#many headcanons about zuko having scars on his hands too... much to think about

[boybff]

hands.... ya know?

Id in alt / click for better quality do NOT repost my art

#they are chipped nail polish boyfriend 4 chipped nail polish boyfriend #many headcanons about zuko having scars on his hands too... much to think about #been feeling down on my art so I told myself it'd be more productive to start picking new things to learn each week #feeling really happy with this one I went through such a hate/love cycle with this #ALSO my new banner and gonna redo my blog #zukka fanart #image described #zukka

[thwispsings]

Atla modern!au headcanons

This is gonna be a long ride so buckle up folks 

Sokka has at least one clothing item with “women want me, fish fear me” (and i’m betting it’s a crop top)

Zuko has to wear a hearing aid on his scarred ear

His vision is also not great on that side

Sokka has a soccer mom car

He also is the type of friend to start screaming “I SWEAR TO TUI AND LA THIS CAR IS NOT GETTING OUT OF THIS GARAGE UNTIL EVERYONE HAS SEATBELTS ON!”

Sokka is just a huge soccer mom friend

While Sokka is the braincell holder of the group, Zuko is their impulse control

Zuko goes to occupational therapy

The white lotus is a tea tasting club, they have discount cards at Iroh’s teashop

Piandao is a master of the blades

Also distinguished gay

Bumi is basically a cryptid, he’s the jersey devil of omashu

Piandao also once got arrested for fighting cops at pride

No cops at pride just Piandao and his blades

Bato and Hakoda are peak Kevin and Holt (everyone’s dads)

Before they came out Sokka and Katara had a bet going on with Gran gran on whether they would realize everyone already knew or not (gran gran won)

Zuko cannot drive to save his life but he’s incredible good with a motorcycle 

Toph basically lives with Iroh and Zuko, they’re her emotional support family figures

They have family game nights but pai sho was banned after the “great table breaking incident of 2018”

Suki is a master of at least three different known martial arts and some not really known ones

She still stutters when talking to pretty girls

Once a pretty girl smiled at Suki and she tripped and almost fell down a flight of stairs

Whenever a girl flirts with her she looses her cool when a guy flirts with her she is always non-impressed

She and Sokka are the best exes, always trolling each other tho

When Zuko and Sokka started dating her first reaction was telling Zuko “honestly you could do better” 

Toph and Zuko convinced Iroh to start selling coffee on the Jasmine Dragon

Once Toph drank seven cans of redbull in a row just for shits and giggles, Iroh still has nightmares about that day

Whenever Zuko pulls all nighters Toph always puts him to bed, no one knows how

If you go for a non bending au then Druk is a bearded dragon or a ferret, i will not accept other animals

Zuko is the only person that Toph let squish her cheeks, she always giggles at it, it’s adorable, on the other hand, Toph is the only person allowed to touch his scar (she likes to map her friends’ faces with her fingers)

Toph also has an inclination to simply plop herself on Zuko’s lap, he’s warm and very comfortable and he always hugs her without saying anything

Toph knows how to braid her and always braids Zuko’s

Sokka is totally a tiktoker and a streamer

Aang watched too many tiktoks with Sokka and spent an entire month referring to Appa as “fluffly boy” only

Aang’s first friend, incredibly, was Zuko

Zuko painted blue arrows on a hoodie to give it to Aang when he complained about waiting for the tattoos

Aang cried

They are the type of friends that make constant references to events no one else knows about besides the two of them

Much similar to the Toph and Zuko situation, Sokka has adopted Aang as his little brother

They both have their daily Sokka&Aang time

Which usually involves laying with Appa and talking 

Sometimes cloud watching, they compete to see who finds the clouds with weirder shapes

Aang gets Katara flowers every year on her birthday

Their first date was at Iroh’s teashop (mostly so Zuko could be there to calm Aang down)

They hold hands whenever Aang feels overwhelmed

Aang made Katara a total of 37 friendship bracelets and 16 bead necklaces

The two go ice skating every two weeks

Katara has at one point convinced each one of her friends to let her do the hair loopies on them at least once

Katara once fought a guy on an Ihop parking lot and she won

The guy was Hahn and she fought him because he called Sokka a wimp

Katara, Sokka and Hakoda cry every time they watch Balto

Katara and Zuko share Ever after as their favorite movie

Katara is a golden medal swimmer 

Yue lost her hair due to chemo so she has a collection of pretty white wigs

Yue deffinetely cosplayed as Mara from She-ra

Piadao knows Zuko ever since he was five years old

He is actually both Zuko’s and Lu Ten’s godfather

One of his most prized possessions is a mug saying “world’s best godfather” that Zuko made on therapy and gave him for fathers day 

Iroh has a matching but with “world’s best uncle” 

Bumi and Aang became friends after Appa almost ran over him at a park, no one understands this friendship

Piandao and Zuko can communicate solely through nods and grunts, and both understand each other perfectly

*At the tea shop*

Piandao: *grunts and nods curtly*

Zuko: he wants the orange and spices tea and a croissant

*at Piandao’s dojo*

Zuko: *huffs and shakes his head*

Piandao: ah yes Zuko thanks for reminding me, i should see that with your uncle as soon as possible, do you think Jeong Jeong will be able to help?

Zuko: *grunts*

Piandao: no, you’re right, that’s a ridiculous idea

And now the crocverse hcs in honor to @nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice

Iroh non-ironically loves crocs

Once he said “let me put them on sports mode” before getting out of the house and Zuko was this close to crying

Bumi is a croc enthusiast 

He non-ironically loves the croc gloves

Bumi is the one who told Iroh about “four wheels drive”

The first time Sokka and Iroh quoted the “WHAT ARE THOSE” vine Zuko actually considered running away to live with Piandao

Jeong Jeong hates crocs with all of his being

Piandao dislikes crocs but he feigns ignorance just to watch the chaos unfold and Jeong Jeong get pissed

There’s a bet going on who’s gonna break Jeong Jeong first

Most of the bets are on Bumi

Piandao once wore a pair of crocs only to watch Jeong Jeong squirm and get all huffy

Sokka gave Iroh a teacup with little crocs painted on it for his birthday

Toph says crocs are the best kind of shoes because “they’re open” 

Iroh has almost as many crocs as he has teacups

#zukka #zuko #sokka #kataang #katara #aang #atla #atla hcs #headcanons #avatar: the last airbender #iroh #uncle iroh #piandao #bumi #jeong jeong #the crocverse #toph #toph beifong #gaang #the gaang

[zukkaoru]

hi, grace! hope you are having a wonderful day! that being said, zukka + photos and bakyado + heat. 💞💞💞💞

hi!! tysm and right back at you! <3

zukka + photos

zuko doesn't really like getting his picture taken. it doesn't even have much to do with the scar (though, admittedly, that doesn't help) - he never liked having his picture taken as a child.

sokka, on the other hand, likes to post on his snapchat or instagram story wherever he goes. he's always making katara or suki or aang take pictures of him, or taking selfies with his friends. he doesn't even necessarily post all of them - he just likes having them. (he likes knowing that he'll never have to worry about forgetting the face of someone he loses again, because he'll always have the pictures to remember them by)

when the two start dating, sokka tries to tone it down on how many pictures he takes, and he doesn't post many of zuko until zuko asks why he posts pictures of all his other friends but not him.

"because you don't like getting your picture taken. i figured you wouldn't want them posted."

zuko hesitates, and it's enough for sokka to know he somehow read the situation wrong.

"i can post more of you if you'd like," he offers. "i just didn't think you really cared for that sort of stuff."

"i don't," zuko says carefully. "and i don't really like getting my picture taken, but... i kind of like you letting everyone know we're dating." he lowers his voice and looks away. "i like knowing everyone knows i'm yours."

(sokka starts posting more pictures of zuko after that, because he likes everyone knowing zuko is his too, yes, but he also likes everyone knowing that he is zuko's.)

bakyada + heat under cut to keep the post from getting too long

send me a character/ship + a word and i'll give you a headcanon

bakyada + heat

modern au hakoda and kya grow up near toronto, so they get pretty warm weather in the summers and they're used to it.

bato, however, grows up much farther north in canada and is in for a shock when he goes to toronto for college.

luckily, his roommate and his roommate's girlfriend (hakoda and kya respectively) help him learn how to deal with hot weather. even after he's adjusted to it somewhat, they still make sure they've always got extra water on them for bato and even when the weather gets cooler, they make a habit of going out for ice cream on friday afternoons

it's when the warm weather hits again in spring, on an unseasonably warm day in march when kya and hakoda both brought extra water for bato, knowing he would need it, that they all sort of end up in a jumbled confession about their feelings - bato that he likes both kya and hakoda and kya and hakoda that they both also like bato

#zukka #bakyada #atla #no of course the photos one isn't me projecting #of course i don't look at every character i like and say They Hate Getting Their Picture Taken why would you think that #(yes i absolute do that) #ask game #flamboyantfireferret

[justanotherghostwriter]

Just me descending slowly and daily into obsessive madness about Lizanthium's SWT Zutara AU.

I have a lot of queues to stand in for work, so I have, unfortunately, a lot of time to stare into middle distance and think about AUs that are not mine to think about.

Some of my oft revisited personal what ifs/headcanons/predictions/observations/questions:

- Did Iroh and Zuko talk about this arranged marriage before Zuko was sent to the SWT? Does he understand why Iroh did it and that Iroh loves him very, very much or is it just... Rejection and abandonment? Does Zuko look at Hakoda protecting his kids from the demands of the North or whatever and just feel small inside because nobody did that for him, he thinks?

- Who is officially next in line for the throne, then? Is it Azula? Has growing up around Iroh helped her a little? Will Zuko being away from the palace but Uncle being there and paying her special attention start to make things in her crack, but maybe in ways that are seen sooner and attended to sooner? Does our girl get lots more love and help???? (And does it all just hit the fan when Zuko comes back to visit and even though she has been healing it's just Too Much to have an 'usurper and his wife who clearly wants to take over the Fire Nation' there and Ozai is in her head/her ear and that's how the Agni Kai happens?)

-Is Sokka the next chief of the North? Bc I am so behind this idea. Even if Yue still had to sacrifice herself, Arnook adopting Sokka as his heir because of how Sokka treated Yue and the tribe and is just a GOOD LEADER is, admittedly, a headcanon of mine that's stayed with me for many years. So I'd be (even more) feral for that to be the case in this fic.

- Who points out first that Zuko's anger and prickliness and aloofness is a defence mechanism? Like an animal baring teeth first because its learned if it doesn't the hurt will be so much worse? Does Katara notice or is it Aang, all sad eyes and sorry heart, who has one of his Wise Moments and quietly tells Katara his observations after one more blow up between ZK and one more time of Zuko shrugging away from Sokka's hand on his shoulder and Aang's attempt to lean on him as they sat side by side?

-This Zuko is probably going to be even more reticent of touch and it HURTS MY SOUL. Iroh was around, sure, but he was busy. And Ozai and Azula were there, too. THIS KID LIVED WITH THE PERSON WHO BURNED HIM DAMN IT. FOR YEARS. And you cannot convince me he doesn't have other little Scars here and there. Shaped like fingers, probably.

"Do you know how difficult it is for a Firebebder to get burned? It's like drowning a Waterbender. Possible, but it takes deliberate, continuous force."

- Zuko finding family Zuko finding family Zuko finding family DADKODA AND ZUKO. GRAN GRAN AND ZUKO.

- Honestly just like... Kanna coming in with new parkas "for her grandkids" and putting one on Sokka and making note of some measurements to change. And then doing the same for Katara. And then beckoning Zuko who comes, confused, and gets very flustered when there's a parka for him, too. She guessed his measurements bc this is the first time so her fussing around him to make notes of what to change so it's Perfect and Zuko is just overcome and blushing. Soft.

-The first time Zuko gets sick or injured in the SWT and he does what he was taught to do (and which Iroh never could/never really knew how to make him unlearn): downplay it, hide it, suffer alone until it's gone. And then KATARA THE HEALER who was raised in family not letting him be. Other people come visit. Aang sits and reads to him. And Zuko finally just yells at them because he's so confused??? And they're all confused??? And then things get explained and it's just this firm, measured, "Well, you're in the SWT now and we do things differently here when somebody is sick."

-Them visiting the Fire Nation and Zuko is required to wear FN clothes (for handwave reasons ignore the plot hole) and he's the only one and Katara gets fed up with how he's being treated by some people so our girl gets herself some FN clothes and wears them the next day. And Zuko sees her marching forward in FN clothes to support him and he just about gets down on his knees in front of her right then and there his heart is hers she owns his everything he's a goner.

-Zuko. Lying. On. His. Unscarred. Side. To. Hold. Katara. That means so much of his senses are dulled. DO YOU KNOW THE TRUST????? HOW SAFE HE MUST FEEL TO DO THAT????? ESPECIALLY THIS ZUKO WHO SPENT YEARS IN THE PALACE WITH OZAI AND AZULA WHO ARE BOTH SNEAKY AND QUIET AND HE PROBABLY NEVER FELT LIKE HE COULDN'T BE ALERT AT ALL TIMES THERE AND NOW HE'S JUST SO SAFE I'M NEVER GETTING OVER THIS PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

- Zuko warming Katara water for a hot bath in the early days when they're still learning to get along. And he wants to do something nice for her and it comes across so awkward but she's actually so touched and it's adorkable.

-Please Zuko kissing Katara's hand scars.

#Lizanthium #SWT Zuko #This AU is everything and I'm not going to stop screaming about it probably ever #Ready your dashboards for when the fic is actually being posted hoooboy #Northern Twin #My Screaming

[imagines-dreams]

Hiya could you do a dating zuko and being really shy headcanon please X?

Ok, I wrote so mannnnyyy headcanons, starting from Book 2 to frickin marriage, so feel free to read part of it of a lot, wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading cuz holy shit this was long and i just didn’t edit it well, so... Hopefully, some people enjoy it though! So, happy reading!

Ok, look, any relationship with Zuko will need a lot of build up. He’s only been in one relationship, and that was with a girl he’s known since he was a kid. Other than her, the only person he truly trusted was his uncle.

And who could blame him? His father abused him, so becoming his friend, let alone someone he’d love, would be a long process.

So, any relationship will be a major slowburn. With someone very shy? It would be that slowburn that everyone would dream of in fiction.

First meet in Ba Sing Se when he was still going by Lee. He was very closed off, but his uncle wasn’t. Uncle would be thinking something along the lines of “A nice, quiet girl?! Who just wants to lay low and would probably make a great niece-in-law?! Perfect for my nephew who keeps getting into trouble!”

Still, neither you nor “Lee” could really deny him. 

Uncle “Mushi” had learned from trying to set Lee up with Jin. No real date. Just friends first. 

There were a lot of dinners with Lee and his uncle among other friends the two had made in Ba Sing Se. Uncle Mushi usually told funny stories, and he commanded the room. Lee was just quiet. He smiled sometimes, you could count how many times you saw him smile during dinner on your hands.

Still, you two talked sometimes, mostly laughing and sharing confused looks at his uncle’s outrageous stories. 

You also would be able to see him every so often when you were shopping or just going about your day. 

You also knew they were firebenders. Or at least Fire Nation. Fire Nation refugees weren’t too common, but they weren’t rare either. After seeing Zuko write firelily once, it confirmed your suspicions. 

You didn’t say anything though. If they wanted to tell you, they’d tell you.

One night, you saw a crowd of people. They were gathered around Lee, and Lee had a sword?! “Lee!”

The boy fighting your friend glanced at you and scoffed. “Is that even your name? Or do you lie to your girlfriend, too?”

Too distracted by your fear for Lee to even process what the other boy said, you bended the earth around his opponent. One wall to block him from Lee. Another three to keep him boxed in. 

Your legs ached. Bending took way too much energy, especially since you hadn’t used it in years. You heaved and fell to your knees. 

Someone said your name.

Lee bent down and held out his hand.

You gladly took it and let him help you up. “Sorry,” you managed to say as you fell into him. You were so weak.

Lee pulled your arm over his shoulder so he could properly support you. He was talking to someone, and from your peripheral vision, you could see the uniform of the Dai Lee. 

Scared, you leaned more into Lee. 

One of the Dai Lee came to you. “Why were you earthbending?” he asked.

“Uncle.” Lee shoved you behind him and right into his uncle’s arms. “She was defending me.”

“She shouldn’t have been earthbending regardless, especially in such a violent matter.”

“Violent?” Lee’s grip on the sword tightened. “The only one who was violent was him.” He pointed at the other boy. “Accusing my uncle and me for being firebenders.”

You reached out, regaining your energy as each second passed, and placed it on his shoulder. “Lee.”

He looked back at you and sighed. Thankfully, he let go of his sword.

“We are refugees,” Lee’s uncle explained. 

A few other people from the crowd rallied for them. They knew Lee and his uncle in for the delicious tea they served. 

All while the boy Lee was fighting was screaming at everyone, how stupid they all were when Lee and his uncle were obviously firebenders. He was taken away with the Dai Lee.

You admitted that you knew they were firebenders that night. And it didn’t go badly! Their jaws dropped, and it was comical to see Lee’s face contort into more expressions you had never seen before. 

After that, the friendship only grew stronger. You picked up a few other things about Lee as well. A father he wanted to impress. An absent mother. A weird knowledge about ships and the war. There were more glances and subtle touches, him adjusting your collar, handing him tea so your fingers brushed ever so slightly, bumping elbows at the table. You even got into the schoolgirl habit of writing Lee’s name and yours and staring at him from across the room.

Then… they disappeared. 

It wasn’t uncommon for refugees to disappear, but usually they’d tell someone where they were going, if they were in trouble. 

You expected them to reappear, but nothing happened. Of course you were sad they were gone, but that’s how life went in Ba Sing Se, and you didn’t know enough about them to go searching, nor the time. 

Especially since shortly after Lee and his uncle disappeared, Ba Sing Se was conquered. Everything changed. Benders were being rounded up. More people were disappearing. The walls were all coming down. Money was scarce. Soldiers patrolled the entire area. 

During this time, you wanted to lay low, but people were getting hurt. You could only stand by for so long. 

You started to train, every night, hoping your earthbending would get better. 

So, when Ba Sing Se went up in flames, you joined in to fight for the city you felt safe in. You found Uncle Mushi there, fighting with some organization called the White Lotus. You also found out that his name was Iroh, not Mushi.

After fighting off Fire Nation supremacists, you were invited to the Jade Dragon. 

“Hey. Zuko, or, um, I guess Lee, here.” 

You had laughed and hugged him tight. “I was so scared for you,” you admitted. “I’m glad you’re ok.”

It wasn’t until one of his friends cleared their throat that you realized this hug was the first hug you’ve given him. On top of that, you were holding onto each other for quite some time. 

So, the two of you split up. 

However, throughout the get together, you stayed close with L- Zuko. You didn’t really talk much to his friends. Just the introductions and listening to their stories. They seemed really happy to tell you about how they defeated the Fire Nation and ended the war. 

Who wouldn’t be?

“You’re the Fire Lord?” you asked Zuko, away from the others.

“Oh, yeah, I am now.”

You gazed up at him. “That’s incredible.” You laughed. “Should I have bowed? I feel like I should’ve done something.”

“No. No, it’s fine.”

“Oh, then, I can still call you Zuko?”

He laughed a little. “Just not Lee.”

Just like that, you had new friends. As the year went on, you developed relationships with everyone. Sokka loved to creatively use your earthbending. (He said Toph would never let them make toys with earthbending.) Aang loved making you laugh, so he loved to tell you jokes and play games with you. Toph loved, well, trying to train you. She wasn’t the best teacher for you, too demanding and very rude, but you did learn the basics of metalbending after a few months. 

Katara was the kindest out of all of them, and you both loved telling each other stories about your lives before the end of the war. Suki insisted on training you. Even though there was no more war to fight, you had to admit, she was the perfect teacher for you. Kind but stern. 

You started to travel with everyone, giving every long-winded plan and daring choice a logical backing. Making sure the risks they were taking weren’t too great.

You visited the Zuko the most. It even got to the point that Zuko had a room made for you, with your own closet and Earth Kingdom decor. 

There were still the longing gazes and fleeting touches. You always took the opportunity to help him with his formal attire. After all, you didn’t want him to stress himself too much with that scar on his chest. 

But nothing ever happened. Even though Zuko trusted you and you trusted him, neither of you were brave enough to make the first move. 

The gaang was very fed up with it, honestly. Sokka and Toph came up with the most obvious ways to literally shove you two towards each other. Once at a diplomatic gathering in the Northern Water Tribe, Sokka pulled you towards the middle of the dance floor while Toph shoved Zuko in your direction until the two of you bumped into each other. 

Aang was in on it, too. He requested music.

Zuko and you danced, blushing and awkwardly trying to sway without being awkward. 

“I hate my friends,” he mumbled.

You laughed, the awkwardness immediately gone. “They are kinda horrible, aren’t they?” 

Still no confession, but you still had a great time dancing with your best friend.

(The gaang wanted to pull their hair out. Seriously, you two were so obvious!)

As the years passed, Zuko and you acted more and more like a couple. Where there were brushes of skin against skin slowly became holding each other’s hand during boring meetings. Where there were short-lived gazes unseen by the other became smiles and knowing looks after an easy fight. Where there were hugs before leaving became long embraces followed by kisses on the cheek. 

There were some more intense moments, like when Ozai’s supporters attacked the palace and you ran out of safety and to Zuko. While you weren’t as great as a fighter, you could still do a solid defense, and when it came to Zuko, you defended him with your life. 

“What are you doing here?!”

You grunted as you put up a wall between the two of you and the Ozai sympathizers. “Stopping you from burning the palace down apparently!”

Even after all those years, he had a tendency to be reckless.

Or the time some Water Tribe assassins tried attacking you and him and he shoved you behind him to defend you.  “Stay back!”

“Let me help!”

Everyone just assumed you were a couple, and really, nobody could blame them. 

The confession came quietly. 

You and Zuko had just finished a shift at the Jasmine Dragon. It was a day of serving the people of the Ba Sing Se, of smiles and laughter, and of shared inside jokes between you, Zuko, and Uncle Iroh.

And when it came time to go to sleep, Uncle Iroh was distraught. “I can’t believe this happened!” He dug through the cabinets, throwing various things around the small apartment. “I knew you were coming, my dear, and I forgot to get a new bed for you!”

You laughed. “Uncle, it’s ok. You’ve been busy.”

Zuko just crossed his arms. “We’ve been preparing for her visit for weeks.”

“Which is why I can’t believe I forgot to make a bed!” Uncle iroh lamented. He stroked his beard. “Hm, I would share my bed, but I tend to snore and move quite a bit. Zuko! Why don’t you share your bed?”

While your cheeks burned in embarrassment, Zuko only glared at his uncle. “Fine.”

To be fair, Zuko and you have slept in the same bed before. Sometimes work went on for too long and you two happened to fall asleep in the same bed. But all those times before were by accident on a bed meant for two. Not on a bed meant for one and not on purpose.

After the awkward tiptoeing around and offerings to sleep on the floor, finally, the two of you agreed to sleep on the bed. Zuko held you close, your back to his chest. Both of you purposely chose that position so that no one could see the other blush. 

As the years, actually minutes, passed by, the both of you relaxed into it, and it was almost natural. 

“You know,” you said softly, “that I love you, right?”

Zuko was quiet, and you hoped to the spirits he was sleeping. After a while with no answer, you took a deep breath and tried to go to sleep. 

That is, until Zuko admitted,  “I’m not good at these things.”

“Neither am I.”

The arm around your waist tightened, and you couldn’t help but snuggle closer into his embrace. 

“I love you, too,” he said. 

That was enough for the two of you, at least for one night. You two loved each other and that was enough.

The next morning was busy. The schedule was just to serve at the Jasmine Dragon and you had an appointment with some historians who wanted to know more about Zuko’s first time in Ba Sing Se. Zuko and Iroh, however, had a meeting at the palace.

Zuko was rushing around, trying to find all the pieces of his popper attire before leaving, while Uncle Iroh was trying to get him to eat breakfast. You were just smiling at all of it, pouring some cups of tea.

Zuko glanced at the window. “Uncle, we’re going to be late! Do you even have your clothes?”

“Of course, I have. But did you have food yet? At least some tea.”

“Yes, tea!” You lifted up a fresh cup of jasmine. “Zuko, you should have something before you leave.”

“I don’t need-” 

His eyes meant yours, and you only handed him the cup of jasmine tea. “You’re welcome. Also, you have some dim sum in your bag.”

He shook his head, downed the entire hot cup, and called again, “Uncle!” He smiled at you. “Thanks, bye.” He kissed you and was out the door. 

It took a few seconds, and he had left you speechless. And judging by the way he didn’t say anything before he ran out the door with Uncle Iroh behind him, he didn’t notice.

It took you a while to realize what exactly happened. 

Zuko downed some tea you gave him.

He turned around, called his uncle, then just kissed you.

He just leaned over, pressed his lips against yours for a second, maybe less. 

Then, he left.

You loved him, and he loved you. The two of you admitted that you loved each other, but the topic was too heavy and scary to clarify it further. Was that kiss a sign? Were you two together? Was that kiss some sort of rite of passage?

The rest of your day went by in a fog. 

You served tea. You smiled and had polite conversations. You listened to historians and corrected a fact here or there. 

And when Zuko finally came home, you were preparing the food you had bought, and you were frozen for a second.

“Uncle’s gone out for dinner.” He let his hair down and ran his fingers through it. 

(He had been growing it out. You had learned that hair was really important in Fire Nation culture, and apparently, before he and Uncle left for Ba Sing Se, they cut their hair, some sort of symbol that they weren’t working for the Fire Nation anymore)

You just hummed and started to prepare a serving for Uncle’s late night snack. But then! Zuko was behind you and looking at the food you had gotten.

And you were silently screaming on the inside! Because if you just turned around, and if he just leaned down, you two would be kissing. And he already kissed you! But he didn’t seem to remember that! He was just! Casually talking to you!

“What did you get?” he asked. Such an innocent question from a man who wasn’t innocent because he had kissed you

You barely managed to stutter, “O-oh, some, uh, pho.” You smiled and handed him his share. “Here!” Immediately, you turned back around to avoid him

And Zuko, baffled, just stood there, unsure as to why you were acting so strangely. You weren’t mad. Whenever you had some sort of problem with him, you would retreat into yourself, unintentionally give him the silent treatment, almost as if he was a stranger to you.

But this, the awkward glances and the too-quick movements, that was new territory. 

At first, Zuko thought it was about what had happened the night before, but just as he was about to ask again, he remembered what had happened in the morning.

The kiss

He groaned. “I’m sorry. I told you I was bad at this!” He didn’t throw the bowl of pho on the floor, but the bowl did make a loud sound and soup did spill when he let it fall onto the table. 

You turned to see him covering his face with his hands and shaking his head. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” When he uncovered his face, he didn’t meet your eyes. 

Zuko looked so sad.

And you couldn’t have that. You loved him too much to let him be sad. 

Before you could even comprehend what you were doing, you were cradling his cheeks and looking up into his amber eyes. Under his intense gaze, you were a little nervous, but the want to comfort him was stronger. “I’m bad at this, too.”

And then, you were kissing him

And it was everything. Kissing the man you loved, it was the best feeling, because you were trying to take care of him, he was trying to take care of you. Holding you close and rubbing circles into the small of your back, all to comfort you.

And when he pulled away, Zuko told you, “You’re not bad at that.”

You laughed and nuzzled your nose against his. “Neither are you.”

Safe to say that when Iroh came home to find you and his nephew snuggled up together in the bed he forced the two of you to share, he smiled and wrote letters to the rest of the gang immediately.

There were pros and cons to Uncle finding out before you told him. Pro, you didn’t have to tell him. Con, you two woke up to Uncle Iroh cooking a large meal fit for an army and a hug for you while he shouted, “Good morning, my new niece-in-law!”

You were embarrassed, to say the least, but you felt better when Zuko tugged you closer to him and told his uncle, “You can’t possibly believe that we could eat all of this.”

“No, you can’t.” Iroh beamed. “But I can! I’m celebrating! A niece! I have a niece!” 

In two weeks, Uncle, Zuko, and you were back in the Fire Nation. 

There was a party when you arrived. Not for the Fire Lord’s return. No, it was your friends celebrating that you and Zuko were finally together.

“Double date!” Sokka was hanging off of you and pointed at his girlfriend, “We need couple friends.”

“Hey!” Aang said, “Don’t Katara and I count?”

“No, my sister and her boyfriend can’t be mine and Suki’s couple friends.” He grimaced. “I already see you guys kiss enough.”

Katara rolled her eyes and kissed her boyfriend’s cheek.

“Eugh!” Sokka hid behind you. “Save me! I’m being tortured.”

Zuko shook his head and asked Suki, “We’re leaving him home on our double dates, right?”

“Oh yeah.” She laughed and dragged her boyfriend from behind you. “Come on.”

Zuko and you were apprehensive to be seen in public, but you two have known each other for years, loved each other for almost as much time. 

“My mother was forced into marriage,” Zuko said one night, almost a year after the two of you had kissed. “My father was told by a sage that he must marry my mother to ensure the family bloodline. They were right, but in the wrong way, i guess.”

You looked up from your scroll and asked out of curiosity, “Are all Fire Nation marriages arranged?”

“No, mostly for those of an upper class. I was arranged to have a marriage with Mai.”

“How is Mai?”

“Good. I received a letter from her and Ty Lee a few days ago.”

You smiled. “Do you think they’ll get engaged soon?”

“Definitely before we do.”

Before the two of you? Even though marriage was stressful and a huge step forward, you couldn’t help the little bubble of happiness that formed in your gut and transformed into a dreamy sigh of “We?”

Just like that, the Fire Lord went red in the cheeks. “I mean, because they’ve been together longer, so I would assume if we were to get married, well-” He cut himself off by groaning, which only got you to giggle. He stared at the ceiling. “Almost a year, and I’m still bad at this.”

You smiled and took his hand in yours. “You’re not bad at this.” 

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” You shrugged, and your voice softened when you said, “I can see us getting married, too.”

He smiled at you. “How do they do it in the Earth Kingdom?”

You hummed. “In Ba Sing Se, if two people were getting married, they just decided they would and move in together.” You bit your lip as you tried to think back on the times before Ba Sing Se. “I’ve heard of a tradition where people hold a party to announce their love and the ceremony ends when the couple leave for their house.”

“I see.” Zuko played with your fingers as he explained, “Here, one partner gives the other a ring, to symbolize- Wait.” He tilted his head. “In Ba Sing Se, would we be considered engaged already?”

You laughed, as heat settled in your cheeks. You and Zuko were a well-known couple in the Earth Kingdom, and since you did move into the palace, to some, you would be. “I guess we would!”

He nodded. “You ok with that?”

There was more to that question that meets the eye. The Fire Nation loved you, sure, but some parts didn’t. There was a group trying to rebel against the peace and prosperity Zuko and all of your friends have fought so hard to gain, a group that wanted Ozai or Azula back on the throne. They have made a few attempts on Zuko, none near successful. But, if you were to get engaged, they’d come after you, too. 

Being engaged to Zuko put a bigger target on your back.

“I’m ok with that.”

But, how could you be afraid of them when you had Zuko by your side?

“Good.”

You nodded. “Good.”

Zuko and you had two weddings. One in private on Ember Island with the gaang and a few close friends. It ended with you exchanging an Earth Kingdom bracelet for a Fire Nation crown. 

There was an afterparty, with dancing and a large feast. There were also speeches.

“You know, if anyone was going to marry the Firlord, I thought it was gonna be me-”

“Sokka!” Suki laughed.

“-or maybe my sister-”

Katara only rolled her eyes with a smile.

“-but if it couldn’t be either of us, I’m glad it’s you!”

“I couldn’t think of a better couple than you two,” Suki started. 

“Hey!” Sokka did not like that statement.

“Honestly, you two are already attractive by yourselves, but together?” Suki was smiling so innocently the entire time. “Hey, (Y/n), you sure you don’t wanna reconsider. I can show around Kyoshi Island sometime.”

“Ok that’s enough!” Sokka couldn’t drag his girlfriend out of the spotlight or stop her from saying how great Zuko and you were, but he did glare at both of you throughout the speech. “I’m watching you.”

“I’m sure you are, Sokka,” you told him. 

Your husband laughed. “I mean, if anyone was to take her away, I wouldn’t mind it being Suki.”

“Don’t test me, Sparky!”

It was funny how even though all of you were well into your 20’s, Sokka’s voice could still crack. 

Toph wasn’t one for speeches. She showed her love by keeping Sokka away from you two and pushing Suki towards you. She really loved the laugh. 

(You apologized to Sokka later with the gift of leftovers.)

Mai actually had a memorable speech. 

“Ty Lee wouldn’t let me put my name on her gift, which sucks.” She glared at her wife, who only smiled. “So, this is my gift for you. Not you, Zuko, but for your wife.” She smirked. “When Zuko was five he thought he could eat all the spicy food in the kitchen-”

“Mai!”

“-it didn’t end well.”

Toph also occupied Zuko while Mai rambled on about Zuko in his childhood. It was very fun.

Uncle Iroh also spoke. “I didn’t know this was supposed to be about embarrassing my nephew.”

“It wasn’t!”

“And that’s ok, because I have something on our dear bride.”

You paled. “Oh no.”

“If you aren’t aware, I knew (Y/n) during our time as fugitives, and she loved to stare at my nephew during his shifts.”

Your husband looked at you. “Did you?”

“Not that much!”

Uncle continued, “I also caught her doodling Lee’s name-”

“Uncle-”

“Please, Uncle, continue!”

Aang shave advice to the two of you. “Please talk to each other,” he said with a laugh. He recounted the times Katara and he didn’t communicate early in their relationship resulting in an unhealthy on and off relationship for a year before the two of them sat down and just talked. 

Katara gushed over how happy she was for the two of you. “Zuko was always grumpy, and I’m glad there’s someone he can be less grumpy with!”

Azula dropped in. She had escaped rehabilitation, and Zuko had let her go. It was near the end of the ceremony, and Zuko and you had snuck out to take a breather. 

He held you close as the two of you swayed to muted music. 

“I do hate to intrude.”

You yelped and the earth beneath Azula’s feet nearly threw her into the air. While her mind was still recovering, it seemed like her agility wasn’t affected. “To be fair, I did expect that reaction.”

“Azula?” Your husband kept his hand in your as he moved closer to his sister. “I-”

“Save it. I’m here to drop something off.” She held out a pouch for him to take. 

“Azula-”

“Zuko, I am not here to talk to you.”

You gulped. “Then what about me?” You smiled. “You can come home, Azula.”

If Azula was affected by your words, she didn’t let it show. 

Zuko took the pouch and by the time the two of you looked up, she was gone. 

Inside were two rings. 

Zuko laughed. “She probably stole these.”

“She could be living an honest life, too, you know?”

“Possibly. We don’t have to use these.”

You took the rings in your hands. They were beautifully crafted, and while gold was the main color, hints of red and green were there too. “If I can’t have Azula as a bridesmaid, then we might use her gifts.”

The public ceremony took place a few months later, and it was grand and very, very public. You were not comfortable. 

You could only change so much of it, though. 

Zuko and you would pull each other to the sidelines when it all got too much. Your friends gladly made excuses when you were absent. 

By the end, you were stuffed full with food and exhausted. 

“Please tell me marriage won’t be like this all the time.”

You laughed and sluggish cuddled up into his arms. “I can’t tell you. Never been married before.”

“The first few months were nice.”

“When no one knew.”

He laughed. “No big ceremonies or dumb speeches.”

“Or embassadors or loud music.” You sighed. “Kinda terrified, to be honest.”

You could feel Zuko stiffen under you, and immediately, you added, “I’m glad you and I get to go through it together, though.”

He nodded. “I do hate life less.”

As Fire Lady, you were kind and gentle, and while you did need breathers in meetings and galas and public events, you enjoyed helping people with policy changes and additions. 

Zuko encouraged you to take risks, and when you were too tired to voice your opinions, Zuko voiced them for you. 

You also were the only one who could calm down Zuko. While his temper wasn’t too much of a problem, sometimes he was so stressed that even the training room couldn’t hold in his anger. 

You’d lead him to your bedroom and just hold him, and if he wanted to talk, you listened. 

The two of you were the definition of quiet strength, and even though assassins and Ozai sympathizers tried to take you two down, you and your family never faltered, especially you and Zuko

#zuko x reader #atla x reader #zuko imagine #zuko headcanons #zuko #atla imagine #atla headcanons #reader insert #atla

[lady-tortilla-chip]

Any zukaang headcanons?

Ask and you shall receive! :D Sorry it took me a couple days to write this, lol. I ended up having quite a lot to write so uh, buckle up. XP

1. Zuko and Aang get together because Sokka couldn’t watch the pining anymore. Though for Aang it wasn’t pining so much as waiting for Zuko to come to him. In contrast Zuko pined loudly for Aang. So Sokka, who was tired of it couldn’t help opening his mouth one day and expressing his frustrations over it. (I have alternative versions of how they get together, this is just mah fave thought atm. Let me know if you’d like to see those alternatives tho!)

2. Zuko deeply enjoys meditating with Aang, though typically their sessions are just Aang meditating while Zuko simply watches him. He enjoys the way Aang’s whole body loses every bit of tension and how peaceful his expression gets. Aang usually teases him about it but Zuko doesn’t mind as much as he claims.

3. When Aang gets a bit taller than Zuko he immediately starts cracking jokes about it. Zuko doesn’t really care all that much about their new height difference, though sometimes it surprises him to have to glance up rather than down, and he does occasionally return the sarcasm and sometimes even likes to demonstrate how inconsequential that height difference really is. ;)

4. Aang’s favorite thing to do when he’s not busy and doesn’t want to meditate is sit and braid Zuko’s hair. It was something he’d started doing soon following the end of the war. The first time he did it Zuko was confused and not quite happy about it. Though he dealt with it because then Aang wouldn’t interrupt him while he was trying to work. Eventually though, Zuko came to deeply enjoy having Aang’s hands in his hair and the braids he styled his hair into.

5. Aang insists on teaching Zuko old Fire Nation dances and Air Nomad dances! Zuko is not happy about it at first. The only dances he learned were the stiff formal ones expected of him to learn as a prince. He remembers hating every second of learning them and the music to which they were traditionally danced to was boring. But....Aang seems so excited at the prospect of getting to share such fun parts of both their cultural histories with him and he just can’t say no. So, he goes along with it. And...he does deeply enjoy watching Aang demonstrate for him. The movements, particularly for the Air Nomad dances, are fluid and beautiful much like the bending style. It’s incredible to watch and makes him feel somewhat connected to the Air Nomads through Aang.

However, watching is one thing. Mimicking said beautiful and fluid movements, is another. Zuko hates it. At first. It’s frustrating for him to screw up the steps and while he knows Aang’s not going to mistreat him like the person who had taught him the formal dances, he still doesn’t like failing. His frustrations lighten though with every bit of history Aang shares regarding the dances and their meanings and eventually he starts having fun. And the smile Aang flashes at him when he finally does a half decent job of mimicking him makes any other frustrations disappear as easily as they came.

6. Zuko and Aang both work with Azula through her rehabilitation. I have a very specific idea about how this works but I’m not going into all of that right now because it would be....long-winded. Lol. But during that time Azula becomes especially fond of Aang and even gives Zuko a serious shovel talk when Zukaang become a couple. With Aang she just tells him to take care of “Zuzu”. What she doesn’t say is that she’s, in her own way, happy for them.

7. Zuko and Aang travel back to the Air Temples together at some point before Sokka got them to work out their relationship. Aang is excited to show Zuko his home but it’s bittersweet for both of them. Zuko because of the intensely visceral realization and understanding of Aang’s loss that he has upon arriving. Something that had never quite connected for him was Aang’s status as the last Air Nomad with the fact that he’s also the Avatar. In his head those two parts of Aang became nearly separate entities. But being in Aang’s home, listening to him talk about his childhood, brings these two facts about who Aang is crashing together. And Zuko has to really deal with the reality of all that. Before, the Air Nomad genocide was merely a fact of history that virtually everyone knew. The horror of what Fire Nation had done to the Air Nomads had worn away with time even to the rest of the world. In the Fire Nation particularly, they were all taught it was a victory. A conquest. The first of many.

Zuko was taught no different. So seeing Aang standing among the remnants of his culture and the utterly empty spaces of his home, wearing the saddest smile Zuko’s ever seen on his face while retelling stories from his upbringing...it fills him with so much guilt and anger and grief for Aang he nearly suffocates with it. He nearly cried. He nearly shouts. But that is not his right. He doesn’t get to cry and scream over the injustice. Because the loss of Aang’s people was directly caused by Zuko’s family. So all he can do is lend an ear to everything Aang tells him. Soak in every word and remember every tale. Because Aang won’t accept the amount of apologies he wants to express.

That’s not hard though, because he’s glad to hear all about the true history there. And while Zuko listens he recalls every time he’d belittled Aang’s people and their beliefs, can’t help wanting to apologize to them all. So he does, quietly.

Then there’s Aang who’s most recent memory of being there was when he’d found Gyatso’s skeleton. A memory he imparts to Zuko later during their visit. Once again the reality of what he lost, and everything that was taken from him, hits him. He’s not sure he’ll ever stop being surprised at the utter quiet in the temple, or the emptiness in its halls, or sheer lack of life that used to abound. But he’s glad to have Zuko there, who listens intently as Aang tells him all about the temple and the wonderful people that had once resided there.

8. Aang inspires Zuko to become a vegetarian. When Zuko found out people ate turtleducks he was shocked and horrified. Then Aang brought up the fact that all meat was originally some kind of cute animal. Zuko was never able to eat meat again. Sokka hates Aang a little bit for it because he likes meat and the traditional Fire Nation dishes that featured it were some of his favorites. Now, it’s rare for meat to be served when he comes by and that is a tragedy he hasn’t forgiven Aang for causing.

9. Aang is not a fan of the servants. They’re fine as people it’s just...he doesn’t want to be served. At first, it was funny. Their insistence to “help” entertaining because they were just so SERIOUS about it. But eventually he grew tired of it and prolonged visits to literally anywhere else were appreciated for the break away. Zuko thinks it’s hilarious and even subtly reminds the servants to be extra caring towards the Avatar because he simply works too hard.

10. Even when Aang grows taller than Zuko, he prefers sleeping with his back pressed to Zuko’s chest. He likes aligning their scars, likes imagining himself as a shield against any further harm to Zuko’s front, and sleeps better when he’s held firm in Zuko’s arms. Zuko, while he didn’t say as much and teased Aang for his reason, likes the position because he likes being in place to protect Aang’s back. He didn’t before and though Aang doesn’t hold any of that against him, he still feels the need to make up for that in every way he can.

#The keep reading is there because this post ran a lil long #Oooooh wow I hope you enjoy these anon! #zukaang #ATLA #aang #zuko #YES they’re aged up here #ask #answered

[narcissusanasui]

tagged by loml @queen-of-edolas

Rules: Name 10 favorite characters from 10 different things and then tag 10 people.

One Piece: Sabo, look at me. I’ve headcanoned him so much now it’s not even funny. He’s blonde, he’s feral, he’s in a revolution, all very on brand for me. Almost a year ago he captured my heart with no context for no reason but now it makes too much sense. This is my emotional support one piece character.

D.Gray-Man: Arystar Krory. His introduction was just a round of spamming Saraid with “oh no he’s nice” and “oh no he’s handsome” etc etc. He’s so kindhearted and loves everyone and the big wide world so much I’d really die for him. And his powers are both very funny and extremely badass at times.

The Witcher: Jaskier. Dude, he’s just iconic. This is the dramatic dork inside of me. I too would follow Geralt around at risk of being stabbed. And he’s so FUN.

Haikyuu!!: Oikawa Tooru. All of Aoba Johsai is my favorite team hands down and they should’ve won. Oikawa is beautiful and so well-written. I see his insecurities and I get it and emphasize in a way that is so natural. He deserves the world.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Riza Hawkeye. I love snipers. She could lift me. Her sass at Mustang is everything to me. I love her story and her professionalism and every time she breaks that. Her loyalty is out of this world and to finish up: “I lied.”

My Hero Academia: Todoroki Shouto (I really really love Hawks but he isn’t in the anime yet so I’m not counting him). There is a trend of characters with eye scars....and fire powers....Listen his story in S2 was art and his design and powers are so cool and so many of my favorite story elements and characters are tied to this family and hating his dad.

Voltron: Shiro. I don’t feel like I need to explain this one he’s been a staple on this blog since 2016. This was The Emotional Support Character for some of the most stressful parts of high school and starting college and I can still go watch him in S1-2 for some prime inspirational quotes.

Avatar: Zuko. The original facial scar with fire powers. The cause of my obsession with character development because he got it PERFECT. And he’s so awkward and sweet when he’s finally able to drop his mask and it’s great.

Ouran: Haruhi Fujioka. Does she have flaws? I don’t think so. This is someone with drive, someone who doesn’t care about gender stereotypes, someone who will call out her friends’ bullshit. She Gets It.

The Musketeers: Aramis. This fandom never sees the light of day on my blog but I’ve been thinking about it and Aramis is very handsome with fascinating morals regarding life, death, and piety all while being a soldier with crazy good aim (there’s the sniper aesthetic again).

I’m not tagging this time, I’m so tired. If you wanna answer, I choose you!

#tagged me

[aethersea]

How about Toff and the fathers of Lin and Suyin?

Send me a character and I’ll write 10 headcanons for them! Or a lengthy not-fic about what happens to them after canon, I guess that works too, brain, thanks ever so for your contribution.

So I… haven’t actually watched Korra yet. I kept meaning to, and it just never happened. Oops. How about some Toph headcanons that are completely unrelated to anything from LoK? Most of them under the cut bc this got away from me in a BIG way.

Toph used to dream about telling her parents she was the best bender in Gaoling. That was why she started joining underground bending tournaments, actually: so she could show them her champion belt and say, See? See how much your daughter can do? 

That’s not actually why she joined the tournaments. She knew from the beginning that it would never work. She just wanted to feel, for a little while, the freedom and strength she had felt with the badger moles. After every tournament, she’d tell herself, One more. One more, and then I’ll tell them. One more, and it’ll be enough.

Toph wasn’t surprised by her parents’ reaction to her bending. She was furious, she was heartbroken, but she wasn’t surprised.

Toph loves junk food. (We all know this in our hearts.) As a daughter of the house of Bei Fong, she’d never had a potato chip in her life, and the first time they have some time to kill at a street market, Toph makes Aang take her round to every fast food stall in the place and buy her one of everything. She feels queasy and uncomfortable the rest of the day, but she refuses to regret it. (Sokka nearly faints when he hears how much money they’ve spent, and Toph regrets that a bit.)

She discovers that she really likes Fire Nation cuisine in general, with its tendency toward dramatic use of spices. They buy a kebab or something at a Fire Nation village, and it sets Toph’s entire mouth on fire. She falls instantly in love.

“It’s food that hates you, Katara! I’ve been punched in the face by a kebab!”

After the war, she decides she wants to learn how to cook. If you ask Toph how it went, she picked up a valuable skill. If you ask any of the string of harried chefs she leaves in her wake, they will turn very pale and beg you never to bring her back. It’s not that she isn’t enthusiastic to learn, and the blindness isn’t even that much of a hindrance because there’s a lot you can tell about your ingredients from smell and touch alone. But Toph’s very proud of her new metalbending abilities, and she practices at every opportunity. Do you know how much metal is in a kitchen, these chefs will ask you. Do you know how much damage that metal can do when it’s flying through the air into the hands of a young girl who wants to show you how fast she can whisk this egg. Do you know what she did to the stove.

Toph is really uncomfortable around Suki. You know those girls who are charming and smart and effortlessly graceful, a couple years older than you and always so kind, warm and friendly and infinitely cool, like the badass older sister you always dreamed of having? That’s Suki. Toph only knows how to be elegant in the context of high-society parties, and no matter how badass a fighter she knows she is, she has never in her life been effortlessly cool. She never knows how to talk to Suki about anything other than fighting. Suki thinks Toph just doesn’t like her much, and gives Toph her space. Toph absolutely hates this, but she doesn’t know how to fix it.

Taking down a fleet of war blimps together helps a little.

A lot of people want to learn bending from Toph after the war – metalbending, especially, but also earthbending in general. This twelve-year-old girl is one of the best earthbenders in the entire world, after all. She has people showing up every day, begging for the privilege of being her student. At first she’s pretty into the idea – she taught the Avatar, and he saved the world with it. Clearly she’s a fantastic teacher. She holds auditions and takes the most dedicated, the most impressive. She starts teaching them.

It’s awful. She hates it. Turns out teaching Aang how to understand the earth is very, very different from teaching a bunch of people more than twice her age how to stand, how to move their arms, how to breathe. She’d never realized before how much of bending was instinctual for Aang – he’s the Avatar, he’s not learning bending so much as remembering it from a past life. She’d never realized, either, how much of bending was instinctual for her. She struggles to explain how she moves to make the earth do what she wants, or how her students should move to do the same. More than one lesson ends with Toph getting so frustrated that she stomps her feet hard enough to knock over a wall, then storms off before she can cry actual tears of rage in front of these people.

She closes the school after a month. People keep showing up, though, asking her to teach them. She’s equal parts angry and ashamed every time she turns them away. She’d thought this was something she could do.

(Later, when she is older and more confident, when she’s had long conversations with benders who’ve been perfecting their craft for decades, she tries again. She finds a few promising students – young this time, almost as young as she is – and shows them how to feel the earth. She tells them to close their eyes and doesn’t worry if it means she’s forcing them to ignore their most important sense. She dumps mud on them and tells them to feel every speck of it on their skin, and get it off with nothing but bending. She tells them to move their hands and feet however feels right, so long as they’re strong and in tune with the earth. In short, she doesn’t bother adhering to any rules about how you’re supposed to teach bending.

This time, people leave her school with confidence and skill. Toph takes on more and more students. The best ones learn how to metalbend. Toph watches with her feet as her students learn how to listen to the earth, and finds that she’s proud of them. It’s a warm glow in her chest, and it never leaves her, the rest of her life.)

She leaves, to avoid the constant barrage of would-be students, and goes to stay with Sokka for a bit. He’s at the Fire Nation’s premier engineering university, and he has a huge apartment that the city gave him. (All of them get gifts wherever they go, these days. Some of them are more comfortable about this than others. Sokka never seems to mind it at all.) There’s more than enough room for Toph to move in with him, and he’s happy to have her. Every day he comes home from his classes bursting with information about machinery and thermodynamics. He sketches a dozen new inventions a week, and describes them all to Toph in convoluted detail. She understands about a quarter of what he says, but she makes a valiant effort to poke holes in all his ideas anyway.

Sokka gets letters from the others all the time, and always reads them out to Toph. When he answers, he reads that aloud too, and Toph calls out jokes and additions. He puts them all in, and letters from the two of them are a jumbled mess.

After one particularly memorable letter from Suki, the opening lines of which are, unfortunately, seared into Toph’s mind forever, Sokka started reading the ones from his girlfriend in private first, and giving Toph an abridged version.

Sometimes they talk about the war. Mostly when they do, it’s lighthearted, “Remember that camp by the town with the weird fish statue, where Aang tried to turn a waterfall into a water slide?” Sometimes it’s… not.

I was gonna write something angsty here about their darker conversations but honestly, I’m not sure I have the skill to pull that off in a single bullet point, and anyway we all know what conversations they were having. These were children who saved the world from an oppressive invader. Every day they walked through war-torn places and they never stopped to help for long. Every night they went to sleep wondering if they’d wake up to Azula fireballing them in the face. Now they’re heroes, and the world is rebuilding, and they’ve never lived in a world that isn’t at war.

After a while Toph gets restless, walking aimlessly day after day through this Fire Nation city while Sokka’s in school, and she goes to visit Zuko. Zuko greets her warmly, hugs her close, thanks her for coming, and gives her rooms in his palace, but he’s horribly busy. She’s invited to the daily dinner banquets, where Zuko sits at the head of a huge hall and the whole court watches him for weaknesses. She slips back into her cultured elegance like putting on clothes several sizes too small. Zuko sits her at his right hand and they talk, but it’s stilted and strange, each of them smiling stiffly through masks they don’t know how to wear well. She stops going to the banquets.

They hadn’t grown especially close, the two of them, back when they were fighting and fleeing together, not like they had with the others. But they’d understood each other, in their approach to bending and to ending the war. They’d understood each other, too, in ways neither of them was really comfortable admitting – both of them highborn children who would never be what their parents wanted, both of them used to luxury and quietly amazed by all the unexpected things involved in living off the land, both of them secretly proud of themselves for handling it so well. Both of them dedicated to winning the war because of their ideals, because of what they knew to be wrong, not due to personal loss. Both of them sitting awkwardly as Katara and Sokka, and later Suki, reminisced about struggling to find enough food for the winter, about passing clothing down through so many generations that it was patched beyond recognition, about learning to fight when they were barely old enough to hold a weapon.

They talked about it so glibly, laughing about the horrible taste of boiled seaweed for the fiftieth day in a row, showing off scars from when they’d stabbed themselves with knives they were too small to wield properly. Aang had laughed at their jokes and been horrified at their scars. Zuko hadn’t laughed, and Toph had heard the shame thick in his voice as he offered scars of his own, from firebending duels with his sister. (He never talked about the one on his face. Toph realized, later, that he assumed they knew how he’d gotten it. They never asked him about it

Toph always figured he had more to be ashamed of than she did – her nation, her family, hadn’t started the war, after all – but she’d been warm and fed and pampered while her friends had been starving, and she didn’t even have scars to show for it.

Now Zuko’s a king and Toph is his honored guest, and she wanders the hollow wooden halls of his palace – Zuko’s palace, her friend’s palace, her friend is a king and he lives in a palace – with one hand trailing on the painted walls. People bow and move out of her way wherever she walks. Generals try to talk to her about battles and tactics, about how a tiny group of violently powerful children evaded an entire army for nearly a year. Their voices are awed and condescending all at once, laced with suspicion and derision and oily flattery. Toph smiles the polite, unassuming smile of a daughter of the house of Bei Fong, and tells them that really it was Sokka who handled the tactics and strategy, she was mostly there to save everyone’s hide when things went wrong.

Then she remembers herself, remembers that she saved the world and she doesn’t have to be anyone’s daughter now. She starts telling them to fuck off.

She thinks, walking through the peaceful palace gardens, feeling the life that wriggles and squirms and breathes through the soil, that if her parents could see her now, friends with a king, they’d — well, actually, they’d probably want to arrange a marriage. At the thought, Toph starts to laugh, and she laughs so hard she has to sit down by one of the elegantly sculpted fountains and rock back and forth, gasping for breath. She hasn’t thought about marriage in so long – over a year, though it feels like so much longer. It used to be such a certainty, looming over her future, that her parents would arrange a marriage with some nice, malleable member of the middle aristocracy, who didn’t mind having a useless blind girl for a wife if it meant marrying into the Bei Fong family. But she’s no one’s daughter now. She resolves, there in an ornamental garden, laughing loud enough to scare the turtleducks, that she will never marry.

Zuko, almost to her surprise, steals time to hang out with her when he can. The first time he showed up in her rooms unannounced, it was in the middle of the afternoon, and he stood and cleared his throat the moment Toph walked in. Her room was tiled in stone – a small consideration that she’d been unreasonably pleased about, when she first saw it – so the moment Zuko put his feet on the floor, Toph recognized him. “Hey,” he started to say, nervous and stilted, “I hope you’re—”

Toph didn’t think about it. She barreled forward to give him a hug, catching him round the waist and almost knocking him back into the couch. She was almost instantly embarrassed, and started to draw back, but before she could, Zuko wrapped his arms hesitantly around her, and then he was hugging her as tight as she was hugging him.

Zuko doesn’t have much free time, but every few days he shows up in her rooms with a plate of delightfully spicy food and a bottle of something that she’s probably too young to be drinking and bitches to her about his advisors, the nobility, the merchant guilds, and the treasury officials constantly shoving new expense reports under his nose. Toph mocks all of them and offers to catapult people out of a window for him.

“No really, I won’t even need bending, these aristocrats are almost as bad as Aang about keeping their feet planted. I’ll just sneak up on them and grab them by the ankle. They’ll never expect it, come on Zuko, it’ll be hilarious!”

They talk, too, about the war. When they do, Toph tells him about the things she’d seen, wandering the subjugated Earth Kingdom. Zuko listens, without interrupting, and Toph thinks that maybe the silence is from shame, and she almost stops. But when he does talk, Zuko asks questions, probes for details. The conversation always turns to how to fix it. The two of them spitball ideas back and forth for how to start healing a shattered world.

They feel acutely the absence of their friends. Aang would be so much better at peacemaking, Zuko laments. Katara would be so much better at understanding what the deeper problems really are. Sokka would have so many ideas for improving access to isolated villages or distributing food and aid efficiently over all the vast expanse of the ravaged Earth Kingdom.

“So why don’t you ask him?” Toph says. “All he does all day is come up with weird new inventions anyway. He might as well come up with something useful.”

Zuko’s letters to the others have always been few and far between, and slightly reserved. He’s been very busy, and a part of him sort of assumed that now they weren’t stuck traveling with him anymore, they wouldn’t want anything to do with him. At Toph’s urging, he asks Sokka about a couple of his mechanical dilemmas, and is startled at how quickly he gets an enthusiastically rambling answer, complete with several pages of blueprints.

Toph tries to get him to do the same with Aang and Katara, but this he won’t do. 

“They don’t have time to solve my problems,” Zuko tells her.

“Isn’t solving people’s problems pretty much Aang’s whole job now? He can just put you on the list.”

Zuko bows his head, like he’s looking into his drink, and says quietly, “If the Avatar is solving the Fire Lord’s problems, then either the Avatar works for the Fire Lord, or the Fire Lord is too weak to rule on his own. Either way, it just causes more problems.”

Toph, who grew up surrounded by the petty intrigues of politics and knows the weight of rumor and reputation, doesn’t contest this. She does say, “You should write them more anyway. Real letters. I bet they miss you.”

Zuko huffs out a laugh, and takes a swig of his drink, and doesn’t answer.

She goes to find Aang and Katara next. They’re wandering the world again, flying from city to town to village, and Toph thinks maybe it’ll be like old times. It even is, when they’re in the sky and Toph’s whole world is air, empty space, nothing but the rustling of the wind in Appa’s fur and the warm round weight of Momo sleeping on her belly. The three of them tease each other, tell jokes, share stories from the months they’ve spent apart, and it feels like home.

There’s no looming threat anymore. It’s strange, still, even after so many months. Toph used to spend the first few minutes after they landed anywhere stretching her senses as far as she could, looking for any signs of people. Now, the first time they land, she feels hundreds of people, and there are a good ten to twenty of them headed right for them, and she panics. She shouts for the others to run and pulls a wall of stone up between them and the oncoming force, eight feet tall and as wide as she can make it, and she’s bracing for the call to topple the wall onto the enemy and run for Appa while Aang and Katara cover their retreat, only instead she hears them yelling at her to stand down. That there’s no threat, that they’re safe, that she’s going to hurt someone.

They sleep in the cities, not in makeshift campsites. Village elders give over their homes to the Avatar and his friends. City mayors offer them luxurious quarters. Aang spends a few hours talking to the people in charge of each new place, then goes out into the streets and spends the rest of the day there, looking for the people he’s not supposed to be talking to. Katara and Toph flank him, and at the formal meetings Toph finds herself once again slipping into formal elegance, while on the streets she tries to keep track of all the people around them, whether they’re threats, whether there’s something Aang should be seeing that’s being kept from them. It’s impossible to track so many moving bodies, and it gives her a headache to try. She tries anyway, because a headache is no price to pay for keeping Aang safe, for helping him heal the world. Several times she stumbles or nearly walks into something, so focused on how everyone’s reacting to Aang that she doesn’t notice the obstacles in her own path. After a while Katara moves to her side, puts an arm around her shoulders as they walk. Toph leans into her, relieved.

Katara is still the nearest thing she has to a mom. Katara makes sure the three of them are getting enough food and sleep and aren’t wearing themselves out. Katara keeps track of their provisions now that Sokka’s gone, and she and Aang work together to figure out their route. Katara makes sure Toph doesn’t get into fights with city officials. (Sometimes Katara gets into fights with city officials, at which point Toph cheers her on and Aang tries desperately to mediate.) Katara makes sure they don’t lose heart at the sheer daunting size of the task ahead of them. Katara sees Toph sitting alone one night against Appa’s side, knees pulled up to her chest and tears running silent down her face, and comes to sit next to her.

Eventually Toph says, “We’re only a few days away from Gaoling.”

Katara nods. “We’ve been wondering whether we should stop there,” she says softly.

Toph shrugs. “Gaoling was mostly untouched by the war. Not a lot of scars there for the Avatar to heal. It’s got some solid political clout in the whole region, though – probably worth making some connections there.”

“It’s up to you,” Katara says. “We’ll go if you want to go.”

Toph pulls her knees closer to her chest. After a moment she leans into Katara, and Katara puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close. Toph falls asleep like that, with Appa snoring gently behind her and Katara murmuring a lullaby into her hair.

They go to Gaoling. They talk to the city’s ruling council, as they do in every city, and Toph braces herself for it but her parents aren’t there. Close to the start of the meeting, one of her cousins – she has a lot of cousins, most of them in her parents’ generation, none of them close – turns to her and says, “Your family has been worried by your long absence, Toph Bei Fong. We are relieved to see you well.”

She should bow politely before answering, she knows – but he didn’t bow to her. Maybe he technically outranks her, maybe she owes him deference as an older cousin – but she’s at the Avatar’s left hand, and she’s grown used to being no one’s daughter. She doesn’t bow, and she doesn’t smile. She just says, “I notice my parents are absent from the council.”

“They rarely attend,” her cousin says. “They were much grieved by your loss.”

Toph stands abruptly, jarring the table with a clatter of cups and plates. She does not say, “Oh were they.” She does not say, “My loss?” She does not say, “I’m not fucking dead, I’m right here, the war’s been over for two years and they never so much as sent a note—” 

She does not say any of this. She turns to Aang and Katara and says, “I’ll meet you in the city once you’re done here.” Then she turns and leaves.

The gate to her family estate is closed. She puts a hand on the wrought iron and knows that she could twist it out of shape, could wrench a hole out of it and step through. Instead she kicks at the earth and launches herself up and over the gate, landing in a neat roll on the manicured lawns. She walks unimpeded to the front door, marveling at the lack of security – there used to always be guards on the walls, where did they go? was it always this easy to get in, or to get out? – and goes looking for her parents.

She’s not surprised, when she finds them, by their reaction. Furious, yes. Heartbroken. But not surprised.

They go to Omashu and King Bumi greets them by siccing Flopsy on them. A giant goat-gorilla comes bounding at them before they’ve even landed and knocks Aang flat as soon as he hits the ground, looking for treats. Appa gives a disgruntled roar, probably jealous, and the huge thing keens in fear and starts running around in circles. Aang’s feet have gotten caught in its collar and he goes flying through the air, trying to get himself free without hurting Flopsy, screaming all the while for Katara and Toph to do something. Katara and Toph are too busy laughing themselves silly. When Bumi finally comes out to meet them, Toph giggles out, “I like your rabbit.” Bumi tells her solemnly, “You’re not the only one. Flopsy’s more popular than I am, so I’ve made him king of Omashu. We all pay our taxes in carrots now.”

Toph and Bumi play so many pranks together. So many. Bumi’s court is actually pretty used to it by this point, but Aang and Katara aren’t. One night at dinner, Bumi sticks all of the furniture and himself to the ceiling with his bending, and screeches in horror when he sees the three of them walking in “upside down.” Katara freezes in shock, and Aang starts airbending a shield above his head before he realizes what’s happening. Toph, who saw it coming from out in the hallway, laughs so hard she cries.

She talks to Bumi a lot about earthbending, about the feel of dirt hardening between your fingers, about the shift and grind of stone as you pull boulders from the ground. She tells him about the sand raiders taking Appa, and the next day he takes her to a sand-filled arena and they duel there for three hours. She gets her ass handed to her, and she gets sand everywhere, but it’s the most fun she’s had in ages. They duel every day, and after leaving Omashu Toph makes a point of practicing wherever she can, until she can bend sand almost as well as she can bend solid ground.

She’s never met anyone else who bends, not just with his whole body, but with his whole being. Bumi’s fascinated by the way she uses bending to see, and she tries to explain it to him as thoroughly as she can, because she’s finally found someone who understands.

Toph travels a long time with Aang and Katara, roaming the world from top to bottom and all the way around.

They stop for a while on Kyoshi Island and she realizes, when she sees Suki running forward to greet them, that her old awkward embarrassment is gone. Suki’s just as flawlessly cool as she always was, but somehow Toph’s not intimidated by it any more. The two of them become friends in a way they never had a chance to before, and it actually does feel a lot like having a badass older sister.

Eventually, almost by coincidence, they find Zuko and Sokka visiting a coastal city that caught the brunt of the attack on the day of Sozin’s Comet. Sokka and Katara rush into a hug, and are teasing each other about their hair and clothes in five seconds flat. Sokka only lets go of his sister long enough to sweep Aang and Toph into hugs of their own, then he starts tugging on Katara’s arm and urging them all to come see the structural supports they’re building for the new docks.

By then Zuko’s reached them, trailed by his gaggle of advisors and attendants. He bows deeply to Aang, who returns the gesture, and says, “We welcome you, Avatar, to these shores.” Aang thanks him, just as formally – he’s learned how to be formal, these days. Toph listens to how their hearts are pounding nervous in their chests and can’t believe she’s friends with such idiots.

“Now kiss!” she hollers. Everyone stares. Sokka’s the first to start laughing, then Katara and Aang and finally Zuko’s laughing too, and Sokka drags Zuko into a group hug, and after that everything is – it’s not perfect, it’s not simple, but it’s okay. After that, it’s okay.

#toph beifong #atla #finx writes #finx has friends on the internet #this was a lot of fun to do #you guys should send me more so I can procrastinate homework in fun and creative ways #also this legit did help me with midterm stress so thank you #I have iroh lined up to do next #and loki for when I watch ragnarok - hopefully this weekend #I'm gonna try to keep it shorter than this for the sake of my sanity but either way it should be fun #also the iroh one is probably not gonna be that much shorter than this it's already getting away from me and I'm only a few bullet points in

[seyaryminamoto]

Ok I need you opinion on this, In Final Battle Sozin Comet book, I read through Azula's PoV when she rejected Ozai's decision. She deeply regretted the second these words left her mouth, and said lines like "I never raised my voice to my father before. Never." and "I'm shaking." and "Oh no.. What will he do to me now?". I mean she literally feared physical harm, but also was combinated with fear of rejection and abandonment. It's so fucked up. What does she feel this way toward him?

Why does she feel this way, you mean? Well, I think it’s not that hard to guess what’s going on behind the scenes.

Azula was there, watching and rejoicing as Ozai burned Zuko during the Agni Kai. She knew Zuko was being hurt, but she wasn’t appalled by it. Both because of how Ozai groomed her, and because of her building resentment towards her brother, she saw him being hurt and thought he deserved it. 

All her life, Azula has been competing with her brother and had her father’s support in everything. This is something Zuko coveted, and it’s something Azula always took pride in having for herself.

When things get complicated, though, Azula tells Ozai that he can’t treat her like that: he can’t treat her like Zuko. This is when Ozai tells her to shut up, and that sequence you’re asking about happens.

Why would Azula be this terrified of what Ozai might do to her? Because she’s afraid of the worst case scenario. It may not be conscious on her part, but Azula knows what Ozai can do to the child who disappoints him, the child who fails him. And she doesn’t want to be that child, so she tries to stand up to him to demand the respect she believes she deserves. She achieves the entire opposite effect: Ozai tells her to shut up.

Her fears then seem to come true because Ozai would have never said those words to her before. She isn’t used to this, but she thinks she’s condemned herself to becoming the same thing Zuko is in their father’s eyes. He doesn’t trust her anymore, he doesn’t respect her anymore, he wants her to be quiet. As I said, she knows what he could do to Zuko. Her fear of being hurt by him, in my opinion, comes from that awareness.

I know there’s a lot of people who are convinced that Azula was physically abused by Ozai too. Personally, I don’t subscribe to that theory at all. I don’t believe Ozai ever abused Azula physically because he had a pretty great excuse to do that when Zuko revealed she had lied to him about Aang, and yet it seems he didn’t do anything to her. At the start of Boiling Rock, Azula is her usual self, no noticeable changes in her personality and behavior until the betrayal. If Ozai had given her the beating of a lifetime for having lied to him about the Avatar, she wouldn’t have been as calm and collected as she was before the betrayal. The markings of her breakdown would have started to show already.

There’s also that Ozai is shown using Azula to impress Azulon in the Zuko Alone flashback. He’s very satisfied with everything his daughter does, and he ushers her to show off her knowledge and firebending prowess. All along he smiles, and seems to be pleased to show his father what a capable girl he’s raised… and then Zuko steps in and Ozai’s smile disappears. The difference in treatment is blatant, it’s obvious, it’s there. 

We saw he burned Zuko on ONE opportunity. Zuko never says that his father hurt him many times, he only talks about the Agni Kai. Ozai’s abuse towards Zuko was layered and multifaceted, but it only got physical ONE TIME. The rest of it was emotional, psychological. You can think that’s the worst kind of abuse, maybe, and it certainly can be very harmful, but I don’t believe Ozai resorted to burning Azula to teach her lessons when he wouldn’t even burn Zuko regularly, even though he despised his son as much as we know he did.

Another thing that I don’t think anyone takes into account other than myself, but… Ozai’s actually slightly attached to Azula, I believe. Not in an actual loving way, no, but I think it’s because Ozai’s father treated him the same way Ozai treats Zuko. I believe Ozai might have decided to groom Azula into the perfect heir while being his second child because that’s what he wished his father had done with him. He especially sees Azula’s talent in firebending, and he sees her academic and leadership aptitudes from early on too. He thinks that she’s everything he COULD HAVE BEEN, if Azulon had given him a chance.

… Not true, though, because Ozai actually resembles Zuko, but the guy doesn’t have the most sound judgment ever.

So he projected on Azula, and he made efforts for her that he never made for Zuko. He gave her opportunities to actually fulfill important military missions, gave her a huge barge for her exclusive use, airships, left the defense of the city in her hands for Day of Black Sun… did you know Ozai never served as a military officer in any capacity, yet Iroh did? Do you think it’s chance that he provides Azula these military opportunities and resources while giving Zuko nothing comparable? I’m pretty sure it’s not. I’m really convinced he did it because he projected on her and wanted her to be successful from a young age as he would have wanted to be, despite she is clearly more similar to Iroh while Ozai is similar to Zuko.

He entrusts Azula with the mission of catching Zuko and Iroh, even though he could have sent other people, multiple squads, whatever he pleased. But he trusts Azula can do it, and in the end, his trust pays off because not only she delivers those two but she also delivers Ba Sing Se on a silver platter. He knows he can trust her… up until she lets him down. But even then, he doesn’t really raise a hand against her. He just doesn’t trust her anymore. His attitude and behavior are more akin to indifference than to actual displeasure towards her.

Only, Azula doesn’t know this. She has no idea if her father knows any limits, and she knows his approval can be withdrawn as quickly as it was given. She doesn’t know what’s going on inside Ozai’s mind, and she’s already falling apart: thus her fears are heightened, worsened, to the point where she thinks he might hurt her because he hurt Zuko for speaking out of turn before.

Further evidence is also that Azula’s body has no signs of burns, in a show that has even pulled off some crazy stuff like:

See that mark on Aang’s foot? It’s SO EASY to miss it, and yet it’s there. Where did that scar come from?

That’s right. Part of the damage Aang takes in Book 2‘s finale is still evident by the next season’s finale. The scar on his back is always there as well, goes without saying. Zuko’s scar is also never hidden, so scars, in this show, don’t fade away just like that.

If Azula had ever been harmed by Ozai, not only would her behavior likely be different (she might be a lot more insecure, less confident than she seems to be, kind of more similar to Zuko in that way, and she would have been WAY too scared to lie to Ozai about Aang’s alleged death), but she would have been shown with burn marks because unless Ozai only burned her lightly (which isn’t all that likely, since in these headcanons he’s supposed to have been even more abusive to Azula physically than he was to Zuko), the burn marks would show in episodes like The Beach:

She shows more skin here than at any other point in the show. If Ozai burned her anywhere, it would’ve shown here. It doesn’t.

So I don’t think Azula’s reaction comes from some sort of conditioned behavior, if that’s what you might have thought. I think it all stems from knowing that she could lose her standing, become an eyesore, a problem to get rid of, the same way Zuko was. For further context, Ozai is the last person she has left in her life. The only one she assumed would never leave her, who would always validate, encourage and approve of her worst impulses. And then even he discards her, which destroys her inside in every possible way. She’s already falling apart, and Ozai’s rage isn’t something she ever expected could be turned against her.

#anon #I'm all in for debating how much Azula's parents harmed her and shaped her into who she is #but I think the show was trying to say something pretty clear when it established Ozai's dynamics with both his children #saying Ozai abused Azula physically but we just didn't know it diminishes the physical harm he does to Zuko #Ozai definitely damaged Azula a lot #but I don't think it was on a physical level #the show wouldn't have kept it under such tight wraps if he had #even the comics would acknowledge it #seeing as they're determined to make Ozai a much worse person than he already was #I really don't think we need to believe Ozai hurt Azula physically for their relationship to be a complicated toxic mess

[raywritesthings]

Shado (as my self indulgent one) but also Laurel Lance and Harry Potter and Zuko

Is this revenge for me sending you all those questions last week? Ok, here we go.

Shado1: sexuality headcanon - we didn’t really see her interact with anyone apart from guys (since we all know there can’t be more than one woman in the flashbacks for any extended length of time *rolls eyes*) but you got me hooked on Shado with other ladies who would treat her better so I’m gonna say bisexual.2: otp - I don’t know if I have one for her. I see the merits of Dragon Assasin, but I’m a big Lauryssa shipper, but then the occasional Shado/Laurel posts you’ve made are also quite compelling. There may be only one way to solve this, if you catch my drift...3: brotp - Oliver and Slade. Sorry, I pretend the romance bs between them never happened because it ruined her character and got her killed so fuck it. What happened to my fun, team-as-family banter from s1?4: notp - Oliver and Slade lmao. I’m also not huge on her and Sara, sorry. But a part of me knows that to introduce Sara into the flashbacks spelled Shado’s doom because of that whole unspoken No More Than One Woman rule these shit-for-brains writers have and it lowkey has me bitter.5: first headcanon that pops into my head - I’d actually be pretty game for a nonbinary Shado ngl. Not sure what pronouns. But it’d kind of tie into my next answer below.6: favorite line from this character - not sure if I have this word-for-word but “My father wanted sons” because it really says a lot about her relationship with her dad. Like, I don’t doubt that Yao Fei loved her (and Mei), but at the same time she clearly knows that there’s some disappointment there, like she wasn’t quite enough as she was. Yet nevertheless she trained and worked to be everything she is and she still worked to find and save her dad and she was better than Oliver, than Slade, than all of them and just gahhhhhhhhhhhhh.7: one way in which I relate to this character - um idk, we are very different. Maybe when she looked at a photo of Laurel Lance and instantly fell in love knew she was the most important woman in the world had nothing but compliments to say about her because, like, same.8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character - she was kind of too busy struggling to survive to do anything embarrassing. 9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave? - Any of her “problems” result from the writers using her for manpain in s2, so I’m gonna go cinnamon roll. She was too good, too pure for this show.

Laurel1: sexuality headcanon - she is bi as fuuuuuuck2: otp - Oliver or Nyssa depending on how I am feeling any given day3: brotp - Thea, they are my ride or die sisters4: notp - Laurel/Tommy, can’t get over how he essentially pressured her into dating him, then became obsessed with her and Oliver’s potential feelings for each other, and ended up kind of treating her as this trophy or prize in this weird jealousy game he had going with Oliver. Was kinda gross. They had their moments, but it was never a relationship that was gonna last. I also resent how certain sectors of fandom used it as excuses for why Laurel couldn’t end up with anybody else because her “twu wuv” had died. I see your bs.5: first headcanon that pops into my head - this is very dark, but I think at low points in her life she had very close brushes with self-harm.6: favorite line from this character - too many!! “You and me against an army. I love those odds.” “Hey, if I don’t try to save it, who will?” “I couldn’t be more proud of you if you were my sister.” “Because you’re important to me.” “I don’t need you right now. Everyone else does. So go. Save the city.” “I’m the justice you can’t run from.” “Your job, apparently.” “Fighting for your city isn’t selfish. It’s what a hero would do.” “I know. And then I realized I didn’t really give a damn.” “It’s the hypocrisy I can’t stand.” “Going out there and fighting alongside you guys, that’s what makes me feel alive inside.”7: one way in which I relate to this character - her struggle with depression.8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character - I can’t really think of much. Maybe all the times she was wronged by the people she trusted and loved? And that’s less embarrassment and more righteous fury.9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave? - cinnamon roll, she was better than any of them from the word go and they never deserved her and some day the tears will stream down their eyes when they realize it.

Harry1: sexuality headcanon - also bi as fuuuuuuck2: otp - Harry/Ginny forever bitches3: brotp - Ron and Hermione, hell yes4: notp - Dr*rry, Sn*rry, and H*rmony5: first headcanon that pops into my head - Once Harry retires from the Aurors, then he finally gets to be the DADA professor Hogwarts deserves (and Ginny takes the Flying Instructor position after Madame Hooch so they can live together and take tea with Hagrid and Neville and be cute and disgusting and embarrass many future generations of Potter-Weasleys to come)6: favorite line from this character - so much of his sass oh my god but nothing, nothing, tops “There’s no need to call me sir, Professor.” Also these aren’t exactly lines, but any and all of his internal musings on how beautiful and amazing Ginny Weasley is because it is sheer poetry.7: one way in which I relate to this character - just his general approach to life, I think.8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character - oh mannnn he was put through a lot of embarrassing moments, like which to choose?9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave? - cinnamon roll, he never asked for this prophecy bs but he saved everyone anyway just cause.

Zuko1: sexuality headcanon - I don’t know why but I don’t really have sexuality headcanons for Avatar characters (and I barely started Korra, but I do know about Korra and Asami and I am Here For It), so he could really be anything to my mind.2: otp - don’t really have one3: brotp - everyone in the Gaang, and also his relationship with Iroh is the best4: notp - don’t really have one of these either5: first headcanon that pops into my head - sometime after they’ve brought relative peace back to the world, Katara offers to give healing Zuko’s scar another try, but he turns it down. He’s made his peace with it, and he is proud of who he is today as a result.6: favorite line from this character - oh god, it’s been so long since I’ve gotten to watch anything from the show, but I always cracked up at his little rehearsal pitch for joining the Gaang. Also his reunion with Iroh is precious.7: one way in which I relate to this character - he fucks up a lot but still manages to try and do the right thing? That’s so inspiring.8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character - his terrible s1 hair. The worst.9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave? - ummm maybe somewhere in between? He tries like really hard to be a problematic fave at the beginning, but then slowly his persona is stripped away to find a cinnamon roll underneath.

#shado #laurel lance #harry potter #zuko #emerson replies #kelsey #ayotofu