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woodlaflababab · 2 months

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Zukaang Moments In Episode One: The Boy In The Iceberg

(There's A Lot)

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"Head a course for the light." The first episode and it is already foreshadowed that Zuko needs Aang and that Aang is his pathway to true happiness and peace. It's a literal angelic light that calls to Zuko that can be seen for miles around.

What does that sound like? A lighthouse and Zuko is literally in a boat trying to find a way home. Aang casts a light that calls Zuko home and represents finally finding the shore, an end to the perilous journey at sea for the sailor lost in the night.

Like, symbolic much? Zuko could've been clued into the idea that that was the avatar by a whole slew of ways, but it is a literal becon of light, almost like Aang is less an enemy/something to catch and more a savior/home.

Also, Yin and Yang #1: Zuko knows exactly where he's going and what he's doing, Aang has no idea where he's going or what he's doing.

Zuko angstily staring in the direction of Aang, being unable to sleep.

Iroh going on abt how there's no way Zuko could find Aang bc his ancestors weren't able to. Well. You see Uncle Iroh. Zuko's ancestors weren't soulmates with the avatar.

Yin and Yang #2: Zuko is talking about how he needs his honor, you know, in order to go home and be the prince he's supposed to be. Immediately after we see Aang lying and dying he's the avatar. Zuko is chasing his destiny. Aang is running away from his destiny. (And continues to do so even after accepting his role as avatar bc his destiny is Zuko ;) )

One of their obvious Yin and Yangs but since the scene focuses on Aang's tattoos I'll say it here. Aang has blue markings he accepted willingly as a sign of mastery and honor, granted to him by people who raised him and love him. Zuko has a red marking he had no say in as a sign of 'weakness and dishonor', granted to him by someone who raised him and hates him. Yin and Yang #3

Yin and Yang #4: Zuko is stressed and training, Aang is carefree and having fun. Zuko is stressing out the people around him, Aang is bringing fun to the people around him.

Yin and Yang #5: Zuko is seen practicing firebending and still working on the basics and the only purpose to his learning is to fight. Meanwhile we see Aang, a literal master, use his bending as second nature and for anything BUT fighting.

Aang finds a scary fire nation ship and shows no fear, despite it's obvious danger, only a desire to reach in and find what's inside it. A unique approach to it. Which already foreshadows his relationship with Zuko (and technically the fire nation but shut up this is abt Zukaang), specifically the Blue Spirit, where he shows no fear of Zuko, who's proven dangerous, and only wants to understand him and be friends. Reach in and find what's inside him. A unique approach to Zuko.

Zuko is once again called to Aang by a light, and this time it's a flare, something sent up when someone needs rescue. And like the last light he followed, this one is also foreshadowing the future.

Where the first light shows how Aang is important/needed by Zuko, this one shows how Zuko is important/needed by Aang. It foreshadows how Aang needs help and Zuko is often called to his rescue. (both with the blue spirit and him joining them in book three, and also that fight with azula, as examples off the top of my head, oh also the freeing appa thing, there's a lot.) Zuko is Aang's hero. @the ember island players were right

"Quite agile for his old age." Not Zuko already praising Aang and being Extra Aware of everything Aang does and everything Aang can do.

Also, 'his'. The avatar could be male or female, the world doesn't actually know. And yes, we could attribute Zuko automatically saying 'his' as him assuming based on internal sexism OR we could say Zuko inherently knows due to his cosmic connection with Aang. >:) There is more on this later, I swear this isn't as much of a reach as it seems.

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Okay so, Basically, the reason I did this was bc I saw someone list out the moments in the series for their ship and I started thinking about the zukaang moments from the series but like. They're all over the place. The series is about Zukaang, so I thought it'd be fun to list out all the Zukaang moments from just the first episode. (Thematic ones and relationship ones.)

I'm about to do The Avatar Returns, but honestly, I could keep going. I'm heavily thinking about it. The first (two parter) episode is heavily Zukaang, but even the second one, though they don't interact at all, has Zukaang moments. I might go through each episode and point out over-analyzed zukaang. Idk.

If you don't want the zukaang tag flooded by this over the next however long it takes me, speak now or forever hold your peace.

Second Part

#zukaang #atla #meta #woodlaflababab #everything is zukaang #I think thats going to be the tag I use for this #zukaang talks

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koala-otter · 4 years

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Hi hun!! I have a prompt!! So, Zuko was born into an obviously conservative family and with all that royal training and everything, he usually speaks with proper grammar and etiquette. Enter: Sokka. Sokka has the most filthy mouth in terms of speaking and anything in general. He can turn a simple conversation about dinner into something that makes Zuko blush unintentionally. I just want to see more flustered!Zuko out here!! Ty!!

hello love! it’s probably not what you expected, it’s definitely not what I expected, but there’s a lot of flustered!Zuko, so here we are

I don’t think it’s nsfw? but it’s also not entirely sfw??

ok here’s Sokka’s got a filthy mouth and a filthy mind and now Zuko does, too almost 2k words

Zuko spent three years of his life traveling the high seas, so he spent a fair amount of time around sailors. As a banished prince, he didn’t necessarily have his pick of the lot when it came to choosing his crew, and very few men on his ship ended up being the upstanding sort typical of the Fire Navy. Instead, the men Zuko lived with during his early teen years were often slippery, prone to debauchery, and crude. They swore frequently, mercilessly, and thoroughly, and after a couple of bottles of soju, could not have been stopped by the sea itself from telling detailed stories of their sexual conquests, the deck of the ship rollicking with tall tales of quivering thighs and heaving breasts left behind at the last port. For a long time Zuko couldn’t understand why he didn’t enjoy these stories, or why all the other men did. Still, despite his uncle’s careful influence, Zuko experienced his fair share of vulgarity on his travels, and largely as a result of the seafaring men surrounding him.

Yet he finds, time and again, that he has never met anyone whose mind or mouth matched Sokka’s.

They are all sitting around the courtyard of the Fire Lord’s house on Ember Island, idly waiting for dinner to finish cooking, when Zuko hears a gasp. He looks up from sharpening his swords in time to find Sokka standing next to Katara at the pot full of their food.

“What the hell are those?” Sokka demands.

“Sea aubergines,” Katara says matter-of-factly, though Zuko hears the annoyed undercurrent of her tone.

Sokka lets out a peal of laughter. “Katara, they look like dicks!”

A governess once struck Zuko for using such a word, and he feels the sting again as he gapes at Sokka’s relaxed form. He almost expects Katara to lash out or yell at her brother, but instead she barely rolls her eyes.

“It was all they had at the market,” she says.

“Aang!” Sokka calls, cupping his mouth with his hands. He waves the airbender over. “You need to see the size of these.”

Aang skips over easily and leans over to look into the pot.

“Don’t they look like a bunch of dicks?” Sokka says, nudging him with his elbow.

Aang immediately bursts into laughter, his hands coming to rest on his stomach. Zuko can only gawk at them and the casual way they react to such language.

“Where’d Toph go?” Sokka asks. “She’d get a kick out of the dicks.”

“You idiot, I’m blind,” Toph says from her position lying on the stairs.

“You can still—” Sokka notes Katara’s glare and the fact that Toph is still a twelve-year-old girl and immediately retreats. “Right, then,” he says, taking the ladle from Katara and scooping up one of the phallic vegetables, “Zuko!”

Zuko lifts his head, the dismay clear on his face.

Sokka waves the sea aubergine in the air maniacally. “Don’t you think it looks like a dick?” he almost shrieks.

Zuko tries not to wince at the word, and instead lies, “I don’t see it.”

“What?” Sokka looks between the vegetable and the stony look on Zuko’s face. “Are you serious? It’s even oozing—”

“Enough,” Zuko says. The island heat seems to have suddenly gathered entirely around his face. “Don’t be disgusting.”

Sokka’s face breaks into a boyish grin. “So, you do see it.” He waves the ladle in the air, the sea aubergine clinging by its tip to the bowl of the spoon.

“No,” Zuko continues denying.

Katara puts her hands on her hips and finally addresses her brother. “Sokka, would you cut it out? We’re going to eat that.”

Sokka ignores her.

“Here, Zuko,” he says casually, holding the ladle handle with both hands for some reason, “maybe you just need a closer look!”

And all of a sudden, a slimy, tan-and-purple, mottled, tubular vegetable is hurtling across the courtyard straight at Zuko. Before he can even think about it, he closes his eyes and catches it right in his hands. Then comes the heat, so high and concentrated from the cooking pot, that his hands immediately pull apart, and the aubergine flops, useless, on the courtyard ground.

Zuko looks up and glares, and for the first time since going back to the Fire Nation, he swears.

“Damn it, Sokka, that’s hot!”

Sokka stops laughing abruptly, and his expression turns mischievous. “I didn’t know you swung that way, Zuko.” A blush erupts across Zuko’s face as he suddenly hears his own poor phrasing. Sokka smirks. “Good to know.”

The blush is still on Zuko’s face when they finally sit down to dinner, and it’s all he can do not to choke at the sight of Sokka’s ruthless grin each time he takes another bite of slimy, limp sea aubergine.

A couple of years after the war ends, Zuko finally lets Sokka drag him on a trip to see Master Piandao. Sokka’s already gone back a couple of times to forge a new sword and for training, but Piandao hasn’t seen Zuko since before his banishment. He politely does not react to Zuko’s scar, and instead scrutinizes the close relationship between the two young men.

“Knowing you when you were younger,” he says in his measured tone to Zuko, “and knowing Sokka,” he continues, turning to look at the younger swordsman, “I wouldn’t have imagined you two being quite so drawn to each other.”

“What do you mean?” Sokka looks up from where he’s flicking Zuko’s arm. He throws his own arm around Zuko’s shoulders and pulls him in close, beaming. “We’re best fucking friends!”

Zuko looks horrified at the blatant lack of refinement in Sokka’s language, and in front of their swordmaster no less, but Piandao remains unperturbed. In fact, if Zuko squints hard enough, it might even look like he’s smiling.

“Well,” Piandao says, picking up his own sword, “let’s get started.”

Their training session does not last long.

The two young men are caught in almost a death grip, their swords biting into each other, and their bodies so close they are practically panting in each other’s faces. Sokka’s managed to disarm Zuko of one of his swords, cast aside on the patio of Piandao’s house, and looks smug even as Zuko pushes against him. Hard.

Zuko, on the other hand, looks enraged. His leg is smarting where Sokka smacked him with the flat edge of his sword, and he has suddenly been made frighteningly aware of the fact that Sokka is now taller than him. He glowers up at Sokka, pressing back against Sokka’s sword with all of his strength, which he worries will not last as long he needs it to because since he last checked, Sokka has gotten broad, and Sokka has gotten strong.

Zuko feels a growing desire to ram his sword through Sokka, and his glower turns to a grin as he considers it. The ramming. And then a thought fills his head of how Sokka would interpret that word, and he’s shocked when he doesn’t hate it, and it makes him even angrier. Sokka’s definitely rubbing off on him. And there he goes again.

“All right, it’s a draw,” Piandao says from his safe distance away.

When neither boy pulls back, he calmly walks over and pulls them apart. They both slump onto the ground, panting like polardogs in heat.

“You’re clearly very well matched,” Piandao says thoughtfully. He waits until both boys have cooled off before he continues speaking. They sit in front of him, waiting for instructions. He nods and gestures for Fat, the butler, to join them. “There’s an orchard on the way to the village full of plum trees.”

Fat hands Zuko and Sokka each a towel.

“Best plums I’ve ever had,” Piandao continues. “Sweet and juicy, and a little sour, too.” He takes the beverage Fat hands him. “And this time of year, the trees are full of them.”

Sokka and Zuko wait as Piandao sips his drink. He hands it back to Fat.

“Go home. And walk through the orchard on your back,” Piandao says, pointing in the general direction. He bows his head slightly at the two swordsmen in front of him. “Training is done for the day. I’ll see you early tomorrow morning.”

Zuko and Sokka look at each other questioningly but scramble to do as they’re told.

Fat stands behind Piandao as they watch the two run off toward the orchard. “Those two,” he says with a shake of his head.

Piandao glances behind himself and then forward at the boys again. A thin smile graces his mouth. “They’ll figure it out,” he says warmly.

In the orchard, Zuko walks resolutely back towards the house they’re staying in, while Sokka takes his time to languorously pick individual plums from the passing trees, biting into each of them with gusto. Juice drips down his lips and chin, even down his neck, and falls from individual fruits down his wrists and muscled forearms. His appetite’s only grown as he’s gotten bigger, and so has his enthusiasm for eating. He makes loud slurping sounds to prove it.

“Stop that, would you? It sounds awful,” Zuko says.

“I can’t help it, they’re so juicy,” Sokka replies, waggling his eyebrows at Zuko. He holds one of his plums out. “Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“I’m sure,” Zuko practically barks.

Sokka shakes his head. “You’re just mad because I tricked you,” he says, referring to the three times he’s managed to pull Zuko in with the promise of a bite of plum, only to rip the fruit away at the last minute.

“I’m not mad about that,” Zuko says angrily.

Sokka raises his eyebrows. “Then what are you mad about?”

Zuko gestures back toward Piandao’s house. “We must have done something wrong if we got kicked out,” he says glumly.

Sokka stares at him. “What? We almost killed each other. In a swordfight, I’d say that was doing it right.” He pulls out one of his plums. “Besides, you heard Master Piandao. We’re well matched.”

Zuko sighs.

Sokka bites into the plum, and his eyes go wide. He holds the fruit out to Zuko.

“Zuko,” he says seriously, “try this one. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted.”

“I don’t know if I trust the guy who goes around eating random plants all the time.”

“Come on,” Sokka almost whines. He shakes the plum a bit in Zuko’s face. “It’ll make you feel better.”

Zuko gives him a hard look. “You’re not going to take it away again?”

“I’m not going to do it again,” Sokka promises, his face genuine. He almost looks caring.

Zuko eyes him suspiciously, but leans toward the plum. The skin is shiny and dark purple, the color of an eggplant, but the flesh inside is a bright and brilliant pink, exposed by the bite from Sokka’s mouth. Juice trickles down the edges of the bite into Sokka’s outstretched hand, and Zuko briefly wonders what it would be like to skip the plum altogether and take Sokka’s fingers into his mouth, to lick the juice off of them.

Zuko swallows and tries to toss the image out of his head, finally leaning toward the fruit. Just as his lips make contact with the plum’s skin, a high-pitched moan erupts from Sokka’s mouth. Zuko pulls his head back immediately to find Sokka grinning widely, and he fixes Sokka with a hot glare.

“You’re disgusting,” Zuko snaps.

Sokka smirks and takes another bite of the plum. “Ah, you love it,” he says, and he continues making those awful slurping sounds all the way back to town.

sorry

#zukka #ask #my writing #zukka fanfic #atla fic #atla fanfic #zuko #sokka

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