ok-boomerang
ok boomerang
lena | romantic in the rust belt | writer, fic and otherwise | mostly here for zutara | ao3: ok_boomerang
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Not to mention the fact that the Avatar State does not necessitate Aang giving up control and doing things he regrets. Aang wants to be stopped in this state because he can’t control it, but if he’d let go of his unhealthy attachment to Katara, he wouldn’t have to rely on her to risk her safety to “help” him; he’d be able to control his own actions. So it’s not only a terrible parallel, it’s also a terribly ironic attempt at one.
I’ve seen a few K@taang fans say that Aang telling Katara to forgive Yon Rha in The Southern Raiders is a parallel to Katara helping Aang leave the Avatar State. I really don’t like this take, for a simple reason:
The Avatar State is a supernatural uncontrollable rage. Katara’s anger is not.
On multiple occasions, Aang states that he regrets his actions while in the Avatar state, and he doesn’t like feeling out of control in that way. We even see his rational spirit’s reaction to the Avatar State when it detaches from Aang’s body to speak to Roku in “The Avatar State”.
Aang wants to be stopped when he is in this state. When Katara reaches out to him, she is not trying to change his mind, she is trying to allow his rational mind to regain control. She is giving him agency, not denying him agency.
By contrast, while Katara is angry in The Southern Raiders, we’re never told that her rational faculties aren’t still operational. She’s determined. Not possessed.
At no point does Katara say that she regrets acting in anger. Instead, we see her exercise judgement and mercy even when face to face with the man she saw kill her mother.
This is not someone who is out of control.
(Not that she necessarily would have been out of control if she did kill him.)
The fact that Katara wasn’t out of control and didn’t need to be stopped is further reinforced by the fact that, unlike Aang who agonises over his actions in the Avatar State after the fact, Katara doesn’t express regret at her actions or relief that she didn’t kill Yon Rha. Instead she re-states her initial position that she will not forgive him.
All of this makes Katara’s anger at Yon Rha very different from the Avatar State. She is in control of her actions and does not want or need to be stopped. Trying to stop her isn’t helping to reassert her own control over her actions, it’s questioning her active decisions. It’s denying her agency instead of enabling it.
An emotional woman is not the same thing as an irrational or out of control one.
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Fire Lord Zuko: Someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this, the country is dying —
social programs: 27 million yuan
military: 4 million yuan
administrative costs: 8 million yuan
health care: 50 million yuan
Katara statues: 113848 billion yuan
agricultural support: 12 million yuan
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"redemption arcs are toxic, you shouldn't try to fix someone!"
actually it is so important to me that being in community and experiencing human connection can save people. thanks
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idc about the repetitive zutara vs kataang ship war garbage but here's another example of aang stans who don't know shit about buddhism using "buddhism" to criticize aang hate, as if aang's very existence as a character isn't seen as offensive to actual practising buddhists.
aang is a monk who is a strict vegetarian but he isn't celibate for some reason even though celibacy is a way bigger deal to monastics than vegetarianism. the dalai lamai has publicly denounced married monks and the thai government bans depictions of monks doing drugs or kissing, etc.
and let's not forget that the buddha himself said that monks that have sex are damned to hell:
Worthless man, it would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a poisonous snake than into a woman’s vagina. It would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a black viper than into a woman’s vagina. It would be better that your penis be stuck into a pit of burning embers, blazing and glowing, than into a woman’s vagina. Why is that? For that reason you would undergo death or death-like suffering, but you would not on that account, at the breakup of the body, after death, fall into deprivation, the bad destination, the abyss, hell.
the irony of getting angry at people calling aang a white self insert because you think he's a "buddhist" when he's a caricature of buddhism made up by ignorant white men who claimed their biggest inspiration for the air nomads was fucking shaolin soccer.
it's not just aang ofc, all the air nomads are based on shallow western perceptions of buddhism since their society is the racist shangri-la trope, a theme park version of real-life buddhist nations. the worldbuilding for the air nomads makes no damn sense and is easily the weakest of the four nations due to bryke's shallow reference pools. their entire culture is monastic but also nomadic, and they practise sex-segregation...yet they still have sex.
bryke just wanted the aesthetics of buddhism without actually understanding it.
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if those two don't kill each other, Sokka might lend a hand
a zutara drabble
HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS TO MY DEAREST @hneyteacup. I wrote a birthday drabble inspired by one of your faves, SPUFFY. I however have never seen Buffy and in fact I just found out the fate of Spuffy approximately 30 seconds ago lol, BUT STILL, this drabble is inspired by them, for you 💕 HBD!!!! ILY!
--
The others might buy Zuko’s little transformation, but not Katara.
She knows exactly how sympathetic he can make his sorry life seem, all in the pursuit of Fire Nation supremacy.
So that’s why she’s been interrogating Zuko in his room for the past 15 minutes. She’s made him promise he won’t fire bend at her, and she did not feel a tinge of regret when he frowned and said he would never, sounding almost hurt.
Even so, Katara stands at the ready in front of him, hands sheathed in water just in case Zuko decides to break her rule.
“So you’re telling me you saw the soldiers that were following us back in Fire Fountain City. And yet you can’t describe them?” she asks, voice dripping with disdain.
Zuko groans and rolls his eyes, almost as if this was nothing more than an annoying hassle for him rather than the serious interrogation it was. He waits a beat, staring angrily at the floor, before he lifts his head to meet her eyes.
“Well, they were human,” he says, voice annoyingly sweet. “Two legs. Two arms.”
Katara scowls.
“They were wearing helmets,” Zuko says in exasperation. “Am I supposed to be able to recognize soldiers by the way they walk?”
“Maybe!”
At this point, Sokka enters with a steaming cup of tea. He takes one look between the two—the scowl on the prince’s face and the murderous intent on Katara’s, and mutters, “Not sure you know what you’re doing, sis.”
At this, Katara transfers her glare to her brother, though he only rolls his eyes too.
Katara huffs and takes the tea that Sokka brought, silently dismissing him. Sokka sends what seems to be an apologetic look (traitor!) to Zuko before wordlessly exiting.
“It’s about time,” says Zuko when Katara hands him the mug of tea. “Hope he got it warm enough, since you’re forbidding me from bending.”
Katara ignores him. “How did you even get here?” she snaps, hoping that asking this question for the umpteenth time will expose how he’d been following them for weeks (which was likely!) or how he’d kidnapped some of their friends to get their location (even more likely!).
“I told you; I stole a war balloon and followed you from Caldera.” He takes a sip of his tea and sighs. “I’m done. Let me talk to Aang.”
“Not yet! I’m not done!”
Zuko purses his lips but doesn’t argue any longer.
“How did you break into the North Pole?” Katara finally asks.
Really? Zuko’s expression seems to ask.
For some reason, he smirks at her. “Hmm, I’m not sure.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m trying to remember,” he says, putting down his tea to make a show of tapping his chin. “It was very traumatic.”
“How long are you going to pull this crap?”
“How long are you going to keep me prisoner in my own room?”
Katara sniffs. “I’m not leaving you alone until you tell me something worthwhile.” Until he proves to her that allowing him to stay here will have some sort of benefit.
“Fine,” Zuko says, lying back and stretching out on his bed. One arm holds his head up as he watches Katara over his nose. “We can stay here all day and all night, with you—what did you call it?—interrogating me.” He smirks again, the crooked expression on his face downright infuriating.
Katara abruptly changes tactics, crossing her arms and stepping toward him, the water falling from her hands in large splashes that she ignores. “You know what, I don’t think you want me to leave you alone,” she says slowly, her lip curling in satisfaction. “I’m the only one who will talk to you, anyway.”
Zuko’s smirk falls, and Katara feels a little flame of triumph in her chest roar to life.
“Right, I don’t want you to leave me alone,” he parrots, the bite back in his voice. “I definitely want to be constantly reminded how much you hate me.”
Katara does not feel another twinge of regret. She does not push anything away.
Instead, she falls to her knees with a mocking gasp.
“Does his highness require better accommodations?” she says, her voice warbling. “Better amenities?”
“Katara—” Zuko says, unamused.
“An innocent victim to burn, perhaps?”
“Katara, please—” Zuko says, voice more serious. But she keeps going.
“Do you require a maiden before you cooperate?” she taunts, crawling toward him and exposing her neck. “What about me? Will I do?”
At this point, Zuko is exhaling smoke, but he’s not bending. She wonders how far she can goad him. She crawls closer until she’s at the edge of his bed and mockingly reaching toward him.
“Please, your highness, what must we do to please you?!” she all but shrieks, vaguely feeling like she would make a great actress as Zuko slowly shakes his head, as if to say What did I do to deserve this?
Well, she can think of a lot of things!
Just when she thinks of naming all those things to Zuko, she suddenly hears the swish of a cloak behind her and the sound of wood hitting the ground. Her and Zuko both turn toward the noise, to see Aang, a confused smile on his face, his ears a little pink, and his glider in his hand.
“Um—Katara—I think I’ll talk to Zuko now,” says Aang slowly, eying her strangely. She’s about to ask what’s up with him before she realizes her arms are sprawled beseechingly toward Zuko, her body half on his bed and half on the ground.
“Right, yes!” she says, getting up daintily and wiping her tunic with her hands as if what she’d been doing was perfectly normal. “I’ll just be—”
Inexplicably, she looks back to Zuko, who is also watching her, bemused.
“Bye!” she squeaks to the room with a hurried wave.
She’s talking to Aang, of course. Not Zuko.
Definitely not Zuko.
#zutara#zuko x katara#zutara fanfiction#drabble#bday drabble#for ej#many thanks to susiesundrop for helping me with the Spuffy Dynamic (tm)
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Drop Dead Gorgeous
1999 | dir. Michael Patrick Jann
#drop dead gorgeous#the movie of my childhood#this was the white trash representation little lena needed#as in amber atkins is lovely and kind but takes no shit#lena talks
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The argument that Katara "made her choice" is not only bad in a literary way (see this succinct and perfect sentence from OP: "She is a fictional woman written by men"), but it's also an extremely shallow reading of feminism. It's not, actually, feminist to say "some women want to be homemakers and that's okay!" and ignore any further examination of why some women might make the choices that they do.
Choices made under oppression may not be free choices! We're socially conditioned to "choose" certain things!
The idea that feminism equates to "all women get to choose what they want!" is pretty much just a hyperindividualist, neoliberal distortion of feminism.
is anyone going to tell the kat@angers that it's not feminist activism to argue Katara's arc in LOK is fine on the grounds that "some women want to be homemakers and that's okay!!"
Like you're not helping real women that way. In fact, most antis for the cannon ship ARE women. Many are homemakers themselves.
Katara is not a real woman. She is a fictional woman written by men.
Can the sensibilities and wishes of a girl change by the time she is a adult? Yes!
But as this is a textual character who, as per the text, rejects the societal structure of her fictional world (which mirrors our own) that women are and can only ever be docile homemakers (i.e. I don't want to heal, I want to fight; I will never turn my back on people who need me; let's start a prison riot; let's engage in vigilante ecoterrorism; let's pitch an absolute fit because the boys are not pulling their fair weight in the homemaking; let's confront my mother's killer at the absolute rejection and condemnation of the male figures whom I am to respect; etc) it is perfectly reasonable to argue that this end was not a natural course for her character.
Fictional characters are not real people. This means that they do not change their mind off screen. That is not an acceptable argument. That is called a "plot hole", which is a nonsensical change made at the convenience and contrivance of the writer(s), who in this case are men exhibited to not care for women or girls all that much. It is within THEIR character to write this way.
Regardless of who, if anyone, Katara ended up with, Katara tolerating disrespect, neglect, abuse of her children, giving up all of her former aspirations to live in the shadow of men, and dying as a mere footnote in history (and being alright with it!!) is not surprising given the absolute vitriol Bryke has shown toward female fans of their "creation". It was supposed to be a "boy" show. It was always supposed to be a "boy" show. The creators of Supernatural and Game of Thrones did the same thing. ATLA just did it first.
Arguing "not all women" is not activism in the face of what is really happening in this discourse. Sending death threats to real, actual women with feelings in defense of a fake pretend woman's fake pretend autonomy is performative activism, and worse, hypocritical.
Not all women agree with you. Not all women feel represented and find the outcome of Katara's story satisfactory. If y'all care about feminism and respecting women's choices so much, lay off the real life women you're so fond of harassing. Our views and opinions, while opposing your own, don't affect you.
#antikataang#anti kataang#anti bryke#this is about atla but ig it's mostly about feminism#zutara#sure i don't mention zutara BUT IT'S ZUTARA#iykyk#feminism#lena appears#for ten mins and then disappears again#i hope this goes without saying but obvi there's nothing wrong with being a homemaker in itself#the problem is when we don't investigate our choices#and think that making choices means one is practicing feminism#but you are bigger than yourself#pls don't accept your choices at face value
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Let's form a band!!!!!
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Has anyone asked for 45 yet? I'm a new zutara fan so can I request for that pairing? Thank you!
p.s- I really love your works, they make my day :)
THANK YOU for your kind words! :') I did already write 45 HOWEVER I am so excited that you are a new zutara fan that I...wrote another one for it! It is my welcome to the fandom gift for you! I hope you like it! 💕
--
“Tell me a secret.”
Zuko’s favorite time of day on Ember Island was when the sun was high in the sky. Not only could he feel the energy of the flame inside him, not only was he stronger and more capable when teaching Aang, but he also…
Let it be known that he was embarrassed to admit this.
But he also appreciated how the glare of the sunlight made a person squint, made it hard to see where they were looking and sometimes if they were even talking to you—made it difficult for others to discover if a person was staring at a waterbender in the surf, mesmerized by her smile, her easy and powerful bending, and the way her body moved.
He was embarrassed; he felt a little creepy.
But not enough to stop.
It was during Zuko’s favorite hour, when the firebender had plopped himself in the sand to relax, that his (respectful!) gazing was interrupted.
“Tell me a secret,” said Toph, coming over and plopping herself next to him.
“I don’t think I have any,” Zuko said slowly, thinking of the origin of his scar, the sham of his relationship with Mai, how much he missed his mother, how much he missed his sister—
“Lie,” said Toph lazily. “This is almost getting old by now, Sparky.”
Zuko couldn’t help it—he chuckled. “You got me,” he said, and then pushed back, leaning against the sand as he stared upward at the sky. “Okay,” he said, not entirely sure why he was agreeing so easily to Toph’s little game. “I can play the tsungi horn. And I’m actually pretty good.”
“That’s sweet,” said Toph. “But I was actually interested in a specific secret.”
“Huh?”
Zuko turned his head toward the little earthbender and watched her cackle. “Why can’t you keep your eyes off Katara?”
“What?” asked Zuko hurriedly. He hadn’t been worried about Toph at all. With the others he made a show of the glare in his eyes, but Toph…? She was regularly next to him as he watched Katara…
“It’s okay,” Toph said, waving a hand away. “You don’t actually need to tell me. I already know.”
“Know…what?”
“Hey, Katara!” Toph shouted from next to him. Zuko jumped to his feet in shock. He needed to get out of here—
He tried to step away, but found that his feet wouldn’t move—because he was suddenly buried in the sand up to his ankles.
“Can you teach me to surf sometime?” Toph yelled.
“Sure!” Katara yelled back, smile bright. “I didn’t know you were interested!”
“Zuko’s interested too! Very interested, actually—”
“Thanks, Toph!” Zuko yelped. “That’s enough!” He waved dimly at Katara, who was waving at him, a soft smile on her face.
Somehow, Zuko got the feeling he was done for.
Toph turned to him with a grin. “What, did you think I was going to stir shit?”
“I still think you’re going to stir shit—will you let me free?” he whined.
“Sure,” Toph said. A moment later, Zuko was suddenly sinking farther, and fast, until he was up to his thighs in the sand.
“Toph!”
“Oops, wrong direction,” she said lightly.
Zuko saw Toph stomp her foot, hard, and suddenly he was flying in the air, legs sprawling—and then he was landing on his butt, hard.
“Ow,” he moaned. “Toph, what the fuck—”
“Hey, Sugar Queen!” Toph yelled again. “Can you come fix up Sparky? He just took a bad fall!”
“What?!” came Katara’s voice, alarmed. “What happened?” Her voice was getting louder, as she must be hurrying over to them. But Zuko did not want to look to confirm. He wanted to be underground again.
“He landed super hard on his butt,” Toph explained, a wild grin stretched across her face. “Might have even broken his tailbone.”
“I—I—” he said eloquently, turning to Katara.
She was leaning over, hands on her knees, concern mixed with something he couldn’t quite identify. Her cheeks were warm, probably from the exertion of running over here.
“Ah, can I—um—heal your bottom?” she asked.
“Katara, you don’t need to heal me, I’m fine.”
“Toph said you might have broken your tailbone.”
“I’m fine, you don’t need to look at my butt—”
Katara giggled. “It’s okay, as a healer, you’re not supposed to be distracted by butts.”
He did not note how she didn’t say that she wouldn’t be distracted by his butt, just that she wasn’t supposed to be.
“Let me just take a look, okay?”
Zuko was going to die. He was going to die with the most beautiful woman’s hands on his ass.
Well, there were certainly worse ways to go.
He turned over, embarrassed and thrilled all at once.
And as Katara began to busy herself with rubbing his bum with her water-covered hands, he watched Toph trot away backward, not-so-subtly mouthing You’re welcome.
#atla#zutara#zutara fanfiction#drabble#ask game#my drabbles have gotten sillier and sillier#ass drabble#as so lovingly nicknamed by susiesundrop
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6 for Zutara please!
“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”
Zuko was feeling good. Really good. Like float-in-the-sky, firecracker-bursting good. He’d been with his friends, whom he loved, and he wasn’t ashamed of loving them, and they loved him back, which was sometimes kinda wild to think about. Because, and this was so funny, it made him laugh sometimes—he once tried to capture them, he was once chasing them around the world. So funny.
In fact, he was laughing right now about it, leaning against the wall of a hallway in the Fire Palace on his way to his bedroom. It was late and no one else was around, just his soft chuckles echoing back at him.
His friends were going back to their rooms too—they were so funny, Sokka was so funny and Suki was so cool. And Aang was so nice and Toph was kind of a jerk. And Katara was so smart and pretty and funny and sometimes he just liked looking at her face. Agni, his friends were great.
After they all had gotten too tired to keep hanging out, Sokka wanted to make sure Zuko could make it back to his room okay, because he was nice and he cared. Sokka was all, “Bro, are you good?” and then he laughed a lot and took a deep breath to compose himself, and then kept giggling.
“I am so good,” Zuko had replied, and then he was giggling too. Because not only was he good, it was so easy to be good! He was not, actually, bad at being good.
Zuko pushes through the door to his bedroom and sighs upon entering, suddenly very tired. He shrugs out of his tunic and trousers but is too tired to put on pajamas. He can’t remember where he keeps his pajamas anyway. He snorts a little at the thought of sleeping naked, but it was his right, because he was feeling so. good.
They’d had some alcohol tonight, so much plum wine, it just kept flowing, and maybe some other stuff too that he can’t quite remember. Pipeweed maybe? But even if so, that’s not why he feels good; it’s his friends and his home and being a human firecracker. All those things are so good.
He shimmies under the sheets, which feel nice on his bare skin and also smell really good, kind of like fire lilies after a summer storm. His mother grew fire lilies in her garden. His mom would have liked his friends.
Zuko vaguely hears a door creak open, and footsteps glide toward him. Which is weird. But not unwelcome. Because he loves people so much. He loves the whole world. He is really tired.
The person who owns the footsteps shimmies themselves into bed, and Zuko vaguely wonders if he has a roommate and he simply forgot.
The person sighs, a tired sound, and he recognizes it as a sound belonging to Katara.
Katara’s here! He loves Katara. What a good friend. It’s too bad it’s dark, because he loves looking at her face. But he’s pretty tired anyway.
“G’night Katara,” he says, sleep in his voice.
“G’night Zuko,” she answers. “You were really funny tonight,” she adds, and her words slur together a bit for some reason.
“You were funny tonight!” he says, shifting toward her.
“Noooo, not like you,” she says, scooting closer as she hiccups. “Remember when—you chased us?”
Zuko laughs, loud and free, and Katara’s joining him soon after.
It’s not a minute later that they’re both snoring.
—
The next morning, Zuko wakes with the sun.
He feels the fire in his chest begin to simmer, to rise as the star in the sky rises. He feels his breath, notices his breathing, a meditation practice he likes to keep. He feels—a pounding headache on the left side of his head. And also the right side. And also—something soft against his backside—his bare backside.
Zuko blinks away, blinks into the ray of sun cascading across his bed.
That is not the only thing cascading across his bed.
There is also dark, wavy, and long, impossibly long, hair, seemingly all around him.
He is blanketed by Katara’s hair.
Which means—
Zuko blinks when he realizes the softness on his bare butt is Katara’s bare butt.
He is in bed, butt to butt with Katara.
“Um, Katara—“ he tries, but she doesn’t respond, her face so peaceful in sleep.
He sits up just a little and pushes one of her shoulders.
Her eyes blink bearily open. “Zuko, let me sleep,” she says, before closing her eyes again. “Damn firebender,” she says under her breath with a small smirk.
Zuko waits a beat.
And then Katara’s eyes open again and slowly move over to him. “Zuko?” she asks.
“I’m not sure—“ he starts, but Katara doesn’t wait for him to finish. She scrambles backwards, grabbing the blanket covering them, and frantically pushes out of the bed to cover herself with it.
It is at this point Zuko realizes that Katara is—was—buck naked. And so is he. Unfortunately, Katara just pulled the blanket off him.
So he is buck naked, and completely exposed to the world.
He fumbles with a pillow to cover his bits as he yelps “Why are you naked in my bed?!” just as Katara yells, “Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?!”
They stare at each other, Katara having already expertly fashioned a dress with the blanket and Zuko still only shielding his privates with a pillow.
“Your bed?” Zuko asks while Katara nods vigorously. “This is the Crown Prince’s bedroom! Look,” he says, pointing to a portrait of himself on the wall. Which was kinda weird actually. Strange art choice by the designers, a portrait of himself in his own room.
“You’d hang a portrait of yourself in your room?” Katara asks, smirking, panic forgotten.
“It wasn’t my design choice! It’s just my room!” he says.
“Zuko,” Katara says with the air of someone saying I told you so. Which isn’t a good sign, because Katara loves being right. “You aren’t the Crown Prince—that’s not a portrait of the Crown Prince.”
Zuko frowns at her, because that’s kind of uncharacteristically mean. One banishment and you’re suddenly not even good enough for your birthright…
“You are a naked Fire Lord!” Katara shouts, before throwing her own pillow at him.
Oh. Shit.
He was Fire Lord, wasn’t he?
He stumbles out of bed to try to dodge the onslaught of pillows as Katara continues to pummel him—why are there so many pillows? His pillow shield has long fallen away. She’s just abusing a naked Fire Lord now!
“I’m—sorry!” he says, but Katara’s laughing maniacally and clutching her stomach in mirth as she finally shoves him into the hallway and slams the door.
And then he hears her lock it.
Well, he did say she was funny.
He turns to four pairs of eyes staring in his direction.
There’s a good five seconds of silence, and Zuko notes that everyone except Toph has now seen him naked. But judging by her smirk, she can sense his nakedness.
It’s good that he’s worked on his self-esteem.
“Do we want to know?” Suki finally asks, breaking the silence.
Zuko shakes his head.
Sokka wordlessly hands him his cloak.
And Zuko covers his bits again, and runs down the hall toward the Fire Lord Suite.
#atla#zutara#zutara fanfiction#drabble#ask game#dearest other anon who also wanted prompt 6 this is for you as well!#you know who you are#<3
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Hey Lena!
Zutara Drabble # 5 & 8, please. ^.^
“Wait a minute. Are you jealous?” & “Wanna bet?”
Katara knocked once, briefly, on the Fire Lord’s office door before pushing it open and inviting herself in. She and Zuko had worked together for so long—had been friends for so long—that they no longer had the need, or the patience, for a semblance of formality.
Katara supposed that on some unlucky day in the future she might walk in on him practicing his Iroh impression, or worse (better?), with his pants down. But per usual, the Fire Lord was merely at his desk, head in hand, as his glazed-over eyes scanned some boring parchment.
“Hey Zuko,” chirped Katara, feeling herself almost expand upon seeing him, upon seeing the transformation of his face when his eyes fell on her—the subtle widening of his right eye, the easy smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“Hey,” he said in response, setting his parchment aside and giving her his full attention. A piece of hair had fallen out of his top knot. “My favorite ambassador—"
“Mhm, whatever,” she joked back. “Funny how I become the favorite every time the fishing waters treaty is up for renewal—"
“You’re always my favorite, I just happen to point it out at specific times.”
Katara rolled her eyes, even though she felt her cheeks warm a little at Zuko’s words.
“Anyway,” she said, shrugging off that impossibility, “I’m just delivering the report on the healers in Fire Fountain City.” She handed him another piece of parchment, which Zuko took with some hesitation.
“The report on the healers—?” he muttered, eyes scanning the page. “But I didn’t need this for a couple more days—”
“Yes, well, Tanriq invited me to the Fire Lantern Festival tomorrow evening, so I got it done early.”
She watched as Zuko’s eyes stopped scanning the parchment, but he didn’t look up.
“Tanriq?” For some reason, his voice had gone up in pitch.
“Do you know another Tanriq?” Katara asked, curious at Zuko’s confusion.
“The—the ambassador from the Northern Water Tribe?”
“Of course,” said Katara slowly.
“You’re—together?”
“No,” she said immediately, and then chided herself. “I mean—I’m giving him a chance. So…maybe in the future? We’ll see how it goes—”
“It’s not going to go well,” Zuko interrupted her.
Katara blinked at him. “Huh?”
“I mean,” Zuko said, bringing his hands in front of him on the desk and rolling them together. “I just mean—it’s just a little odd, the two of you—the Fire Lantern Festival—"
“What’s so odd about it?” Katara asked, half surprised and half curious about the issue Zuko saw that she couldn’t. “I like festivals.”
“Right, but do you like them with Tanriq? I—I dunno you will.”
“Sure, he’s a little boring—”
“He doesn’t know you at all!” Zuko interjected, and then quieted, shifting his eyes. But he continued. “I mean, will he know to take you to the food stalls that sell ocean kumquats? Will he take you dancing early enough so you don’t miss the tsungi horn players?”
Katara laughed. “I can tell him not to!” she pointed out. “You don’t need to be worried for me, I’m sure we’ll have a fine time—”
“Wanna bet?”
Katara stared at him. “Do I want to…make a bet about whether I’ll enjoy myself on a date?”
“Um,” said Zuko, shifting in his seat so that the chair squeaked. The panic on his face did not match the regality of his formal robes. “No, that was uncalled for, sorry,” he said. “I—I—”
And as Zuko stuttered, and Katara stared at Zuko’s rapidly reddening cheeks, she came to an unlikely—but perhaps possible?—conclusion.
“Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”
She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She had to fight the urge to clap a hand to her mouth in horror. And if Zuko had looked skeptical whatsoever, she would have curled in on herself and scurried out the door like a goat dog with its tail between its legs. And then possibly quit her job and moved to the Foggy Swamp.
But Zuko didn’t look skeptical. Zuko did not calmly and coolly reject her suggestion. Instead, he noisily backed up his chair, stood, buried his hands in his hair, and yelped, “Me?! Jealous?! No—no, definitely not!” And then he laughed like an unhinged hyena leopard.
“I—” Katara started, over what sounded like the beginnings of a panic attack. “I—um,” she said, reminding herself that she was a waterbending master and teacher to the Avatar and she was not scared of anything—“I won’t go with him. If you—um—if you don’t want me to,” she said, knowing that her tone had drastically changed from teasing to serious.
Zuko’s laughter died down and he matched her serious expression. “Katara, no—I would never try to insert myself in your personal life—I’m sorry, I just got, um—” he paused, but didn’t finish his sentence.
“Can I take your bet then?”
“What?”
“But for the other side. I bet you I won’t have a nice time with Tanriq.”
“I—look—I was being childish—of course you’ll have a nice time—”
“Maybe,” she said, and Zuko’s face fell for the briefest moment before he schooled it to one of impassive regard once more. “But I think I’ll have a nicer time with someone who knows me better, like you said.”
Zuko looked away from her and stretched his arm behind him to rub the back of his neck. “I think you should go with whoever you want to go with,” he muttered.
Katara wanted to scream. But…she did want this more than she wanted to scream. “You,” she said, only a smidge of frustration in her voice. “I’d rather go with you.”
Zuko’s eyes snapped to hers. “Oh? Is that—is that—is that right?”
“If, um, if you want to,” she murmured, suddenly feeling her mortification rise. What if she’d gauged this wrong? She did get along with Hu in the Foggy Swamp. She could totally start a new life there.
“Yes,” Zuko said immediately. “I mean—yes. I do want.” His eyes were boring into hers.
“Um, great,” she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “So…I’ll tell Tanriq nevermind…and you’ll just need to tell your guards—”
“No,” Zuko said, leaning forward now, and Katara felt her blood thrill. “Many of the festival goers will wear masks. We can too.
“Really? But I don’t have a mask—"
“Don’t worry, I have an idea for us.”
#atla#zutara#drabble#zutara fanfiction#ask game#a twofer for one of my favorite moots!#TY FOR THE PROMPTS <3 <3 <3#this one was fun to think up#ok they all have been#SORRY IT'S SO LONG#it's officially not a drabble#whoops
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it's pretty wild to me that people don't see that aang running off to save katara in CoD is his luke in empire strikes back moment, where he runs headlong into his want and attachment and he's narratively punished for doing so and not learning his lesson - aang runs after katara despite guru pathik's warning, like luke runs after leia and han from yoda on dagobah despite yoda's warning; similarly, as a result, things go to hell in ba sing se like they do on bespin - aang enters the avatar state before he's ready and gets killed, and ba sing se falls to the fire nation, luke fights vader before he's ready, loses a hand, and symbolically commits suicide after vader tells him he's luke's father.
the difference between their character arcs is that george lucas and co. actually went thru with luke's hero's journey and understood the fundamental difference between attachment and love, whereas I don't think bryke understood this difference and then dropped this from aang's arc pretty much completely and replaced it with aang digging in his heels into his want and attachment and he gets rewarded with energy bending from a lion turtle, the avatar state from a random pointy rock, and his forever girl from the self-indulgent white men that couldn't bring themselves to give their hero a compelling character arc that meant he might not have gotten everything he wanted at the end.
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38 OR 45 PLEASE (u pick 🫡🫡)
“Tell me a secret.”
On a clear night in the caldera, the thousands of stars overhead were pinpricks of light in a dark sea. The night sky wasn’t quite as magnificent as in the South Pole—in the Fire Nation, there was more light pollution from flames and no chance to see the Southern Lights. Still, Zuko knew that Katara loved to look at the stars and point out her favorite constellations, which were currently different than the ones on the other side of the world. It was a favorite pastime of theirs, ever since she moved to the Fire Palace—to the Fire Lord’s bedroom to be precise—to spend the occasional night on the roof, alone under the stars.
“Tell me a secret,” said Katara from where she lay next to him.
“You’d have to tell a secret too, then,” said Zuko immediately, reminding her of the rule that she hated. “A new secret,” he specified, because Katara had unfairly told him the “secret” of Sokka and the two fishhooks twice.
Zuko heard Katara make a show of sighing. “Fine, I’ll tell you a secret. But tell me yours first!” she said, pushing him lightly on the shoulder so that he finally shifted to watch her. She was smiling, eyes bright, and Zuko couldn’t help but give a soft smile back as he was bombarded with the memory of what would be tonight’s secret.
He groaned a little, even through his smile. “Okay—so—I’ve never told you this before, because we’ve made fun of Fire Prince Zuko enough—”
“Never enough,” Katara muttered, but Zuko ignored her.
“But that day when I uh, came to the South Pole—”
“When you invaded,” Katara corrected, her tone light.
“Right, when I invaded,” he said, remorse in his voice even though he knew Katara was only teasing. “Anyway, when I got there,” he said, remembering the day clearly, how the snow had filled his vision with white and the intense reflection of the sun hadn’t helped. “And I saw you all, I was obviously angry, but I was especially annoyed with you.”
“With me? Right away, not later?”
“Yeah, right away. I was so mad that the prettiest girl I’d ever seen was a Water Tribe rebel.”
Katara snorted in disbelief. “Me, the prettiest? No way—you had the whole palace—”
“And even bundled in your furs you were the prettiest, and it was seriously annoying.”
Katara laughed then, a bright sound in the dark of night, and Zuko found himself chuckling too.
Sometimes, it was pretty wild how everything had unfolded. How they now found themselves here. Together.
“Okay, that was my secret, tell me yours,” said Zuko, poking Katara in the shoulder.
“Mmm, I dunno,” she said, grinning with mischief. “You already told me yours, what possible incentive—”
“There is no way that I married a woman without honor!” Zuko said, poking her in the cheek this time as she snorted. “Tell me a secret!”
“Fine,” she said, making another show of her sigh. “I’ll tell you.”
She bit her lip and turned toward him more fully, so he could see the crinkles around both her eyes. But she wasn’t saying anything, just watching him with a funny expression on her face.
“Do you have yours yet?” Zuko asked, soft now as he watched her.
“I do,” she said. She was silent for another beat, and Zuko opened his mouth to ask what was up—she didn’t need to tell him something she didn’t want to—but then Katara cut him off.
“I’m pregnant.”
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zuko for the ask game pls :)
WOOOOO a throwback!!! Thank you, my friend 🔥❤️
(Here's the original ask meme, for those wondering)
(Let me continue under a cut for the sake of everyone's dash)
Sexuality HC: Bi - I imagine Zuko thinks of his attraction to men and his attraction to women as two distinct vibes/flavors/modes; he kind of compartmentalizes them but every time he feels that spark of attraction, he rediscovers himself
Favorite ship(s):
Zutara, of COURSE, oh it's like that fountain of youth from Tuck Everlasting except instead of youth, the fountain keeps springing forth rich, infinite possibilities of Katara and Zuko's beautiful shared life and love (I have never seen Tuck Everlasting but I feel like I can be an authority on this metaphor)
I also am inexplicably drawn to Zuki. I don't think Suki is quite as warm and effusive as Katara, but I do think she'd be a safe place for Zuko to unload his constant mental load and convince him everything's gonna be okay. And I think Zuko is drawn to capable women
And then Jetko. The Jetko fandom's vibe is so alluring and academic. Jet and Zuko have a mutual understanding that they only acknowledge twice a year, and they're not allowed to make eye contact during said acknowledgment. Beautiful
Brotp: omg. Zuko & Sokka & Aang. The everlasting boys' night out. Zuko is suffering but he's also never known affection and camaraderie like this. Sokka is dropping spare bean curd puffs into his hands. Aang is asking for Zuko's advice on How To Be Cool (Sokka is scream-laughing in the bg). Katara gave them all a curfew and Zuko is going to break several traffic laws to make sure they're back one minute early
Notp: Mai.ko! They function incredibly well as a symbol of everything Zuko thought he wanted, and that's where they should have ended
Happy HC: For Zuko's birthday one year, the Gaang surprise him by staging a homegrown performance of Love Amongst the Dragons. They have Zuko playing the Dragon Emperor and have provided the script for his reference. Zuko does not need the script
Angsty HC: Ozai dies after a long illness and Zuko expects to feel the weight lift in an easy, uncomplicated way. It doesn't—it just changes. Zuko's pissed at himself for grieving and letting his father have continued control like this. The tiniest part of him never stopped hoping that Ozai would change
Random HC: Zuko is a kinesthetic learner. With reading he quickly loses interest; for listening, he has to train his mind not to blast 40 steps ahead before his council members are done talking. But he can work at a new firebending technique until he feels the way his muscles need to move, and then he's got it
General opinion: Zuko is my precious little baby boy son, my 2D husband, my emo nephew who is simply Going Through Changes, a big-time goober, and endlessly noble, capable and trustworthy. Hope that clears things up
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Zutara 17
“Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…”
Zuko jiggled the doorknob for just a moment before he turned to Katara, a frown on his face. "It's locked somehow."
"Huh? It locks from the outside?"
"Yeah, you know the palace. All sorts of weird security measures," said Zuko, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. He sighed. "Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…"
Katara glanced around the little room Zuko had pulled her into, the one he had said he'd been wanting to show her. It was filled with small statues, some created from earthbending, and was meant to serve as a gallery of artwork from around the world. It was quite lovely, and she particularly enjoyed the little statue of the polar bear dog, but their engagement party was going on in the adjacent hall.
"Maybe if we shouted, someone could hear us?" Katara suggested, walking toward the locked door herself.
Zuko turned back toward her, sliding in front of the door. "I don't think so, they're pretty far away—"
She attempted to edge around him to try the door herself, but Zuko took one step to the side again. "And maybe it would be best if we weren't found right away," he said, a smirk unfolding on his face as he blocked access to the door.
Understanding washed over Katara, and she slapped a hand to her forehead. "Zuko!"
He was unabashed. "What, so I want to spend some alone time with my betrothed?"
She couldn't be annoyed with him. Not really. She was getting tired of the constant meet and greets at the hours-long party, and perhaps that's why Zuko had pulled her in here all along.
"You made sure it's locked?" she breathed out. "From the inside, that is?"
"Yeah...from the inside."
"Fine," Katara sighed, smirking herself, as she reached toward him.
#and then they made out a lot#atla#zutara#drabble#ask game#LOOK this one is a respectable drabble length!#kind of
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Posting on main so no one is confused on this issue:
actually no hold on. I have a degree in dramatic literature, as in script writing, adaptations, and narrative storytelling. What [bryke stans] are saying is just "if you don't like it get out", which is wild.
You know where folklore comes from? Where mythology comes from, which ultimately shapes culture and society? Stories! Does it matter who wrote down the Iliad? Not particularly. Homer is trivia.
The elements that make up what the Iliad is, what the Grimms fairytales are, what Star Wars and Harry Potter and ATLA are existed long, long before they were amalgamated into a “new” thing. Stories belong to everyone. ATLA, like everything else, is an adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation going back thousands of years. There are NO original ideas.
A story or seed or idea of concept hangs around long enough, gets seen by enough people, impacts enough people, congratulations. It's folklore now and it belongs to the public. For reference, yes I believe copyright should run out around 20 years, or at MINIMUM when the author dies. It's the market, bestie. Products, like stories in this society, will never, ever improve if there's not competition, not criticism, no incentive for growth. And when someone else does a take on your story that the public likes more? That's what folks remember and what carries on. And your name, as the “creator” (such a generous term), is just trivia.
You don't like fandom? Get out :^)
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