I’m Just So In Love With The Idea That Zuko And Katara Refuse To Let Their Kids Be Mostly Raised By

now i cant turn down a happy moment,, remember when pai sho didn’t get in the way of avatar hunting?

“whatcha doing?”

“strategizing, zu.” 

[i.d. a digital drawing of zuko, lu ten, and iroh from atla. lu ten sits on one side of a pai sho board with one hand thoughtfully on his chin, across from a smiling iroh. a tiny zuko is peeking over the edge of the table. the characters on the pink background translate to “what are you doing?” “strategizing, zu.” end i.d.]

I don’t think anyone has fully considered the potential of a feral zuko au.

Like, Ozai tries to kill him when he’s 10, but zuko escapes with a scar, Ozai claims he was killed by an assassin and Azula gets a redemption arc early.

Meanwhile zuko is off completely changing the corse of history by, in no particular order:

-Making Hama realize that not all fire benders are bad cause the child she just told about how she was in prison immediately his to instigate a jail break

-is emotionally adopted by hakoda along with most of the crew

-finds wan shi tong’s library

-befriends/is adopted by June the bounty hunter

-discovers a herd of flying bison

-joins a traveling acting troupe for a while cause he’s a theater nerd

-visits omashu and is forcibly befriended by bumi, who decides that zuko is now his grandson and no one can stop him

-discovers the white lotus, decides that they don’t do shit, and starts a hobby of breaking into their safe houses and wrecking them until they get off their asses and help with the war

-meets toph when some fire nation soldiers chase him to gaoling and she stops them, and her parents see her, but zuko does this little speech about how proud they must be of their daughter and how much they must trust and respect her since she’s such a powerful earth bender, and basically guilt trips them into letting toph continue to fight and practice bending

-gets a dragon tattoo 

-wanders into the swamp at some point

-drinks a bit more than he probably should, but he can hold it shockingly well

-figures out lightning bending in the middle of a thunderstorm 

-goes to ba sing se, gets arrested by the Dai li, breaks out, and starts a one man war with them, which basically is just zuko par core-ing around the city till he finds some Dai li, then rather beats the shit out of them, or just kill them. 

-He does it all with out fire bending though, just his swords. 

-After like a week the Dai li are basically gone, and the earth king finds out about the war, and makes zuko a part of the army, some fancy title and a medal or something, zuko is officially recognized as the dragon of the east, and proceeds to duck off to the North Pole to try and convince them to help in the war

-they don’t want to, but he befriends yue and they talk about politics and zuko helps her get out of the arranged marriage 

-zuko called Paku a sexist bitch and is surprised yet delighted to inform him that blood bending was invented by a woman

-invents lightning redirection

-the north joins the war thanks to yue 

-zuko meets the mechanist at the northern air temple at some point

-meets and joins the freedom fighters, makes out with jet, uses fire bending to save jets like, then jet tries to kill him

-the other kids understand that zuko is still good even though he’s a fire bender, but zuko leaves, even though every single kid adopted zuko as their older brother

-becomes known as the greatest swords man to ever live

-it’s actually true, and when piandao, who has Ali adopted zuko, hears that he is very proud and brags about it to everyone he meets

-basically zuko gets adopted by almost every adult he meets

-gets really good at cooking, hunting, reading maps, finding water, pick pocketing, stowing away on beats, sewing, and pretty much every other skill you would need to live on your own. 

-hears that Zhao has captured the avatar and casually breaks Aang out of prison

-refuses to be his firebending teacher and leaves

-stops at a village to tell them that the volcano next to them is about to explode, and he knows this cause he grew up in the fire nation which has a lot of volcanos

-they don’t believe him cause the fortune teller never said anything about it, zuko gets pissed and starts yelling at them

-this is the exact moment Aang Katara and sokka show up

-zuko thinks Aang is following him and tries to leave, but sokka recognizes him as the dragon of the east from a wanted poster

-they basically follow zuko around trying to convince him to help them, and he is this close to just beating them up when Katara mentions they are going to the northern water tribe to learn bending

-zuko agrees to go with them just so he can see Katara kick paku’s ass 

-obviously zuko and sokka get together at some point

-when the gaang finds joung joung zuko makes fun of him cause zuko was there when he broke up with piandao cause he was afraid of being found out (cause being gay was illegal) and piandao kicked his ass even though he’s a non bender

Meanwhile Azula thinks she could have prevented zukos death somehow, maybe helped him with his fire bending or hadn’t bullied him so much or something. 

Ozai kind of focused on her more and started to look down on her a lot more cause he couldn’t compare her to zuko. He put a lot more pressure on her and it drove her away from him, she started seeking his approval less and less, instead growing closer to her mom and uncle. Her mom was constantly worried she would screw up and Azula would die too, but she was Ali scared of making her think she was trying to replace zuko. But by being rather open with Azula about that it never really became an issue. 

Azula took up sword fighting and trained with piandao and she got a lot of character growth from that, cause she wasn’t naturally good at it and really had to work hard. Piandao was not someone she could bully or manipulate, so she had to struggle with earning someone’s approval. 

Piandao told her at some point that sword fighting was not something that came naturally to anyone, and you had to work hard your whole life to be really good. He also said zuko was the fastest learner and best student he had ever taught. Piandao believed that zuko could have easily surpassed piandao himself within a few years.

Azula gets to go to the war meeting that zuko got banished at in the show, she also says the plan is wrong, but in a much more eloquent way that doesn’t dishonor the fire lord but does dishonor the general. She fights an Agni Kai against the general and wins.

The plan is done anyway, (zuko finds that message and is able to warn both the earth kingdom troops and the squad of fire nation soldiers that where going to die, it starts the rumor that the dragon of the east is actually prince zuko and it spreads, some solders start to rebel against their commanders in the name of the prince) Azula finds out about it much later and raises all kinds of hell over it, calling Ozai an “honorless coward who betrays his people, unworthy of the throne” to his face in front of a bunch of people.

Azula gets banished for it, Iroh comes with her and she’s now basically zuko from the show, but tasked with finding and capturing the dragon of the east to prove her loyalty instead of the avatar. At this point she does not know that it’s zuko.

She finds zuko didn’t recognize him and fights him, but he’s better than her, and then she sees the knife that Iroh have zuko just before he “died” and puts two and two together and comes up with seven. She thinks the dragon of the east is the assassin that killed her brother.  It kind of makes sense, if the assassination was his first act of rebellion, cause a string of jail breaks followed. 

I’m not really sure where the story could go after that but there’s a lot of potential for an invasion, since zuko knows so many people. Imagine them all showing up to help and they’re all like “oh hey zuko” and the gaang turns to zuko and ask how he knows them and he’s just like “that’s my mom/dad” and it just makes them more confused.

ZUKO HCs PLEASE (and maybe some zukka if ya feel like it)

Zuko Headcanons!!

Zuko is terrified of lightning. I mean who wouldn’t be after your father and your sister both used it to try and kill you. Zukka side of things, Sokka absolutely holds Zuko during thunderstorms.

Zuko spends time with Uncle Iroh drinking tea at the Jasmine Dragon, and still helps his uncle make tea from time to time.

Zuko loves theater and hates the Ember Island players with a burning passion. On the other hand, Sokka loves the Ember Island players and will drag Zuko to see them. Zuko will subject himself to horrendous theater if it makes his boyfriend happy. Sokka will also go to classy theaters (even though he can find it sort of boring at times) for his boyfriend.

Zuko loves cats. Like he just adores them and absolutely makes a baby voice at them. Which was embarrassing the first time Sokka saw him do it but Sokka just thought it was cute.

Zuko likes having his hair played with and braided! Like he super loves having Sokka braid his hair (which I think Sokka would know how to do because he grew up with Katara and probably had to braid her hair at some point).

Baths! Baths are sooooo something I see Zuko loving. Like a good hot bath with a bath bomb and some Epsom salt. Like he is definitely a bath person.

Also, Zuko likes to cook. Like I can see him in a kitchen and cutting up stuff and making food. Like I know he can have anything done by servants but after his moral conflict there’s the scene where he basically insinuates that bossing around servants doesn’t make him feel happy. So I can see him wanting to make some of his own food.

Zuko is someone who has really good manners and always says thank you to the servants because he knows that they work hard.

He is not a fan of parties and formal settings. Having to go through all the political people he has to talk to just so he can get to a table to sit and then have to talk to more political leaders is really stressful. He’s not a people person.

He likes to garden. Specifically he likes to plant flowers in the garden and study them. He is just infatuated with the gentle yet brilliant plants.

Also I kinda headcanon Zuko as autistic because I feel like he definitely can get special interests. Like I can see him talking about all the flowers he has planted and how he plans the layout of the garden.

Cut Fruit 🍎🍓🍈🍊🍑

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In Asian cultures, one of the most common forms of affection by a parent is to carefully peel and cut fruit. My mom would typically cut apples, but parents will prepare any fruit that’s available. I am loathe to think Iroh wouldn’t do the same for Zuko.

(this is also a nice article that explains the feelings behind it more)

Somebody give Ellie a camera rn

ellie finds a polaroid camera

Fire Lord Zuko passing a law that forbids challenging anyone under the age of majority to Agni Kai

Fire Lord Zuko waiting until the day he reaches the age of majority to pass this law, lest anyone think he is a coward

(No one. Literally no one would have thought that, but it’s generally regarded as a very classy move regardless)

Fire Lord Zuko Headcanons

The servants are just so terrified by him at the beginning?? Because here is this obviously powerful fire bender, the avatars fire bending teacher, and their fire lord and he is literally the most unpredictable person ever in their eyes

Every other fire lord was at least a little predictable bc staff knew what fire lords and fire nation royalty acted like but here is this guy over here who never yells at them?? Who never hurts them?? Who never banishes or fires them??

The first time they ever saw him angry/disappointed at staff was when he was telling the cooks to never make roast turtleduckling ever again he doesn’t care how tender they are thank you very much

When he has to deal with a particularly condescending or war mongering general or politician that day, he’ll sneak off to the kitchens and just make rage tea

If someone doesn’t remind him to eat he just forgets?? So the Head Cook, a woman everyone can agree on is the meanest, toughest, strictest person around, sends food to him every few hours no matter how many times he’s told her in person she doesn’t need to

Zuko will just casually let slip some really horrifying fact and the staf will just be very disturbed bc your grANDFATHER ORDERED YOUR DEATH

“Oh yeah, but my mom killed him so it’s okay”

*distressed noises from background staff*

They are slowly beginning to piece together everything that happened to their fire lord during his exile using their combined knowledge from off hand comments they heard Zuko make

AU where when Zuko and Katara board the Southern Raiders' ship, they discover, like in canon, that the current captain is not the man who killed Katara's mother. However, having a look around the ship, they find a room in which there is a small, terrified child, dressed in clothing that Katara recognizes as resembling that worn by a village that neighbors hers, but which her people lost contact with years ago. The child is about five or six years old, and when questioned, says that she is the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe.

someone please take sokka’s phone away

Some of my Atla headcanons nobody asked for part 4:

Aang names every single animal he meets. He can see an insect chilling right next to him and be like "oh, hi Bob" or something

When Zuko told the Gaang about how he got his scar they all climbed on him and forced him to be hugged for a few (tearful) hours afterwards

Suki likes to draw and when Sokka finds out about it he definitely signs them up for these artistic dates or something

Toph made her statues herself

When Sokka admitted to his family that he forgot what Kya looked like everyone was utterly shocked and told him he's almost identical to her (yes, Sokka cried after hearing that)

After the war Iroh starts calling Zuko "son" instead of "nephew"

Zuko still can't get rid of the bad and scary burden the word "father" has so he still calls Iroh "uncle" but being called son by him makes him so so happy

Iroh has a tea blend for every member of the Gaang so when they come all exited and he can't catch what they order in between their conversations (or when they come sad and can't utter a word) he knows just what tea to make