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I really like all of the custom swearing that you've come up with for your pieces, it makes the world feel so real to have unique cultural swears. Do you have any tips for how to come up with that type of thing?
Thanks! @raksha-the-demon and I have fun coming up with them and usually end up tossing a few options around to find the correct-sounding one.
As for advice, most of it is a result of reading a book on the history of swearing in the English language (for the record: Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr). One of the key points brought up was that one could tell what a culture held sacred and thought profane by the swears it used. In Europe during the Middle Ages, swears that were religious in nature ("damn", "goddamn", "geeze"...) were unthinkably vile while to our ears, they're some of the most mild swears we have. Instead, if you consider what the "worst" words in modern English are, well...it tells you quite a bit about our society's feelings on sex and cleanliness. And how kids can say "dick" but one of the worst insults is very feminine-coded, which says a lot about society's views on women. (Sex is "dirtier" than actual defecation, and even the vaguest implication of possibly being female is deeply insulting.
And you can infer this by how we treat "fuck", "shit", and "cunt" as swears.)
So taking all that, what we basically do is say "okay, what does this culture consider sacred? What does this culture consider profane?"
To use examples from s&a:
Take the Fire Nation. We can say that the things considered sacred are things relating to fire and the sun. "Flame and ash" is one example. So is "hearthfire". On the other hand, things to do with water or earth are a lot worse. Add in anything to do with the dead and ancestors, and you're talking very strong swears. Because the FN has been at war for so long, those are stronger swears than the fire/sun ones.
So "drown your ancestors" is akin to "you fucking son of a bitch" and "flame and ash" is closer to "gosh darnit" than anything else.
It gets really fun when you jump over to the other nations, because there's been a war on for almost a century! And words and ideas migrate and mutate! So the Water Tribe also has "flame and ash", but to them, fire is not sacred. Fire has been profaned in warfare. So that same "flame and ash"? To a Water Tribesman, that's akin to "fucking shit".
So it's all really just worldbuilding. Think about what the cultures think is important and what the cultures fear or are disgusted by. And then build swears around that. Take cues from real-world languages that take swears from not only religion, but also animals and family/ancestors. And then when you have an idea of the flavor you want, just...say it out loud. See how it feels on your tongue. There's that certain cadence to swears that's just really obvious when you hear it.
#atla#salt and ashes#salt and ashes au#nos and her adversarial relationship with words#nos answers things#talking to a ghost
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Just had a thought about catzula: do the cat instincts mean she’s tempted to try to catch Tui and La?
Debatable, but everyone else certainly thinks her intense staring at the two koi can only mean that kitty wants to go fishing.
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how do you think the FN Royal Family would treat both Azula and Zuko if Azula was the first born and Zuko was the second born? their skills, intelligence, and temperament aren't changed, just the birth order.
You know what? This might be somewhat unpopular of a take, but...I don't think much would change at all. On paper, Azula might be Ozai's heir as first born, but considering the things that remain the same, I don't see Ursa and Azula's relationship being any less fraught. (If anything, it might be worse if Azula constantly bucks Ursa's expectations for a proper lady in favor of being her father's heir.)
Iroh...canonically has more than a little sexism that he never really addresses, so I doubt he'd favor Azula over Zuko. If anything, he'd really see Zuko as a do-over for his relationship with Ozai.
Ozai would be Ozai, so at best, she gets more crushing responsibilities.
But given what we see of Mai's family, we can make an assumption in noble families that even if there are some attempts at gender equality, sons are still favored. So Zuko would likely still feel slighted by his father's lack of attention, feel entitlement towards not only that attention but also likely that he should be heir since he's the first-born boy, and just a lot of resentment towards his elder sister. Especially if said elder sister didn't turn around and play "replacement mother" when Ursa disappears.
Basically, I don't think a lot would change, but Zuko's attitude and actions suddenly make him look a lot more like a dickhead.
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#fire hazard siblings#which should tell you something about canon zuko#he can be a dickhead! that's why he's great!
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How do you think the series would play out differently if Azula was Iroh's kid, not Ozai's?
Hm, this probably isn't what you meant, Anon, but here's an idea that came to me. And it's an idea that's free for a good home, if anyone wants to take it.
But let's say Azula is Iroh's kid. Azula is still Ursa's, the product of one lonely night of a lot of alcohol and bad decisions. Iroh does not know this. Ursa suspects, but swallows those down when Ozai looks upon the girl with a satisfaction she mistakes for pride. She swallows them down when Iroh shies away from interacting with his niece, his maybe-daughter, because while things aren't ideal now, they are survivable and not worth the cost of chasing "what-if"s.
(Iroh sees the girl and can do math, and the bitter guilt of his deed sits like ash upon his tongue. He cannot stand the child that could have been his.
Azula has always been the embodiment of Iroh's mistakes.)
Azulon, though. Azulon knows. And Azulon wants firebenders of the lines of Sozin and Roku. Whether this is through one son of his or the other doesn't especially matter, but it's obvious that of course the stronger child came from his favored son's seed. Really, he shouldn't be surprised that his worthless son only produced a weakling, and that Ozai isn't even able to competently fuck his wife isn't any of Azulon's problem.
So when Lu Ten dies, and Ozai makes his bid, Azulon knows the truth. But consider this twist: Azulon admits to himself that Ozai has a minor point. Iroh's failure is too big to ignore. Too many sons of Fire died for nothing, and Iroh spat upon their bones. If he took the throne, the line of Sozin would be overthrown in weeks for the insult. Azulon cannot name Iroh Fire Lord after him. But Iroh does have an heir. She is technically a bastard, but such things are easily fixed.
That night goes like this: Ursa prepares the poison, because no one threatens her son's life like that and lives. Azulon prepares two documents. The first states that Azula is to be his heir after him, and should he die before she reaches the age of majority, her father will rule in her stead as regent. The second states that Azula is legitimized as the child of Iroh and Ursa.
Azulon's last act is one of spite: he tells Ozai as he lays dying at his and Ursa's hands of the edicts. And unlike the Bastard Letter to Ikem, Ozai knows this one is true. He banishes Ursa for this betrayal and this truth. Because no one can know that he is not Azula's father, because as long as the second remains secret, Ozai rules in Azula's stead. (This is why he cannot kill her.) But he does not destroy that second edict, because despite the danger, he might just need it one day.
So let's say the series progresses much the same. Except after their mother leaves, Azula notices that Ozai is a much tougher taskmaster, a lot harder to please, although she can still manage it with enough hard work. (Zuko...does not notice this. Because Zuko's hurts are enough that he has trouble recognizing hurts that aren't his own)
After the war, one of Zuko's acts as Fire Lord is to clear away the propaganda and determine the truth of events. So maybe a young journalist or scholar is pouring over the documents from the end of Azulon's reign and the beginning of Ozai's. And finds two very explosive documents.
And here's the catch: Azula? No one has seen her since a few days after the end of the war. Maybe she's locked away, maybe she fled, maybe she was exiled. But the point is that the news sheets are printing that Fire Lord Zuko without question usurped his sister's throne, that he never had claim in the first place (his father was regent), and the rightful heir is missing.
Zuko is horrified when he confronts Ozai and Ozai confirms it.
Iroh's next visit to the Fire Nation is...not the greatest.
(Zuko's political education turns into a trial by fire and he's forced to get very politically savvy very fast. He does, however, turn his impatience with bullshit into one of his greater strengths. And he learns he has to think for himself, because quite honestly, how can he trust anyone blindly?)
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#zuko's school of hard knocks goes hard on him#but he ends up much more critical of the adults in his life#a universe that runs on irony
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i am *incredibly* invested in this azula-sokka penpals thing now actually. i want to see their two distinct brands of Genius Dumbass colliding
Azula: Oh yes, him. Incredible. Absolutely fascinating. Complete dumbass. Possibly the smartest person I have ever met. He once sent me a sixteen page tactical dissertation on the possible combat applications of training lemurs to drop stinkweed bombs, complete with detailed schematics, three different flight formation diagrams and a prototype harness. Utter buffoon. Almost certainly a generational visionary.
Sokka: I think the best way to sum up her whole "deal" is that one time she sent me two messenger hawks worth of thoughts on Chin-era military philosophy, and at the end asked me, very earnestly, to "break down the concept and structure of a 'knock-knock joke'" because she saw a girl she liked laugh at one.
This is, in fact, exactly how the dynamic goes.
Bonus points: Sokka is attempting to explain his odd pen-pal to Zuko, who still does not know that this person is, in fact, his missing sister.
#nos answers things#eyy-arts#atla#smallest nail au#they have a long-running unspoken competition to send each other the most esoteric topic they can think of at the moment
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I just reread the stuff from your au that spawned the go fish au, and I thought of something terrible that I immediately had to share. “Arnook was confused, at first, when the Fire Lord sent his sister North to ‘atone for the crimes of the Fire Nation’. She had nothing to do with the invasion, with his daughter’s death. Not like the boy and his uncle. But he understands faster than he would like to. He is, after all, an heirless king because of the Fire Nation. At least Hahn was Yue’s age.”
Arnook stands on the pier as the hulking black ship enters the bay. The hulking beast of steel and and blood that supposedly carries his "reparation" from the Fire Nation, the one who will atone for her nation's sins against the northern people of ice and snow, the royal who is sent to carry his heir in her womb. The royal sent to be his new bride.
Arnook still doesn't know how to feel about that.
It doesn't sit right with him, after watching his Yue fade a little more each passing day her marriage to Hahn grew closer. She had been a force of nature as a little girl, curious as a polar bear dog pup, unpredictable as a blizzard, and Arnook loved (loves) her fiercely. But she grew up, and hit the walls of what was expected of her, and because she was good, she was so good, she stayed in those bounds.
Arranging a marriage is what was expected, what was done, how it has always been. His advisors have been bickering over the Fire Lord's missive since it arrived. Some still believed it's a trick, a way to bring the Water Tribes under the control of the Fire Nation without using the sword. Others argue that it is a sign of sincerity, of an alliance tying the two nations together through blood, not bloodshed.
(Only the bloodshed of a birthing bed.)
It is not a strange offer. Very traditional, in fact, enough to garner the grumbling approval of some of the most conservative of his advisors, who take it as a sign that the Fire Lord at least respects them enough to do things in the right and proper way, and send a woman of his own line.
Women have always been used as bargaining pieces.
(Arnook also isn't sure how he feels about that anymore either.)
Only Pakku has been silent. Silent and grim-faced, lips pressed in a narrowed line until they appear white. When asked, he refuses to speak Iroh's name, only saying that he was overruled. And that he trusts that Arnook will do right by the Fire Lord's sister when the time comes.
The great beast of a ship groans as it eases up to the dock, and the gangplank is lowered. A lone figure in black and red appears on the bow, bundled against the cold. Arnook stands up straighter as the figure walks slowly, mechanically, down the gangplank. She walks like she has ice in her spine. (She walks like she is walking to her death.)
The muttering starts as soon as her boots hit the snow on the dock. She stops in front of him and bows low, far lower than her station demands she should if he's remembering his etiquette correctly. (Except...he dimly notes the absence of a topknot, of shorn hair and a lack of hairpiece) "Greetings to you, Chief Arnook of the Northern Water Tribe. I have been sent to you by my...brother, the Fire Lord, to repay the loss of Princess Yue, your heir in," she manages not to choke on the last few words, "whatever way necessary and fit."
Arnook looks at the child in front of him. Because that is what she is, despite the made-up artifice put on her face to make her look far older than she must be. La's merciless depths, the girl must be younger than Yue was. She stands before him, stiff and shivering not from the cold, but from the fear she's desperately trying not to show.
(Another girl just trying to be good? To do what is right and expected of her? Even when asked to do things that will very well destroy them?)
Arnook looks at the child in front of him the Fire Lord sent for him to bed and feels rage. The idea of…it makes him ill to even consider. To even suggest something like that be done to a child proves that the Fire Nation is not to be trusted, if they would so insult the Water Tribes so.
Still, the Fire Lord sent this child to them. If Arnook were to refuse, what's to say that the boy wouldn't just send his younger (younger!) sister someplace worse? To someone with less scruples? In that case, the answer is clear. If the Fire Lord sent her to "repay" the loss of his heir, well, political asylum or integration into the tribe works just as well as anything else.
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#this turns into a clusterfuck real fast#unreliable narrator alert#zuko didn't actually intend that message#zuko intended that azula go and help rebuild infrastructure and trade routes not be used as a child mother#he did say that azula would 'help repay arnook for the lose of yue'#the scribe taking dictation misunderstood that as a euphamism#as did everyone else#zuko is going to have a nasty surprise when he finds out#that his father grandfather and great-grandfather all loved their double-speak and layered meanings#and so everyone in the palace is conditioned to understand that#go fish au#kinda
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How did Ozai find out about Azula's attraction to women, and what did he do that was bad enough to make her completely jump ship and leave everything behind at the first opportunity?
It happened during the 3 years after Zuko was banished. Azula was fairly young when it dawned on her that her inclinations did not run towards men. And promptly had a quiet crisis because of Sozin's laws making homosexuality illegal and this was definitely not something her father would be okay with. Ty Lee had already run off to the circus by this point, so it was just Mai, but Mai noticed. And so Mai paid a bit more attention. She eventually cornered her best friend (with a little bit of incriminating evidence), and Azula admitted that she might, just might, not really be all that straight.
Mai keeps her silence.
But that "evidence"...see, Azula is methodical. So she wanted to find out for certain if this was just a weird moment or if she really is gay. And since she can't exactly go out and experiment (and she's like 12-13), she does the next best thing. She reads. And finds that het romances bore her stupid. Does a little bit of sneaking around and gets her hands on some other literature and wow, is...is she supposed to be that intrigued by two ladies doing interesting activities with each other?
Unfortunately, at some point after Mai is gone with her family, the wrong servant happens to discover that the princess has an illegal stash of illicit literature, and looking to get in the good graces of the Fire Lord, promptly goes and informs the man.
Ozai is, in fact, not okay with this. What follows for Azula are a couple of months of Ozai essentially trying conversion therapy, which was a lot of beating disguised as "one-on-one training" (read: Ozai spends a few hours kicking his kid around a training room while hurling "corrective" insults) and "endurance training" (read: hold a stance for hours in the hot sun, miss meals), and the like.
The final straw, however, was when he sent her out to capture Iroh and Zuko, making it clear that she was either to return with them (in chains) or not at all. Iroh, who is still a master firebender with three times more experience than Azula has years of life. And she's being sent over a literally hostile Ocean, into hostile territory, with a pretty minimal force for the only viable heir. And her status as the only viable heir currently is the thing Azula is certain is keeping Ozai from killing her outright. But if she brings Zuko home, even if it's in chains, she's pretty certain Ozai's likely to restore his position. Which means Azula becomes incredibly expendable.
Azula basically sees the writing on the wall that sticking around without anyone on her side is a death wish and hightails it outta there.
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#smallest nail au#azula does love the fire nation and is loyal to it#but comes to the ugly realization that the fire nation does not love her#at least not then
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Zuko: I always known the throne is my destiny
ghost Lu-Ten in the background: ... um??????
Azula, looking at her nails: Yeah, and people think I'm the power-hungry and entitled one.
ghost!Lu Ten: Weren't you trained to basically be my glorified PA and walking encyclopedia?
Azula: And absolute last in the line of succession, which means that literally everyone else would have to die or be incapacitated for that to happen, which doesn't really mesh well with my crippling fear of being abandoned?
ghost!Lu Ten: Yeah, little Zuko saying that really makes me wonder if I should have expected a fire dagger in the back.
Azula, scoffing: Please, Lu. It's Zuzu. He'd do it from the front.
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#this is somewhat funnier if people think azula is just hallucinating#she's a little bitter#lu ten wonders if zuko would follow his other modus operandi#and just sell him out to his own father#lu ten died an imperialist and would see zuko as a turncoat
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Does zuko believe ozai when he talked about azula being gay, or was that put in the ozais lies category?
Mai folds her arms across her chest as she watches Zuko enter...Hour 2 of this rant about his apparent reputation among the populace. If she's being fair, this has been building for quite some time and it was really just a question of when he was going to explode with all his feelings all over everything. Really, it's impressive that he's lasted this long.
However, Mai is over being "fair" by at least 45 minutes, and if Zuko starts repeating himself, she will not be held responsible for the consequences.
"It's like it doesn't matter what I say! Everyone's still just going to believe I killed her!" Zuko says, tossing his hands up. "Even when she's not here, Azula still manages to ruin my life!"
Mai sighs and suppresses a wince. She loves him, really, she does. But Azula was her best friend, and she's dead. (Mai thinks on some level, she'll always hate her father for taking the posting away from the capital. Making her live with the question of if she were there, would Azula still be alive?) It gets incredibly trying to listen to Zuko's version of the girl, built on three years of bitterness, resentment, and misplaced anger.
But it's probably because of comments like that, when added to the fact that Zuko and Iroh were among the last people known to see Azula alive before the two conveniently wandered into the Earth Kingdom wilderness for awhile? Small wonder people think Zuko shoved his sister's body under an unmarked rock somewhere.
Still, maybe it's time to redirect this rant masquerading as a conversation before she feels the need to stab something (or someone) she'd later regret. "What did your father have to say?"
"Huh?" Zuko stops pacing and blinks at her.
"Ozai. You went to talk to him about this."
He scoffs. "He's full of ostrich-horseshit and less useful. He wouldn't tell me anything, and instead tried to get me to believe some obvious lie as to why he didn't care about what happened to her."
Mai raises an eyebrow.
Zuko laughs a little. "He said Azula was a sleeve-cutter, if you could believe it." He shakes his head. "Called her all sorts of vile names."
Mai feels the blood drain from her face. Ozai knew. That...that changed everything.
(Mai hadn't meant to learn that secret. She just notices things, she always has. It's easy to notice things when people like to forget that you're there, when you are forced to be quiet and be what someone else wants without them telling you. So when Azula had started acting a little more withdrawn, a little more stressed, a little more distracted and paranoid? Yes, Mai noticed. And eventually, she wanted to know why.
She did not expect the small but well-read and annotated collection of very illegal illicit and very educational scrolls on what two women might do in bed together.
...well, okay. The annotations were pure Azula, which was what convinced her this was not a prank.
She remembers wide, scared eyes, hunter's gold in a pale face as Azula let her defenses down. The stuttered, halting quiet admission that she thought she liked girls like that. It leaves Mai breathless even now to think about that level of trust, from someone like Azula to someone like her, in a place like the Palace.
Entrusting her with a knowledge that placed a knife as sharp as any of her ones made of steel at Azula's throat.)
Zuko stops and stares at her. He blinks and takes two steps closer. "Mai? What is it?"
Mai swallows past a suddenly dry throat. "That...wasn't a lie, Zuko."
"What?"
"Ozai wasn't lying. Not about that."
Zuko shakes his head. "No, that can't be..." He stares at her. "Since when?!"
She rolls her eyes. "Since always? I don't know, Zuko, I'd guess she was just born that way! I have no idea how the blazes your father found out, though. But that finally explains some things."
He's quiet for a moment. "But if Azula was...but if he knew that, then that means he really did..."
Mai nods. "Yes, that's exactly what that means. I always wondered what could have even driven someone like Azula to run in the first place. That's one of the few things that could have done it."
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#smallest nail au#zuko: error.exe abort retry ignore?#(13-year-old azula didn't quite have a stash of annotated ukiyo works#but that's only because she kept more to written form than woodblock prints)
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Ghost Lu Ten: you can see me?
Aang: yeah...
Ghost Lu Ten: can you tell my father and Zuko something?
Aang: sure! 😄
Ghost Lu Ten: fuck you backstabbing hypocrites! 🤬
Aang: ...
You know, if they all thought Azula was just hallucinating Lu Ten, why, certain people might argue that she's just clearly unbalanced and far too much of a danger to herself and others to be left unchecked. And certain adults manage to convince Aang and the rest that it's really for her own good if she loses her bending.
Iroh isn't exactly stopping it.
But when Aang goes to where Azula's being held, he's shocked to see the tall man in the room with her. Who looks a lot like Iroh.
Turns out, Azula absolutely is not hallucinating. And Lu Ten is absolutely furious that his father's inaction would kill his baby cousin when it already killed him.
Things...do not go the way the White Lotus planned from there.
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How long does it take the fire nation crew to find azula in smallest nail?
Technically, they don't until long after the war. Zuko takes the throne and rules for a few years all while thinking his sister is out there either dead or Plotting His Demise (first because they've always been in competition, and then because he thinks he fucked her over when she actually needed help).
The Gaang, however, stumble across Azula sometime before they hit Ba Sing Se. They end up in a tight spot and get bailed out by a snarky-yet-serious intense girl of Fire Nation descent in a small Earth Kingdom town, and only afterwards does the girl realize that she just saved the Avatar's hide.
(In for a penny, in for a pound and all that...)
The girl's mother shows up and the Gaang get to spend the night or few at their little place far outside the town. The Gaang learns that although the girl might be a brilliant fighter and a tactical genius to rival Sokka, she's a human disaster in other social interaction. Based on those facts, the girl's appearance, how that differs from her mother (who doesn't look nearly as Fire National), and how far from town the two live? There are some assumptions made that one does not ask in polite company.
(In a fit of irony, this assumption is further cemented when they see the girl firebend. I mean, come on. Blue fire? That's not normal Fire Nation.)
Sokka, Katara, and Aang know better than anyone that war is not kind to anyone. And Toph can detect no lies when the girl refers to her mother, nor when the woman refers to her daughter.
In the end, although the girl won't go with them, she does give Aang some firebending tips. (And he wheedles out the promise that if he can't find another teacher, he can come back and she'll think about it.) And somehow, no one is really surprised when two days later, the girl's pet falcon is waiting outside their tents in the morning, with a letter addressed to Sokka with an answer to a riddle he challenged her with three days earlier.
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#smallest nail au#azula thinks she got the last word#sokka begs to differ#and thus starts the utterly ridiculous penpal exchange#katara is exasperated#aang is making sure this poor bird gets fed and proper affection#(this bird is so spoiled it's living its best life)
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heyo, can you explain to me why most Azula writers dislike the Zuko is an awkward turtleduck tag? /gen
Personally, I don't hate the tag, really. But I find that it is often a flag at times for a certain kind of Zuko characterization that tends to show up in fics.
It's mostly a characterization that ignores at least 75% of Zuko's actual character in the show, specifically where he's a hot-headed, impulsive, angry young man full of grit and stubborn determination. And instead replaces it with only the boy who got hugged by his mom (and not the boy who threw bread at turtleducks or threatened to throw a knife at his sister when she mocked his aim, a threat that actually did shut her up) and the young man who's attempts at comfort are "that's rough, buddy".
(There's an additional unfortunate tendency I've seen in fics that further go down this path and go so far as to make me as a reader start seeing this "sympathetic" Zuko as someone with extreme amounts of learned helplessness and exploitative incompetence. The latter of which is straight up "so incompetent that everyone feels sorry for him and works to make things better/easier for the poor fluffy baby".
It's not a cute look normally. In a setting where the other characters who "feel sorry" are literally survivors of genocide perpetrated by the dude's family, it's especially egregious.)
Additionally, this characterization that ignores s1, s2, and most of s3 Zuko also warps the characterization of others. Which possibly reaches its nadir in characterizations that present Azulon as a good guy for liking Zuko but still ordering the genocide of the Southern Water Tribe and 50+ years of bloodshed over the entire Earth Kingdom.
This phenomenon of a characterization becoming popular isn't exactly new in fandom. If I had to guess, somewhere years or over a decade ago, some fanfic wrote a very sympathetic Zuko that made him a bit softer than canon. And this got wildly popular. So people copied the characterization, since hey, that must have been something good, right? Rinse, repeat, and things warp over time. What that original fic was, I have no idea. We possibly can never know, because it's incredibly likely that that original wouldn't get the "awkward turtleduck" tag today.
Am I against the characterization of Zuko as a horribly awkward young man with endearing moments? No, of course not. It's canon that the boy is terrible at social situations, and the only person worse at them is his sister. And I'm not against that tag on principle. It's just that the use of that particular tag now has the unfortunate connotation of flattening Zuko's character until all that's left is that.
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#zuko is an angry ball of fire and questionable impulse control#please let the boy be the 16-year-old dumbass teenager he is
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Okay, cat!Azula is cool and all, but… Otter!Azula is superior. (Wires may have been crossed) (no but seriously what’s the best/worst/cutest animal Azula could get turned into)
No! DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS.
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How is zuko tracking azula? In the original smallest nail the gaang kinda just stumbled upon her by accident.
He's not necessarily doing it well. Since Azula abandons her task, Zuko doesn't give up on hunting the Gaang quite so soon. He's still focused on capturing Aang, and also half-thinks that this is all somehow a trick by Azula to capture the Avatar first. Or...something.
But it's also why he recruits Mai and Ty Lee, because if nothing else, Zuko thinks they're going to have an easier time finding out information about a lone girl who looks like the princess wandering around than he would, given that Iroh is pretty certain that Ozai is lying about wanting them back and has probably put up wanted posters. (Zuko...also thinks that obviously since Azula is a spoiled brat, she'd handle being on her own much worse than he is, so all he has to do is listen for rumors.)
...so yeah, how much successful tracking is going on is an entirely different question.
Once Zuko ends up joining up with the Gaang (because he will), I'm not sure if he gives Azula up as dead and stops looking, only to stumble upon her by accident. Or if he tells his new friends that his untrustworthy and father's favorite sister is on the loose in the Earth Kingdom, and colored entirely by Zuko and Iroh's opinions on her, the Gaang and WL decide they need to deal with Azula before Ozai, and not leave the FN throne as a free-for-all.
#nos answers things#Anonymous#smallest nail au#or a combination of the last two#the wl want to make sure azula is neutralized and not-a-problem before the war is over#and then the gaang just stumble over her on complete accident
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Zuko: Azula! We’ve finally found you! Surrender now or-
Azula: Listen Zuzu now is not a good time a have class in 5, so if you want to do this whole… thing it’s going to have to be another time.
Zuko: Wha- No! You are coming back to the-
Azula: Listen here “brother” you took Ursa’s love, Iroh’s favor, and you have your damn throne! I stayed up all night finishing this assignment, YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY GRADES FROM ME!
Sokka: *taps Boomerang meaningfully on his shoulder* Zuko, buddy, I gotta agree with your sister on this one.
[Zuko shoots him a look of betrayal.]
Sokka: *shrugs* Look, all I'm saying is that she has her priorities and I respect that.
#nos answers things#Anonymous#atla#smallest nail au#in which azula is a giant fucking nerd#wait that's canon
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How would zuko feel if in smallest nail he and the gaang never found azula and he came home to azula just being gone? (Mai and ty lee are in traffic and can’t tell him right now)
There's an itch under his skin that he can't scratch. The war is over; they won, and now it's him who sits on the Dragon Throne. In being ready to give up everything he ever wanted and accepting the Avatar's hand in friendship, Zuko actually got everything he dreamed of. His crown and his throne, his honor restored, actual friends at his side and a father-figure he can respect.
So why is he so unsettled?
Okay, stupid question. It's Azula. It's always Azula. She's been the bane of his existence since she was born. According to Uncle, who remembers Mom's pregnancy, his sister was ruining things even before that. So of course it makes perfect sense that she's managing to ruin even this when she's not even here.
Zuko's hands clench at the memory. Turns out, not only did Azula never come home, but as far as the Fire Nation is concerned, he and Uncle were among the last people to see her alive. Something that Ozai had congratulated him on.
He finally got his father's approval, and it's because his father thinks Zuko killed his sister.
Maybe that's why he's here again, staring down at the man who ruled his childhood on the other side of the bars. Something isn't right here. Azula was the favorite, the better of them, the one his father always praised. Zuko was the screw-up. If anything, Ozai should have been furious or distraught or something if he really thought Azula was dead. So, she can't be. And if she's not, then he knows she's off plotting something twisted and nefarious and needs to be stopped.
"Another visit from the Fire Lord himself? My, whatever did I do to rate such an honor?" Ozai drawls.
Zuko grits his teeth. "Azula. Where is she?"
Ozai raises an eyebrow. "I would assume in some unmarked grave under a worthless rock in some backwater Earth Kingdom village. But why ask me? If you didn't dispose of her body, son, I suggest asking my brother." He pauses, then shrugs elegently. "In which case, I would be forced to amend my previous assumption. There wouldn't be any of her left to find."
"What?" Zuko blinks. "Uncle wouldn't..."
His father scoffs. "Don't be an idiot, boy. Did Iroh tell you some cute tale of how he earned the title 'Dragon of the West'? He won that name by carving a trail of ash and blood through the Earth Kingdom. He left no bodies because he burned them all." Ozai leans back, a cold smile on his face. "He was our father's favorite, and I spent more years than you've lived hearing how very proud Iroh made him."
"That doesn't mean..."
"Do grow up, Zuko. I was not blind to the distaste Iroh held for your sister. I don't know how this morality of his works, or what the girl did to earn it, but he was not subtle in his dislike since she started firebending."
(Azula started firebending when she was two. Zuko remembers that day very well, the mixture of pride and jealousy burning in his stomach even then.)
Zuko shakes his head. This is just Ozai trying to get into his head. Zuko knows Uncle, knows who he is and trusts him. He's not going to let...whatever this is distract him. "Whatever. You haven't answered the question. You can't possibly think she's dead, so where is she?"
"Why can't I think she's dead?" Ozai sounds genuinely curious.
"Because she's your favorite! Azula's always been your favorite!" Zuko shouts. "You expect me to believe you don't care at all?!"
Ozai just blinks at him. "Why would I care? She's worthless to me now."
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