ice, inhabited by people who bend water. A nation that was, by its own choice, completely out of the war.

Every time we see Ozai doing something, it's something stupid. Like disfiguring and banishing his firstborn child in a culture that has primogeniture. And then (once he's done pissing away a massive fleet of ships) he does the logical thing and sends his only other heir to bring his first heir back - even though his first heir would have been willing to return with a simple invitation. Like he could have sent a letter saying "dear son come home miss u pick up 200 000 tons of steel qin wants 2 build a drill lol", and Zuko would have come. (Okay, he did have a valid reason for having Zuko escorted, since he thought Iroh was a traitor, but there's absolutely NO reason to risk Azula. Why not send Combustion Man? It's the luckiest stroke of luck ever that Azula is 100 times more competent than her dad.)

Of course, a dictator(-wannabe) sending his daughter on high-level diplomatic missions is pure fiction. Nobody would do that.

The best part of this is that it's entirely realistic and in-character. I could absolutely imagine Ozai purging all of his competent admirals and generals, and then promoting brownnoses like Zhao and crackpots like Qin, because they promised him glorious destinies and secret knowledge of Big Drill.

I also really, really want a scene of Zuko and Azula realizing that their father is a fucking idiot.

I would also like to note that all this stupid shit happens after Iroh leaves with Zuko. So, here's a headcanon: the only reason the Fire Nation didn't immediately implode when Ozai took the throne and purged everyone is because of Iroh. Iroh leaving with Zuko doomed Ozai. It's also a nice little drop of complexity in Iroh's character - he knew he was single-handedly keeping the Fire Nation afloat, yet he only left when Zuko did. Did he plan for Zuko to take the throne from the start? What was his plan before Aang showed up? Did he not intervene in the Agni Kai because he was afraid, or because he knew that Ozai was making a huge mistake and didn't want to interrupt? Give me chessmaster Iroh please.

[queen-morgana91]

Sozin is the worst, i hate him with a burning passion

The fact that the Fire Nation used Sacred Air Nomad sites and temples as lures and traps to kill any surviving Air Nomads makes this whole topic even darker.

This is horrifying. All because they wanted to kill a kid.

And the ending?

Ugh.

Aang whole story is so tragic. A lot of people constantly shit on him for no reason but this kid carried this loneliness through into his adult years and bottled so much up.

Aang never really accepted the end of his culture.

This comic broke me.

[demaparbat-hp]

Existential Nihilism Squad™

[mayskalih]

fire siblings but make them travel together