#iroh was his only other positive fire nation connection

[beifong-brainrot]

Dark Avatar Ozai, aka, Ozaatu:

Vaatu orchestrates the 100-year war through Sozin, the tree of time, the swamp tree, and the summer solstice. He also manipulates Iroh's spiritually attuned mother, Ilah, into getting free, by him fusing with Ilah's astral form and warping back into her body. This resulted in Vaatu's power temporarily depleting and being reborn in a human form that's given the name Ozai. Kinda like how Tui and La were reborn as mortal coy fish and how Tienhai took the form of a human after falling in love with a young prince.

Aang's year is the 10,000th year and Harmonic Convergence arrives at the finale of ATLA Book 4: Air. Ozaatu battles the Lion Turtle instead of Aang during Sozin's Comet and Ozaatu wins by consuming the last Lion Turtle's soul, gaining its abilities.

As the avatar embodies balance and all the positive aspects of bending, elements, nations, humans, and spirits, the dark avatar will, naturally, embody all the negative aspects and extreme versions of bending/elements/nations/humans/spirits. (Think Ozaatu as basically a combination of Vaatu, Sozin, Azulon, Ozai, Amon, Unalaq, Zaheer, Kuvira, and an evil lion turtle.) The dark avatar achieves this status through the polar opposite means of how the light avatar does it and in the reversed order of the avatar cycle.

By the time becomes a fully realized master dark avatar, Ozaatu will be an immortal who can rapidly heal at a nigh-limitless level, in contrast to the light avatar being able to only reincarnate.

While the light avatar will have the strongest bond with and reliance on various team avatars, the dark avatar will be the superior archenemy to said various team avatars, an independent one-man team avatar, and view his own allies as disposable pawns.

Vaatu's endgame plan is to destroy Raava and to also slowly drain and absorb Raava's natural regeneration and powers and combine them with his own for 10,000 years. Aang and Azula's counterplan is to use spiritbending and energybending to purify Vaatu and have Raava absorb Vaatu's regeneration and powers immediately, saving all of existence and restoring true balance in the process, even if Aang loses his connection to his past lives forever.

Thoughts on all of this?

Oh wow that is an in-depth snd interesting AU for sure.

I do find the idea of Vaatu being somehow included in the 100 year war or being reborn in a mortal form intriguing, but I also don't really think Vaatu would willingly tie himself so much to a human.

Vaatu despises humans as a rule, and you could easily make the argument that the only reason he fused with Unalaq is because he had no other choice, really.

But I'm also not sure Vaatu would be that willing to ally himself qith the Fire Nation. Sure, they cause destruction, something he apparently feeds off, but the Fire Nation clearly had no qualms desercrating Spiritual areas, like Hei Bai's forest. This may pose a moral conondrum for Vaatu, whose influence appears very strongly when Spiritual Areas are disturbed, certain Spirits turning to their darker form even after Vaatu's defeat.

Vaatu is not the Spirit of Evil, he is the Spirit of Chaos and Darkness, neither of these qualities being purely evil. Similarly, Raava is not the Spirit of Good or Order, she is the Spirit of Peace and Light.

These seem like semantics, but it actually implies that true Balance in the world cannot be achieved with one of these Spirits absent. Vaatu and Raava are both important in their own right, even if Vaatu is a smug rat bastard

It would actually be an interesting storyline to see Aang go down, and see how he would deal with Vaatu. I think he could get down with the Chaos point for sure, being a nomad, traveller and somwone who doesn't value routine or order that much.

I was going to say that Aang wouldn't be down for the whole "darker urges" and destruction thing, but then I remembered the abject glee on his fave as he destroyed a factory so I think he could be homies with Vaatu who knows.

I also think that presenting Dark Avatar Ozai as a mish mash of all the villains of the franchise is a bit of a sisiphian task, since they are, particularly Korra's villains, very varied in ideologies and personality.

The issue with blending Ozai and Vaatu is that Ozai is a character who is less nuanced, at least in the text. (Azula takes the role of nuanced main antag) While tlok villains like Vaatu have their... clumsily executed shades of gray.

If we had to consider an AU of Vaatu and the Fire Nation teaming up, I'd rather go the Unalaq esque route of the Fire Nation trying to use Vaatu as a weapon. Canonically, we already had Zhao reasearching Tui and La, why not just have him find texts on Raava and Vaatu, and bring this news to the firelord.

Then you could have a B plot of Ozai trying to get to Vaatu and coerce him into merging with him or smth. Especially if you comtrast these scenes with Aang's more gentle approach to spirits, you can create some nice foiling.

So um. My thoughts in the end are: Intriguing idea. Cool concept. Needs a tad more nuancw when it comes to Vaatu, and I think you may be trying to cover too much ground with one single antagonist. 7.5/10

[sokkastyles]

Sigh. I found another bad Zuko/Azula take once again:

"Azula was a better sister to Zuko then he was a brother to her! He only joined the crystal catacombs for his honor and not because he wanted to help her. She gave him a choice for his honor back, approached him when he was didn't seem happy in the beach episode, and she warned him about meeting Iroh! Zuko only went to her if he wanted something from her. Zuko kept betraying people and was never a brother to her. He should've told her the connection to Avatar Roku to change her mind! He's a bad brother and Azula's a good sister!" My apologies if this is really long by the way 😭I just thought it was really funny to see and wanted to hear your thoughts lmfao. However no need to answer this if you don't want to, I understand you've already answered one of my asks from not long ago lmao-

I'm gonna say some of the same things I said before because a lot of this stuff can be immediately addressed by the fact that Azula imprisoned Zuko in the crystal catacombs. By the time she gives him an opportunity to join her, it's either that or going back as a prisoner. Which is why it's not a real choice, it's coercion. What she says about honor is all bullshit meant to appeal to what she knows he wants. She's not really giving him a chance at honor, she is manipulating him, the same as when Ozai tells Zuko he needs to do x, y, or z to restore his honor.

Side note: I've seen many people here credit Azula for giving Zuko the idea that honor is something you can choose for yourself rather than having it bestowed by someone else, but what they miss is that even though Azula is telling Zuko that "he restored his own honor," he isn't really the one making the choice. There can't be said to be a real choice if the other option is imprisonment. And the second part of that that Zuko learns later is not just about choosing honor for yourself, but about choosing what is right. Zuko cannot restore his honor by choosing to side with the fire nation, and that's something he comes to understand later. And even at the end of book two, he is aware that the choice he makes is not really the right one, and is going against his own judgment. So he's not really choosing it for himself, what he thinks is right, he's choosing what Azula has convinced him is right.

The fact that Azula was the one who imprisoned them in the first place is also why warning him about visiting Iroh isn't really her helping him. Visiting Iroh would not be dangerous for Zuko if Azula had not imprisoned Iroh in the first place. But, you see, she could not offer Iroh the same "choice" she does Zuko. First of all because Iroh cannot be manipulated, but second because Azula needs to get Zuko away from Iroh in order to control him. This is something she realizes at the beginning of book two. So warning him to stay away from Iroh isn't about Zuko's safety, it's about keeping him under control.

It's much the same when Azula approaches Zuko at the beach and tries to cheer him up. I actually do think this scene is one where she is rarely genuine towards him, but she's still being manipulative in ways she may not realize because manipulation and control is normalized in the household she lives in. But if we focus on what she actually says, we see a theme continuing from her telling him to stay away from Iroh. She tells him to stay away from the old house because it's "depressing" and come down to the beach with her. Again, she is telling Zuko to stay away from those things that might make him question the abusive and imperialistic environment he is in, to be complacent with things the way they are. She doesn't want him to follow his own line of thinking, especially when that thinking leads him away from her control.

And about those scenes where he goes to her when he wants something, this happens because she positions herself as an authority figure over him, because she wants that control. Every time he goes to her she acts annoyed, but absolutely enjoys dressing him down and talking him in circles. This is also a hallmark of an abusive person. They will often make it seem like you are such a burden on them, but that's all farce because they want you to be dependent. Remember that although Azula acts like Zuko is being irrational for questioning why she lied to Ozai about him killing the Avatar, she created that situation. She forced Zuko to maintain this lie and didn't even tell him she was going to do that. He is right to be suspicious about this and confront her about it. But she sets it up on purpose to keep him confused and then makes it seem like his confusion is him being irrational. This is textbook gaslighting.

As far as "he should have told her about Avatar Roku to change her mind," he does try to. He even asks her when he realizes the history they were taught is not true (and the fact that he goes to her about this is a sign of how much she has gaslit him, because even when he knows the truth, he goes to her and views her as an authority, trusts her over himself.) And she responds by mocking him and insulting his intelligence. She's not going to be willing to listen to what he has to say. And if he had further tried to have a conversation with her about it, she would have done what she always does, and tried to talk him out of it, made it seem like he was the one who was wrong. He realizes this and this is why he's stopped listening to her, by the end. This is also why talking to Azula would not have worked at the last agni kai. Azula is still justifying herself and making excuses in the end, still blaming Zuko for her actions, but he makes it clear he isn't listening anymore because he has learned that this is what he needs to do to protect himself.

Which is sad, but it's not Zuko's fault, and it never was. It is the fault of the people who thought that they could take advantage of him. And Azula was one of those people.

[highfantasy-soul]

NATLA Episode 6 - Masks (1/5)

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

An explanation of what I'm doing here and my history with ATLA.

Of course, full spoilers ahead.

<previous/next>

This is a LONG one, so strap in for many parts. I have essays.

Opening with Zuko's side of The Storm animated episode was amazing. The way the camera starts from behind and Iroh's voice-over talking about masks and former excitement to show the world your true face - before that joy is beaten out of you - was such a strong way to introduce the themes explored in this episode. A new watcher wouldn't initially know that's Zuko, and the shock of seeing him without the scar was a great reveal that this is a flashback. Iroh already stepping into the mentor position with Zuko, helping him with his armor and giving him advice just fleshed out their connection even more. The way Dallas Liu played young Zuko was so great - from the way he walked, how easily he smiled, and even the different inflection of his voice, you immediately saw this was a younger, less tormented Zuko than we had seen before. Which then perfectly seeds in the dread of finding out what turned him from this tolerably happy kid into the surly, hurt boy we've seen in the other episodes.

Zhao's take-over of the Avatar hunt is so good. All the emotions racing across Zuko's face, the way Zhao clearly never respected Zuko and then the crew letting loose their frustration at the way Zuko treats them. Even though we've been primed to 'root' for Zuko (even in the animated series, we had that weird desire to see Zuko beat out Zhao), everyone's reactions to him make perfect sense. Of course Zhao isn't going to see Zuko as an equal - he's 16 years old! And Zuko HAS been treating his crew like shit, so their anger and lack of loyalty to him is justified. The show did such a great job at adding layers even within the ranks of the bad guys.

The Crescent Island looks PERFECT! All the sets are fantastic and I adore how Aang just assumes that even though the sages are fire nation, they'll respect him because he's the Avatar. After all, that's what they're supposed to do - but how Ozai has a tapestry of himself in the temple of the Avatar, we see the hints of how the Fire Nation has been led to treat the Avatar. I really like the addition/clarification in the live-action that the fire lords have placed themselves above the Avatar as the spiritual leader of the world - they've undermined the authority of the Avatar, no doubt due to Sozin's anger at Roku for standing against his bid to colonize the world. Even cultures where religion is seen as all-important, corrupt leaders have no problem co-opting that religious devotion and placing themselves in the position of power and adulation. Of course, as with all societies that try to do that, there will always be those who condemn mortal leader's attempts to usurp the power of the divine and hold to the 'old ways'. Love how we see that in the fire sages and the one who aids Aang - fulfilling the 'true' purpose of their order rather than the twisted one the leaders of the fire nation have turned it into.

Having a devout fire sage collect relics of past Avatars to keep in Roku's temple, I think was a great addition. It also makes a lot more sense to me that Zhao would have easy access to the info (and weapon) needed to kill the Moon Spirit rather than that shlub somehow finding the super hidden library that an archeologist spent YEARS exclusively searching for. While it was a cool foreshadowing of the library in season 2, having Zhao discover the moon and ocean spirit stuff in Avatar Roku's temple in the live-action I think makes more sense. I'll get to why I also think it was a good choice to have to attack them on a specific moon phase with a specific knife once those episodes come around.

The other fire sages truly believing that Ozai is the only one who can 'bring balance' is an interesting philosophical idea that the fire lords have implanted into the culture of the nation - and their ability to skew what 'balance' even means is really great work too. Not to bring Star Wars into this, but when one group tries to dominate the world (galaxy) fully so that they can control everything that happens, that's NOT 'balance' and forces will rise up to upend that system of control. Like Ozai said in episode 3, the way they've all been taught to 'create balance' is actually just an intense form of law and order where they control everything. It's an argument used liberally today that many fall for as well, so clarifying that here in season one instead of waiting all the way to season 3 like the animated show did really grounds the story in reality and lets viewers sit with the lessons and interrogate how they see it happening in their own lives for 3 seasons rather than just a few episodes.

It is a bit iffy world building from the animated show to have Aang only be able to talk with Roku on the solstice in his temple when later in the story, he can just connect to his past selves as long as he's meditating, in their clothes, or in a spiritual place - I think the animated show just really wanted to add in the temple and manufactured a reason for Aang to have to go there specifically on that date in the animated show. Not bad, but also makes the 'connecting to Avatars at their temple anytime' fit with the worldbuilding just fine. Like many first seasons (or books) of series that aren't all pre-written, the world building of early installments is usually a bit shaky and ironed out in later seasons, so I like that they've already started to do that here.

Roku, like Bumi, was another character that they shifted the tone of for the live-action. I think they chose to introduce Roku as a more fun-loving Avatar to really contrast him with Kyoshi (and later Kuruk) as well as most of the adults who've interacted with Aang so far. I think Gyatzo took the role of the more serious mentor that Roku had in the animated show and the live-action Roku really needed to be a stark contrast from the adults in Aang's life who blamed him for what happened with the war. I think they may have overdid the jokey nature of Roku a bit but as we see in the flashbacks with him in season 3 Roku always had been a more fun-loving guy. He does get serious and gives Aang some good advice - even though part of that advice is like Kyoshi's and Kuruk's that Aang needs to be careful about his friends. Though, his advice is distinctly different from Kyoshi's or Kuruk's in that he doesn’t say Aang can't have friends or let them help him, but rather that they can become liabilities and Aang will need to make decisions that sometimes could harm his friends for the sake of the world - not letting the lives of the few outweigh the lives of the many. Including lore about the Mother of Faces (full disclosure, I've never read any of the comics or books, so I just heard about that stuff second-hand) was really cool - and also ties back into the theme about identity and masks this episode is going hard on.

I also love how each of the Avatars Aang talks with have different ways they fulfilled their duties: Kyoshi through force and combat, Roku though diplomacy, and Kuruk through protecting the veil between the spirit world and the material plane. While they each caution about needing to be more than a singular thing, we can see Aang identifying more with Roku and his mention of diplomacy - as evidenced by his plan to use the Mother of Faces statuette to bargain rather than to lure Koh out and use force to try to kill or restrain him as Kyoshi might or further anger him like Kuruk. Aang always leads with kindness and understanding, even to his enemies who've harmed him and his friends. There's no reason for him to immediately jump to giving Koh what he wants, but the fact that that's what he thought of first really says a lot about his character. Yes, he was warned about not being strong enough to 'defeat' Koh, but that he didn't initially think about tricking Koh or trapping him shows us who Aang is - and that same kindness and urge to talk it out with enemies is echoed at the end of the episode with him talking to Zuko.

Removing the comet deadline I think was a smart move for the live-action both for practical and storytelling purposes. It would add a whole lot more things the characters are needing to do prematurely - let's focus on getting to the north and figuring out the Avatar state first, then we can put a timeline on Aang's bending journey, plus irl kids age - it's just a fact of life and it's taken like, 3 years to cast, film, and get this season out onto Netflix and they haven't even started season 2 yet, so who knows how much older the kids will look once we get to season 3. Having Roku instead provide a different take on what the Avatar's personality can be, warning him about friends, and giving him the answer to the issues Aang is facing with the spirit world was justification enough to have him show up the way he did, even if he didn't give Aang the info on the comet.

Though I do miss Roku going apeshit on the fire sages who have forgotten what they're supposed to stand for, I understand through the storytelling aspect why they shifted that and didn't allow Aang to escape the temple unscathed. Again, due to the episodic nature of the animated show, every 20 minutes ends with the characters no longer in danger, having escaped certain doom. That structure doesn't flow when you only have 8 episodes, so continuing the danger from the fire temple right into June having caught up to Aang (like she did in Bato of the Water Tribe in the animated show) makes the story flow better. In the animated series, Aang gets caught as he's zipping around a mountain looking for frozen frogs to heal Sokka and Katara from a fever. Random guards see him, send a message to Zhao, and he sends in the Yuyan archers. For such a pivotal episode as The Blue Spirit is, the events that kick it off don't really connect to much - very episodic in nature. I think having it all connect with Zuko coming THIS CLOSE yet again to capturing the Avatar and regaining his place in the Fire Nation was a good choice.

Love that not only do we combine June into these episodes so it's her skill that once again finds and captures the Avatar, we also get more view points of people around the world through this time of war. In the animated series, much like Suki, June is just there to be hot, useful, and the muscle for the main male leads (plus she was there to be creeped on by Uncle Iroh in what I feel is one of the worst writing of his character of the whole show). The live-action, like with Suki, gave June an actual character - she had motivations and goals that had nothing to do with the male characters and more depth than just 'want money'. She's jaded and accepted the war, she's going to use it for her advantage.

It's also another view we get to see of how people in the world have adjusted to the lack of the Avatar for 100 years. They've had to make do without him, so the fire nation has placed the Fire Lord on that pedestal, and people like June have decided the Avatar isn't really necessary - after all, why would you think they would be if you've lived your entire life without one and have never seen a world where the Avatar does keep balance. It's hard to imagine a fundamentally different world that you've never seen.

[starlight-tea-writing]

Ask games! Loves these things.

Anyway, 4, 34, 35, and/or 64! Take your pick on how many lol

sorry that this sat for, like, two days...but thank you for the asks!

4. what is the plot bunny you've been carrying around the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven't written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

I have many. many. many ideas. and not just for ATLA. but I think these are my favorites:

for ATLA

a. book 2, Iroh and Zuko are in Ba Sing Se. I say "screw you" to canon a bit and extend their time there. during that time, Zuko and Jin start actually dating, they become friends with the Jet, Smellerbee, and Longshot. with that friendship, they slowly relax into being teens and having fun (in part because they're committing Blue and Green Spirit shenanigans together). Zuko kinda forgets he was Zuko and really starts to embrace Lee. and then, Jet sees a poster about Appa and drags Lee with them, he sees the Gaang, and Zuko come crashing back to reality. they retrieve Ty Lee and Mai from the Palace (by accident, cause they think Suki is there), and then it's a trek of a dozen teens across the Earth Kingdom to take down Ozai. oh, and also, Jin is a secret (but very bad) earthbender.

I've written about half of it. maybe I'll finish and post it one day. there's also a GREAT scene where Zuko (as Lee) goes to Jin's for dinner and to meet her parents and younger sister (that I added for funsies). it's so awkward and fun and I love it so much.

b. I got permission to write a story based on @gemgirl28's idea. I have yet to write it yet, but it is outlined. that delay just makes me feel bad, because I want to do the story justice.

Spy X Family

a. like many others, I have been sucked into the Spy X Family world. it's three years ahead of where the story is now, and it starts with Donovan Desmond dying in a plane crash. and then it's just sort of how the cold war grows from there, Loid has to fake his death, Yuri evacuates Yor and Anya, it's a whole thing. a whole, very messy, very chaotic...thing. :)

I've already started writing it. I'm maybe a chapter into it.

34. how do you name characters and places?

characters: baby name lists. so many baby name lists. the targeted ads I get make my mother-in-law VERY curious and happy.

places: I tend to come up with a connecting theme for a place. so like, for the Earth Kingdom: a lot of actual real-life Chinese towns/cities are named sort-of based on their location (Bei Jing: Northern Capital). so, in Eight Years Later, the few smaller EK towns I created are named after the location they're at. however, for the Fire Nation in EYL, because I kind of view the cultural side of the Fire Nation as a pan-Asian country made up of a whole collection of cultures, each island I've "named" is just a "firebender associated" word from different Southeast Asian languages. so like, in EYL, Araw Island is "Day" in Filipino/Tagalog (don't remember exactly which one, sorry!), Moesashi Island is "Embers" in Japanese, and so on.

(fun fact: Mosu actually has MANY meanings...such as "ember" and "humble"...he's kinda the only character in EYL, at least, that I didn't find from a baby name list and instead went the language route - but it is an actual name, also, I think...I'm pretty sure I found it somewhere...it's been years at this point, apologies)

35. tell us about a character who's very different than you who you love a whole lot.

Ty Lee. I am not that bubbly and positive. I wish I could be. I know she's hiding mountains of hurt, which honestly, aren't we all? but she's able to put on a very compelling facade to get through her day, and I'm not sure if that's admirable or even more depressing. but I like to think that post-canon Ty Lee is very happy and doesn't have to fake it.

64. what is your favorite title for a fic you've read?

people can be real clever with their titles, and I wish I had that skill. I really like goofy, silly titles. little jokes and what not. I don't have any immediately in mind, I tend to forget details like that, but scrolling through my Ao3 history, I found this one and it made me chuckle:

Mission Impossible: Loid teaches Yor to cook

(^ pretty much all I read at the moment are cute little domestic one-shots, so...this is cute and silly and sweet)

thanks for the asks! in true starlight fashion, I wrote WAY too much, haha

[litsnobconfessions]

A Year of Animation Day 2: ATLA S1E5-8

Date: January 2, 2025

Day: 2

Content Watched: Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Book 1, Episodes 5-8

Year: 2005-2008

Rating: TV-Y7-FV

Run Time: 92 minutes

Before I get into the review, I think now would be a good time to talk about controversies. Simply put, you'll probably not agree with everything I pick. In the case of ATLA, it's gotten a lot of attention for its "Asian and Indigeous representation," which basically wasn't seen in similar media. But even though it's gotten a lot of positive feedback regarding representation, there are plenty of people who feel that it's appropriative, rather than appreciative. Others say they liked seeing characters who looked more like themselves, but simultaneously find elements of the show probelmatic. And it doesn't help that the number of Asian and Indigenous artists working on the show was relatively small.

Author Xiran Jay Zhao makes the point that Avatar is not representative because the characters in it are not from actual Asian or Indigenous cultures—they are from the Water Tribe and the Fire Nation, etc, and while these cultures are inspired by real world cultures, they are not intended to be equated with them. If you want to know more, they have at least three videos about the cultural inspirations behind Avatar, which offer praise, criticism, and a lot of interesting information that you may not know.

From what I've seen and heard, ATLA depicted Asian and Indigenous-coded characters at a time that many other shows did not. A lot of young people identified with these characters and had positive connections with seeing protgonists that looked like themselves. This is a good thing. But this is not and by no means should be the end-all-be-all of Asian or Indigeous representation. I said yesterday that it's important for girls to see multiple representations of girlhood because we are not all the same. The same is true for ethnic and cultural representaiton. But I also think that a great place for a piece of literature to be a few decades after it's written is to have people saying that they find value in it, but it could be better. I hope, as I do with much of my favorite literature, that creators today will build from the place that ATLA brought us and create new and even better works.

Obviously, I think the story and the animation has enough value to not only watch it, but to start off my year of animation with it. And from here one out, I'm going to focus on these aspects, and I won't talk much more about cultural reprsentation, if at all. This is not because I don't believe the conversation is important, but because I don't think I should be the one leading it. I would much prefer to give shout-outs to actual Asian and Indigenous voices, like Zhao's. So if you know someone (or are someone!) who is part of this discussion, let me know, and I will give that a shout-out as well.

So… pretty much the same things I had to say yesterday. These episodes really feel like they're "shot" the same way you might shoot a live-action show. I think of the part where it cuts to Aang's fake mustache. But more specifically, we see the dust on the gates of Omashu as they open and close, there's a creek flowing in the background of the opening scene of "Imprisoned," Katara and Haru's hair is being blown by an intermittent wind as they speak outside, which all feels very realistic, and all of which could have been left out to save time and money. I do feel that as a whole, these episodes feel more static than the last four, but that's not to say that they wouldn't be that way if this was live-action. My favorite bit of animation in these four episodes is probably where Iroh stands up out of the water, and they block his nudity with Zuko's hand.

And, as I said yesterday, the winter solstice happens here, and seeing as that just passed a couple of weeks ago, this felt like a good show to start with. I think "The Winter Solstice, Part 2" was my favorite episode here because—and I know I'm going to start some fights here—it felt like it had more substance? The other episodes feel more filler-y. They do each have plot relevent details, but they're pretty small, like Katara losing her necklace. But in "Winter Solstice Part 2," the whole episode felt like it was part of the larger storyline. But, overall, I think they're all pretty evenly ranked.

The episode I want to focus on, though, is "Imprisoned," which I actually would have liked to see done differently. I am glad that the gaang was able to help the Earth-benders free themselves from the fire navy ship, but I also think it's important for us to realize that not all forms of resistance are major rebellions. In fact, often they are very small, like a teacher calling a student by their preferred pronouns, even if it's against school policy, or a nurse at a religious school who gives teenagers condoms, or the girl who tries out for the football team, and have you figured out that I'm a teacher yet?

My point is that resistance happens all the time. And if you're thinking that this is different because they're, well, imprisoned, then you should consider Jews in concentration camps who found ways to celebrate Passover and Shabbas and other important holidays. Or enslaved African-Americans who dared to raise families and pass down stories and songs. There are lots of ways to fight back, not just...

So when Katara asks Tyro what their plan is, and he tells her it's to survive, I don't think that should come across as his spirit being beaten down. These are horrible conditions they're living in—poor food, not enough blankets, coughing can have you put in solitary for a week, the fire nation soldiers are constantly berating them, and they refer their culture to "brutish savagery." So what if, when Katara asks about escape, the idea of survival was presented as a form of resistance. What if Tyro told her that the lack of an escape plan was strategic. Maybe they choose not to escape, not because their spirits are broken and they don't think it's possible, but because they are choosing not to risk the lives necessary to carry out a rebellion. But in lieu of this, they are finding other ways to carry on their cultural traditions and to not have their spirits broken. Then when Sokka and Aang arrive, she can present her plan to Tyro, and they together, they can decide if this is a better form of resistance for the moment.

Finally, I do want to bring up The Winter Solstice Part 1 for just a moment because I do love the Iroh-kidnapped poltline, and I like seeing Zuko and Iroh fighting back to back. But the best part of this episode is that Zuko tells Iroh that if he's not back on the ship in half and hour, it will leave without him, but he shows up again, clearly more than half and hour later, looking for Iroh. Because we all know this is an empty threat.

Tomorrow, we're going to take a break from Avatar to meet a villain sidekick that is better dressed than Zuko and Sokka combined.

[radarsteddybear]

I still cannot believe that I forgot Suki (leader of the Kyoshi Warriors) and Azula (leader of Mai and Ty Lee and also Fire Lord for a hot (ha ha) minute). Chief Arnook is forgettable at best, and King Kuei is absolutely useless (and I really just put him on the poll because it was funny). I've got another version of this poll somewhere in my queue where all the choices are characters who are still kids, and at some point after that I'll probably do another like this one with the top adult and child characters.

Anyway, part of me is surprised that Iroh did so well on this poll and part of me isn't. He doesn't really hold a formal leadership position in the show; he usually chooses to take a back seat and dispense advice that he can only hope Zuko will take while his nephew leads the way (until things go belly-up and he has to step in to prevent Zuko from doing something incredibly stupid...or dying). Though one can argue that a great leader is someone who knows when to sit back and let those he leads do their thing and when to step in. Personally, I see that as Iroh being a great parent, but it's a skill he likely learned during his time in the Fire Nation army. So, in conclusion: Iroh's a terrific leader, but for the most part, save a few episodes here and there and at the end, we really see that leadership manifest through phenomenal parenting.

Bumi turns out to be a very wise man, a creative thinker, and an excellent leader who seems to really enjoy playing the part of the crazy, doddering old man to cause others to underestimate him. Which is a fine leadership strategy, I guess, but not one that inspires much confidence from your people once your city's been captured by the Fire Nation.

I personally voted for Sokka because we get to see him grow into being one of the world's best leaders (and strategists) over the course of the show. He starts out trying so hard to fill the void left by his father as Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, and as he travels the world, he sees and experiences many different examples of both good and bad leadership. Throughout the show, he definitely has his father in mind as his role model, the person he is most trying to emulate (which we see most explicitly in "The Day of Black Sun"), but his travels expose him to both different types of leaders and leadership and different cultures and cultural considerations. He learns to analyze problems from all angles and perspectives before deciding on a course of action. He really thinks about how different decisions will impact different people and really focuses on making the choices that will have the greatest positive impact(s) and the least negative. He learns from his past mistakes and is always striving to do better. He's also very practical and doesn't often waste his time considering hypothetical aspects of a problem that he doesn't think have much of a chance of actually being relevant; however, as he travels the world and discovers that different things (such as bending and spirits) are, in fact, relevant to many problems, he learns and adds those variables to his decision-making processes.

Aang, on the other hand, filters everything through his belief system as an Air Nomad. The two things at the core of every decision he makes are that belief system and his duty of keeping the world in balance, which very often shows up as maintaining a positive connection with spirits and the Spirit World. These are both very valid considerations in his decision-making process, but they can be confining and have the potential to prevent him from making the best decisions in a timely manner.

Ozai's a terrible leader whose reign as Fire Lord is based entirely on the legacies of his father and grandfather, the fear he cultivates by publicly burning off half of his son's face, and the mystery created by the curtain of fire he hides himself behind in his throne room.

Zuko spends the majority of the series as an angry teenager. By the time he becomes Fire Lord, he's learned that the best thing he can do is to listen to the advice of those who know more than him and use that information to come up with decisions and solutions. Which is a pretty good way to run a nation; we just don't really get to see him in action much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bonus: tell me why in the tags!

[grievedifferent]

this scene kinda made me 🤔🤔 even when i was 14

[riddlerosehearts]

i've gotta admit, it confuses me how some people who are so against zutara and insist that firelady katara is an inherently problematic headcanon don't seem to understand that katara becoming fire lady literally does not mean she has to give up all of her water tribe culture and just stay permanently glued to the fire nation after marrying zuko, like?? would you automatically give up all of your cultural traditions if you moved to another country from your birthplace that you loved and felt deeply connected to, or would you not carry those traditions, and that culture and history with you, and share them with the friends you make and with your children if you have them? would you willingly just stay in the other country forever and ever, or would you not visit your original home as often as you had the means and desire to? let your children visit, let them know the other half of their own heritage? would your heart, and your family, not belong to both places as much as possible?

and then they act like they don't understand why firelady katara is such a popular trope and (sometimes) say zutara is okay as long as you don't hc it, when like... it's literally just because it's the single most logical and realistic progression of canon, that zuko is going to become firelord and whoever marries him will be his consort. that's why zutara shippers want katara to be firelady and like to write headcanons and fics about her grappling with her love of and canonical--watch the painted lady!--desire to help a nation whose people hurt hers so badly, and with the thought of holding such a position while remaining in touch with her water tribe culture. because it's what would be most likely to happen if zutara were canon. some people don't even call her fire lady, or if they do they make it clear that she is also master katara of the southern water tribe. i've seen a lot of people simply call her the princess/queen consort or even have the title "lady of the moon" invented just for her, which i'm not sure who originally came up with that but it is absolutely lovely. i kinda think that if you believe "firelady katara" = "katara stripped of all of her water tribe heritage and culture" you are really not being imaginative enough, though i'm also not saying nobody has ever written it that way before. i just know i've seen countless fanworks where it isn't.

also tbh lately i'm starting to wonder if people with other zuko/person-from-another-nation ships tend to headcanon that he never marries, spends his entire life somehow juggling being firelord and hiding a secret relationship with the other person in the ship, and ends the royal line by being unable to openly provide an heir to the throne. or if they headcanon that he abdicates the throne to iroh and moves to their nation in order to be with them. i've never cared strongly enough about other zuko ships to know what their popular tropes and headcanons are, but if not then i can't imagine why it's only zutara that gets hate for this lol.

[rachelsophielesch]

One of the reasons why people ship Zutara is because it follows a tried and true romance arc exemplified by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

We have a spirited and outspoken heroine who chafes against the expectations and restrictions imposed upon her by the society she lives in.

Elizabeth Bennet and his sisters have to marry well in order to keep their social standing because their family home will go to a distant male relative after their father dies. Mr. Bennet was financially irresponsible and has little interest in making social connections which puts his daughters at a disadvantage on the marriage market. But Elizabeth, like her father, enjoys spotting and pointing out human folly, which often causes her to step on toes in snooty high society. She refuses advantageous marriage proposals from men she cannot like or respect.

Katara lost her mother at young age and had to step into her mother’s place and she’s had to grow up fast and pretty much parent herself and Sokka because their father has been fighting in a war. She’s expected to be the “team mom” of the Gaang. Katara dreams of becoming a master water bender but the only water bending masters are at the other end of world in the Norther Water Tribe, who only teach female benders how to heal. She defies Master Pakku by insisting on also learning how to do combat bending.

Next, we have a love interest who seems like a brooding a**hole but is actually a huge dork with poor social skills due to a mixture of class snobbery and their own awkwardness.

Mr. Darcy is the grandson of an earl and the son of a wealthy landowner. His standoffishness is due to the fact that he feels awkward around people he doesn’t know well, especially if he perceives them as his social inferiors. He is presented as a fundamentally good person who was misguided by the snobbish and class-conscious society he lives in. Elizabeth dismissed him as a snob but he’s hinted not to be as snobbish he seems. Mr. Darcy’s best friend is Mr. Bingley, whose family made their money in trade and he’s gracious and friendly towards Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, Elizabeth’s aunt and uncle, who also made their money in trade.

Zuko is the son the Fire Lord, the ruler of the most powerful nation in the world. He’s been raised to believe in Fire Nation superiority and in his own superiority as a prince. Like Mr. Darcy, he is fundamentally good person who’s had positive influences in his life (like Iroh and Ursa) but is misguided (because of his desire to please Ozai). To quote Mr. Darcy: “I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.” He is awkward in social interactions with people his age, ex. His date with Jin and the Ember Island party. He is also willing to help out and stick up for Lee’s family and doesn’t feel he’s above working a minimum wage customer service job.

Zutara actually lines up almost perfectly with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s arc and I’d love to explore it in further posts if you all are interested.

[zuko-always-lies]

May I ask what you think of the "That's rough, buddy." line and the fandom's obsession of it?

Zuko kidnapped the Aang just as the North Pole was being besieged. If he hadn't done that, the Avatar would've woken up in the Spirit Oasis a few feet away from the koi fish just before Zhao barged in. Things might have gone differently. Who knows, maybe Princess Yue wouldn't have died.

And yet, it's never held against him. Not in the show, not in the fandom. Not only that…

In TCoD, he says two lines about his mother and his destiny and Katara offers to heal his scar with the water that's from the Spirit Oasis where he knocked her out and took her friend right out from under her. (Oh, and it's supposed to be a great moment for Katara; Zutara shippers especially like it. Zuko can take seasons to figure things out and that's the way his character arc should be. But if a flip switches in Katara's brain, that's a great character moment too, because…? it's about Zuko?)

And of course he and Sokka joke about it. "My first girlfriend turned into the moon." Did Sokka forget about the events that lead up to that?

Zuko's actions at the North Pole and its consequences are glossed over and made a joke out of. And the fandom is fine with that for some reason. I've seen people say that '"That's rough buddy" is the greatest line in television history.'.

So, anyways, what do you think of the "That's rough, buddy." line and the fandom's obsession of it?

I think these are all great points. And yeah, Katara even offered to heal Iroh in "The Chase," so her being sympathetic to Zuko wasn't some sort of great change for her. Meanwhile, that scene is honestly maybe the best evidence for the idea that Zuko weaponizes sympathy. He manages to take Katara's very reasonable anger at him and make it all about himself and his pain.

And I agree that Zuko is arguably indirectly responsible for Yue's death, but no one ever holds him responsible for that, and it seems jarring that Sokka and Katara seem to forget that.

As for the "that's rough, buddy," it's a moderately funny line, and one of the very few times that the first and second most popular male characters in the series connect with each other, so it's perhaps natural that it sticks in people's minds. But honestly the whole situation doesn't necessarily reflect positively on either Sokka or Zuko. Sokka is not only completely forgetting about Zuko's role in Yue's death, but he's also forgetting about his replacement goldfish girlfriend Suki, who he knows the Fire Nation has captured. Meanwhile, Zuko is kind of ignoring the fact that he hurt Mai badly and that he kind of threw her under the bus with the whole "going traitor" thing.

Anyways, this is a great point, and I don't think I can add much to what you've already pointed out.

[phoenix-king-ozai]

Ozai's character and relationship analysis!

Ozai has unwavering faith in his daughter Azula's skills as a warrior, tactician, and manipulator to do outrageous feats such as conquering Ba Sing Se and capturing Iroh and Zuko. Ozai gave Azula a massive number of resources (give her the best ship in the nation), training (taught her lightning bending and how to breathe fire), and skills (manipulation and intrigue) needed for her mission.

I also assume if Azula wanted or need other allies or help Ozai would have given it to her if she demanded it. For example, Rough Rhinos, Yu-Yan Archers, and Bounty Hunters such as June and Combustion Man. Azula decided that she only need her friends Mai and Ty Lee for the protection of the Drill for the Conquest of Ba Sing Se and that she could manipulate Zuko into bringing Iroh and himself back to the Fire Nation due to their treasonous action in the North Pole.

Azula's conquest of Ba Sing Se was to be through the Drill but was foiled by the Gaang. She knew her father wouldn't accept a massive failure like this without another victory considering the massive loss in resources and money building it. Zhao probably would be demoted or executed for the failure in the North.

Ozai sees Azula as an extension of himself as a father, warrior, and teacher. Her victories are his glorious victories and her defeats become his shaming defeats. Ozai sees himself in his daughter for three reasons: They are both incredibly gifted Firebenders, they are both the second-born child that is neglected in favor of the first, and thirdly they have a cunning Machiavellian and imperialist mindset of their forefathers! Something that Ursa can't relate with Ozai or Azula.

Ozai while see does see his children as pawns, ultimately everyone is a pawn for the Fire Lord. Ozai and Iroh were Azulon's pawns. And Azula and Zuko were Ozai's pawns. Ozai did try to love and care for his children while they were young, and we have seen this in the show and even comics. He doesn't hate and despises his children but the traits that they have that make them less suitable for the position of Fire Lord.

Ozai is an imperialist first before a father. Ozai was raised to be this way by his father Fire Lord Azulon and his brainwashing by Fire Lord Sozin legacy. Therefore, he doesn't connect with Iroh abandoning the Siege of Ba Sing Se over Lu Ten death. Iroh should be proud that his son died to fight for his nation but ashamed that he failed to protect his son and avenge his death.

The sad reality of this man is that he gave up on himself and became a carbon copy of the tyrants that were his father and grandfather after years of what had to be endless mental and psychological abuse and neglect on Azulon's behalf. The old wikis say at some point that Ozai used to spend most of his time seeking guidance from the portraits of his ancestors in his youth, this speaks a lot about how alone he was.

Also, it is likely that Ozai didn't have any good role models to follow. I head-canon that after his mother died given birth to him. Azulon because dark, colder, and crueler especially to the baby infant that took his beloved wife away [ala Tywin and Tyrion scenario]

I see Ozai as the final cumulation of Sozin's vile, brutal, immoral cruel, toxic, and imperialist propaganda that he has pushed down on his son Azulon along with the rest of the Fire Nation Elite Nobility and Military culture and society. The Fire Nation is basic on the Imperial Dynasties of China, the Shogunates of Japan, and Fascist Imperial Japan. Not a good environment for an abused child who is despised by his father and brother for being the scapegoat of his mother's death in childbirth.

An Ozai redemption arc is POSSIBLE; believe it or not, the man IS NOT the living reincarnation of Vaatu. Granted, did burn Zuko and disowned Zuko, but that is because Zuko does not fit with the criteria of falling in line with Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai's own ideals of being strong, ruthless, cunning, vicious, and powerful Firebenders. Azula broke down due to the perfectionist mindset that Ozai instilled in himself. Ozai DOES NOT just TALK THE TALK, but he also WALKS THE WALK. He has absurdly high extreme expectations of Zuko and Azula because these are the parenting traits that were passed down by both Sozin and Azulon's imperialistic paternal parenting methods and technique! 💯

An Ozai redemption would involve him coming to terms that his father's and grandfather's legacy and parenting beliefs are wrong and that he made a massive mistake in enforcing the same rules and traditions upon his children. Recognizing that love, compassion, and mercy aren't weaknesses but strengths. Rejecting the propaganda, racism, bigotry, and imperialist bushido of his forefathers. An Ozai redemption story would take quite a bit of time and the many bits of help of his family members [Iroh, Ursa, Zuko, and a healthy Azula] along with internal and external reflection after his EGO and PRIDE hits ROCK BOTTOM. Just like Vegeta!

[evsalonyx]

In which Iroh is a Sly EelHound

From chapter two of Under the Southern Moon

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41371608

Zuko hurried around the pink room, setting the table with an artisanal tea set he had brought in from Ba Sing Se. Everything was almost perfect. He stopped in his tracks, smacked his forehead, and groaned. Sugar. Everything was not perfect.

"Hey Lee, can you run and get the sugar? I'm sorry, I forgot it." Zuko's voice only held a hint of nerves.

The servant nodded and hurried off. Zuko sat down to admire his work, the tea ceremony preparation was without fault, except for the sugar. Lee came back quickly, and he set the sugar container on the small table and waited, kneeling on the other side. There was a knock at the door. Zuko was up in a flash, opening it for his Uncle. He wrapped the squat man in a hug and almost lifted him off the floor. “You’re getting strong, or I’m losing weight.”

“Trust me, you’re definitely not losing, uncle.”

Laughter rolled through Iroh as he sat down at the tea table. “Your wit is delightful. If not a bit insulting.” He teased me.

When Zuko got to work, he sat the cup of tea gingerly down in front of his uncle. The old man paused before he took a sip and sniffed.

"It smells like your tea making skills have improved over time, but I will wait to taste it before I make judgements."

Iroh took a long sip. "Not terrible. You have improved, nephew." After taking another sip he looked up from his cup.

"Now, due to the urgency I doubt this is a social visit. How can I help you?"

Zuko retrieved the letter from his desk and handed it to his uncle.

"Sokka and Suki are getting married."

Uncle's smile widened. "What happy news! Marriage is like a great adventure on the high seas, sometimes rough, sometimes calm, but if two people can work together, they can sail off into their sunset."

Zuko raised an eyebrow. Again with the metaphors.

"Yeah, um. So I've been invited, and uh, I'd like to go, so,would you act as regent?"

Uncle stroked his beard. "I would be happy to. It has been so long since you took a vacation. You need to relax more."

Zuko rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't think it will be much of a vacation. Mai wants me to propose, she's getting antsy, and she's not happy about this trip." He ran his pale hand through his black hair.

"And going to a wedding is going to put her more on edge."

Iroh nodded and let out an understanding sigh.

"Are you nervous about getting married?"

"Yes, no, I don't know."

Uncle took another sip of tea and let Zuko marinate in the silence.

"Mai is amazing, she's a great warrior, she knows about court life, I love her, but I'm just not ready to be married."

"There's nothing wrong with taking your own path on your own time in life. You of all people know that. However, in a practical sense, the future of the fire nation needs to be secure, and if something were to happen to you, you would not leave an heir, and chaos and civil war might break out. Children are a joyful blessing, and it is an unfortunate reality of your position that they must be viewed as a necessity."

Zuko felt the candle light in the room flicker with his anxiousness.

"I know, I know I need to have an... heir. It's just, when I'm with her, she's always angry, or annoyed, or sad, we just don't connect and I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. I can’t imagine dealing with that every day, all while trying to lead the nation out of this damn pit we’ve been in for 100 years.

Iroh let his nephew finish.

"I think she loves you in her own way, but there are many different forms of love, and you can have more than one love over a lifetime, sometimes when two people love each other they grow apart."

Zuko looked down at the water tribe insignia on the letter and ran his thumb over it.

"But new loves always come.” Iroh sat his tea cup down on the table, observing how the leaves settled in the bottom of the green cup. “or old ones come back."

"You're thinking about Katara."

"No, but you are." Iroh smirked in his cheerful way as if he had just won a friendly game of pai-sho.

Damn. He knew that Azula had inherited her ability to get at what was in his mind from Iroh, not Ozai.

[zukoscomet]

Do you have any ideas about how Katara decides to stay in the fire nation and become a Fire Lady? I mean, many anti-Zutara say that Katara would never agree to rule a country that is to blame for the death of her mother, but I think that for Katara, the hope for a bright future of this country is much more important, but this is still a big step for her.

Hey, anon, thanks for the question!

Maybe I should start off by saying that I do think, for a take on ZK that's compliant with how it was left at the end of the show (i.e. Zuko is the Fire Lord, not Iroh), that Katara would need to spend a slim majority of her time in the Fire Nation for a few reasons:

From what we understand, the Fire Lord has an absolute rule over the Fire Nation and dictates the running of most things. Though I think Zuko would work on delegating and devolving power a lot in his reign, he couldn't do so much that would enable him to just leave the country for long, frequent stints without there being repercussions.

The position of Fire Lady, or whatever title you prefer for Katara as consort, would probably entail some responsibilities and Katara would surely take on a whole lot more. Some would be voluntary philanthropic stuff like building hospitals and schools, but I always imagine Katara in my fics as being almost Zuko's co-ruler - there's really not much that Zuko does that Katara isn't somehow involved in. She'd be a bit more free to come and go than him, but she'd still have responsibilities that need her attention. And also, she's married to Zuko because she loves him; she wants to be with him, not spending most of their time apart.

Kids would eventually come along and kids really need stability in their lives, like their home, school, friends, routines, hobbies, etc.

Obviously from my work, I disagree that the prospect of living in the Fire Nation/becoming Fire Lady would be a dealbreaker for Katara.

However, I do think that it would be an extremely complex issue for her and would pose a challenge in Katara and Zuko's romantic relationship, maybe even before it begins. I won't go into too much depth on this because it's an idea I'm exploring a little in a fic I'm working on currently, but I imagine that when Katara and Zuko start feeling a type of way about each other, they both clamp down and refuse to act on it because of the implications - Zuko thinking it'd be wrong and selfish of him to pursue a relationship that would oblige her to stay to some degree, Katara thinking that she is just not at all the right fit for the Fire Lord's consort, and both of them thinking that the other isn't interested in them that way anyway.

Rationality wouldn't be able to stop things from coming to the surface eventually, though, and I think when Katara and Zuko realise the feelings are reciprocated, they would both do some serious thinking as to whether they could have a future. For Zuko, this would probably be in more of a literal sense, like checking to see if the law allows it and testing the waters with people in high places.

For Katara, it would be about figuring out that she can make the position entirely her own. I imagine she would already be involved in a lot of projects helping both the SWT and the Fire Nation as Ambassador; maybe one day when she and Zuko are just starting out in their relationship, she'd get to thinking well, I could do all this as Fire Lady, couldn't I? Could I even do more? Katara would always have had the confidence to own her place, it's just she needed to know it was possible to get the ideas flowing. She'd realise that she can wear her blues and furs, that she wear her loopies and braids with a crown. She'd realise that she can still be a master waterbender, a master healer. She'd realise that she can still be of service in building up the Southern Water Tribe even when she's not there all the time, and she will be there a lot of the time visiting. She'd realise that her children would grow up being as proud of and as connected to their Water Tribe heritage as they would their Fire Nation. She'd realise that she can still be herself and be important in the world, and that Zuko would not only back her every mile but would always encourage her further.

Katara doesn't become the Fire Lady but the Fire Lady becomes Katara, so to speak, and that's how she decides it works.

[reinerispretty]

little moments. zuko x f!reader rotations bonus

HI UM!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 2K!!!!! i love each and every one of u with my WHOLE HEART!!!! 

i was trying to think of something special to do that everyone would enjoy, so why not a good callback to the reason why most of us are here hehehe

when i wrote rotations, there were lots of avenues that i thought of taking after the fall of ba sing se! in the fic, (y/n) is arrested, and i posted a bonus already of how it would have ended if she had escaped with sokka and the rest of the gaang. HOWEVER, i did think of her taking azula up on her offer of going back to the fire nation and being there with zuko (insert side eye emoji) 

so that’s what this is! a little rotations bonus to say thank you so much for sticking with me!!

She had contemplated it as she was in her room on the ship. Of running away and finding Sokka, Katara, and Toph. She would tell them that she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t strong enough.

But as she lie awake that night, she thought of everything Aang had sacrificed in order to ensure that they would have a better life. If he was truly gone, it would a disservice to their entire cause if she couldn’t risk something the way her beloved friend had.

The weight of what she had done settled into her stomach as soon as (Y/N) opened her eyes. She stared up at the ceiling of one of the guest bedrooms in the Earth King’s palace, needles dancing behind her eyes. For the first time in months, she was completely alone. 

Azula had offered her immunity if she chose to join her. All would be forgiven if (Y/N) would just join them and return to her home, her real home. The mainland of the Fire Nation and the inner workings of palace life. It would be like nothing had changed. And (Y/N) had said yes. 

It wasn’t as if she wanted to betray her friends. It was something that Sokka had discussed with her, in the event that she was captured. 

A knock sounded against the heavy green door. (Y/N) sat up against the fluffy green pillows and called whoever it was in. Servants filtered in, carrying bundles of clothing, brushes, soaps, and dishes of water. One stopped at the foot of her bed. “The Princess has asked that you ready yourself to see her in the throne room.” 

(Y/N) nodded silently and slipped out of the bed. The servants guided her to a chair in front of a vanity where they worked at her appearance.

Looking in the mirror was difficult. (Y/N) couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, as she was dressed in the traditional clothing of her nation, she kept her eyes cast downward and remained silent as the servants scrubbed the dirt from her nails and face and brushed the knots from her hair. It was as if, little by little, evidence of her time with Aang, Katara, Toph, and Sokka was being erased. 

Sokka. She thought back to their conversation on the floor of their house in Ba Sing Se, shrouded in darkness as they whispered to each other. “Do what you can to keep yourself safe,” He had said quietly. “Pretend that you like them or something. When you can, meet back up with us and tell us about the Fire Lord’s plan.”

“I’m not leaving you guys,” She had scoffed, hoping that Sokka’s request of her was fake. Did he really expect her to leave her friends? The people who had become her family?

Sokka had turned over on his stomach to look at her. “You’re our best chance at gathering intel about the Fire Nation. They know you there, they trust you.” 

“Not anymore,” She pointed out. Sokka shrugged. 

“They have a soft spot for you. You’re one of our advantages, (Y/N). If given the opportunity, I need you to take it.” 

She had turned over, staring straight into his sky blue eyes. She rested her chin on her palm. She wasn’t taking Sokka seriously, so she had humored him. “Fine,” She agreed. “If Azula wanders up to me and asks me to go back, I’ll play spy.” 

Sokka’s face remained serious despite her joking tone. “I don’t want you to do this either,” He had told her. “If you get into any serious danger, just come back to m--us.” 

(Y/N) had laughed. “Danger? In the Fire Nation? No way.” 

In the present, (Y/N) dared to look at herself in the mirror. Her hair was done in the traditional Fire Nation topknot, flowing freely down her back. She looked as she had over a year ago. Beloved daughter of the Fire Nation with a miserable glint in her eye. Was this who she had always been? She swallowed thickly to press down the tears. 

She had learned to trust Sokka’s judgment overtime. It was a good plan. She was the only one that could do it. But it hadn’t been a day and she already couldn’t wait to be reunited with her friends. In the meantime, she would have to do her best to pretend that this was the life she wanted. One of cruelty and submission. 

She had sat in the palace the night before, as Zuko and Azula fought Katara and Aang in the caverns below the city. She had watched Appa fly away, with no knowledge of how her friends had fared during the fight. 

Once she was done getting ready, (Y/N) dismissed the servants. She walked quietly to the throne room, her head down. When she entered, Azula was sat in the Earth King’s throne, still wearing her Earth Kingdom disguise. Mai and Ty Lee were seated at the steps beneath her. The one person she was expecting to see was absent. 

Ty Lee’s face lit up when she saw (Y/N), and as soon as she finished her bow, the young acrobat cartwheeled over to her and gave her a hug. (Y/N’s) first instinct was to stiffen, but she fought it and squeezed Ty Lee as hard as she could. 

“It’s so good to have you back!” Ty Lee exclaimed, clasping (Y/N’s) cheeks between her hands. “I’ve never seen your aura look better!” 

“That’s...great?” (Y/N) questioned, furrowing her brows. Her eyes drifted over to Mai, who picked her nails with the blades of her darts. 

“Hey.” Was all she said. Well, that was alright. Mai and (Y/N) had never been very close. 

“Good morning,” Azula drawled, a smile curling on her lips. (Y/N) was unsure if it was genuine or menacing. Both were to be expected when dealing with Azula. “I’ve talked to Father. He’s willing to fully pardon you for your crimes.” 

“That’s--” (Y/N) swallowed. “That’s very generous of the Fire Lord.” 

“Yes. I told him all about the poison the Avatar and his friends put into your head. Without guidance from me, you were easily influenced.” Azula adjusted her position in the throne, tucking her legs beneath herself. She looked like she belonged there. “Father and I both agreed that it would be best if I kept you close. You need support from your real friends.” 

(Y/N) knew what this was, and Azula did too. It was not something from the kindness of the young princess’s heart. It was a way to control (Y/N), to make sure that she wouldn’t stray. A single misstep and it was likely that she would be six feet under. It was even more likely that Azula would put her there herself. 

(Y/N) tried as hard as she could to smile gratefully. “Thank you, Azula. Please give your father my thanks.” The doors to the throne room opened then, revealing Zuko. He was dressed in a royal Fire Nation robe, but his green Earth Kingdom clothes still poked out from beneath the red fabric. (Y/N) liked to think that she had become very vigilant in her time running from the Fire Nation, so she noticed the way Mai’s face lit up just slightly at his appearance. 

He looked over at (Y/N), his eyes widening in surprise. He opened his mouth to speak, then immediately shut it. She stared back at him, her eyes boring into his. While it may appear that she and Zuko were on the same side, she had no intention of forgiving him for turning on Iroh. For throwing away all the progress he had made in his time away from the Fire Nation. He was so close to becoming the version of himself that she always believed he could be and he had thrown it all away for trivial acceptance. 

Zuko was the first to turn away and (Y/N) looked back to Ty Lee. 

“Can you tell me about the boy you were traveling with?” Ty Lee questioned. “The one with the ponytail?” 

“Yes, (Y/N),” Azula said. “Do tell us all about your time with the Avatar and his friends. I’d like to know what they’re planning.” 

“His name is Sokka,” (Y/N) told Ty Lee, trying her hardest to not show any amount of affection in her voice. “And I don’t know what they’re planning. They never trusted me enough to share.” She stared straight into Azula’s golden eyes. Azula was a skilled liar, but (Y/N) had grown up with her. She had a lot more tricks up her sleeve than the princess would anticipate. 

Azula narrowed her fine eyebrows. “That’s quite alright. I suppose we don’t have much to worry about, considering Zuko killed the Avatar.” 

(Y/N) had to hold in her gasp or else she would be jeopardizing everything she was here for. There was no way Aang could be gone. He was the connection between the Spirit World and the Human World. Wouldn’t they be able to feel it? 

She curled her hands into fists, her nails pressing crescent shaped marks into her skin. “You should be thanking him,” Said Azula. (Y/N’s) eyes slid across the room to Zuko. He stared at his sister, his own brow furrowed in confusion. “Go on. Say thank you.” 

“Thank you,” (Y/N) said quietly to Zuko. She hated how silent he was being. If Aang was gone, then Zuko would now be dead to her. He had done something unforgivable. If he didn’t understand the weight of his actions now, then he never would. 

“Our ship leaves tonight,” Azula announced, standing up and stretching her body. “We should be back home by morning. (Y/N), you’ll be staying in the palace with Zuzu and I, since your parents failed to protect you from the Avatar.” 

“Thank you,” (Y/N) repeated, perhaps because her brain couldn’t think of anything else. 

“Father also wants to have an audience with you,” Azula said as she skipped down the steps. She strode over to (Y/N), the same mischievous glint in her eye. “Something about loyalty.” Azula’s smile was menacing. 

(Y/N) swallowed. She was in way over her head. 

---

Their ship docked in the royal port, just below the palace. Guards escorted (Y/N) off of the ship, which was horribly embarrassing. Truly they couldn’t think of her as that big of a threat to require guards? Perhaps they had thought she might try to escape. She had contemplated it as she was in her room on the ship. Of running away and finding Sokka, Katara, and Toph. She would tell them that she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t strong enough. 

But as she lie awake that night, she thought of everything Aang had sacrificed in order to ensure that they would have a better life. If he was truly gone, it would a disservice to their entire cause if she couldn’t risk something the way her beloved friend had. It was intimidating, being surrounded by those she had fought for so long, but (Y/N) was different now. She wasn’t the girl that they thought they knew. Her time with her friends had changed her for the better. 

So, (Y/N) stepped off the ship and back onto the Fire Nation mainland with her chin held high, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips. If she were to be believable, she had to exude confidence, even if she was scared out of her mind. Her confidence began to falter as the guards walked her past Zuko and Azula, past Mai and Ty Lee, and to the room that she remembered to be the Fire Lord’s throne room. 

She had not set foot into this room since she was nine, when she had exhibited her firebending skills for Fire Lord Azulon. So much had changed since then. If she had thought Azulon was intimidating then, Ozai was something to be feared. 

He sat on his throne, red flames shooting up in columns on either side. As soon as she was before him, the guards left, and (Y/N) fell into a bow. She absolutely despised groveling, but she knew it was what needed to be done in order to survive beneath the Fire Lord’s nose. 

She tried her best to bring back all the information of Fire Nation etiquette that had gathered dust at the back of her mind. After a few moments of silence, she rose and sat on her knees, hands folded in her lap as she stared forward at Ozai. Her eyes were downcast, avoiding her gaze. (Y/N) tried her best to come across as shameful. 

“You have grown since the last time you were in these halls,” The Fire Lord spoke. His voice was calm, too calm for someone who was talking to a traitor. (Y/N) inhaled a deep breath. 

“My lord,” She said, her voice shaky from nerves. “I am so, so sorry for betraying our nation. I deserve to be thrown into prison and never let out.” 

“Is that what you want?” Ozai questioned. “To be rotting in a cell?” (Y/N) curled her fingers into her dress and made a rash decision. She looked at the Fire Lord and stared directly into his amber eyes. 

“I want to prove myself to the nation. And to you. I was a foolish girl. After Zuko’s banishment, I was heartbroken. I let my feelings get the better of me.” There was some truth to her lies. She wasn’t foolish, nor did she want to prove herself, but Zuko’s banishment had only been a catalyst for how she felt about the Fire Nation. 

“I don’t give second chances.” (Y/N) felt a tugging at her heart. She couldn’t report to her friends from jail. Or if she was dead. “But perhaps you can redeem yourself after your punishment.” (Y/N’s) eyebrow quirked up curiously. 

Ozai plucked a metal rod from his side and stood, walking down to meet her. (Y/N) knew what it was. Their words for ‘traitor’ were cast into iron at the end of the rod, which was already heating up from Ozai’s touch. The brand was given to those who had betrayed the nation, so that all would know of their treachery. They considered it to be a better option that rotting in jail or being executed. 

(Y/N) gulped. She had never seen a branding performed, but she had heard the screams as Ursa had ushered her, Azula, and Zuko away from the palace when they were young. It was a practice that not even Azulon had instituted. It was purely of Ozai’s crafting. 

“Your arm,” Ozai said, gesturing to her right arm. (Y/N) pulled up her sleeve. She could feel her body getting hot, the fight or flight instincts kicking in and begging her to run. As a native to the Fire Nation and a firebender, she was able to withstand a great amount of heat. Which meant that the poker needed to be thousands of degrees hotter than the average in order to brand her skin. “This is a punishment for your own actions,” Ozai sneered. “You brought this upon yourself.” 

The hot poker pressed into the skin of her forearm and (Y/N) had to bite down as hard as she possibly could on her bottom lip to keep herself from shouting, but it was no use. The pain was unbearable, shooting up her arm and reverberating on every nerve within her body. She couldn’t control her shrill screams as they echoed in the massive hall. Hot tears streamed down her face as she watched what Ozai was doing to her. She should have escaped when she had the chance, should have told Sokka no, she couldn’t return to the Fire Nation. She had been a child then, she wouldn’t be safe from the horrors that Ozai inflicted on others. 

He removed the iron from her skin and (Y/N) collapsed in on herself, her body shaking with sobs. She knew that showing weakness was even more dangerous now than ever before, but this was a treatment that was reserved for seasoned war criminals, not fifteen year old girls. She looked up at Ozai through cloudy eyes, barely able to see through her tears. “Thank you, my lord,” She said, her voice shaky and small because her throat was clouded with sobs. 

“You are dismissed,” He said as he returned to his position on his throne, not bothering to look back at her. (Y/N) stood on wobbly legs and bowed once more before walking slowly out of the throne room. As soon as she was beyond its doors, she started running. She couldn’t even see where she was going, but her feet carried her to the only place she knew would help. 

She sobbed heavily as she reached the turtle duck pond, dropping to her knees and shoving her arm into the cool water. The turtle ducks quacked and flapped away from her, but (Y/N) couldn’t care. She wanted Katara, whose healing powers would ease the burning pain shooting up and down her arm. She wanted to be held, to be reassured that everything would be alright. She cried, her tears dripping into the pond water. It probably wasn’t the most sanitary situation, but the coolness of the water helped ease her pain just slightly. 

“(Y/N)?” Zuko’s voice sounded far away in her ears. “What happened?” 

(Y/N) couldn’t bring herself to look any farther up than his boots. She felt so tired, but she couldn’t afford to pass out. She couldn’t let her guard down once while in this place. “Just go away,” She said meekly, the fingers on her other hand clawing into the soft grass. 

“Father gave her her punishment,” Azula said from the other side of (Y/N). Having the both of them here was the absolute last thing she wanted. Azula pulled her arm from the pond and wrapped cool towels around her burn. (Y/N) hissed in pain, but she had to admit that it was better than the pond water. “If it makes you feel any better,” continued Azula nonchalantly. “You passed his test.” 

“You knew about this?” Zuko demanded, his eyes wild with anger. Azula scoffed. 

“Relax, Zuzu. It’s just a little burn.” Delirious, (Y/N) laughed bitterly. Her ragged breathing was starting to even out. 

Zuko bent down at her side, placing a hand on her shoulder. (Y/N) shrugged it off and stood, refusing to look at him. She wiped the tears from her eyes and removed the towels from her arm. ‘Traitor’ was beginning to blister on her skin. It would be something that remained with her for the rest of her life. 

She looked up at Azula. “Can you take me to my room?” 

“You should probably go to the infirmary,” Zuko suggested. 

“Zuko, I heard that Mai was looking for you,” Azula’s voice was laced with spite that stung both Zuko and (Y/N). Azula linked her arm with (Y/N’s) good one and led her back into the palace. 

“Father said it was necessary for you to understand the damage you’ve done,” Azula said lowly to (Y/N). “You weren’t only a nuisance to me, you know. The whole Fire Nation was ashamed of you.” Azula giggled. She had a way of making jokes out of insults, but once she saw (Y/N’s) face, her own softened. “It will heal.” 

“Will there be more tests to prove my willingness?” (Y/N) questioned. “If they’re worse than this, I don’t know if I’ll survive.” 

“That’s all Father had planned for you.” (Y/N) noticed how Azula failed to mention if she had any tests for her. With a deep sigh, (Y/N) hoped that her friends were better off than she was. 

---

A nurse had visited (Y/N’s) room to tend to her wound. The expression on her face had been a mixture of disgust and pity. (Y/N) hadn’t had the energy to leave her bed for a few days, which she recognized was putting her mission in jeopardy. She was supposed to be gathering information, not wallowing beneath the blankets. 

After the nurse had dressed her bandages, (Y/N) decided it was best to finally roam about the palace. There was still a stinging sensation on her skin whenever it rubbed against the fabric of her dress, but she tried her best to ignore it as she walked through the halls of the Royal Palace, as well as memory lane. The place had become considerably more focused on Ozai rather than the greatness of the Fire Nation. Servants scampered about in fear, careful not to cross her path. She didn’t recognize anyone that she saw. (Y/N) used to know everyone by name. She guessed that they had either fled the palace or had been fired. Or worse. 

Being there felt like being out of place in your own home. Thinking back on her past felt like looking into someone else’s life. 

She paused at the tapestries of the Fire Lords, staring up at Ozai’s looming figure. He looked the most menacing, and perhaps that was because he was the most dangerous. There was only a month until the Day of the Black Sun, but that seemed like such a short amount of time to figure out how to defeat Ozai. 

“It’s different,” Zuko said at her side, and (Y/N) jumped in surprise, clutching a hand to her heart. “Being back here after so long,” He elaborated. 

(Y/N) hummed. If she were being honest, she avoided Zuko as much as she could. She felt as though she couldn’t stand to be around him. If she were alone with him for too long, she might end up beating him senseless. 

“Why did you come back?” Zuko questioned. “I thought you were happy with them.” 

“I guess we both don’t know each other as well as we thought,” (Y/N) said, keeping her voice as level as possible. She looked at Zuko, her face devoid of emotion. “I’m not here for you.” 

Zuko frowned. “I didn’t think you were.” 

“Good.” She turned to walk away, but Zuko grabbed her by the sleeve of her robes. 

“If you’re here, why are you mad at me? You’ve forgiven everyone else.” 

“You killed my friend,” She said quietly. “How could I ever forgive you for doing that?” 

“That wasn’t--” Zuko huffed, lowering his voice. “I didn’t kill Aang. Azula used her lightning on him.” 

(Y/N) narrowed her eyes. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” 

“You would trust Azula over me?” 

“You of all people should know that you can’t trust anyone here.” She crossed her arms over one another, wincing at the contact of her wound. “Why would Azula lie?” 

“Azula always lies,” Zuko said, repeating the mantra they had created when they were kids. “Why would it matter to you what happened in the underground city? You left them. You betrayed them.” (Y/N) flinched. 

“And you feel so confident after abandoning your uncle?” Zuko’s eyes sparked with anger. After all this time, at least she knew exactly what buttons to push. “I cared about them,” She said, choosing her words very carefully. “I spent months with them, it was impossible not to. If they had killed you, I would be feeling the same way.” (Y/N) swallowed. “But they wouldn’t have. They’re different from you and me.” 

She left him then, her heart pounding against her chest. Part of her wished that she could reach out to Zuko, to make him see all the wrong that their nation was causing the world, but she knew it would be too dangerous. Zuko’s loyalties lay with his family and Mai now. He might have been (Y/N’s) once, but he was no longer. 

---

“Are you really going to stay under that umbrella the whole time?” Ty Lee pouted, grabbing (Y/N) by the arm. “The whole point of going to the beach is to get some sun!” 

(Y/N) poked her feet from beneath the umbrella, wiggling her toes in the warm sand. She pointed at them. “They’re getting sun.” Ty Lee sighed, retreating back to her towel on the beach, where dozens of boys were already waiting for her. (Y/N) adjusted on her own beach chair, wrapping her shawl tightly around her shoulders. The words etched into her arm would be a dead giveaway to the children of Fire Nation aristocracy that littered Ember Island. It would cause more trouble than it was worth. 

“I’m surprised you’re not running into the water,” Mai said in her monotonous voice. “I thought you loved to swim.” 

“Yeah, I’d just rather not draw attention to the ugly branding on my arm,” (Y/N) said offhandedly, digging into her beach bag for a pack of fire flakes. She offered some to Mai, who took a few and shook them into her palm. The girls ate together quietly. 

“It’s better than getting sent to Boiling Rock,” Mai said and (Y/N) snorted. 

“That’s what I keep telling myself, but it didn’t feel like it in the moment.” Mai’s dark eyes glanced at (Y/N’s) arm, ‘traitor’ slightly visible beneath the sheerness of her shawl. 

“I didn’t think they were actually going to do it,” Mai admitted. “Azula begged her dad not to execute you.” 

(Y/N) coughed from surprise and also from the heat of the fire flakes. “Well, I’m glad to hear I was saved from a worse fate.” Zuko returned then, taking a seat between Mai and (Y/N). He handed his girlfriend ice cream, which promptly fell on her lap. 

She hadn’t been on Ember Island for many summers, but things rarely changed on the tourist destination. Her family used to have a house on the opposite side of the island. She wondered who occupied it now. 

Azula squatted at (Y/N’s) other side. “We’ve been invited to a party,” She announced, a triumphant smile on her face. (Y/N) sighed. 

“I don’t really think I’m up for a party,” She said, and Azula’s fingers wrapped around her arm, pressing into the healing skin. 

“Please? You have to come!” Azula demanded, but her smile seemed genuine. (Y/N) coughed. 

“Azula? My arm.” Azula lifted her hands immediately, giving her a look that was almost apologetic. 

“You have to come,” Azula repeated. “I already told them to expect the five of us.” 

So (Y/N) was forced to attend a Fire Nation party. If the children of these diplomats had annoyed her as kids, she couldn’t stand them as teenagers. (Y/N) kept to the wall, preferring to people watch and nibble on the stacked plate she had snagged from the food table. She had traded her shawl for a long-sleeved shirt that had been buried in the back of Lo and Li’s closet. It was definitely old fashioned, but (Y/N) didn’t really care. 

As she watched, (Y/N) thought of how she had never actually been to a party. Growing up, there were certain obligations and expectations that she needed to uphold. Being betrothed to Zuko meant taking lessons and maintaining appearances. She had gone to an all girl’s school for a short amount of time before being pulled out of her lessons to be tutored at the palace. Really, her entire childhood had consisted of Zuko, Azula, and other adults. 

“Hey, how’s it going?” One boy asked, walking up to her and leaning against the wall. (Y/N) jumped in surprise, nearly spilling her food. When did she get so jumpy? Perhaps it was a side effect of constantly being on edge. 

“Uh, hi,” She said, unsure why this boy was talking to her. Is this what happened at parties? People just walked up to other people without formal introductions? She felt so lame. 

“I’m Lee,” He said, and (Y/N) snorted, because the Fire Nation had a million Lee’s and Zuko had been one of them. Her eyes cut over to the prince, who stood brooding in a corner as he watched his girlfriend. 

“Sorry,” (Y/N) apologized, turning back to the boy. “I have so many friends named Lee. I’m (Y/N).” She took a bite of a carrot to punctuate her sentence. 

“Is this your first time on the island?” Lee asked, resting his back against the wall as she had. His eyes were a nice light brown, his hair black and shoulder-length and tied half up in the back. He was likely a whole foot taller than (Y/N). 

She shook her head. “I used to come here all the time when I was a kid. But y’know, life gets in the way so I haven’t been back in a few years.” 

“So where are you from?” He had a lot of questions. 

“The mainland,” (Y/N) answered. She wanted to be honest, as keeping up lies tended to be difficult, but she didn’t want to tell him that she was currently living at the palace. “And you?” 

“I’m from a smaller island off the coast of the mainland. My dad’s the mayor there.” 

“Oh, that’s nice.” (Y/N) realized she had a hard time talking to boys that she didn’t know almost everything about. She set her empty plate in the trash can and extended her hand to him, watching carefully so that her sleeves would not roll up. “Do you want to dance?” 

“Dance?” He questioned. (Y/N) smiled. 

“There’s music and an empty floor. That implies dancing.” 

“I don’t think--” She grabbed him by the hand anyway, leading him to the middle of the floor. 

“My grandfather taught me this one,” She told him, and she started dancing. It was another lie. Aang had taught her the traditional Fire Nation dances from his childhood, one night while their group was camped by a river bank and feeling incredibly bored. She had had no idea that her culture had once had a history of anything other than war, but learning the dance moves had excited her. 

“Like this?” Lee asked, repeating her movements. (Y/N) nodded her head excitedly. 

“Exactly!” She looked around the room and locked eyes with Ty Lee, who was always willing to have a fun time. She gestured for her to join her and once Ty Lee ran to the middle, other boys started flocking to the center to dance with them. 

For a while, (Y/N) forgot about her mission and the friends she had left behind. Later, this would make her sad. But for right now, she felt like a regular girl in the Fire Nation. 

Lee had pulled her close and spun her around so fast that she had been practically thrown from the crowd of dancers, spinning around the room until she eventually bumped into someone. (Y/N) laughed out an apology as the person gripped her forearms to steady her balance. When she looked up, she stared straight at Zuko. 

She had allowed herself to stare, for a few seconds. The last time they had been this close, he had been preparing for his Agni Kai. The pink and red skin of his scar might have been off-putting to some, but (Y/N) thought he looked as lovely as the first day she had met him. She wanted to reach her hand up and touch him, to feel the contrast between soft cheek and rough scar tissue, but as soon as she had that thought, she pushed it away. 

“Sorry,” She repeated as she separated herself from Zuko. The mood was ruined. She remembered everything that he had done, everything that she had left behind, and soon she went back to her spot on the wall, watching as the others danced happily. 

---

They had left the party, but really they had been thrown out. Zuko had been jealous of boys talking to Mai, so they had broken up, but then Zuko had started a fight? (Y/N) wasn’t necessarily sure what had happened. One moment she was moving back toward the snack table, the next Azula was pulling her out of the house by her collar. 

They sat on the beach now, surrounding the fire that (Y/N) had started. She remained quiet as they listed their qualms with each other, and with the universe. Her eyes remained focused on the flames as she processed the information and thought of any way that Sokka might be able to use it against them. But then a pit settled in her stomach. These were personal things that they were sharing, and it didn’t seem right to expose them so viciously. 

“You’re just going to be quiet?” Zuko demanded, his voice rough and laced with annoyance. Her eyes snapped toward him, a frown placing itself upon her features. 

“We’re all sharing,” Ty Lee said gently from her right. “Even Azula shared something.” (Y/N’s) eyes cut to Azula, who looked at her expectantly. 

“I think I’m alright.” She didn’t want to risk exposing herself. She wasn’t even sure what was safe to say. These were her childhood friends, but who knew what would happen if she revealed even a fraction of how she really felt. 

“Do you think you’re too good for us?” Zuko questioned, staring down at her. His voice was hard, laced with attitude as it normally was, but he seemed curious. “You spend time with the Avatar and his buddies and now you’re stuck with second rate friends?” 

“I chose to come back,” (Y/N) narrowed her eyes at Zuko. 

“It feels like you picked second best,” Azula said. (Y/N) locked eyes with her from across the fire. “We’re not idiots, we know you enjoyed your time with them. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have abandoned the life you had.” 

“You all seem to forget that the life I had wasn’t the life that I wanted,” (Y/N) said, staring at each of the people that surrounded her. “I was sent away from the only home I had ever known, from the only people that I had ever known, to live in an Earth Kingdom colony. My father thought I was a disappointment and my mother hated everything I did, and the people that I thought cared about me left me behind without a second thought.” She paused, turning to Zuko. “Did any of you even think about me? Even bother to consider how I might have felt? You’re all so concerned with your own lives, you always have been. I was alone. I might have made mistakes, but that’s what happens when you’re desperate for someone to care about you.” 

She firebended into the dying flames, causing them to shoot toward the sky. 

“Why come back then?” Mai asked. 

(Y/N) hesitated for a split second, but it was just long enough for Zuko to notice. “People fighting against the Fire Nation aren’t always eager to have someone from the Fire Nation with them.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to belong somewhere.” 

Ty Lee scrambled over to her, wrapping her arms around (Y/N). “You belong with us!” (Y/N) insisted. “We never wanted to fight you. We would always feel so horrible about it after.” 

(Y/N) gave her a light smile. “I would, too.” She risked casting a glance over at Azula, who refused to meet her eyes. (Y/N) couldn’t tell if she had messed everything up or if she was still in the clear. 

They let the fire die eventually, and one by one, each of the teenagers began returning to the house, until (Y/N) was the last one left. She had moved further down the beach where the tide splashed against the sand. It was a warm summer night on Ember Island, and the water was just right. The only light surrounding her was the light of the full moon, which cast a lovely silver glow on everything. 

“Hi, Yue,” She sighed, splashing her fingers into the water. “I wish there was a way that you could tell me they were okay.” 

She heard shuffling from behind her and turned around, surprised to see Zuko walking toward her. She turned back, facing the water once more. “I’ll be back to the house in a few minutes, I just wanted to sit for a while.” 

He sat in the sand, just a foot away from her. (Y/N) held in her sigh. Zuko was the last person she wanted sitting with her right now. She wanted to hate him for everything that he had done, but then she looked at him and all she wanted to do was talk to him. The inner conflict that he gave her was enough to put her in a sour mood for hours. 

“I didn’t know where you were,” Zuko said quietly. (Y/N) turned to him and furrowed her brows. “No one would tell me.” His eyes met hers. “Or else I would have written.” 

“Oh,” (Y/N) said, feeling her cheeks become hot. “It was years ago. It doesn’t really matter anymore.” 

“If it didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t have said it.” Sometimes it hit (Y/N) that just as she knew the inner workings of Zuko, her knew her as well. “I meant it, when I said that I thought of you every day.” 

“I meant what I said too,” (Y/N) said quietly. “But things are different now. You’re Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, not Lee from the tea shop.” 

“I’m still who I was in Ba Sing Se.” She shook her head. 

“You think that, but we both know what being back here really means.” Being back in the Fire Nation meant Zuko had reverted back to who he once was, someone eager to please his father, no matter the cost. 

Zuko was quiet, as if he didn’t know what to say. She was surprised with how calm he was being. Perhaps the full moon had an odd effect on everyone. 

“Can I ask you something?” (Y/N) questioned, and Zuko nodded. “Was Azula really the one to kill Aang?” 

He hesitated, but then he nodded. “He was in his Avatar State and she struck him with lightning.” 

(Y/N) pushed back the tears that threatened to spill over. Even with Zuko, she couldn’t truly show herself. “Why’d she tell everyone it was you?” 

“To get me in my father’s good graces.” He scoffed. “To save herself in case it didn’t work.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“When Katara and I were trapped in the caves, she told me that she had water from the Spirit World pool in the Northern Water Tribe.” Zuko shook his head. “I-I don’t know what could have happened, but there’s something telling me that no one really knows what happened to Aang.” 

That gave (Y/N) all the hope that she needed. Aang was safe. He was alright.

“So, if Aang is alive and your father thinks you failed...” She did not want to finish her sentence. She met Zuko’s golden eyes once more. “After everything he’s done, why did you come back?” 

“Same reason as you, I guess. I wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere.” 

She had never considered that Zuko had been feeling alone during his time with Iroh. She had been conflicted over her loyalties, but it had only lasted a few moments until she made the choice to join Team Avatar. She was confident that she was doing the right thing, but there was more at stake for Zuko. 

“You didn’t swim today,” he said suddenly. 

(Y/N) shrugged. “I didn’t want anyone to see my arm,” She said simply, but Zuko winced. 

“I...I didn’t know he was going to do that. If I had, I would’ve--” (Y/N) shook her head to stop him. 

“We both know firsthand what he’s capable of. I wouldn’t have wanted you to put yourself in a position like that.” She touched her arm, where beneath the fabric of her sleeve lay the raised marks of the brand that was still healing. “Who knows, maybe I’ll be laughing about it in a few years.” 

Zuko glanced at the water, then back to (Y/N). “Do you want to go swimming?”

(Y/N) opened her mouth to protest, but Zuko didn’t seem to be having it. “You love swimming.” And it was true, she did love to swim. She had spent hours in the water during their trips to this island as children. Her mother had had to practically drag her from the beach. 

(Y/N) stood and removed her top layer of clothes, revealing the bathing suit beneath. Without hesitating, she ran into the warm water, diving beneath the calm waves. When she resurfaced, Zuko was only a few paces away from her, the robe that he had been wearing left in a pile beside her own clothes on the beach. 

“The water’s colder than I remember,” Zuko called out to her, just as she dove beneath the waves once more. 

“It was definitely like this when we were young, we were just stubborn,” (Y/N) laughed. Zuko swam over to her. She stood on her toes as the water came to her shoulders, but it only reached Zuko’s chest. “Your hair is still dry,” She pointed out and Zuko rolled his eyes, plugging his nose and dipping beneath the surface for a few seconds. When he came back up, he was significantly closer to (Y/N) than he had been before. 

“Is that better?” He asked, shaking out his hair so water droplets splashed on her face. She laughed and shoved him backward to get him to stop. 

He staggered backwards and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her under with him. (Y/N) opened her eyes beneath the waves, feeling the familiar stinging sensation that had been a staple of her childhood. Zuko’s eyes were closed as he held his breath. He had never gotten used to opening his eyes underwater, it had seemed. 

(Y/N) pulled them up toward the surface, both inhaling a sharp breath of air. As she went to settle on her feet, she bobbed beneath the waves. They had traveled much farther from the shore than she had expected. 

Zuko reached out for her, wrapping his arm around her middle to keep her above the water. He could still stand, which (Y/N) hated. “The last time we swam here, I was taller than you,” (Y/N) said, staring up at him. He smiled down at her, the corner of his eyes crinkling. The skin of his scar tried to repeat the action of its counterpart, but it couldn’t quite do it. 

(Y/N) couldn’t keep her eyes off of his scar. She knew it wasn’t entirely polite, but she was curious. He had left the Fire Nation before it had healed. When they encountered each other, she was never very close to him. Even at the party, she had only seen it up close for a few seconds. 

“I’ve never seen it this close,” She told him, her voice as soft as the moonlight that surrounded them. Zuko’s cheeks flushed. 

“It’s pretty bad, huh?” His eyes were trained on her, but she wasn’t noticing. She furrowed her brows and shook her head.

“I like it,” She said simply. It was Zuko’s turn to furrow his brows. 

“You can’t be serious.” (Y/N) shrugged, lifting her right hand to touch his cheek like she had wanted to at the party. Zuko stiffened and nearly dropped her into the ocean. Her thumb, light as a feather, traced over the pink and red skin. Some areas felt smooth and silky, while others were rougher. She traced over the brow bone where his eyebrow had once been. 

His eyes fell to her forearm, where his father’s punishment was still healing on her skin. He wrapped his fingers around her arm, lightly tracing the word with his own thumb. 

“For the record,” He said, eyes still focused on her arm. “I don’t think you’re a traitor.” 

A few moments passed before he looked up at her again. Her eyes were soft, sparkling in the reflection of the moonlight that bounced off of the water. The corners of her lips were turned upward in a soft smile. Her hand remained cupping the side of the face and Zuko sighed, leaning into her touch. 

“You’re really beautiful,” She told him, stroking his scar once more. “I don’t think I ever told you that.” Her heart was beating so hard against her chest. This was the stupid power that Zuko had over her. She had been so mad at him just a few hours ago, but if she allowed it, he wormed his way back into her heart. 

Zuko’s eyes widened in surprise at her statement. He parted his lips to say something, but no words would come to mind. She dizzied him, jumbled his thoughts until he was a mess of unspoken words and dumbfounded faces. 

It was slow as it happened, thoughtful. He rested his forehead against hers, their noses just barely touching as he stared at her through half-lidded eyes. He would give her time. If she wanted to pull away, she would. 

She didn’t. Her other hand took its place on his bicep, fingers curling gently into his skin. Her lips parted, her lashes batting upward as she stared into his amber eyes. Zuko was all that she could see and feel. Her heart continued to pound against her chest. If he wanted to do something, he would. 

Zuko’s eyes fluttered shut as he closed the distance between them, capturing her lips in a kiss. They were softer than he had ever imagined. The little gasp she let out made him pull her closer. He didn’t want any space between them. His hand left its place at her arm and traveled up to where she caressed his cheek, wrapping his fingers around her palm. 

(Y/N’s) eyes had remained open for a split second before she closed them, pressing into Zuko as she kissed back. She was completely thoughtless. Everything else in the world was absent as she melted into him, the hand at his arm moving to the back of his neck to pull him toward her even more. She had thought of this moment many times, but nothing could compare to the warmth that encompassed her heart as she kissed Zuko. 

When they pulled apart for air, it was as if (Y/N) had been pulled back into the real world. She stared at Zuko, her eyes wide as she realized what they had just done. 

“Mai,” They said at the same time, horrified looks reaching both of their faces. (Y/N) hated herself. She had gotten caught up in the moment and taken something that didn’t belong to her. (Y/N) scrambled out of Zuko’s arms. 

“We don’t speak of this ever again,” She told him, her voice stern. Zuko nodded silently. “This was a mistake. That’s all it was.” With that, she dove into the waves, swimming as fast as she could back to the shore. 

---

She avoided Zuko during the rest of their time at Ember Island, and once they had returned to the palace as well. If they ended up in the same corridor, one of them would turn around and walk back from where they had come from. It made (Y/N’s) heart ache, but she knew it was for the best. She felt horrible for doing something like that to Mai. She didn’t know what had become of her, and now she didn’t trust herself to be around Zuko at all. 

So, she focused on her mission. Every little snippet that she heard walking through the hallways would be recorded on a scroll, which would then be kept on her person at all times. She had witnessed on more than one occassion Azula leaving her room and looking particularly pleased with herself. (Y/N) would never leave anything incriminating lying around.

Still, she needed to figure out how to get a message to Sokka. The palace had messenger hawks, but she needed to know where to send one and she had absolutely no idea where her friends were. The Day of the Black Sun was the next day. To (Y/N), it seemed as though her best bet would be to leave the mainland quickly and rendezvous with one of the groups they had recruited for the invasion. If she could steal one of the palace’s boats, she could row herself to one of the islands off the coast and either find someone she knew or find someone who knew how to get a message out. 

Guards were not posted outside of her doors during the day, so (Y/N) made a hasty knapsack from one of her robes and began shoving a few belongings in it. Bread she had sneaked from the kitchens, a piece of parchment and a pen, and a map all fit securely inside. She was packing it once more when her door opened suddenly and she yelped, scrambling to cover her belongings with her bedsheets. 

“I need to tell you something,” Zuko said as he shut the door behind her. (Y/N) felt her face heat up. 

“You can’t be in here!” She hissed, reaching forward to shove Zuko out of her room. The last thing she needed was Azula seeing them alone together. She would undoubtedly tell Mai, which would cause more problems than (Y/N) needed on her last day in the Fire Nation. 

“Just wait a second!” Zuko demanded, keeping his voice low. “I just got out of one of my father’s war meetings. They’re planning to burn down the towns of those who haven’t surrendered yet.” 

(Y/N) halted her movements of trying to get him out of her room. She eyed him warily. “What does that have to do with me?” 

“I know you’ve been working with the Avatar.” (Y/N’s) body stiffened, but she rolled her eyes. 

“This again. Zuko, I already told you--” 

“You don’t have to lie to me anymore. I know that’s the real reason you’re here is to get information for your friends. I can’t let my father or Azula do this. I want to help you.” 

(Y/N) narrowed her eyes. “How do you know?”

“I know you wouldn’t come back unless you had a really good reason. As soon as I heard you say that they were suspicious of you, I knew that was a lie. I saw how you guys were with each other. They care about you.” 

(Y/N) swallowed. In a whisper, she said, “I’m leaving tonight. I can tell them about this before--” 

“The invasion,” Zuko finished. “My father and Azula know about that, too.” 

(Y/N) felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Everything that they had been working so hard for would be for nothing. She had to get to her friends and let them know they had been exposed. “I need to leave now.” She moved to go back to her knapsack, but Zuko grabbed her by the arm. 

“They’re suspicious of you, too. If they catch you, it’ll be much worse than a burn.” 

“I can’t just stay here and watch my friends fail!” 

“I have a plan,” Zuko assured her. “You just have to trust me.” 

(Y/N) eyed him. His hand still held her arm. Zuko stared up at her. She had never seen him look so sincere. With a deep breath, she nodded. 

---

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[army-of-mai-lovers]

Jet and Yue’s Deaths: Were They Necessary?

Two of the most common ideas I see for aus in this fandom are the Jet lives au, and the Yue lives au. I’ve written both of these myself, and I’ve seen many others write them. And while yes, fanfiction can be a great way to explore ideas that didn’t necessarily have to be explored in canon (I’m mad at bryke for a lot of things, but not including a Toph and Bumi I friendship is not one of them, even though I wrote a fic about it), it seems to me that people are mad that Yue and Jet are dead, to varying degrees. There’s a lot to talk about regarding their deaths from a sociopolitical perspective (the fact that two of the darker-skinned characters in the show are the ones that died, and all the light-skinned characters lived, is ah... an interesting choice), but I don’t want to look at it that way, at least for right now. I want to look at it as a writer, and discuss whether these deaths were a) necessary for the plot and themes of ATLA in any way whatsoever and b) whether it was necessary for them to unfold in the way that they did, or if they would have been more impactful had they occurred in a different way. 

(meta under the cut, this got really, really, really long)

Death in Children’s Media

When I first started thinking about this meta, I had this idea to compare Jet and Yue’s deaths to deaths in an animated children’s show that I found satisfying. And in theory, that was a great idea. Problem is: there aren’t very many permanent deaths in children’s animation, and the ones that do exist aren’t especially well-written. This may be an odd thing to say in what is ostensibly a piece of atla crit, but Yue’s death is probably the best written death in a piece of children’s animation that I can think of. That’s not a compliment. Rather, it’s a condemnation of the way other pieces of children’s animation featuring permanent character death have handled their storylines. 

I’ve talked about this before, but my favorite show growing up was Young Justice, and my favorite character on that show was far and away Mr. Wally West. So when he died at the end of season 2, it broke me emotionally. Shortly thereafter, Cartoon Network canceled the show, and I started getting on fan forums to mourn. Everybody on these fan forums was convinced that had Cartoon Network not canceled the show, Wally would have been brought back. And that is a narrative that I internalized for years. Eventually, the show was brought back via DC’s new streaming service, and I tuned in, waiting for Wally to also be brought back, only to discover that that wasn’t in the cards. Wally was dead. Permanently. 

So now that I know that, I can talk about why killing him off was fucking stupid. Wally’s death occurs at the end of season 2, after the main s2 conflict, the Reach, has been defeated, save for these pods that they set up all over the world to destroy Earth. Our heroes split up in teams of two to destroy the pods, and they destroy all of them, except for a secret one in Antartica. It can only be neutralized by speedsters, so Wally, Bart, and Barry team up to destroy it. It’s established in canon that Wally is slower than Bart and Barry, and it’s been played for laughs earlier in the season, but for reasons unexplained, the pod is better able to target Wally because he’s slower than Bart and Barry, and it kills him. After the emotional arc of the season has wrapped up, a literal main character dies. There’s some indication at the end of that season that his death is going to cause Artemis to spiral and become a villain, but when season 3 picks up, she’s doing the right thing, with seemingly no qualms about her position in life as a hero. In the comics, something like this happens to Wally, but then he goes into the Speed Force and becomes faster and stronger even than Barry, in which case, yes, this would have advanced the plot, but that’s probably not in the cards either. 

In summary, Wally’s death doesn’t work as a story beat, not because it made me mad, but because it doesn’t advance the plot, nor does it develop character. Only including things that advance plot or develop character is one of the golden rules of writing. Like most golden rules of writing, however, it’s not absolute. There is a lot of fun to be had in jokey little one off adventures (in atla, Sokka’s haiku competition) or in fun worldbuilding threads that add depth to your setting but don’t really come up (in atla, the existence of Whaletail Island, which is described in really juicy ways, even though the characters never go there.) But in general, when it comes to things like character death, events should happen to develop the plot or advance character. Avatar, for all of its flaws, is really well structured, and a lot of its story beats advance plot and develop character at the same time. However, the show also bears the burden of being a show directed at children, and thus needing to be appropriate for children. And as we know, Nickelodeon and bryke butted heads over this: the death scene that we see for Jet is a compromise, one that implicitly confirms his death without explicitly showing it. So bryke tasked themselves with creating a show about imperialism and war that would do those themes justice while also being appropriate for American children and palatable to their parents. 

The Themes of Avatar vs. Its Audience

So, Avatar is a show about a lone survivor of genocide stopping an imperialist patriarchal society from decimating the rest of the world. It’s also a show about found family and staying true to yourself and doing your best to improve the world. These don’t necessarily conflict with each other, and it is possible for children to understand and enjoy shows about complex themes. And in a lot of cases, bryke doesn’t hold back in showing what the costs of war against an imperialist nation are: losing loved ones, losing yourself, prison, etc. But when it comes to death, the show is incredibly hesitant. None of the main characters that we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know die (not even Iroh, even though he was old and it would have made sense and his VA died before the show was over--but that’s a topic for another day.) This makes sense. I can totally imagine a seven year-old watching Avatar as it was coming out and feeling really sad or scared if a major character died. I was six years older than that when Wally died, and it’s still sad and terrifying to me to this day. However, in a show about war, it would be unrealistic to have no one die. Bryke’s stated reason for killing off Jet is to show the costs of war. I’ve seen a lot of posts about Jet’s death that reiterate some version of this same point--that the great tragedy of his character is that he spent his life fighting the Fire Nation, only to die at the hands of his own country. Similarly, I’ve seen people argue in favor of Yue’s death by saying that it was a great tragedy, but it showed the sacrifices that must be made in a war effort. 

Yue

When we first meet Yue, she is a somewhat reserved, kind individual held back by the rigid social structures of the NWT*. She and Sokka have an immediate attraction to one another, but Yue reveals that she is engaged to Hahn. The Fire Nation invasion happens, Zhao kills Tui, and Yue gives up her life to save her people and the world, and to restore balance. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know Yue, this is framed less as Yue’s sacrifice and more as Sokka’s loss. Sokka is the one who cares for Yue, Sokka is the only one of the gaang who really interacts a lot with Yue on screen, and Sokka is the one we’ve spent a whole season getting to know. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Yue a prop character (i.e. a character who could be replaced by an object with little change to the narrative), she is certainly underdeveloped. She exists to be unambiguously likable and good, so we can root for her and Sokka, and feel Sokka’s pain when she dies. In my opinion, this is probably also why a lot of fic that features Yue depicts her as a Mary Sue--because as she is depicted in the show, she kind of is. We don’t get to see her hidden depths because she is written to die. 

In light of what we’ve established earlier in this meta, this makes sense. Killing off a fully-realized character whom the audience has really gotten to know and care about on their own terms, rather than through the eyes of another character, could be really sad and scary for the kids watching, but not killing anyone off would be an unrealistic depiction of war and imperialism. On the face of it, killing off an underdeveloped, unambiguously likable and good character, whom one of our MCs has a deep but short connection with, is the perfect compromise. 

But let’s go back to the golden rule for a second. Does Yue’s death a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to the first is yes: Yue’s death prompts Aang to use the Avatar State to fight off the Fire navy, which has implications for his ability to control the Avatar State that form one of the major arcs of book 2. The answer to the second? A little more ambiguous. You would think that Yue’s death would have some lasting impact on Sokka that is explored as part of his character arc in book 2, that he may be more afraid to trust, more scared of losing the people he loves, but outside of a few episodes (really, just one I can think of, “The Swamp”) it doesn’t seem to affect him that much. He even asks about Suki in a way that is clearly romantically motivated in “Avatar Day.” I don’t know about you, but if someone I loved sacrificed herself to become the moon, I don’t think I would be seeking out another romantic entanglement a few weeks after her death. Of course, everybody processes grief differently, and one could argue that Sokka has already lost important people in his life, and thus would be accustomed to moving on from that loss and not letting himself dwell on it. But to that, I’d say that moving on by throwing himself into protecting others has already shown itself to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. Remember, Sokka’s misogyny at the beginning of b1 is in part motivated by the fact that his mother died at the hands of the Fire Nation and his father left shortly thereafter to fight the Fire Nation, and he responds to those things by throwing himself into the role of being the “man” of the village and protecting the people he loves who are still with him. Like with Yue, he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on his mother’s death. This could have been the beginning of a really interesting b2 arc for Sokka, in which he throws himself into being the Avatar’s companion to get away from the grief of losing Yue, but this time, through the events of the show, he’s forced to acknowledge that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. And maybe this is what bryke was going for with “The Swamp”, but this confines his whole process of grief to one episode, where it could have been a season-long arc that really emphasized the effect Yue’s had on his life. 

In the case of Yue, I do lean toward saying that her death was necessary for the story that they wanted to tell (although, I will never turn down a good old-fashioned Yue lives au that really gets into her dynamism as a character, those are awesome.) However, the way they wrote Sokka following Yue’s death reduced her significance. The fact that Yue seemed to have so little impact on Sokka is precisely what makes her death feel unnecessary, even if it isn’t. 

Jet

Okay. Here we go. 

If you know my blog, you know I love Jet. You know I love Jet lives aus. Perhaps you know that I’m in the process of writing a multichapter Jet fic in which he lives after Lake Laogai. So it’s reasonable to assume that, in a discussion of whether or not Jet’s death was necessary, I’m gonna be mega-biased. And yeah, that’s probably true. But up until recently, I wasn’t really all that mad about Jet dying, at least conceptually. As I said earlier, bryke says that in the case of Jet’s death, they wanted to kill a character off that people knew and would care about, so that they could further show the tragedies of war and imperialism. Okay. That is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. 

My issue lies with the execution of said idea. First of all, the framing of Jet’s original episode is so bad. Jet is part of a long line of cartoon villains who resist imperialism and other forms of oppression through violence and are punished for it. This is actually a really common sort of villain for atla/lok, as we see this play out again with Hama, Amon, and the Red Lotus. To paraphrase hbomberguy’s description of this type of villain, basically liberal white creators are saying, “yeah, oppression is bad, but have you tried writing to your Congressman about it?” With Jet, since we have so little information about the village he’s trying to flood, there are a number of different angles that would explain his actions and give them more nuance. My preferred hc is that the citizens of Gaipan are a mix of Earth civilians, Fire citizens, and FN soldiers, and that the Earth citizens refused to feed or house Jet and the other Freedom Fighters because they were orphans and, as we see in the Kyoshi Novels, Earth families stick to their own. Thus, when Jet decides to flood Gaipan, he’s focused on ridding the valley of Fire Nation, but he doesn’t really care about what happens to the Earth citizens of Gaipan because they actively wronged him when he was a kid. That’s just one interpretation, and there have been others: Gaipan was fully Fire Nation, Gaipan was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation but Jet decided that the benefits of flooding the valley and getting rid of the Fire Nation outweighed the costs of losing the EK families, etc, etc. There are ways to rewrite that scenario so that Jet is not framed as an unambiguously bloodthirsty monster. In the context of Jet’s death, this initial framing reduces the possible impact that his death could have. Where Yue was unambiguously good, Jet is at the very least morally gray when we see him again in the ferry. And where we are connected to Yue through Sokka, the gaang’s active hatred of Jet hinders our ability to connect with him. This isn’t impossible to overcome--the gaang hates Zuko, and yet to an extent the audience roots for him--but Jet’s lack of screentime and nuanced framing (both of which Zuko gets in all three seasons) makes overcoming his initially flawed framing really difficult. 

So how much can it really be said, that by the time we get to Jet’s death, he’s a character that we know and care about? So much about him is still unknown (what happened to the Freedom Fighters? what prompted Jet’s offscreen redemption? who knows, fam, who knows.) Moreover, most of what we see of him in Ba Sing Se is him actively opposing Zuko and Iroh. These are both characters that at the very least the show wants us to care about. At this point, we know almost everything there is to know about them, we’ve been following them and to an extent rooting for them for two seasons, and who have had nuanced and often sympathetic framing a number of times. So much of the argument I’ve seen regarding Jet centers around the fact that he was right to expose Zuko and Iroh as Firebenders, but the reason we have to have that argument in the first place is because it’s not framed in Jet’s favor. In terms of who the audience cares about more, who the audience has more of an emotional attachment towards, Zuko and Iroh win every time. Whether Jet’s actually in the right or not is irrelevant, because emotionally speaking, we’re primed to root for Zuko and Iroh. In terms of who the framing is biased towards, Jet may as well be Zhao. So when he’s taken by the Dai Li and brainwashed, the audience isn’t necessarily going to see this as a bad thing, because it means Zuko and Iroh are safe.

The only real bit of sympathetic framing Jet gets are those initial moments on the ferry, and the moments after he and the gaang meet again. So about five, ten minutes of the show, total. And then, he sacrifices himself for the gaang. And just like Yue, his death has little to no impact on the characters in the episodes following. Katara is shown crying for four frames immediately following his death, and they bring him up once in “The Southern Raiders” to call him a monster, and once in “The Ember Island Players”, a joke episode in which his death is a joke. 

So, let’s ask again. Does this a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to both is no. It shows that the Dai Li is super evil and cruel, which we already knew and which basically becomes irrelevant in book 3, and that is really the only plot-significant thing I can think of. As far as character, well, it could have been a really interesting moment in Katara’s development in forgiving someone who hurt her in the past, which could have foreshadowed her forgiving Zuko in b3, but considering she calls Jet a monster in TSR, that doesn’t track. There could have been something with Sokka realizing that his snap judgment of Jet in b1 was wrong, but considering that he brings up Jet to criticize Katara in TSR, that also does not track. And honestly, neither of these possible character arcs require Jet to die. What requires Jet to die is the ~themes~. 

Let’s look at this theme again, shall we? The cost of war. We already covered it with Yue, but it’s clearly something that bryke wants to return to and shed new light on. The obvious angle they’re going for is that sometimes, you don’t know who your real enemy is. Jet thought that his enemy was the Fire Nation, but in the end, he was taken down by his own countryman. Wow. So deep. Except, while it’s clear that Jet was always fighting against the Fire Nation, I never got the sense that Jet was fighting for the Earth Kingdom. After all, isn’t the whole bad thing about him in the beginning is that he wants to kill civilians, some of whom we assume to be Earth Kingdom? Why would it matter then that he got killed by an EK leader, when he didn’t seem to ever be too hot on those dudes? But okay, maybe the angle is not that he was killed by someone from the Earth Kingdom, but that he wasn’t killed by someone from the Fire Nation. Okay, but we’ve already seen him be diametrically opposed to the only living Air Nomad and people from the Water Tribes. Jet fighting with and losing to people who aren’t Fire Nation is not a new and exciting development for him. Jet has been enemies with non-FN characters for most of the show’s run at this point. There is no thematic level on which the execution of this holds any water. 

The reason I got to thinking about this, really analyzing what Jet’s death means (and doesn’t mean) for the show, was this conversation I was having with @the-hot-zone in discord dms. We were talking about book 2 and ways it could have been better, and Zone said that they thought that Jet would have been a stronger character to parallel with Zuko’s redemption than Iroh and that seeing more of the narrative from Jet’s perspective could have strengthened the show’s themes. And when it came to the question of Jet’s death, they said, “And if we are going with Jet dying, then I want it to hurt. I want it to hurt just as much as if a main character like Sokka had died. I want the viewer to see Jet's struggles, his triumphs, the facets of Jet that make him compelling and important to the show.” And all of that just hit me. Because we don’t get that, do we? Jet’s death barely leaves a mark. Jet himself barely leaves a mark. His death isn’t plot-significant, doesn’t inspire character growth in any of our MCs, and doesn’t even accomplish the thematic relevance that it claims to. So what was the point? 

Conclusion

Much as I dislike it, Yue’s death actually added something to atla. It could have added much, much more, in the hands of writers who gave more of a shit about their Brown female characters and were less intent on seeing them suffer and knocking them down a peg, but, in my opinion, it did work for what it was trying to do. Jet? Jet? Nah, fam. Jet never got the chance to really develop into a likable character because he was always put at odds with characters we already liked, and the framing skewed their way, not his. The dude never really had a chance.        

*multiple people have spoken about how the NWT as depicted in atla is not reminiscent of real life Inuit and Yupik people and culture. I am not the person to go into detail about this, but I encourage you to check out Native-run blogs for more info!

[atlabeth]

talking to the moon

summary: dealing with the aftermath of the worst event of your life. 

pairing: sokka x fem!reader but solely platonic. stan big brother sokka 

a/n: this became so much longer than i initially meant for lmao. it was just supposed to be sokka and y/n talking but then i. wrote the whole death scene and a whole backstory and. im sorry. i made myself sad while writing this 

wc: 4.1k 

warnings: so much angst, death, mentions of suffocation, mentions of arranged marriages, one mention of blood, one single curse i think, lots of anger and lots of sadness but some fluff at the end 

based on the song “talking to the moon” by bruno mars 

living in the northern water tribe wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. 

as a waterbender, it should’ve been a perfect haven. a renowned master to teach her how to fight and become a master herself, a constant feeling of power being around ice and water all the time, and a comfortable life as the daughter of two important councilmembers that worked alongside chief arnook. 

but the only thing y/n had come to know of this place was a complete and utter loss of freedom. 

she wasn’t allowed to learn martial waterbending simply because she was a woman. master pakku wouldn’t even give her the time of day, and when she complained to her parents they cited century-long traditions and told her that was just how things were. 

y/n felt comfortable being around water and ice all the time, but it’s not like the power of the moon helped her when she hardly knew anything in the first place. it was slightly easier to try and teach herself new techniques that she learned from watching master pakku and his students, but it still almost always ended in failure. 

and of course, her noble heritage simply meant that she would be married off once she reached the appropriate age for the benefit of her family. yippee. 

but there was one benefit that came along with being the daughter of nobles that worked closely with the chief. 

princess yue. 

she was without a doubt the nicest girl that y/n had ever known, and they quickly became each other’s closest friends. y/n thought that maybe she wouldn’t like her because yue was two years her senior, but it didn’t matter in her eyes. yue showed y/n a side that she never showed anyone else; the carefree, energetic, loving side. the side that told y/n fantastical stories while they rode together the waterways. the side that encouraged y/n to waterbend whenever she could and to try as hard as possible to get the martial techniques down because ‘i know you can do it!’ the side that was absolutely fascinated by her waterbending, the side that shrieked in surprise then dissolved into giggles every time y/n soaked her at the end of the session. 

yue was the bright light in y/n’s boring days, and y/n was a needed reprieve from yue’s duties.

the young girls didn’t know that there was so much coming for them. 

~~

team avatar visiting y/n’s home was one of the most exciting things to happen to her. it was like a breath of fresh air in the monotony of her life, and it didn’t take too long for y/n to become friends with all of them at the celebratory dinner the night they arrived. 

y/n and katara instantly struck off. as waterbenders of the same age they already had a connection, but it was only strengthened the longer they stayed. y/n had never cheered so loud when she fought against pakku. 

it was impossible not to like aang. he was even younger than y/n with an infectious positive attitude and a smile always on his face. he even offered to help teach her waterbending along with katara after learning from pakku, which was a great plan until it wasn’t. 

her association with sokka came from her association with yue. he was infatuated with the princess almost immediately — it wasn’t a surprise, y/n was sure every boy in the tribe had a crush on her in some form — but he was also very kind to y/n. as time went on, they developed more of a sibling-like bond and y/n loved it. she was an only child raised to the highest expectations, but she was allowed to let loose around sokka. it also helped to see him make a fool in front of himself every time her and yue were together. 

things were looking up for y/n. she had three new friends that all liked her best friend, and she was actually learning a little bit more about fighting with waterbending from katara. everything was perfect. 

until the fire nation attacked. 

y/n had been with yue and sokka when they saw the black snow and immediately rushed back to the tribe to warn everyone. that was how a fourteen year old noble girl who barely knew how to defend herself like y/n got involved in a fight against the fire nation. 

after rescuing aang from zuko and, at aang’s request, bringing the unconscious prince with them, they started traveling back to the spirit oasis. y/n sat in the back of the saddle with sokka and yue, a new friend and her oldest friend, when yue suddenly grabbed her head with a small groan. y/n looked around and the world around them had turned red as blood. something was very wrong.

“are you okay? sokka asked, reaching for her instinctively as if to protect her from whatever was hurting her. 

“i.. i feel faint,” she muttered.

“i feel it too,” aang added. “the moon spirit is in trouble.” 

y/n’s eyes widened as she stared back at yue, horror dancing in her eyes as she shook her head. “no, no it can’t be. yue, you know what that means—” 

it wasn’t hard to catch onto the fearful tone in her voice and katara set an amicable hand on her shoulder. “what are you talking about, y/n?” 

thankfully, yue took over. “i owe the moon spirit my life.” 

“what do you mean?” sokka’s eyes went between y/n and yue, y/n’s worried gaze trained on yue as she explained how the moon spirit had given her life as a baby. when she was done, the water tribe siblings were staring at her in disbelief. 

“if the moon spirit is in danger then we need to save it.” y/n’s voice was hardened as they got closer to the spirit oasis, stretching her fingers out to get the blood flowing again in case she needed to bend. she didn’t know very much about combat besides what katara had taught her, but hopefully it would be enough to at least aid the rest of the team. 

appa slid to a stop in the spirit oasis and aang, sokka, katara, and y/n all hopped off of his back and got into battle stances. sokka took out his boomerang, aang wielded his staff, and y/n and katara got ready to bend. 

“don’t bother,” zhao spat. he held up the bag with tui and positioned his fist next to it, posing the very obvious threat. y/n’s eyes widened and her hands fell the slightest bit. he wouldn’t. 

it turned out that he very well would. 

y/n thought that they would be safe, that yue would be safe once he released the fish after iroh’s threat, but she should’ve known a man like that would never be satisfied. just as the normal hues of the oasis had returned, zhao let out a yell and blasted the koi with fire, plunging the world into various shades of grey. 

y/n let out a strangled cry as she realized what it meant, and she wanted to unleash all of her fury on zhao. she wanted to make him hurt, make him understand just what he had done. but it seemed that general iroh already had that plan as he started firebending viciously, swiftly defeating the soldiers after zhao had gotten away. 

y/n felt like she was in a haze, following through with her movements but not actually there. the four of them rushed towards the water and yue soon joined them, all looking down at tui in horror. the moon spirit was gone, dead, killed. 

her worst fear had come true, and she stared at yue’s blue eyes, the only thing that still had color, mouth opening and closing as she tried to think of things to say. 

“there’s no hope now,” yue mourned. “it’s over now.” 

“no it’s not.” 

y/n watched in amazement as aang merged with the ocean spirit and left to defend her home, but it melted away once again when she joined the siblings, iroh, and yue at the front of the water.

“it’s too late. it’s dead.” katara stared at the dead fish when iroh placed it back into the water. it truly did seem like it was over. y/n felt none of the usual power she felt at night. if she tried to bend, she knew nothing would happen.

iroh seemed to notice yue as she stepped closer and he raised his eyebrows. “you have been touched by the moon spirit. some of its life is in you.” 

“yes, you’re right.” yue set her jaw and y/n immediately knew what she was thinking. “it gave me life. maybe i can give it back.” 

“no!” y/n and sokka cried at the same time. y/n’s voice cracked and she had to do everything she could to prevent the tears from falling. “yue, no. you don’t have to do this.” 

“it’s my duty, y/n.” her kind blue eyes, an image that would haunt y/n for years to come, glistened with unshed tears as she walked over to the oasis. this time sokka grabbed her hand to try and stop her. 

“i won’t let you! your father told me to protect you!” sokka usually guarded his emotions but this time the fear in his voice was obvious, and it hurt. he didn’t want to lose her. he couldn’t lose her. 

“i have to do this.” 

y/n wanted to scream at yue to stop, try and knock some sense into her, hold the girl that she loved back from sacrificing herself. but she just stood there, frozen, as yue hovered her hands over the dead fish. tui began to glow, and yue collapsed. 

y/n rushed over to her as sokka caught her and she fell to her knees. the tears were falling, she didn’t care, her friend was gone, she was dying. y/n felt yue’s ice cold hand on her arm and she grasped it with both of her own. her and sokka were barely holding it together as they watched the girl they both loved die in their arms. 

“y/n..” her voice was already faint, she was using up all of her strength just to talk to them in her final moments. “thank you for everything. never forget what you are fighting for. i will always cherish our friendship.” 

a choked sob escaped y/n’s lips and she gripped yue’s hand as tightly as she could, like maybe if she didn’t let go then she would come back. she couldn’t even hear what she said to sokka, all she could hear was the pounding in her head. this couldn’t be happening. 

and then she was gone. the ice cold hand in y/n’s grip was gone, the girl they were cradling was gone, and in her place was just emptiness. iroh placed the koi fish back into the water and the entire oasis filled with light, and the energy around the lake turned into yue. she was ethereal. she was a spirit. she was gone. 

yue came closer and wrapped y/n in a hug, feeling more like a gentle breeze than a real person hugging her. she then kissed sokka, and a faint smile graced her lips. “goodbye, i love you both. i will always be with you.”

and with that, she was gone. 

y/n couldn’t hold it in anymore. she started sobbing, tears wracking her body and making it hard to breathe. she wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around sokka, burying her head in the space between his shoulder and his neck, and he returned the hug. they were just two kids who had watched a girl they loved sacrifice herself. what else could they do but hold each other and hope to all the spirits that they would be okay?

~~

y/n left with aang, katara, and sokka when they decided to set course for omashu. she couldn’t stay at the northern water tribe. all it served as was a constant reminder of that fateful night, the night that she had lost her best friend. she saw yue in everything, and she knew she would lose her mind if she stayed. so she asked if she could join them on their journey, and they agreed. y/n felt a constant pit of emptiness and hoped that helping the avatar would absolve some of the guilt. 

it didn’t. 

“this is your fault, y/n.” 

the blue eyes that haunted y/n so often appeared once again, staring back at her unflinchingly. there was a certain hardness behind them, a coldness that pervaded her skin, making its way to her heart. but she couldn’t look away. 

“you should’ve been able to save me.” yue’s voice, normally soft spoken and kind, reverberated throughout the endless void y/n was trapped in. 

she looked beautiful, otherworldly. the fabric of her dress floated around her at the edges and her white hair, the ever present reminder of her connection to the moon, flowed down her back. yue appeared the same as she had when she sacrificed herself, and it was the way she would look forever. y/n’s heart ached for her friend, knowing that she would never live out the rest of her life, never get to be the ruler she was meant to be. 

she tried to talk, but her voice wouldn’t work. her throat felt like it was closing up slowly, and her limbs might as well have been cast in concrete with how heavy they all felt. yue’s icy glare disappeared from view, but her voice was still all around her. 

“you did this to me. you’re the reason i’m dead. you should’ve been able to save me.” 

the words repeated thousands of times on top of each other, becoming louder and louder that it was all she could focus on. y/n was suffocating underneath it all, she couldn’t take it. she wanted to sob out how sorry she was, tell yue that her biggest regret was not being able to save her, reach out and bring her into her world again. spirits, she wanted her best friend back so badly. 

“YOU SHOULD’VE BEEN ABLE TO SAVE ME.” the words echoed through her skull so loudly that she felt like it was going to crack from sheer force. 

y/n eyes suddenly flew open and she lurched upwards, breathing heavily, a scream on the edge of her lips that she was barely able to bite back. she clamped her hands over her mouth until she could be sure it wouldn’t come loose, and it took even longer for her breathing to get back to normal.

it didn’t look like she had disturbed the sleep of the others, but she couldn’t stay here. she got out of her sleeping bag and rushed out of their camp, making sure she stayed light on her feet so that the others could continue to rest. momo perked up as she ran past him, and y/n shook her head and raised a finger to her lips. he seemed to get the hint and went back to sleep, and with a strained smile y/n continued out. 

it was at that moment that a certain water tribe boy groggily sat up, able to catch the end of a tunic dress disappearing into the woods after he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. he thought it was katara at first but a quick glance to his side proved that his sister was still asleep. it was y/n’s spot that was empty. he immediately knew why she was gone, and he got up to follow her; there was no way he was going to leave her alone right now. sokka didn’t exactly want to be alone either.  

‘you should’ve been able to save me.’ they were words that never left y/n’s mind; at this point it was a part of her conscience. the princess had never actually said the words, her last moments had been spent reassuring y/n and sokka before she faded away, but it didn’t matter. she was constantly wracked by guilt, and though sokka did a good job at hiding it, she knew he felt the same way. she wondered if he was plagued by the same nightmares she had. it was no surprise it happened tonight of all nights — today marked one month since yue died. 

no. since yue had been killed. 

she might’ve given her life for the moon spirit willingly, but y/n blamed zhao, that fire nation admiral, for her death. he was the one that killed the moon spirit, so he was the one that had killed her best friend. she had never felt as much rage as she had in the moment that he blasted tui with fire. 

she hoped he was dead. 

y/n got to the edge of the woods and stared at the night sky, the slight breeze and the ambiance around her doing little to ease her mind. she sighed and leaned back against a tree, staring at the sky in hopes it would give her some kind of answer. but all it did was make her feel even worse.

i know you’re somewhere out there somewhere far away

yue was there. the moon was there, but yue was the moon so she was there. it felt like a cruel joke, having her so close but so far away. always within her sight but never in her reach. she longed for the days when she was able to pull the princess away from her duties to engage in a snowball fight with her friends or when yue asked her to show off her waterbending with the childlike wonder she never got to show or when things were normal and her friend wasn’t the fucking moon. 

i want you back, i want you back 

y/n felt the familiar stings of tears behind her eyes and she slowly slid against the tree until she was sitting on the ground. she bit the inside of her cheek so hard she drew blood in an effort to stop the tears, but it didn’t matter, they fell anyways. 

the empty feeling she constantly carried with her got better over time, but tonight it was just coming back with full force. she was reminded of everything that she had lost and it hurt. spirits, it hurt so much. 

my neighbors think i’m crazy  but they don’t understand you’re all i have, you’re all i have 

she pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out her feelings, when she heard some branches snap. she opened her eyes and looked up, the corner of her lips quirking up when she saw who it was. 

“hi.” her voice was faint, barely noticeable, but it was all she managed to muster.

“hi.” sokka’s eyes were sympathetic as walked over to her, silently questioning if she was okay with his presence. she nodded and scooted over to make room, and sokka slid down against the tree next to her. 

they sat in comfortable silence for a while, feeling solace in the other simply being there. y/n’s eyes stayed glued to the sky, y/e/c irises reflecting the light of the stars. now that her sobbing was done, she just felt tired. traveling with the avatar was physically demanding with all the fighting and running they did, but this was mental. 

she was tired of feeling worthless. tired of feeling guilty, of feeling angry, hurt, heartbroken, regretful, helpless, weak. 

tui and la, she was so damn tired. 

at night, when the stars light up my room i sit by myself talking to the moon trying to get to you 

y/n tore her eyes away from the sky and looked at sokka. he felt the slight movement and made eye contact as well. y/n couldn’t help but think how similar his eyes were to yue’s. 

“do you talk to her too?” the question came suddenly from y/n before she even knew it, and her voice was just as soft as before. “to the moon, i mean.”

sokka’s gaze turned wistful as he watched the moon and nodded. “all the time. even if i’m just talking to myself in my head, it feels like i’m talking to her as long as the moon is out. sometimes it helps. it makes me feel like she’s still here, or like she’s watching over me. other times..”

“it makes you feel worse,” y/n finished. he nodded again and she sighed heavily. “sometimes i hate it. just looking at the moon makes me want to scream or cry or yell until i can’t anymore, because i hate it for taking her away from me. and i know she had to do it, but the irrational part of me is angry at her for leaving. and then i feel guilty for caring about myself more than her when she’s the one that’s gone, and i just—” 

her voice caught in her throat and the tears started to fall once more. it felt like she couldn’t even think about yue without crying and it made her feel even more weak than before. 

in hopes you’re on the other side talking to me too 

it hurt sokka’s heart to see her like this. yue’s death had affected both of them, spirits, it had left a hole in his heart that he was still trying to mend, but as time went on he had gotten better. but y/n had known yue for years, they had such a close bond that when sokka wanted to know advice on how to get yue to like him he came to her. and now her closest friend was gone and she had left her home and her family behind to help them on their journey.. he couldn’t imagine how she felt. but he wasn’t going to let her go through this alone. 

sokka wrapped his arm around her and though she flinched at first, y/n immediately relaxed when she realized what he was doing. he was trying to comfort her by just being there, and she appreciated it immensely. y/n leaned her head against his shoulder and the two of them sat there in silence once again, watching the sky.

or am i a fool who sits alone talking to the moon 

“you don’t have to feel guilty,” sokka murmured. “she doesn’t blame you for what happened and she doesn’t blame you for how you feel. i know that she’s watching over us right now.”

“you think?” he nodded and the smallest smile graced her lips. “she doesn’t blame you either. every time you hung out together she would come running back to me telling me how much fun she had and how she already felt so close to you, and how much you brightened up her days. she truly loved you, sokka.” 

sokka laughed humorlessly and shook his head. “i loved her too. i didn’t think it was possible to fall for someone so quickly, but she proved me wrong.”

“she was good at that. proving people wrong.” 

do you ever hear me calling? 

more silence passed. 

y/n opened her mouth and closed it again, trying to find the words.

“yue?” she started off timid, but her words gained more confidence as she went on. “i.. i don’t know if you can hear us. but if you can, i just want to let you know that i- that we miss you. not a day goes by where i don’t think of you, and i hope that you are watching down on us. because we love you. and we always will.” 

“thank you for everything you’ve done.” sokka spoke up now. “i hope you’re at peace, yue, wherever you are.”

cause every night i’m talking to the moon  still trying to get to you

y/n swore that the moon glowed a little brighter in the night sky when they finished. 

she didn’t know how time passed so quickly, but her and sokka ended up falling asleep out there, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder.

and for the first time since the siege of the north, y/n slept without nightmares.