okay atla sibling roleswap au (zuko and azula swap, iroh and ozai swap, sokka and katara swap)

sokka is the only waterbender in the south pole, and he and katara both try to protect each other - after the death of their mother, katara vowed that she wouldn’t lose anyone else, and trained as a warrior. she’s still caring and fiercely protective, but it manifests as wariness: she’s seen what happens to benders, and doesn’t want sokka to get hurt. sokka doesn’t fully understand his powers, and doesn’t know if he wants to, but comes around when he realises that he really can help the world with them

the fire nation is supposedly moving into a new era of peace and harmony - azulon died at around the same time that ozai went mad and disappeared, when his two children were still very young, leaving iroh to take the throne. he has an excellent public image, as a wise and benevolent ruler, but is impossibly good at pulling strings and will put the well-being of his family above all else. he never got over the loss of his son at ba sing se, and intends to use the avatar as a weapon to take out ba sing se and bring peace for good, by ending the war

azula was ozai’s younger child, never a prodigy, and never her uncle’s favourite. her older brother was a firebending prodigy, and sweet and open in a way that appealed to iroh, reminding him of himself at that age. azula was always closed off and antisocial, and received little love from family or friends. she was told that her father burned her face when she was very small, when he lost his mind, but isn’t sure how much she believes that. when she heard of iroh’s plan to get the avatar on the side of the fire nation and use him to wipe out ba sing se, she ran away on a stolen ship, aiming to find and kill the avatar before her uncle can reach him, for the good of everyone. the fire nation encourages the idea that she was as mad as ozai, a danger to herself more than anything

she shaved her head and wears a hood to hide her identity, and is unrecognisable as the missing princess. she’s intensely paranoid and trusts nobody, especially if they come across as too nice. she constantly talks to herself, and hallucinates an idealised version of ozai, who cares about her more than zuko and always validates her worldview. in book 2, she joins the kyoshi warriors, growing her hair out to a pixie cut - initially, she’s with them just to blend in better, but as she spends more time with them, she begins to embrace the idea of fighting in a sisterhood, which is derailed by zuko infiltrating the city in the disguise of an upper-level tea server. in book 3, she finds out that iroh had her father killed, and joins the gaang to train aang to kill the firelord, not understanding that aang is a pacifist

zuko’s a people-pleaser who’s much more confident in himself as a result of being iroh’s favourite and protégé, and under iroh’s tutelage his diplomatic skills are very well developed - he’s calm and polite and extremely manipulative, with a warm smile and nothing behind the eyes. he emulates iroh’s way of dealing with problems, and looks up to iroh as his real father. iroh adopted him as crown prince after the death of lu ten, so zuko has been raised to rule like iroh does. he believes that his uncle would always do the right thing, and repeats iroh’s proverbs verbatim. he speculates on what iroh would do before making choices

his task is to persuade aang to help the fire nation, so he presents as azula’s good brother, who only wants the best for the world. he opens every encounter cordially, regardless of whether or not he just tried to kill someone. behind his careful diplomatic politeness, he does have strong, if skewed, morals, but would never believe the worst of his beloved uncle. he finds azula’s talking to herself embarrassing at best and disturbing at worst, and looks on her with contempt and pity; on one hand, she’s going against his uncle, but on the other, she can’t help being mad. he breaks down when he realises exactly how much iroh isn’t telling him, and that azula was right all along

God, I love the Water Tribe attacks alternate universe but the biggest thing that hurts me is that Hakoda is a bad guy cause like in canon he's such a good dad and a good person. It physically pains me, same as having Iroh or even Zuko as a bad dad. It gives me a really bad out of body experience like when people make a fanfiction about fucking Ozai having a redemption arc.

I totally get what you mean. That’s why I didn’t want to make Hakoda a bad dad necessarily (like in the same way Ozai is a horrible father)— he’d still love his children very much. But in order to make him a believable villain there needed to be something off with him. But yeah— I love canon Hakoda, but for the sake of the au I had to. I’m sorry!!! 🥺🥺