zuko-always-lies

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It’s interesting to note that Azula makes a very serious effort to reconcile with her brother, to show kindness to him, and to fix her broken relationship with him. It’s futile. It doesn’t work, in the end. Likely it never could have worked, with the shadow of Ozai hanging over the siblings.  She doesn’t manage to repair her relationship with her brother, and by the end of the series it’s worse than ever. Her efforts to show kindness to Zuko (see “The Beach”) never lead to Zuko attempting to show kindness to her or to him even slightly reevaluating his perception of her. In fact, her attempts at reconciliation lead to her losing everything: her friends, her father’s favor, her favored position, her freedom, even her sanity.  It’s worse than futile.

Yet her attempt says volumes about who she is as a character, about who she wants to be a person, just like Zuko’s attempt to save Zhao at the Siege of the North says volumes about who he is as a person, even though it was futile and likely impossible(odds are the spirit of the ocean could pull an awful lot stronger than a 16 year old).

Could Zuko, Ursa, and/or Iroh have “saved” Azula within the confines of the story of Avatar: The Last Airbender? Could they have caused her to take a different path, caused her to avoid her canon sad fate? Perhaps, but likely not, especially considering that Ursa and Iroh barely understood even “saving Zuko” as an objective. Does the fact that they combine for zero on screen acts of kindness toward Azula still speak volumes about their characters, about who they are as people?* Does the fact that Ursa and Iroh show no empathy toward Azula still say a lot about who they are as people? Does that fact that Iroh demonizes his abused 14 year old niece while giving his abusive, imperialist asshole of a brother a pass still speak volumes about who he is as a person? Yes.

The manner with which Azula’s “good” family members treat her is far more about them than it about her.

*Note: I mostly give Zuko a pass on this, for obvious reasons, but it still says important things about his character and his relationship with his family.

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Mai finds Zuko being a pathetic loser attractive, but she also finds him being a whiny bitch annoying.

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Nothing would drive Zuko crazier than Azula disappearing off the face of the earth. He'd always be looking over his shoulder, expecting one of her plots to materialize out of thin air and get him. And even beyond that, he is obsessed with her in a way he doesn't really understand.

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The thing is that everyone always likes Zuko when they first meet him and give him every benefit of the doubt, it's just that he burns through that benefit at record pace. While Azula has to work hard and do everything right for people to like her.

And the AU idea was inspired by Zuko's family favoring him, along with Zuko in general being favored for being a firstborn son.

Very vague AU Idea:

Everyone thinks Zuko is the "chosen one" (or equivalent prophecy), but it turns out Azula is the "chosen one."

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I lowkey find the idea of Azula cutting ties with Zuko but not with Mai hilarious. The fact that she'd talk to his girlfriend but not him would drive Zuko so crazy.

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Nothing would drive Zuko crazier than Azula disappearing off the face of the earth. He'd always be looking over his shoulder, expecting one of her plots to materialize out of thin air and get him. And even beyond that, he is obsessed with her in a way he doesn't really understand.

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The problem with water siblings x fire siblings ships is that Zuko and Azula would probably keep accidentally doing racisms for like the first 6 months of their relationships minimum

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20 years of atla and still no azula redemption arc

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(because of Azula maybe) is considerable

Wait wtf how does Azula get blamed for Zuko’s sexism?? Leave Azula out of this and hold him accountable for his own issues.

X

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The reason everyone in the Fire Nation court loves Azula and dislikes Zuko is that they've all known both siblings forever.

Random headcanon

In general, when people first meet Zuko and Azula, they like Zuko much better. They project whatever they want to see onto him, while Azula is a lot off-putting, to say the least.

But over the long term, they generally find themselves liking Azula much better. Why? They find that Zuko is willing to betray and screw them over at the slightest opportunity for no reason whatsoever, while Azula behaves consistently and rationally, actually does what she's supposed to, and, surprisingly, mostly remains true to her word. Not to mention they find her "off-putting" nature is a side effect of her being awesome, capable, and a girl.

The only real exceptions to this trend are Iroh and Ursa, who among other things are massive misogynists who are eternally pissed about Azula overshadowing their golden boy. Essentially everyone else went through the cycle of liking Zuko and disliking Azula, before realizing that Zuko is a loser and Azula is awesome.

The only thing different about Mai is she finds Zuko being a pathetic loser kind of attractive.

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Very vague AU Idea:

Everyone thinks Zuko is the "chosen one" (or equivalent prophecy), but it turns out Azula is the "chosen one."

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You've seen this yet?

They throwing Korra under the bus

Yep, saw it yesterday and I'm not sure what to think😭. Seriously hope that they have a good reason as to why Korra quite literally tore apart the world to the point where the four nations got destroyed.

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Why half ur takes are great and the other half is trash?

Excuse me, they're all great.

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I haven’t slept in three days.

I’ve been working around the clock to back up over a petabyte of research data and records and articles from the National Library of Medicine before it gets attacked by that elongated dipstick and his gestapo squad. Trying to get copies of every federal research program’s data before it gets destroyed in the crossfire. I hope to God that it won’t, but I have no confidence that it will be safe. Lots of copies keep stuff safe.

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Always remember Charles I. Always remember Louis the XVI. Always remember their fate.

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Now make azula baldj please 😦 (your diy bangs post)

I brought in Mai from the boiling rock to shave her head because I feel like she’s the only one brave enough to do it

Continuation of this one:

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I beg corporations to let stoties END. Endings are important. Journeys start to lead to a destination. Do we really need a third Avatar series? Does it have to be a post-apocalypse? Why would you write a post-apocalypse when that is basically what we'd watched the Gaang prevent when Ozai set out to burn the whole Earth Kingdom? Why give us the feeling that it was all for naught?

I wish ATLA was just a stand-alone.