#zuko: makes it incredibly easy

[burst-of-iridescent]

it’s really funny seeing people say that zutara would be toxic because they “trauma bonded” when a) insert obligatory inigo montoya you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means and b) relationships predicated on and/or strengthened by a connection over shared trauma are actually a pretty common staple in fiction, and especially in YA/children’s fantasy fiction (see: katniss/peeta, percy/annabeth) because what this trope really comes down to is the need to be seen and understood.

trauma can be incredibly alienating — let alone the trauma of something incredibly specific like losing a parent to imperialist aggression — and so it’s no wonder that the narrative of finding someone who knows what you went through, who reminds you that you aren’t alone, immediately lends itself to emotional intimacy. and it’s also easy to see why that could be extrapolated to romance, but that doesn’t make the act of connection sinister or unhealthy on its own.

zuko and katara being able to openly discuss their grief and trauma with each other is actually a hell of a lot healthier than whatever the show does with kat.aang, where anything mildly unsavoury or unpleasant in their relationship, especially in regards to katara’s more “negative” emotions, is promptly and neatly swept under the rug, never to be taken out again.

and i suspect that’s also where this dichotomy of kat.aang as wholesome and zutara as dark and toxic comes from, because seeing the raw, unadulterated reality of survivors actually reckoning with their trauma, rather than just repressing it with a smile, is much more discomfiting to audiences that have been conditioned to see the latter as the morally superior means of coping.

in being less palatable, however, zutara also gets to be unflinchingly authentic, and it’s this quality that ultimately works in their favour — giving their relationship, even if not explicitly romantic in nature, all the emotional weight and resonance that kat.aang lacks even at its best.

[zuko-always-lies]

Kind of the counterpart of how easy it would be to frame Zuko incredibly unsympathetically is how easy it would be to frame Azula incredibly sympathetically. Like show a couple more scenes where she's nice to her friends. Make sure to empathize more clearly how important duty and responsibility is to her. Show a little more of Ozai's abuse of her. Tweak the framing of a few scenes to make clear what an incredible jerk Zuko is to her. Use her ominous theme song a little less often. With like five minutes of changes you could make the entire audience eat out of her hand.

[bigfan-fanfic]

Firecolor (Male!Reader x Zuko)

"Greetings, Fire Lord Zuko." you smirk, knowing it's a tease between you two.

He gives an irritated sigh and nods. "Greetings, Minister."

You were appointed Minister of Art mostly so Zuko would have an excuse to be close to you. But you do an important job in the Fire Nation.

You're mainly in charge of trying to rediscover and promote the buried and suppressed culture of the Fire Nation from a hundred years ago, in the time before Sozin.

And, wouldn't you know it, the nation that spawns those that can bend fire has a lot of destroyed archives.

"I understand you have something to show me?"

You grin. "Yes! A very special kind of ink!"

He tilts his head, glancing at his council. You beam, and scurry over to the wall that you seem to have hung a blank banner on.

"Minister, are you feeling alright?"

"Of course! I didn't inhale any ink fumes." you chuckle, causing Zuko to groan.

You suddenly lash out with a spark of fire, hurling it at the canvas.

Instead of bursting into flame, lines glow, superheated, branding a message into the cloth.

"Happy Birth Day, Fire Lord Zuko" is what you've written, and the message glows a deep, warm red as the plant filaments in the ink burn brightly, the ink itself evenly conducting heat.

When the fire stops, the message has burned into the cloth, dark and ashy but still clear.

"That's incredible."

You grin.

Zuko smiles as the other advisors trip over themselves, trying to wish him a happy birthday.

It's not his birthday.

But hopefully seeing his advisors make fools of themselves will be like a present.

"How did you discover this?"

"I had to take some samples of the Fire Sages' old writings. The invisible ink General Iroh used made me wonder if the Sages had used similar treated inks for effects."

"Was this just for beauty?"

"Partially. It could also be used for announcements and edicts, to literally sear them on town walls for effect. They could be easily scrubbed away for the next announcement."

"The bright fire only lasts so long, hmm?"

"True. But I think it being pretty was sort of just an extra - the main part was the ability for it to be hidden before activated, and to leave behind traces so it could be seen."

"I see. Well, Minister, you have done very well to rediscover this lost method."

"The plants it uses are abundant here on the main island, as well. Easy to reproduce."

"Council, allow me to confer with my Minister of Art?" Zuko asks, though it's clearly a dismissal.

When you are alone, he kisses you.

"Now I remember why I hired you." He jokes. You smack his arm.

"The ink is amazing. Though they'll definitely be confused in four months when the Sages announce my birthdate and do my chart for the year."

"You're the Fire Lord. So you have two birthdays." you joke, as he kisses you again.

"Please tell me you're done for the day." Zuko pleads. "I'm soooo bored listening to them drone on with complaints about my returning soldiers home."

"I am, actually. I'm completely free." you smile over your shoulder as you gather up your banner.

Zuko fully lifts you over his shoulder. "I'm requisitioning one boyfriend on behalf of the Fire Nation. Thank you for your service."

You yelp and begin to giggle as Zuko starts to carry you to the royal apartments.

"Put me down!"

"No way." Zuko laughs. "After all, it is my birthday. I think I want to unwrap my presents..."

and for the rest of the evening, Zuko ensures you are not disturbed as you enjoy each other's company...

[beifong-brainrot]

The Gaang being 'bad parents' didn't ruin their characters.

I've seen this argument tossed around a couple times and it's honestly one of my least favourite criticisms of lok.

Katara (and Sokka but we have no confirmed kids for him, which seems unrealistic with how much game he had) lost their mother as children and their father was forced to abandon them when they were barely starting their teens. They were raised by their grandmother with little to no peers of their own age.

Aang did not know his parents and a huge chunk of his childhood was him being groomed into taking up the mantle of the avatar and mastering airbending. He also was isolated from other kids his age. His closest parental figure was Gyatso who was more of a teacher than a father. Also the Air Nomads were literally wiped out so that adds to the trauma pile.

I really don't think i have to talk about Zuko's family life here, but at least he had relatively positive parental figures in the form of Ursa (though i do have a burning personal dislike of ursa) and Iroh. Despite this his struggle around the subject of his family and his trauma relating to his upbringing was a focal point of his character arc.

Toph was raised in isolation by her asshole abelist parents who did not listen to her, sent people to capture and bring her back and then disowned her. (If my cursory understanding of 'the rift' is correct, I need to actually read it because i am unreasonably obsessed with the Beifong family.)

Where, pray tell, were they supposed to learn proper parenting skills? On their brief stint as child soldiers? While fighting a war as literal children?

There is the argument that they must've matured later in their lives, of course. But you can only recover so much from copious amounts of childhood trauma.

Being a bad parent doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. Sure it makes you a failure in an incredibly delicate and important aspect of human life but it doesn't make you a bad person. And saying that it does takes a lot of nuance out of the conversation.

Like, do you know how easy it is to fuck up a child?

Especially that the ways the members of the Gaang 'fucked up' as parents feel mostly in character.

Bumi was going to face some struggles with self worth due to being the firstborn child of the Avatar and arguably one of the most powerful waterbenders in history, while being a nonbender himself. That much was unavoidable, no matter how his parents approached the issue.

And Aang was obviously going to be over the moon when Tenzin was born. Think about it. He's literally the last of his people. He has no one else 'like him'. No one else to pass down the traditions, the teachings that Gyatso and everyone else he cared about and who were horrifically murdered to. Aang is getting older and he feels like his culture and history and his entire life before he got trapped in that damned iceberg will die along with him. And then Tenzin is born and Tenzin can take up the mantle that had been thrust upon Aang.

I'm going to withhold my judgement on Izumi and Zuko, since we barely know anything about them. She seems well adjusted but that's all i can say right now. But Zuko has also been shown to be extremely, painfully aware of how fucked up his family is and has clearly been putting in a lot of work to unscrew what his ancestors have screwed up.

Toph situation feels very tragic to me,because it's obvious that she thought she thought she was doing better than her parents. She gave her daughters the freedom to do what they want, to not feel opressed and trapped like she had. How was she supposed to know that she was making her girls feel like she didn't love them? (Here's another post of mine about the Beifong family and how they just feel like they're cursed or something at this point.)

TLDR; I get annoyed by people saying that the Gaang being 'bad parents' ruined their characters, because to me it felt like it actually enhanced them.

Neither Aang nor Toph acted out of malice or a lack of love. On the contrary, Toph was trying not to repeat her parents mistakes, accidentally committing a bunch of her own. While Aang probably didn't even realise that he was neglecting Kya and Bumi.

But just loving your children doesn't always make you a good parent.

I think these flaws only add to them as characters. It makes them feel more real.

It's unrealistic and, frankly, just plain boring to go 'oh the Gaang were all good people so they would be good parents too.'

The Gaang were a gaggle of traumatised children forced into saving the world, because the adults around them failed them, that then grew into traumatised adults who have no idea how to be good parents.

[seyaryminamoto]

Azula's most overlooked characterization element

Why, hello there.

It is I.

And I'm back on my bullshit.

I didn't WANT to be. But a bunch of factors pulled me back in.

For the record: I'm not here to start any fights or light the fuse of arguments that I most likely won't have time or interest in responding to. What I AM here for... is to prove that there's something out there a bunch of people are delighted to sleep on because acknowledging it would render maaaany simplistic interpretations entirely invalid...

That group of people includes the fandom, of course. And the original show's staff. And the liveaction's staff, to a fault. Surely the TTRPG ones too. And absolutely, the comic book writers.

Hell, I'll even include MYSELF in that group, even though I'm making this post right now.

I found it really curious that I very recently saw this element mentioned in a pretty neat blog I follow, @atla-lore-archive, I absolutely advise anyone who hasn't checked out said archive to do it if you wish to understand a lot of the "extra lore" the fandom had access to, back in the old days when the turbonick ATLA site still existed and used to be the only source of deeper knowledge about the fandom besides the occasional interview that most people didn't even know where to track down.

But the funny thing is that the post I'm talking about proved that even Turbonick forgot about the people this post is about :')

And that would beeeeeeee...

*cue drumroll*

Lo and Li!

What makes Lo and Li an important subject to discuss?

Why, a lot of things. Among them, the fact that almost nobody brings them into the core focus of any analysis made about Azula's character. I've personally mentioned them once or twice I believe, mostly as negatives, there's but ONE positive aspect I've ever found of them: them being non-benders MIGHT be a reason why Azula isn't shown as being quite so obsessive with firebending supremacy as Zuko was supposed to be.

But that's very much the sole good thing I can think to say about them and it's completely subjective, as good as a headcanon, because we don't even KNOW if they influenced Azula in that sense!

Why do they seem to get overlooked quite as much? Why... let's start thinking about it, shall we?

Lo and Li are Azula's firebending teachers. As far as anyone can tell, they're also her advisors. These two people should be an essential part of Azula's life... but ironically, we seldom see them with her. Most times, Azula isn't around these two. Whenever she is? It doesn't usually look like she's having a good time.

And that's no surprise, considering her first scene with those two very much puts forward a dynamic of cold distance between Azula and her mentors: Azula is bending LIGHTNING. We have not heard of other lightningbenders until that point, and once the full show wraps up, there's only THREE (Azula, Ozai, Iroh). Out of those three? Only one is a fourteen-year-old girl. It's very easy to assume Azula's lightning is actually a skill she mastered unusually early in life, perhaps relatively recently, hence the practicing... but she's pulling it off. She's succeeding. She's doing something that genuinely catches a first-time viewer off-guard!

And Lo and Li's entire opinion of what she did is: "Almost perfect. One hair out of place."

This tells you the Fire Nation's idea of "imperfection" is... insane. Strict. Imposing. Unyielding. Unforgiving. Azula's reaction isn't to get angry at Lo and Li for saying what they did: it's to get angry at herself and try again.

But... that's not the only instance where we see Azula getting angry around Lo and Li.

The next few times Azula is around them, she doesn't seem to have much of an emotional reaction (one is when they tell her to find other allies, the other when they herald her as a great hero who returned home from Ba Sing Se). In the second of these scenes, Lo and Li are praising Azula as incredible, beautiful, all sorts of grand things...! And Azula smiles. She smiles at the crowd. She's not smiling at the old ladies who are praising her... she's mostly just happy to know her people are welcoming her as a hero indeed! Most the fandom would go "true! what an ungrateful bitch! She should've been happy that Lo and Li complimented her that way!!" Me? I wouldn't say that at all. Not just because I love Azula to pieces? But because the only information we have of Azula's dynamics with these two... doesn't seem compatible with the idea that what Lo and Li are saying here is for AZULA'S benefit.

Anyone who's had a hypocritical parent/caretaker/teacher must have endured awkward, horrible, unpleasant moments where this adult figure treats you like shit in private but in public holds you as this grand example, and a perfect child, and they never seem to stop saying they're soooo proud of you even though you NEVER felt that what they're saying is true. Maybe the first few times, you're naive enough to believe it. By the tenth time of incongruent messages? You start to realize they're talking you up as a way to make themselves look better. They're trying to show they're doing their job at raising you/training you, be it whatever it may. The praises are not FOR you... they're for a third person to hear and think "Oh, this adult's so cool, saying nice things about this kid they're responsible for! Nice!"

... You're starting to get the picture now, I'm sure.

Lo and Li reappear in the Beach. Azula is notably chill, enjoying the ride, talking casually with Ty Lee, telling Zuko to lighten up and to stop taking Ozai's choices personally, right? She seems... content. Relaxed.

Then, everything changed when Lo and Li attacked.

We don't even see why Azula is making this face at first. But she does it AT ONCE when their ship reaches the dock.

Who is there indeed...?

The stars of our post! :') if it isn't our elderly twin ladies... who brought Azula to a very disappoting beach house. And when Azula sees the house in question, she makes THIS face.

Judge however you may... even Ty Lee is weirded out by the beach house, going by that expression. Zuko and Mai aren't impressed either. But Azula? The look on her face isn't merely disappointment if you ask me... part of it looks a bit like embarrassment too? This isn't at all what she was expecting when she arrived (she has her old beach house for standards, which makes this extra underwhelming, I'm sure). She counts on Lo and Li to provide them with a place to stay, it goes implicit... and then this is what they do. It most likely isn't what she promised the other three in terms of where they'd stay, hence, I'd dare say there's a component of embarrassment here.

Shortly afterwards, we have our well known scene with Azula being utterly unconcerned with Lo and Li's apparent wisdom to the point of yawning over it. This, too, tells you she's just not interested in whatever those two have to say or bring to the table. Then, they show up again at mealtime and I think Azula just ignores them the whole scene.

After this? Lo and Li vanish until the finale. And what do they do in the finale? Why... it's the first time anyone expresses a verbal concern over Azula's wellbeing! Ah! A sign that Lo and Li have SOME affection for Azula! This time, you pesky Azula fans, you CAN'T twist this into a bad thing! For sure!

... Can't we, tho? :')

What IS Azula's reaction to: "We are concerned for your wellbeing"?

"My father asked you to come here and talk to me, didn't he‌? He thinks I can't handle the responsibility of being Fire Lord. But I will be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history."

And here, my friends, is when we have finally hit the jackpot.

Lo and Li could have been Azula's Irohs. She could've had TWO of him! Then you'd say: "hey! Ozai is such a dick he let Azula have two elderly wise ladies guiding her but only gave one old wise dude to Zuko! Rude!" and it would be further proof of Ozai's favoritism of Azula, right?

... But actually?

Lo and Li are no such thing. Lo and Li aren't moral compasses for Azula in the least. Lo and Li are not beacons of wisdom that genuinely help her sort her way through life. Worth noting: THEY COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN THAT WAY. They're not. They're not part of mysterious secret societies, they don't help Azula in any objective, significant, tangible way... there's very much nothing to say they EVER fulfilled the role Iroh did for Zuko. What role, then, were they fulfilling instead?

Why... I think we ought to listen to Azula, shouldn't we?

My take: Lo and Li are OZAI'S STAND-INS.

Someone's going to say "hey why would you assume that when Azula said this in the middle of a breakdown?? Surely she was just DELUSIONAL and PARANOID and ashdgkadhsgkjgh...!"

... Let me counter that one with a fun little analysis excercise:

WHY are Lo and Li Azula's firebending teachers and advisors?

The finale very directly tells us these two are not benders. We could've assumed they were! They're not: Azula's teachers are non-benders.

Has a single person out there ever asked themselves WHY this is the case?

How the hell is Azula, prodigy of the blue fire, epic lightning, cruel and powerful and precise and deadly bending... training under two elderly nonbenders?

Bringing this to a real-life example: do you remember what it was like when you were in P.E. classes and your teacher told you to spend 20 minutes jogging, and if you ever stopped you had to do 20 crunches and then get back to the jogging, and every time you stopped he'd tell you the same thing and you'd want that guy to vanish from the face of the planet? I don't know if that was only my experience, but I rather doubt it.

What did kids typically think/say when that happened?

"I wanna see that old fart doing the same shit he's making us do..."

It's a headcanon indeed to say that this is how Azula must have felt over Lo and Li, but it's VERY likely to be the case. But I'd dare say, in Azula's case, it's even worse because, to put it in another way? It's like taking programming lessons from someone who's never learned a programming language. They'll tell you you're getting things wrong without knowing how to help you get them right because they just DON'T KNOW what you're doing, and are outright INCAPABLE of what you're trying to achieve. They can't offer good guidance based on experience because they have ZERO experience on that subject! And yet they want PERFECTION from you! They expect it!

Lo and Li are these teachers for Azula. We only see them in one scene? And yet everything in the rest of the show suggests that they bring nothing important to the table for Azula, be it professionally, be it personally, be it emotionally... not in any aspect of life.

And this, if you ask me, is why the OG show barely ever brings them into scenes. Why the comics flat-out forgot they existed and even featured people like Sozin and Azulon in Azula's beach hallucinations but NOT the two ladies who looked after her and trained her. Why the live-action didn't even FEATURE them.

And us? The fandom? The fic writers?

I HAVE NO IDEA WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I READ A FIC THAT HAD LO AND LI INVOLVED IN IT.

I'm not even saying as main characters, I don't even know if that exists, frankly: I mean as minor, or background characters. I have NOT seen those two be used in basically ANY fics I've read. I've scarcely used them in mine! In fact, I PURPOSEFULLY got rid of them early on in Gladiator because I didn't want them to sabotage and get in the way of Azula's progress as a character and I believed they'd do exactly that. They were an obstacle rather than anything useful, so I did away with them and then realized they could still occasionally serve some purpose in certain situations: I even had Azula visit them once and they were actually helpful! Fancy that! But... that's it. That's as far as I could go with them. I can't do MORE with those two because they're not characters one particularly feels compelled to work with.

And from what I've seen? That's the case for everyone.

So, I ask again:

WHY ARE THEY THERE?

WHAT IS THEIR ROLE?

WHAT IS THE POINT OF AZULA HAVING NON-BENDING TEACHERS?

Let's go further and further into logical thinking here, shall we?

Azula is a child. Fourteen years of age at the time she's introduced in the OG show.

Azula has no power over many things around her, particularly, her upbringing. That's in the hands of the adults around her. Her mother, up until she vanished, had some hand in it, then, it all falls to Ozai.

Ozai has been Azula's sole parental figure since Ursa left.

Ozai is the one who would reasonably call the shots regarding Azula's education, as all parents are wont to do... ESPECIALLY when he's a king with absolute power over his children.

... so, Lo and Li? Ozai either gave them the position as Azula's teachers personally, or someone else (Ursa) did, and Ozai either didn't WANT to remove them from the role (cue "Ozai being sentimental over Ursa" theories), or Ozai didn't give a flying fuck about who was training his daughter (cue "Ozai is an abusive dick without a heart or a brain" theories).

Anyone, of course, would likely interject here to say surely Ozai ALSO trained Azula himself because that's what he'd do with his favorite kid, right? See. I don't even disagree with that notion.

BUT IT'S A HEADCANON.

We have zero evidence that Ozai trained her! None! I totally will write that into Azula's backstory in many of my stories, but there's NOTHING in canon to suggest this actually happened and that Ozai was genuinely, actively, frequently involved in her progress as a firebender. Assuming he HAD to be is, still, a headcanon. You can't say that with any more certainty than mine when I say I believe Azula loves spicy foods. Does it seem to be something that would fit with her character? I think so! But if eventually canon goes "AZULA CAN'T STAND SPICY FOODS LOL JOKE'S ON YOU!" I... can't even say a thing about it. People's food tastes aren't reflective of their personalities. They really could do whatever they want in that respect. And that's the case for ANYTHING that isn't part of the show's storytelling or the character backgrounds or any texts we consider canon!

POINT BEING: Ozai, regardless of what you want to headcanon, had Lo and Li as Azula's teachers. HIS FAVORITE CHILD... and her only official instructors are two non-benders. Yang added Kunyo as an old instructor of Azula's when she was young, sure! But Kunyo was sooooo qualified that baby Azula was already kicking his ass. So, for that matter? He doesn't really seem to have been a cornerstone of her firebending development and the only other known teachers for Azula are Lo and Li.

For the last time: Azula's teachers are NON-BENDERS. AS CHOSEN, SANCTIONED, APPROVED AND ACCEPTED BY OZAI.

And with those two remarking on absolutely STUPID stuff like "one hair out of place"? Azula still became the incredible firebender she was.

Cue, now, the irony where Zuko was stuck in the basics 3 years after setting out of the Fire Nation... WITH IROH ACTIVELY SERVING AS HIS MENTOR.

You're not gonna tell me that Lo and Li would EVER be better instructors than Iroh, or are you? Because that makes no sense. Full-stop. Iroh is supposed to be the most profound and complete firebender thorughout the show because he's spiritually enlightened even though I admit I think that's bullshit and he doesn't just teach Zuko how to set things on fire, he actually makes him learn theory and spirituality and his teachings are more profound than just "ONE HAIR OUT OF PLACE".

So.

Banished as he is, disgraced and seen as trash by Ozai, Zuko STILL has a better teacher than Azula does.

... Is this LOGICAL? Is this NORMAL? Does this make SENSE?

If you think Ozai's favoritism of Azula takes the shape of "I'll give you every little thing you ask for, sweetheart, I love you very much, here, have ten million doll houses so you can set them on fire, and all the ponies you ask for and on your next birthday I'll buy you a baby dragon and you'll get your own region of the Fire Nation to govern and a fancy title..."?

Then Lo and Li, unfortunately, are right here to be a HUGE contradiction with your interpretation of Ozai and Azula's relationship.

Azula should have THE BEST teachers. Azula does not. Azula doesn't even LIKE them. Azula is openly shown to dislike them! To be annoyed around them, ANGRY when they're teaching her, she feels they're here to keep tabs on her for her father! In a sense, they're Ozai's SPIES on her! :')

Hence? Ozai's favoritism of Azula MIGHT not be what everyone keeps pretending it is. Maybe Ozai didn't do everything to make Azula get things EASILY... and to be fair? That's not what Zuko said anyway. People interpreted it that way... but that's not REALLY what he says:

"Everything always came easy to her. She's a firebending prodigy, and everyone adores her. My father says she was born lucky. "

Every line in this statement is absolutely questionable and all of it sounds like buuuuullshit to me. This is ZUKO'S perspective. And sorry not sorry, but it's tell-don't-show. People swear by his opinion of Azula and pretend he's absolutely objective about it. He's not.

But "Everything always came easy to her," does not mean "EVERYTHING WAS ALWAYS HANDED OVER TO HER ON A SILVER PLATTER." And yet this is what the fandom has constantly interpreted it as.

Azula might just be a prodigy. Maybe she started out ten steps ahead of her brother: this does not mean she needs no guidance, no training, no help. She's seen training herself over perfectionism in her very second scene of Book 2. And the guidance she gets in order to achieve perfection is actually, objectively, stupid.

This is what Ozai chose for her. This is an OBSTACLE for her growth, just as much as Lo and Li were obstacles for me when I was starting with Gladiator! Azula doesn't have it EASY: she just works herself so damn hard that even shit that should HINDER her does NOT do that. And even when her brother objectively has spent THREE YEARS with an advantage in the shape of being trained by one of the VERY BEST firebenders out there? Azula is still beating Zuko at it. With two non-benders as her teachers.

Where am I going with all this?

To the fact that Lo and Li are overlooked in just about every instance of the fandom.

To the fact that nobody includes them, and their influence on Azula, in their analyses of who Azula is.

I've seen a shitstorm rising over the Netflix characterization of Azula: SHE'S TOO ANGRY, they say. Non-stop. She's sooooo hysterical, all the time! She's just pissed perpetually!

Well. I haven't finished the show yet. But the scenes I've seen Azula in so far? They don't fit the fandom's view of Azula because...

... they're not taking Lo and Li into account.

As usual.

:')

Azula's reactions around Lo and Li being frustration, anger, irritation EVEN in scenes like The Beach, where Azula was FINE until she sees them? That shit is storytelling that went over sooooooo many heads, EVEN MINE! When I saw people going on about how canon Azula is... not insecure? Not angry? Has no frustrations and was only ever smirking 24/7? I... didn't feel that was right. I knew it wasn't right. And when I thought about it hard enough? I realized that one reason why this interpretation of Azula is IMMEDIATELY dismissable is because of Lo and Li: those two constantly made Azula angry. Even if that wasn't their intent, it's nonetheless the effect they'd have on her. And Azula didn't like having them around. She CLEARLY didn't appreciate them the way Zuko does Iroh, for instance! And this could be taken as a flaw on Azula's part... if we EVER saw evidence that these two ladies actually love Azula as a grandchild, or so. If we had any evidence that they actually have cared for her in ways nobody else ever did. If maybe the ones Zuko talks about, upon saying "EVERYONE LOVES AZULA" were these two! And maybe he was jealous of them! Maybe he wanted two old ladies to watch his every move and tell him his every flaw!

... Clearly I'm joking about that last thing, but anyway...

There's nothing to tell us Lo and Li were anything but Ozai's assigned watchdogs to keep control and tabs over Azula. That Azula's immediate reaction upon hearing that someone cares about her is "Oh fuck off, my dad sent you here because he doesn't trust me!" is... telling. It's not just paranoia speaking, even if it sure can be read that way! It's actually Azula's perception of those two, which is 100% supported by what we saw of the twins throughout the show, WHENEVER we did see them: their roles in Azula's life are indeed to keep tabs on her, to keep her under control, to pressure her into perfection, AS OZAI'S AGENTS! Seen this way, it MAKES SENSE for Azula to disregard their concern and immediately assume it's FAKE. She isn't even shown to doubt it, never questions that MAYBE they did care about her! She assumes they don't...

... And considering that, as far as I know, the official concept is that they BOTH LEFT when Azula banished one of them only? That they didn't contest her command, staying to look after her even if she only wanted one? I mean, clearly Azula can't tell them apart, so they could've taken turns: one watches over Azula for 12 hours and the other for the next 12 hours, I don't goddamn know! But they didn't do that. They LEFT. And if they left? It means they don't care remotely as much as they say they do. Not to the point where they'd challenge Azula's orders and help her when they KNOW she's not okay.

And all of this further supports my point.

When we see Azula in the liveaction being angry, bitter, irritable at Ozai's choices?

I see a reflection of the same dynamics that the OG too subtly weaved into Azula's relationship with Lo and Li. I see Azula reacting against Ozai's control over her because she feels it's DISTRUST. She feels it means her father STILL needs to be convinced that she's competent, powerful, ready to do his bidding. It isn't a case where Azula's irritation comes from wanting to rebel against her father... it's Azula wanting her father to UNDERSTAND that she's 100% his supporter and will put everything on the line to serve him and the Fire Nation.

And it's very damn easy to read that exact same thing into Azula's dynamics with Lo and Li as it is to see it EXPLICITLY STATED in the liveaction.

My point?

What the liveaction did is not nearly as much of a distant characterization choice as people think it is.

Ozai is Azula's Achilles' Heel. Everything she became, everything she grew up to be, was for his sake. He molded her to become those things and simply didn't give a shit about raising a daughter, he treated her as a weapon, and absolutely pitted his children against each other, just as much as OTHER adults in their lives did. But the impact of Ozai on Azula in the OG is easy to ignore. Why? Because we SELDOM see them interacting. Because we don't get that side of Azula's character fully explored. Because they didn't want to explore Ozai's character either! They were as cheap as they could be with all these aspects and so, only the people who really got into analyzing things on a deeper level would be able to say, without a doubt, that Ozai abused Azula emotionally with all the expectations and demands he put on his own child. Through the golden child-scapegoat dynamic that people have been bringing up non-stop in the past years.

So, proving herself to her father is what Azula wants to do, more than anything. Proving worthy of his favor, of his approval, is the closest thing she can get to feeling loved. Which is depressing as fuck. Azula gets zero affection: it's not even conditional affection, there's NOTHING for her besides approving words if she gets anything right. And this show's work with Azula's character? It was meant to make these things less invisible to all the fans who like to pretend none of it exists. And yes, I've seen them, crawling all over Twitter shitting themselves in fits of rage because how dare that show pretend Azula EVER had a bad time in her perfect flawless life!!

Well, the irony is that the OG gives you a smidge of evidence -- and yet that's enough -- to show that Ozai was doing very similar things to Azula in ATLA, and her reactions to it?

Huh. No smirks for Lo and Li.

No smirks for the symbols of Ozai's control over her life.

It's almost like the confidence, the smirks, the apparent ease with which she handles everything? Is a front that crumbles easily whenever it concerns the ONE PERSON with power over her life.

I don't believe, worth noting, that Azula's power comes from rage. I've seen people say that in fandom in the past and I find it a completely absurd take when Iroh himself spells out that her bending is about control, about precision, and it's Azula's FURY that makes her a sloppy mess in the finale. It's even INTENTIONAL that when she shoots lightning a second time, in her second establishing scene, THAT SAME HAIR FALLS OUT OF PLACE. She's still angry. She didn't get it "right" this time either. She's imperfect and she's trying NOT to be, but she cannot succeed. And upon bending lightning with emotions (rage/frustration)? That hair falls YET AGAIN out of place. Proof that she's not going to achieve the perfection she's being FORCED (indeed, by her father and the people who are here to represent him, Lo and Li) to strive for.

The liveaction had Ozai pushing Azula for a perfection she couldn't attain either. She's perfectly content in her cruelty at Ozai's side, right until she hears the Avatar was found and that Zuko has a shot at taking away the privileges she's been basking in so far. That she WASN'T nervous about this in canon is pretty damn obvious: OZAI SENT HER TO HUNT ZUKO DOWN FOR BEING A FAILURE. We never saw her reaction to learning that the Avatar was out and about. We have noooo idea what was canonically going on with her back then. The first time we see her besides the flashback is Azula receiving a mission that tells her she's STILL #1 and Zuko is no threat to her because Ozai thinks he's a failure. Thus? She had nothing to fear. Here? Ozai is actively using Zuko as bait to pressure Azula further. And if you're so confident in Ozai's good parenting skills as to believe he somehow WOULDN'T do that? Sounds like you don't understand the very basic and simplistic Fire Lord Ozai from ATLA, and that's not something to be proud of. So probably stop screaming your bad takes at the top of your lungs, because being incapable of understanding Ozai in canon is not a badge of pride, just saying...

FINAL POINT...

This post is not written expressly in the defense of the liveaction and its characterization of Azula. To this point, what I've seen of it doesn't feel WRONG or OFF unless you're the kind of person who thinks Azula is only capable of smirking and if she stops doing that she stops existing or something. Only people who cannot understand the depth, nuance, subtleties in Azula's story would ever be claiming that Azula's relationship with Ozai COUDLN'T be like this, or that Azula couldn't possibly be frustrated with her father or his choices when it's soooo clear what Ozai is going for, and why it's working. But in order to read Azula as a character capable of this range of emotion, frustration and ambition, all at once? You have to be able to treat this character, be it in the liveaction or the OG show, as a human being.

And that's what most the people criticizing this specific change are determined not to do. It's what makes them uncomfy. It's what rustles their jimmies.

Yes. I'm saying it in this very demeaning way because I actually find it quite ridiculous to be this insecure over the portrayal of a fictional 14yo in two TV shows. Whether the liveaction sticks the landing or fails catastrophically, I do not know... but I do know that if it's forcing a bunch of people to rethink Azula's character, and making them panic at the idea that she could EVER have human emotions, even if they're AWFUL human emotions?

Then I'm afraid you're only convincing me that, as bad as that show could ever get? It's getting SOMETHING right. I do love to see misinterpretations of Azula getting slammed in the face by the reality that all those beliefs, headcanons and takes in bad faith are actively, categorically untrue: none of which makes Azula a fundamentally good person, worth noting! But it makes it very clear that reading her as a one-dimensional basic villain, which is what the anti-Azula-redemption crowd actively does, is literally only possible if you overlook, ignore and fail to understand her character and her complexities, be it in the liveaction or in the original show.

There. I said my piece.

Another post, regarding the rest of the liveaction, is bound to come later. I'd say stay tuned but it might take me a while to write it at all. So... wait around and maybe you'll see it someday!

[geothewriter]

Zutara Week 2024 - Festive

This year I partnered up with the legendary @demaparbat-hp for this prompt response. Please check out her corresponding post and artwork! I am literally still so shaken by the incredible artwork that goes along with this story! No, seriously, this is absolutely incredible! Give her praise!

Y'all, this is the fluffiest thing I've ever written. Enjoy!

-------

Zuko decided to make the next Winter Solstice memorable after his and Katara's first one together lacked a certain magic.

On their first Winter Solstice together, Zuko shared a simple dinner with Katara in the Palace. Foods from her home mingled with spiced Fire Nation dishes, filling the table with a plethora of vibrant colors. He tried his best to find all of the best ingredients, and while she smiled, there was a vacancy in her eyes when she looked across the spread. Just the two of them. She assured him that she loved the thought and the food was exquisite. Perhaps too much so, he added in his head. It was made with perfection, not love. The kitchens were incapable of adding that ingredient. He knew what was missing. He knew what he couldn’t fix that night. Everyone had been so busy in that first year that there wasn’t a chance for friends. He was the Fire Lord and was busy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take some time away from the world’s affairs for someone who gave him his world. Even as the meal ended and they retired for the night, he began plotting. It wouldn’t be easy. No, compared to his normal responsibilities, the plan that rapidly formed that night was doomed without the most meticulous preparations. Luckily he knew just the person to contact and swore on his honor that he’d write a letter to Sokka the next morning. Early? Yes. Without reason? No. Even starting this soon he knew it was likely that everything may only line up more than a year from now. He hoped Katara was patient. He’d try.

Continue reading on AO3!

[discordiansamba]

some more fun facts about the suki zuko bodyswap au

suki kind of weirds out everyone who knows zuko, because they can't shake the feeling that this girl they've never met in their lives is somehow incredibly familiar to them. except for ozai. ozai doesn't pay enough attention to zuko to even notice.

suki: aang can I beat ozai up just a little bit?

aang: ...okay just a little.

suki, smiling as she cracks her knuckles. she has a childhood of neglect to pay back to his ugly face.

when they reunite after the finale, one moment suki is on the airship looking down at the fire nation courtyard... and the next she's clutching at her chest like. OW. what did he DO?

katara: hi suki. zuko took lightning for me.

suki: ow. this sucks.

(she kicks zuko for it later)

zuko: i deserved that, but you just kicked your own body.

suki: worth it.

(the lightning scar club gains an unofficial third member)

suki is really good at pretending to be zuko when she's in his body. it's second nature to her. it's a little harder to break the habit when the secret's out in the open and she can just act like herself anymore. this leads to a situation where zuko is acting like himself in suki's body but suki is still acting like zuko. two zukos for the price of one.

they will later realize how funny this is and do it on purpose sometimes. they will also occasionally pretend to swap without actually swapping and see how long it takes anyone to notice.

(iroh will always play along)

toph will eventually get the hang of telling them apart no matter what... and immediately also decides to play along.

toph: it's easy to tell them apart, actually. suki's always cooler than zuko.

zuko: HEY

sokka goes to give his girlfriend a good morning kiss and she just shoves him away. oh. hey zuko.

zuko: hey.

iroh looking between his 'nephew' and the kyoshi warrior at the north pole and finally understanding just who it is that his nephew has been swapping bodies with this entire time.

(...should he make more accommodations for a young lady? no, she seems entirely unbothered.)

'suki' pulls 'zuko' aside while they're all resting after facing azula in the events of the chase. what are you doing? you can't just join us! we'll have to stay like this the whole time!

suki just kind of panicked. iroh was injured, and she knew katara would be able to heal him. everything else just kind of snowballed from there. it'll be fine though, right? you already considered this back with aang after you escaped pohuai.

zuko just sighs like. yeah okay. you've got a point.

[linkspooky]

What in particular inspired you to write Burn This City, Burn This City Down? It's a very unique fic.

Oh man I hope you're ready to take my hand and go on a journey with me because this is going to be long ride.

The first version of this fic came from 1) the ending of the Search where Azula runs off into the woods and we were just left on that cliffhanger for years. The first story that ever gave me the inspiration though was Katanagatari by Nisioisin, especially after I read the translated light novel for the first time.

Katanagatari is a story of a former princess who wants revenge teaming up with a human who was raised as a weapon known as Yasuri Shichika who comes from an entire family of martial artists living on an island. She takes Shichika out to the world and they gather twelve magical swords for the shogunate government. Basically, it's easy to see how you could put Azula into this scenario. Except instead of swords it was just going to be Azula wanting to resolve different political issues or, my earliest idea was killing members of the red lotus in the colonies far from Zuko's jurisdiction.

Lio came from this initial idea and he was one, a person in the forest that Azula met, and two a very strong martial artist who is unhealthily devoted to her. Basically it's what Azula thinks she wants in a relationship, a perfect solider who follows her every order and is unconditionally loyal. That relationship eventualyl breaks apart though as Azula eventually has to go back to her real friends, because Lio mirrors like all her bad flaws at her.

I had serious trouble coming up with an overarching plot though, because Katanagatari's plot is just "go to the place, fight the guy, get the sword" and it was just hard to come up with 12 seperate guys for Azula to fight. Also it wasn't feasible because she'd basically spend all her time away from canon characters. I tried to throw Jet in too so it wouldn't just be Azula and this OC, but it never really got past the planning stages.

There were a few manga I read that were also Azula adjacent that helped further my ideas along. I've referenced Akatsuki no Yona before, and TGCF too, but those were a little bit too much like Katanagari. I liked the idea of like Azula roaming the country side with a partner character improving things by herself for awhile like Yona does with Akatsuki no Yona but I ran into the same problem again it would be 90% Azula and this oc with no canon interaction. I did like making Hua Cheng really weird though, and that became Lio like, developing entitled, posessive and borderline stalkery behaviors.

I'm sure you've noticed the fic hasn't become incredibly surreal and weird yet. So the actual tone and the way the fic portrays mental illness comes from three works in praticular. Tokyo Ghoul, which is kind of where I got my start on this blog, Kara no Kyoukai, and Tsukihime. The idea to make Lio a disassoicative disorder personality so Azula would have someone to sympathize with her and understand she's hallucinating came from a character named Shiki Ryougi who is also a character who has a system.

The prose style that is lowkey horror comes from my best attempts to write in a Nasu style in Tsukihime. Basically part of the reason the fanfic is so surreal is because I want to use elements of horror to add to the surrealism in order to make the audience viscerally fear the feel that characters like Azula do when they lose control over the reality in front of them.

When going in the forest for the Search I wanted to lean heavily on the Suicide Forest or the Forgetful Valley being an actually terrifying or unnerving setting to be in. I also thought the Mother of Faces was a cool idea for a spirit that the comics completely blew. So one of the improvements was making Mother of Faces a genuinely terrifying inhuman entity where the entire forest is basically her playground and humans are her puppets. It's a continued trend I want to do in this fic to make spirits like genuinely terrifying, and at the most indifferent to humans and at the worst extremely hostile.

The second was making the forest an actually scary and confusing place to be in. The forest is the head, and Azula is the head, and she's dreaming the forest. The forest is a metaphor for how Azula is lost inside her own head and trapped because no one in the world empathizes with her or tries to understand her, and like, Zuko sees her run into that huge forest twice and just watches her go even though she could end up dead in a ditch.

There's two big inspirations I took for describing the forest itself. The first was the book roadisde picnic and the movie STALKER which are about a zone in Russia which is fundamentally altered by aliens where nothing in that zone follows the laws of physics and instead follows their own abusrd laws. The second was from the book and movie annihilation. In annihilation the strange zone where strange things happen is nature actively like, retaking the earth, and changing the humans who enter that territory into something else.

As for Azula's narration itself and the way her mental health is depicted, I basically got her narration style down especially in her trippy points by reading Girl, Interrupted roughly one hundred times. My general rule of thumb is that Azula's narration is incredibly dry and mechanical and straight to the point, and her prose is very minimialist until it's not. Azula is very high functionning until she is not. Then the self-loathing, and the paranoia, and the voices begin to creep in. Yet on the surface Azula will do absolutely everything to pretend she is not loosing her grip of things until she has, full on meltdowns. This pattern continues ad infinituum, Azula just gets better at hiding her sympatoms and appearing more functional. Girl, interrupted though with the very detached kind of narration, the anachronistic order I employ a lot in this fic.

So the fic rewrite existed for awhile, like there were ten different drafts of the first chapter where Azula just finds a masked man in the woods after running away from Zuko.

So, okay I lied there is one more inspiration for the way I write Azula which is Zaregoto by Nisioisin and specifically the way he writes the main character IIchan and this very detached narrator voice who like, clearly suffers from some type of schizo-type and will have the most surreal moments of narration. That is primarily a mystery series so that's what gave me the plot in it's final form. It's basically like a mystery series that's led by two unreliable narrators Azula and Lio, and Zuko who let's be honest another unreliable narrator, and then Katara and Aang who are the most reliable narrators but they're also kind of like, they're not as aware of the dark side of the world and are more naive. I basically told myself like, I'll write it like a mystery novel. Instead of solving murders though it'll be political intrigue, where we have to follow two unreliable narrators. Two unreliable narrators who we don't know everything about bevcause the narration skips along their history in anancronistic order, and that'll be a metaphor for the weird way that Azula and Lio both experience reality because of how disordered their thinking is now.

The surraelist stuff started to finalize into like a solid plot when I read another fic. I don't know if I should like, mention this fic. I'm going to complain about it so I probably shouldn't mention it by name. Okay I'm just going to be vague about it. There was a Zuko / Sokka fanfic where Azula has been fully redeemed by her brother and they get along great and she is basically, playing political games in the court for her brother's sake. Sokka however doesn't know this and becomes suspicious of her and becomes embroiled in the politics too. In this version Azula is kind of just Zuko's attack dog which was very funny.

It's a fic where I did like Azula and Sokka's characterization, and like revitalized my desire to write avatar fic but I also had just as many faults in it. Basically my biggest nitpick in any Zuko and Azula fanfic is where they protray Zuko as a compassionate brother who helped Azula in her rehabilitation because like, that's just not what happened. So Zuko kind of just felt like a non character because there's no acknowledgment that Zuko can really be just as bad to Azula as Azula is to him and like... I need that drama in my life.

It also like timeskipped past her entire recovery and like I don't want sane Azula, I want barely functional Azula wearing a mask of sanity and convinced she peaked at fourteen and just trying to feel like the way she did when she was fourteen. I need her to be like "oh yes, I'm fixed now" and then have her start to break down again because she never actually learned to deal with stress.

The other was that the ocs in the fic were absolutely boring, like the villains were one note. It was this grand spiraling political plot but the villains behind the plot had no human motivations and Azula killed them in like five minutes. I was like no, no I can make my own ocs. I will have this new fic have actual compelling antagonists who feel like they are characters in the story and actually move the plot and challenge the main characters.

So to Summarize this long ramble, basically my idea for this fic came from the collective works of Nasu and Nisioisin. It started out as like, a journey through the colonies and help people fic to like, taking place entirely in Caldera City. That's where the current idea of Azula dealing with factions who are trying to take her brother's thrown from her, and also she's trying to play the political game that everyone else is playing comes from. Azula is playing political games but like, also, the people she's playing against aren't one note bad guys they're actually interesting characters.

I also want to basically adapt a kind of like, mystery novel character following the mystery through all the political intrigue and finding the answer. I guess you'd call that "Noir". Like the confusing surrealism stuff in the search part of the story shows how lost Azula is in the forest. The confusing surrealism stuff in Caldera City will now be about how Caldera city is a city of liars, where everyone has their own hidden motivation and Azula has to navigate all of that again.

Okay, I hope that answered your qusetion. I can cite some more sources on scenes that inspired me. That scene where Lio saw Azula and the first thing he thought about was how he wanted to stab her a whole bunch is a reference to Tsukihime where Shiki meets Arcueid for the first time.

The story for Azula, Interupted of someone else framing Azula for killing cats and turtleducks comes from a really brief flashback in Tokyo Ghoul where Mutsuki remembers killing cats as a child and gets made fun of for it. Then she remembers running all the way to where she buried all the cat's tongues, and picks the jar up and cries and begs for the cats to forgive her. I know that's kind of a weird scene, but basically that whole chapter came from my idea of Azula remembering getting slapped by her mom for killing the turtleducks and begging someone to believe her and then it suddenly flashes forward to the future and Azula is still crying about it.

That's all I can remember referencing or getting inspired by for now.

[waterfire1848]

An au where Azula was saved by Hakoda from shipwreck when she was 2 years old and raised by him and Kya as their daughter (and got a new name since her original one is unknown)

Hello, anon!!!

1. The Royal Family goes on one of their trips to Ember Island one summer except there is a massive storm that they didn’t anticipate. The storm badly messes up their directions, causing them to start to sail south and starts to tear their boat in pieces. Ozai, Ursa and Zuko are able to stay with the biggest parts of the ship but Azula is thrown into the sea, hugging a piece of the boat so that she doesn’t drown. Because of the severity of the storm and the fact that Azula is only two, her family assumes that she passed away. She did not. Instead, Azula is still resting on the piece of the ship that she clung to when Hakoda spots her in the middle of the ocean. (Hakoda: Is that…SPIRITS! *Jumps into the ocean* Bato: Hakoda! What are you doing?! Hakoda, swimming over to Azula: It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay. I got you. Azula, weakly: Mama? Hakoda: Not mama. I’m sorry, but I can help you. Let’s get you warmed up and get some food in you.) Hakoda brings her back to his ship where they dress her in warm furs, give her drinkable water and fish to eat.

2. When she’s got clinging to life, Azula is a pretty happy and “chatty” toddler. She loves following Hakoda around the ship—she become incredibly attached to him since he saved her life—, giggling at the other men on the ship and is pretty content with sitting on the rug and listening to stories. All in all, Azula is a really easy and happy toddler. Since she’s all alone and was seen with what looked like a piece of wood from a ship, everyone assumes that her family passed away in a shipwreck. (Hakoda: We’re bringing her with us. Bato: Hakoda- Hakoda: Kya will love her and she wouldn’t forgive me for not bringing her back. Bato: Kya will love her but can you guys handle three kids? Hakoda: It’ll be good for this little one to have siblings. Plus Katara and Sokka will get along great with her. I’m sure of it. Bato: Alright. I mean, none of us are going to argue that we put her in the Earth Kingdom orphanage so….I guess you got a new daughter). Hakoda is right. Kya loves the baby girl when she first meets her and she agrees with Hakoda that the best option is for them to take her in. There’s just one problem. Azula is two and can’t say her name and Hakoda and Kya don’t know it. (Hakoda: She needs a new name. Kya: Korra? Hakoda: No. Kya: Ivalu? Hakoda: No. Kya: Eska? Hakoda: No. Kya: You pick one then. Hakoda: How about….Hinata? Kya: Hinata. I love it.)

3. Hinata(Azula), Katara and Sokka grow up close. Despite the fact that they’re from different nations, the kids never let that stop them from being siblings and calling each other brother and sister. Azula grew up just like any other child in the South Pole. When Azula’s firebending comes in is when the family reaches its first problem. Because up until that point everyone had believed Azula was an Earth Kingdom child and finding out she was a firebender makes them realize how wrong they were. Plus, Azula has been raised to see firebenders as monsters and villains so finding out she is one is heartbreaking to her. (Azula, crying into her mom’s jacket: I don’t wanna be a monster! I wanna be a waterbender like Kat! Kya: Hinata, baby, the spirits can’t change what element you bend. Azula: But I’m a monster! Kya: You’re not a monster. Those firebenders we told you about…they were raised to be horrible, but you? You’re the sweetest girl. You could never be like them. Azula: Promise? Kya: I promise. I love you, Hinata. Azula: I love you too. mom.) Azula finally accepts her moms offer to go to the caves and train in secret with Katara. Kya doesn’t want them bending in public but she doesn’t want them to ignore their skills either, so they go to a hidden cave where the girls can practice away from possible eyes.

4. Sadly, that’s not the last challenge the family faces because 2 years after Azula and Katara get their bending, when they’re eight and Sokka is nine, a raid is done on the South Pole, looking for the last waterbender. Azula initially runs to the tent and finds her mom and the soldier. Kya tells Azula to leave, saying that she can handle this but Azula refuses to leave her mom. The solder recognized that Azula is Fire Nation but he doesn’t know who she is. He tries to take her which results in Kya going full mama bear on him and grabbing a nearby sword to stab him with repeatedly. After she’s sure her daughter is okay, she hides Azula under some furs and leaves the tent to see the fight is mostly over. Hakoda returns and tells her that they didn’t take anyone but Kya tells him that they were there for Katara and what she did. The parents agree to go through the village and find whoever betrayed them but also that Katara and Azula are officially banned from bending. The raiders do not return, (funding issues) and the tribe continues on with Hakoda eventually leaving for war with all the men. This time, Kya is there to hold her three kids as they watch their father disappear into the horizon.

5. Years later, Azula, Katara and Sokka are out fishing when they come across a familiar iceberg. They break Aang out and bring him back to the village where Kya is nervous about the introduction of an airbender into their village and, low and behold, a few days later the Fire Nation is back but this time it's not a man but a young boy. (Kya really wants to ask this child where his parents are but holds herself back). This time, Azula tries to fight Zuko by firebending her blue flames at him. (Zuko: You're a firebender? Who are you!? How could you betray your own nation?! Azula: My nation? The Water Tribe is my nation and, to answer your question, my name is Hinata. Zuko: You're a....a firebender in the South Pole. Azula: Wow. I'm glad the Fire Nation is teaching basic deduction skills.) Zuko can only think of one reason why a firebender would be in the South Pole because she's the Avatar. She must have hidden her tattoos which is how no one discovered her. Azula decides to go along with this in exchange for him leaving the village alone. (Of course Kya tries to stop this and begs Zuko not to take her daughter but Azula is still taken away). Aang arrives right after Azula is taken away and promises to help get her back. Katara, Sokka, Kya, Aang and Appa all fly off to go get Azula back which is where Aang is revealed as the Avatar and the group fly away, intending to go to the North Pole so Aang and Katara can learn waterbender.

6. I didn't have space for this but just as an extra add on, Kya does eventually tell Azula that she's not biologically related to them and her real family was from the Fire Nation. Azula does know this, but still wants to call Kya and Hakoda her mother and father which they are completely okay with. No one figures out though that Azula is part of the Royal Family until Ran and Shaw. The dragons are able to sense Azula's ancestry and, with the help of the Sun Warriors, tell Zuko and Azula that they're siblings and tell Azula what her original name was. Since Zuko is the only child of Ursa and Ozai, Azulon never ordered him dead and Ursa never left, meaning that she's there when Azula returns to the palace and knows who she is. Ursa is beyond thrilled to see her daughter again but there is some tension between her and Kya for obvious reasons. (Ursa: The...replacement mother can wait a few moments. I want to spend time with my daughter. Kya: I think Hinata can decide for herself. Ursa: Hinata? An odd name choice, don't you think? Kya: And naming her after a genocidal dictator was the best name in existence? Ursa: Azula is my daughter. She needs to spend time with the woman who gave birth to her. Kya: And the woman who apparently didn't have enough common sense to grab her two year old when a storm was approaching.) They do eventually get along but it's a tough few months.

[paragonrobits]

so one thing i've thought about before is how in AtLA, bending without any apparent effort, doing it casually or performing noticable feats of bending with very small movements (and in a similar way, doing it with apparent effortlessness) are all feats of the most powerful and skilled characters.

We see this most prominently with Bumi and Aang; Bumi is the first Earthbender we see fighting extensively, so its technically a misleading impression because a lot of what he does is directly contrary to regular Earthbending; he moves a LOT more, for one, and he famously bends with his face. this is notable because other benders, even those approaching his power, make use of powerful movements that are very showy and easy to see. Besides the fact that a lot of Bumi's feats feel like he's taken inspiration from Airbending in terms of technique, he is so powerful and skilled that only Toph approaches him, and she still doesn't do quite as much as he does with tiny movements. (and to be fair, Bumi is a master that's over a hundred years old, while Toph is 12 or 13, and has learned most of her practical skills either in solitude with the badger-moles or fighting in the ring; arguably a lot of her skills in less combat-centered stuff or finer details in Earthbending philosophy are learned more gradually on the road, and we DO see her doing subtle things like pulling metal around herself in a single movement, making her a very noticable example of this phenomenon.)

However, this begs a question; what does this say about Ozai?

He is very explicitly stated to be the most powerful Firebender in the world; he is very much not the wisest, nor does he really seem able to understand the fine details in Firebending or the control required; both Zuko and Azula perform feats he doesn't seem interested in doing at all, or learning, whether from Azula's fine precision allowing her to produce intensely burning blue fires, or Zuko's skill in doing stuff like manipulating existing fire with less effort and same results as producing it himself.

Its hard to get a grasp on his actual skills because we only see him Firebending a few times (one off-screen when he burns Zuko, another when he generates lightning almost instantly in Day of Black Sun) before the finale, where he is incredibly powerful but explicitly has his power amplified, so the best we can judge is comparing him to other Firebenders who do the same thing. Notably, Iroh seems to outclass him in sheer power (blasting through the walls of Ba Sing Se after a short time to power up, whereas Ozai's fleet fire blasts is not exclusively his doing), and while Ozai can use fire thrust to fly in a limited way that other Firebenders are not shown to do normally, Jeong-Jeong outdoes him here as well by hovering with his flames, achieving true flight and likely indicating a superior grasp on energy conservation, given how Ozai just blasts around, and not doing sustained attacks for the most part.

Bending, in AtLA, at its highest power is closely associated with wisdom and enlightenment. Ozai, on the other hand, is powerful but a staggeringly immature man-child whose vicious cruelty and lust for violence is only equaled by his complete incompetence when it comes to basic common sense. He's cruel, regards all non-compliance as insults on him, and regards his family as furniture whenever they're not actively serving his purposes. He is very much NOT wise.

But we also see him performing this same kind of effortless feat by constantly leaving fires burning in his throne room as a show of power. It's possible that this is standard for Fire Lords in general, or at least has become so since Sozin's time. So what does it say about him that he can do this effortlessly?

The first thought that occurs to me is that in his case, he might have achieved a strange kind of inverse enlightenment in being deliberately blind to anything except his own wants and ambitions. He's deliberately unaware of most things that the genuinely wise care about and can't conceive that he might be wrong or even be unsatisfied. This tracks with his ability to generate lightning, in that its required to be calm of mind, and yet both he and Azula show extreme rage when they feel insulted or have their dignity damaged, which doesn't seem consistent with what lightning bending requires according to Iroh. It might be that both Ozai and Azula, in their general lack of introspection, are superficially calm and are able to use lightning this way, but not as effectively as they MIGHT. A superficial, worldly power that seems mighty but ultimately is a sign of them being chained; a metaphor for everything wrong with the Fire Nation.

(Or in other words, he's achieved a poor man's version of enlightenment by being so goddamn childish and oblivious to any kind of actual insight that he's failed to have a mindset that's counter to Firebending despite lacking the wisdom to do that conventionally and he never noticed.)

The other idea is that the effortlessness he shows is also superficial.

Ozai is a very superficial person; he puts a lot of stock on appearances and doesn't think much about anything past that; by all indications, he was never particularly close to Zuko or showed much interest in him (and its quite likely the same applied to Azula, but his praise of her was interpreted as genuine pride when he honestly couldn't care less the second she was no longer making him look better by proxy), he just wasn't motivated to harm them.

Now, consider the possibility that while he is quite powerful, he's putting on a show to make himself look stronger. He makes it LOOK effortless, but he's going to a lot of trouble to put on a show. Now, this may not be likely (we see him doing a whole lot of powerful attacks in Sozin's Comet without much apparent effort, just a vicious glee) but it also tracks with his character to go to this kind of effort and put in a show just so people don't think he looks less than perfect, which also is a nice parallel to how Azula picked up that attitude.

It also nicely contrasts him against Aang, Iroh, the Air Nomad elders, and other genuinely wise characters who get embarrassed, look ridiculous, have pranks played on them, or get stuck in silly situations and they rarely care or even really acknowledge it. Wisdom, in AtLA, is heavily associated with characters who don't care if they look silly, while its characters like Ozai, Zuko and Azula whose violent defensiveness and hostility towards anyone threatening their pride are specifically framed as unwise, and even childish.

In this regard, Ozai mutilating his child over an act of disrespect by proxy lines up very well with that, and him constantly pushing himself to make a threatening image even when it needlessly tires him and doesn't serve any purpose beyond his own ego or frail fear that someone MIGHT not think he is the most badass thing ever.

[sokkastyles]

Hi! I hope you're having a wonderful day. I was just thinking about TSR and how although it is obvious that Zuko's motivations are convoluted, a lot of what we can glean from the text on his thoughts can be interpreted in many different ways. It's easy for anti-zukos and anti-zutaras to frame his primary drives as selfish, and although these interpretations can have a little merit (his feelings about giving Katara the opportunity for "revenge" are undoubtedly inextricably linked with his feelings about his own mother and that could be framed as selfish from a narrow minded standpoint), I still think that's a very surface level interpretation of what we're given (and very hypocritical for a lot of them considering that you could dismiss any of his life-changing field trips as selfishly motivated). Anyway, I realized my thoughts on the matter aren't clearly formed, and although I do agree with the way the episode was framed as incredibly Katara-centric, with her feelings about the matter being more important both to the viewer and to Zuko than Zuko's feelings, I wanted to ask your opinion, because I do believe that understanding what he was thinking is extremely important to understanding TSR and the zutara dynamic. Any thoughts on the matter you have would be much appreciated if you have a moment to spare.

Yeah, trying to argue that Zuko is selfishly motivated because he wants Katara's forgiveness, or because he relates to her anger at the man who hurt her mother, is ridiculous because any action can be construed as selfishly motivated by that logic. It reminds me of that episode of friends where Phoebe convinces Joey that any action is selfish, even giving to charity, because it makes you feel good. It's an inherently silly argument and a cynical view of the world that doesn't actually do anything.

I also am not sure what these people think would be the nonselfish option. For Zuko to just keep his mouth shut? Let's look at this logically. Zuko realizes that Katara's mother's murder is somehow connected to her anger at him. As he is investigating this, he also realizes that the person who did is someone he knows how to find, someone who was never brought to justice.

I would argue that Zuko has a moral duty to give Katara this information as soon as he realizes he has it. If he's really committed to ending the genocide, this is the first step, an act of reparation towards a victim of the war.

I don't necessarily think Zuko was thinking about it in that way, but I think he felt, as soon as he realized he had this information, that Katara should know who was responsible for her mom's death. He doesn't tell her what to do with that information or how to feel about it, but it's information she should know, information that was kept from her. And a huge part of finding closure is just in knowing what really happened, and why it happened. I think Zuko's first thought was that at least he could give her that.

[zuko-always-lies]

hello, it seems like this page is dominated by Azula x girl ships, which is totally cool, I personally could see her with Ty Lee the most, but I was wondering if there are any thoughts on Azula x Sokka? Seeing as Sokka’s positive experiences with family could help Azula’s family trauma, and they are both incredibly smart and witty… just a thought. Please disregard me if you wish.

This is a question which deserves to be dealt with broadly. There actually aren't many reasonably prominent boys around Azula's age she can even potentially be shipped with. it's really only Haru, Teo, Jet, Zuko (note: I do not approve of Azula/Zuko, but I'll get back to that), Sokka, and Aang.

Teo and Haru do have significant appearances, but they receive almost no characterization, so there's not a strong reason to ship them with Azula.

Jet potentially makes a very interesting ship partner for Azula, simply because they have almost nothing in common yet perhaps share a certain drive and determination. However, it's a bit hard to imagine how they would even become lovers, and it's simply not a very popular ship.

For Zuko, even if we ignore the issue of incest, which is not a small issue at all, it's not a very attractive ship for me even from a theoretical perspective. Azula is a way more interesting character than Zuko, but one problem that she has is the everyone (the creators, the series, fanfic writers, fans, etc.) makes everything about her revolve around Zuko. Azula/Zuko as a ship perpetuates this tendency. Also, it involves Azula becoming emotionally dependent on another toxic guy from her family, which is something you'd hope she would grow out of. So yeah, I don't like Azula/Zuko due to the incest, but even ignoring that it doesn't seem particularly compelling to me.

Aang potentially makes a very interesting partner for Azula. They share so much. They're duty-driven prodigies who had an immense weight of expectations placed on them, they both love making mischief, they're both deeply ethical individuals, even if they're ethic systems are completely different, and Azula is even arguably one of the characters least inclined to resort violence in the series, just like Aang. Azula also left a scar on Aang's body when she killed him, so there's potentially a very odd sort of connection to explore. And Aang's compassion would be complex for Azula to experience and you can do a lot about how their cultures clash and combine. However, that being said, I have only very rarely seen an Azulaang fic I like. Common issues are

Putting Aang in a position of power over Azula

Making Azula's life resolve around serving Aang

Cutting Azula completely off from her connection to her nation

Softening Azula's character in a way that removes her canonical drive and ambition

Now we can finally talk about Sokka. The theoretical basis for Sokka/Azula is pretty strong. They're both warriors with daddy issues, they're both duty dedicated they both struggle to live up to their desired roles, they're both leaders, they're both highly intelligent, they're both sarcastic as hell, etc. The parallels just keep piling up. Azula is even one of the few characters to value nonbenders. There's a reason why this is the most popular Azula x male ship.

However, I have found that I don't tend to like Sokkla fics. Something feels off about them. I think part of the issue is that Sokka is a very hard character to write well, and he tends to feel a bit off to me whenever I see him in fanfiction. He's as silly and childish and idiotic and melodramatic as he is mature, intelligent, and dutiful. Also, it's easy to completely ignore his cultural background, but I think that background is critical to the character. Generally I've found that Sokkla fics tend to feel like they're about Azula much more than they're about Sokka, and it doesn't quite read right to me. And I guess in a certain way maybe Sokka and Azula are too similar for the ship to be truly compeling.

Anyways, those are just my personal opinions. Readers, please don't get mad because I don't like your ship.

[lowkeyprinceloki]

Yeah, when I get that chance from Firelord responsibilities, I'll try to share if it's good...

I can always – I will always – protect you, Loki, and redirect any lightning that comes your way. *sighs*

What was running Asgard like?

Any advice for reestablishing a nation with a terrible past, and usher world peace? Even if it's not perfect, it's still progress.... in this Midgard world?

Thank you for listening. I hope you have a good day, God of chaos. Amen?

- Zuko

I will say, running a realm such as Asgard is no easy feat. Especially if you, yourself, are not widely respected by the people. As for re-establishing a nation with a terrible past.. I believe it is important to acknowledge that past and understand why it was wrong instead of avoiding or hiding it. It's important to learn and grow from past mistakes even if you, yourself were not involved with them your country and it's people are still tied to it. Hiding it under false history, statements and promises does not allow people to grow and learn. It does not show that you, your people and your country have changed rather, it shows that you haven't and are simply putting up a front of change to appear better than you truly are. An illusion. At least, that's in my opinion. Rather than avoiding the past you should seek to understand it. To learn from it and teach the coming generations why those actions of the past are harmful and wrong. From there you can work to improve the image of your nation and it's people by working towards a goal that brings about change. As a leader you should be listening to what your people need. Make decisions that better not just you but your society as a whole. Also, before trying to usher world peace you should seek to make peace within your own communities. If your nation is against itself and split apart, it will be harder to come together and be peaceful. Hating one another will not bring about peace which is why it is important to show support for minorities within your own communities that may be suffering. You should seek to first protect these groups within your own nation and then seek to support them in other nations as well. Protecting the vulnerable and defenseless is incredibly important especially when you're in a position of power.

Anyways, that's all I have to say for now. If anyone has anything they like to add feel free to do so.. I am not from around here, obviously, so perhaps you have different ideas than I.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

This person genuinely thinks that Aang would be a better character if he kidnapped a baby?? Or would be more interesting?? Honey, why would he do that. That's not him being boring, that's just him not committing an actual, terrible, crime. Alos it's his show, it's literally called 'Avatar the Last Airbender' of course he's going to get more episodes focusing on him, it's his show???

"Aang being a main character limits him to being a role model'' by brother in Christ, this a Nickelodeon show. Even Zuko is a bit of role model, in the sense of him being a way to teach kids "Just 'cause you're hurting doesn't mean it's okay to be a dick to others. Please apologize if you ever hurt someone."

Also Aang DOES make morally questionable, and downright incorrect, choices that the narrative address. Fleeing when the other airbenders want to send him away, hiding the map to Hakoda from Sokka and Katara, trying to learn firebending before he's ready and then vowing to NEVER use that bending again, trying to trigger the Avatar state, wanting revenge on the sandbenders, shutting off emotionally to not deal with his pain over losing Appa, refusing AND accepting to ignore his love for Katara to fully master the Avatar state, his innitial refusal to continue pretending he is dead to hide from his enemies, the Ember Island kiss, and even his refusal to kill Ozai (before the actual Deus Ex Machina happens).

Aang is challenged all the time. He grows all the time. He is allowed to be wrong all the time. Yall are just mad he was the protagonist instead of your favorite.

And while I agree Sokka didn't have much of an arc, I disagree about Toph never growing even if there were some issues with her storyline. She went from someone who was terrified of accepting help from others as that had always meant "lose all agency" her whole life, to someone that consistently relies on her friends. She went from uncooperative because "she carries her own weight" to being a team player that even offers her friends emotional support. She even makes the first step to reconciliate with her parents.

LOTS of characters had arcs (Iroh, Jet, Mai, Azula, and even King Kuei- that's how stories work. The reason some of these were handled better/given more or less screentime is because Bryke insisted on having only three seasons, even though the show clearly needed a fourth. It had nothing to do with "the problem of having a protagonist" - that's not a problem if you're a competent writer with enough time.

Also, if you see Katara in the FIRST DAMN EPISODE talking about how much she wants to learn waterbending AND how grateful she was to be allowed to be a kid again, yet you're suprised to see her become such a badass whose happy ending is helping end the war and thus be allowed to be a kid again because "she's just Aang's love interest", that says a lot more about YOU than about the show.

Avatar's writting has problems, yes, because no work of fiction is perfect because no writer is perfect. But the overwhelming majority of complaints from some fans come not from acknowledging those flaws, but from a complete inability to understand some REALLY basic storytelling stuff that the show handled with excellence.

That's what happens when you're too focused on what you want to see to actually look at the story playing out in front of you: you miss incredibly obvious things that the writers made as easy to follow as possible since the show is aimed at 7-year-olds.

[breyito]

@zukaangweek

Day 5: Captured/Safe

Everything is Lost AU

As the Fire Palace scrambles to get the rumours of treason whithin the Royal Family in regards of the Avatar's escape under wraps; Aang and his friends ride Appa to the only place that feels safe at the moment: the Southern Air Temple. The mood is sombre; and they are all shaken up. Aang and Toph are barely put together, both feeling the acute loss of Zuko and forced to face the grim reality that the other boy might not see another sunrise.

Meanwhile, Zuko convalesces in the Infirmary. The angry red burn is stark against his skin, due to all the blood he had already lost to arrow wounds before Ozai's attack. The Fire Lord has ordered him to be cuffed to the bed. Lu Ten sits besides him, ruffled, worried, in shock and incandescently furious. Just this evening they were celebrating the Day of the Dark Sun in Crescent Island, like they have done every time for as long as he can remember.

Zuko had taken ill these past few days and so his abscense had been excused. To think it was all for this... just how badly had that bastard of a man ensnared his baby cousin? Lu Ten knew that Azula's idea had been an awful mistake. Zuko is too sensitive to be exposed to that level of violence every single day. He's always been eager to compete, but never to hurt. Of course such soft and kind soul would begin to care for the prisoner that was his responsability.

To think that filthy nomad took advantage of that care to transform it into infatuation (love, as Zuko had said, like he has any idea of what love is, besides what his plays portray) and then twisted it into this devotion Zuko feels for him... How far had he gone, to win Zuko's heart? He's just a boy, which such a tender heart...They've known each other for a few short months, and still. Still. Zuko feels so much for that man...

And said devotion is what made Ozai snap and punish him in such a savage way. If Lu Ten could bear to separate himself from Zuko's side, he would be dismembering that arrogant bastard himself. Attempts on his life were nothing, but trying to kill Zuko? The sheer audacity makes his blood boil.

His baby cousin's journey to health will be long and arduous. His freedom will be strictly reduced and he will be monitored at all hours. Father will take a long time to forgive him. But he will. The Fire Lord has only ever truly loved three people: his wife, his son...and his 'grandson'. Anyone else and they would be dead already. But Father has always been different with Zuko. And they had time. After all...

The North has been under siege for almost a year. By the time Sozin's Comet arrives, their rebuilt walls will melt all the way and their starved warriors will be easy enough to go through to kill the Royal Family. (He hopes the rumours of their warrior Princess are actually true, and she presents a challenge. If not for him then at least for Azula. Maybe they'll let her remain as Consort to the new Governor. After all, it's important to keep the succession line, even if they previous ruling family are mostly just non-benders.)

Omashu has managed to keep themselves isolated and relatively secured, but now that Ozai had fled there their information well will run dry. The mad king might have discovered how to bend metal, but lava? Lava is a whole different game. Sinking the whole city into molten rock is such a brilliant idea.

And the Avatar? Well, he's sure to fly to where he feels like is secure. High ground. One Temple is already occupied, so three options remain.

Hunting him down again shall be fun.

Sorry it took me so long, I just got incredibly stuck on Lu Ten! And his relationship with Zuko (I may or may not have made 10 different versions of their joint moodboard....) Anyways, tomorrow I'll be posting those ones. And let's just say that Lu Ten is...*fans herself*

Anyways, more backstory:

-In this AU, Ozai almost missed his firstborn's birth because he was too busy 'hunting the Avatar' (and failing, again). He spent about 8 months away, so...

-There have always been rumours about Zuko being either Iroh's or Lu Ten's (since he was 14-15 at the time). The preferential treatment from both of them just feeds the flames.

-(Is either one of them his blood father? No clue! I can't decide, lmao. Still, their relationships with Zuko are very different than with anyone else. Lu Ten's especially adores Zuko. Has and will kill again for him.)

-Ozai absolutely loathes this. If he could have, he would have killed Zuko the minute Azula made sparks. (He never knew if he believed those rumours, and never confronted either of them. He did confront Ursa, and she denied it, obviously. But after the letters of her previous lover...)

-They are both completely aware of said rumours, whereas Zuko isn't. Neither one knows whether the other one slept with Ursa. Neither one asks, they just play a mental game with each other to see which one caves in and aks first.

-Zuko is kept prisoner about 1,5 years. Piandao is still part of the White Lotus (he just faked an injury to retire and went to work as a spy inside the Palace) so he helps him escape when the time is right.

-He finds the Freedom Fighters on the way to where Aang is. He gets along brilliantly with them (since they left the village and are roaming vigilantees).

-In this one, Zuko wears the Blue Spirit Mask when he fights, but as he travels he wears a weimao with a black veil, since his scar is very noticeable.

-Oh, Bumi is the Grand Lotus. Desperate times need desperate meassures.

-Lu Ten and Zuko both train with Piandao. Zuko is trained more in stealth, since he's not the Heir. He manages to make fire dance with his swords. Lu Ten manages to use his sword as a lightning rod and direct his lightning to very specific targets.

-(Yes, Azula does still master the blue flame.)

-Ursa didn't dissapear, she was killed, along with Azulon, by one of Ozai's plots. (I debated a lot whether to keep her or not, but decided not to. Zuko needs some trauma lol)

-Bumi managed to track down some descendants from the Air Nomads, and has kept them hidden and tried to train them. After his escape, Aang takes over and, although they are so few, he's not alone anymore.

-Aang notices that, since he couldn't have weapons with his hands free, and Zuko was allowed shaved him once a month; now he can't do it without thinking about him and missing his shivering inducing touch. Zuko always finished with a kiss to his arrow. He sees him everywhere, even in this place where he's never been.

-Yue became a warrior when in the first full blown attack on the city, a squad managed to get in to try and assassinate the Chief. She pulled with all her will when she saw her father about to be killed and ice spikes came from under them, killing the six soldiers inmediately. She refused to be kept away after that, and most of the women agreed that they needed to be able to fight too. She has a reputation for slashing through whole ships on the full moons.

-Toph only managed to compete (and win, of course) in one Earth Rumble before Gaoling was taken by the Fire Nation. It was all very civil, luckily, but anything that had to do with earthbending was forbidden. She hated the fact that just as she learned what she was missing, it got taken away.

-They were introduced by Lu Ten when she was 10 and Zuko was 14. She and Zuko got along because she noticed to softly he moved around, and how trained he seemed to her senses despite never fighting. So she started throwing rocks at him until he responded (Zuko was horrified for a whole minute while she made her eyes watery, but then bursted out laughing.) They secretly train together ever since.

-Zuko was a nervous wreck when he asked her if she would want to leave and help him with Aang's escape. She made him sweat a little but then told him she'd noticed his coming and goings weeks ago.

-They went to many stealth missions masking them as 'dates', to map the most secure route for their escape.

ALSO. This is important since it won't leave my brain alone

AU OF THE AU: Zuko dies in Lu Ten's arms in the escape. Lu Ten goes on the warpath to absolutely destroy the Avatar and the rest of his group.

[couldlesbiansavethem]

Ty Lee from Avatar the Last Airbender

Reasoning: "She clearly has more chemistry with the girls of the show(Mai and Azula) than with the boys. Hugs Mai a lot and constantly hypes up Azula and calls her “the most beautiful, smartest, perfect girl in the world”. She is also like this with the Kyoshi Warriors, who I’ll get to later. Her “crushes” on men all seem incredibly fake, for example Sokka felt like peak conphet, she felt very fake and unnatural when flirting with him, and he was also unattainable because he was with Suki. She also flirted mildly with Zuko in the beach episode but he was unattainable as well, because he was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Mai. Her entire interaction with those boys in The Beach was peak comphet as well, she liked them showering her with attention at first(male validation) but later got disturbed and disgusted when they did show a deeper and more intense level of interest in her, and chi-blocked all of their asses in a glorious act of self-defense. And I can relate! Lots of lesbians get freaked out when a guy shows interest in us, even without knowing why, because it is not in fact male validation that we crave, but rather female affection. But the patriarchal and heteronormative society that we live in encourages us to seek male validation above all else. This would especially be true for the Fire Nation, as they are a rigidly patriarchal society and have also illegalized same-sex marriage. She gets grouped with the Kyoshi Warriors in the end, and the Kyoshi they are named after was bisexual. It’s quite easy to imagine the Kyoshi Warriors as being varying flavors of sapphic as well, and they live on an ISLAND! HELLO! LESBOS WAS ALSO AN ISLAND!!! So Ty Lee joining them could very well be taken as a metaphor(maybe intentional, perhaps not) for joining the lesbian/sapphic community. In one of the comics she is shown to be surprised to see Mai dating a boy, but when I first saw it it honestly looked more like she was jealous because Mai was dating a boy and not her, or something or other I don’t remember it all that well lol. She is shown to be free-spirited and a rebel against society’s norms, who’s to say that she couldn’t be a badass femme lesbian on top of all that? Speaking of femme, she would subvert the idea that girls who are girly and bubbly and nice must automatically be straight or boy-crazy, by being a raging femme lesbo instead. Straight girls don’t wear THAT much pink, lol. Practically everyone sees her as a sapphic but mostly of the bisexual/pansexual variety. Which is fine ofc but pretty please I need her to be a lesbian for my soul because just like Denji from Chainsaw Man said “she’s just like me fr!” Her lesbianism, comphet, and personality personally mirrors my own, and that’s why I will always see her as a lesbian, in truth, heart, and spirit, until the end of time. 😇" ( @justanisabelakinnie)