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lightdancer1 · 2 years

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A two part scene from the Ba Sing Se AU:

Zuko laughed at Toph's story that afternoon as hard as everyone else did. Everyone had told one, except him. Even Mai had told hers and it was an admittedly funny and kind of terrifying narrative of the kind he belatedly realized he'd never bothered to ask her.

"So what's your story, Flames?"

Zuko blinked. His would be a more serious, and sadder tale but it still had to be told.

"After everything beneath Lake Laogai," he said reflectively as he stared into the goblet he had in front of him, "Azula told me that I had regained my own honor that day, and that my honor was mine to shape. I thanked Uncle for his wisdom but I never appreciated hers. I was lost, then, to my anger."

He shook his head.

"She's dead now, so there's no risk of speaking of this or admitting some of the mistakes I know I made." His friends' postures subtly shifted at that and Mai noticed this and might have made a point to ask about it afterward had he not continued.

"I thought when she brought me home and said I killed the Avatar that she was playing some elaborate mind game besides that. Toying with me. Playing one of her little 'Azula always lies' gambits." Mai flinched at those words and her fingers rapped on the table slightly but she otherwise said nothing.

"I spent that whole boat trip wondering just what the game was, how she might play it. Father poisoned our lives to the point that when my sister, however misguided, actually did one of the nicest things she ever did for me I looked for the dagger in my back."

He gave a single bitter laugh at that.

"Not that it matters now. But...." Silence paused.

"So the stupidest thing that I did with that was spending a week terrified of how she'd exploit things, of what she would do when we returned and Father was actually happy with me, and proud of me. She was a heartbeat from the throne, from everything she ever actually wanted and she threw it all away to bring me home.

And I just couldn't see that. That first night I got restless with it, so at midnight after inability to sleep I went straight to her room and busted open the door."

The silence before had been one kind of silence. This was a different one, and he did not see the way his friends looked at each other and then at him, let alone the expression on Mai's face and her forcing her fingers to clench so hard she drew blood from her palm rather than giving away anything else she felt.

"She looked...." he sighed. That part of him that knew in the end that his father's approval was the only sign he needed of his mistake as they'd multiplied and the shadows of a greater crisis than that of Yu Dao drew around his people.......that part was in full swing tonight and he wasn't focused on anything else but the ripples in the wine from his stirring it.

"It wasn't like the last times I saw her. Not the Agni Kai, or when I sent her out of the Fire Nation." Mai's expression hardened at that and for the first time his friends saw what the expression of true anger looked like on the stone face. "Her robe that night was....normal. Not the kind of stuff a royal usually wore." Mai's look became darker.

"So I spoke to her about it and she told me the truth as much as she did anything. My sister did something good for me twice, saved my life once. And all I let myself see was the worst shape of everything she did. I was blind. None so blind as those who do not see."

Toph simply thinned her lips and said nothing while Zuko and Katara shared an identical expression and set of hand gestures.

The stories were done and the talks that followed were stilted and awkward, which Zuko detected without fully understanding why. Not until after a strangely formal set of farewells that would be the last time he'd see his friends until five years later his Uncle made a catastrophically stupid decision that would alter a great many lives forever.

That evening Mai stood in front of him in the kind of robes royals were more used to wearing.

"Zuko," her voice was cold and not at all the tone he was used to hearing. "You went into Azula's room in the middle of the night."

He nodded, blinking.

"You talked about her robe."

That tone was colder and he had no idea how she could do that and why he was suddenly nervous.

"Yes. I mean you know she loved luxury, Mai. That was.....an odd choice."

Mai went over to him and they were very close and he saw the tells of her being extremely furious.

"You went to see my best friend, your literal sister, in the middle of the night and barged open in her door without warning?"

In a sudden motion she had one of her knives in her hands, edge pointed away from him.

"If I ever find out about you doing anything like that to someone else, Zuko," from coldness to the steel of her anger, "I'll give a little prick a little prick."

She said "I'll be sleeping in my old room tonight. Good night, my love."

Only Mai could pack more menace into three words of her native language than most people did into an entire speech.

When some of her words registered on him that night at midnight he suddenly sat up with a sudden startled expression and a look of dawning shock and horror. The realities that lurked at the edges were intimidating enough that he fell on the most honored reflex of his family and refused to face them or that there was something wrong and instead went back to sleep pulling his pillow over his head.

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Ba Sing Se University Dorms:

Lu did not understand why, two days from the visit she had a knock at her door. She'd expected it might be her fiancee and then she saw her new friends standing there, a look on their faces she didn't expect. She looked down. No, she was dressed in normal university clothes. She looked around. No particular mess.

"Uh....hi?" Her expression flatly showed confusion.

"Lu," Toph said with a strange tone to her voice, "we just want to....visit."

Sokka coughed and she raised an eyebrow. She knew her new friends did things strangely and this presumably was one of those times. Only much later would she learn the nature of the story and the reasons that lay behind things.

#atla aus #ba sing se au

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a-todd-illustration · 2 months

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#myart #fanart #avatar the last airbender #atla #avatar #zuko #avatar au #femZuko #trans zuko #zukka #sokka #iroh #uncle iroh #ba sing se #idiots in love

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akabanerio · 8 months

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*Zuko getting crowned as firelord*

Ba Sing Se citizens: THAT’s LEE FROM THE TEA SHOP!!!

#katara #zuko x katara #atla zuko #avatar zuko #zutara #incorrect avatar the last airbender quotes #atla katara #avatar aang #fire lord zuko #atla #tea shop au #general iroh #uncle iroh #iroh atla #ba sing se

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herebutnotpresent · 1 year

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click for better quality

Brainwashed Jetko au where both Jet and Zuko get taken by the Dai Li and are displaced in the big city.

Jet and Li find each other anyways.

(That luck however did not extend to their family and friends)

Its all good...then it catches up to them :D

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dathomirdumpsterfire · 4 months

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i feel like maul would get into tea because the perfectionism and theatre of good tea making would appeal to his inner neurotic thespian. he would also just enjoy flavors, after knowing food scarcity. a small 6oz cup is probably the right rate of hydration for him post lotho minor, on fuckin repeat all day of course, so i imagine he picked the habit up naturally.

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comradekatara · 8 months

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had a dream that iroh had a daughter but it was just never mentioned in the show bc he just didn’t give a shit about her. which is damningly plausible tbh. not because he wouldn’t care, but because he wouldn’t know. i actually imagine iroh begot many bastards. would be literally so funny if a couple years after the war ends an earth kingdom woman who can firebend walks into the palace and says “excuse me, but i’m looking for my father…. would you happen to know where i could find iroh?” and causes an international incident.

#they’re like ‘sorry lady but he lives in ba sing se and goes by mushi now. also WHAT?!?!?’#iroh #idk if i should tag this AU. it literally could happen #there was good sport at her making and the whoreson must be acknowledged etc #daiyu #<– decided that's her name

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a-witch-in-endor · 15 days

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Chapters: 19/30 Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & the Fire Sages, Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Yue & Zuko (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar) Characters: Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang (Avatar), Yue (Avatar), Azula (Avatar), Zuko's Hat Additional Tags: Funny Hat Zuko AU, Fire Sage Zuko AU, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Found Family, Fire Hazard Siblings, canon-typical child abuse, Zuko is the Temple's Baby Nerd, Worldbuilding, Zuko Joins The Gaang Early (Avatar), Zuko has never met a hill he wasn't ready to die on, Autism Summary:

High Sage Kenji blesses Fire Prince Zuko with the resilience of the reed, who bends in the wind and never breaks. When he is done, Fire Prince Ozai narrows his eyes, seemingly displeased by this blessing. But Kenji does not speak for himself; he is only a vessel.

-

The newly-crowned Fire Lord Ozai offers his firstborn son to service in the temple.

This turns out to be a catastrophic mistake.

#while mighty oaks do fall #funny hat au #fire sage zuko #sorry for the long disappearance #life got hard #have a 14k chapter because - as always - I wrote way more than I expected to #“It’s hardly like there’s some kind of trouble we could get into by succumbing to Zuko’s passion for paperwork.”#welcome to ba sing se #joo dee 4ever

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bruhstation · 5 months

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a few days ago, I revived my years old hyperfixation. so what better way to keep it in memory than to make an AU based on it with my current special interest <-- has happened several times before

I present to you all: ttte atla AU! set in an era (or rather alternate universe) where the hundred year war didn't happen, the air nomads are still around, and the main conflict -- though it still came from the same source which is the fire nation -- is different now; which is a crazed nonbender scientist from the fire nation with a strong dislike for bending arts and having his own army of technology-boosted soldiers

#thomas the tank engine #thomas and friends #ttte lady #ttte thomas #ttte percy #ttte edward #ttte james #ttte henry #ttte gordon #ttte atla au #senjart #yeah the crazed nonbender is definitely diesel 10 #I'll draw toby and duck and others someday.... just wanna get these quick sketches out of my system #ahhhhh avatar. one of the greatest shows of all time #did you know that drawing dynamic poses is hard (laugh track)#anyways here comes my latest obsession.... hitting fast and hard like a truck!!!!!!#all of these characters joining one by one (sans thomas percy edward) are like:#''leave your country'' ''why'' ''join team avatar''#also in this AU the rws trio used to attend ba sing se university in their youth and were close friends #then they had a huge fight and went separate ways. here comes lady and co bringing them all together without them wanting it (laugh #and james joined team avatar after they witnessed the convoluted ember island theatre play #and he's like Woah the avatar's here? You should let ME join your troupe #that's all for now..... I have info on other characters but my back hurts too much ouchie ow ow #hope you enjoy seeing the cstm ensemble again after weeks of TUGS posting #(they have a role in the AU as well but that's a story for another day)

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demaparbat-hp · 4 months

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what is your Lee and Kya AU based off of ATLA

I've always been a little bit obsessed with Zuko's journey through the Earth Kingdom in Book Two, especially the time he (and the Gaang) spent in Ba Sing Se. The city, the people, the Dai Li, the conflicts... Everything is amazing. I love Jet's arc, and I never get tired of seeing Zuko (however briefly) feel happy and complete with a humble life.

There's beauty to the simplicity of life, and I'd like to explore that with ZK.

Book Two AUs will always be my go-to. From reluctant-travelling-partners to Bluetara-in-Ba Sing Se—I love all of it, so it's only natural the Lee and Kya from the Tea Shop AU came to exist.

The AU itself is only a bunch of scenes in my head so far. Of all my AUs, it's one of the most focused on the vibes and characters than the plot itself. That's not to say there's not a story involved. It's just not my main focus.

It's one of the most common Book Two AUs ever. Zuko and Katara are separated from their companions, find each other and travel together to Ba Sing Se, learning how to work together and falling in love along the way. Nothing new there, except for a few scarce scenes that are so precious to me and, by extension, to the AU itself.

They get help from Uncle Iroh and the White Lotus to get to Ba Sing Se, but they go alone (he'll eventually join them, just not for a long while). No Uncle Iroh = no Jasmine Dragon = more time in the Lower Ring.

There's also a lot more of Jet (and his antagonistic, one sided crush on both Kya and Lee), and possibly some spy/informant work for the White Lotus. Also short hair Zutara because we need more of that.

For some reason, Katara isn't searching for the rest of the Gaang (maybe she believes them dead, or perhaps they were forced to leave her behind at the Swamp and her deeply ingrained abandonment issues resurfaced).

Zuko is Tired with a capital T. Tired of the war, tired of trying, tired of everything.

Uncle Iroh is off on some obscure White Lotus business, and he trusts them both enough to draw them into the Order and ask for their help.

So, a little drama, some spy shenanigans, and lots of fluff.

#dema answers #atla #zutara #zuko #katara #lee and kya from the tea shop au #zutara au #ba sing se #jet #uncle iroh

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jo-gakky · 1 month

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(WIP - ATLA!Submas au) What a nice little family <3 Sure hope the fire nation doesn't do anything STUPID!

#submas #sbms #submas au #ATLA #ATLA submas au #pokemon #pokemon au #ingo #emmet #god the urge to make this aus whole lore a comic or smth-#also just got to book 2 #WHY IS BA SING SE LIKE THIS?!

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luzho · 1 year

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(based on this post by @waterfire1848) what if: sokka and zuko befriend each other in ba sing se!! after the initial shock, they eventually trust each other and even get matching earrings! besties!!

[ID: This is a three panel comic of a conversation between Sokka in his regular outfit, and Zuko as the Blue Spirit, both drawn in warm colors during a sunset. The first panel is a panoramic view of the two sitting on top of a roof in the Ba Sing Se skyline, surrounded by artificial lights. In the second panel, Sokka attentively watches a serious Zuko saying: “Halloween is so stupid. Dressing up, pretending to be someone you’re not...”. In the third panel, Sokka grabs at Zuko’s shoulder with one hand and gestures wildly with another, telling him: “You are the Blue Spirit!”; to which, he only looks away embarrassed and softly responds: “I know...”. End ID]

#my art #zukka #i love how dramatic they both are... they're so silly when together #i also adore those fics in which they meet in ba sing se and try to keep their friendship a secret only to be later discovered by toph:)#this is my love letter to those aus..... thank you so much #also: i once again posed for this thing... i know EXACTLY how sokka would move his hands... we understand each other #ANYWAY back to the tags #zukka nation #zukka fanart #sokka #zuko #sokka fanart #zuko fanart #later i found out this is a friends quote... huh #the colors here were kinda challenging! but i liked it!!!

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lightdancer1 · 2 years

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A three part scene from the Ba Sing Se AU:

Ursa savored, quietly, one irony of her past-present-future. With the departure under a cloud that only she knew the full extent of (and had not informed Zuko because after the incident, as she called her son's expulsion and disowning of her daughter she did not think he could be trusted with certain things) of Lord Jamukha, she was the Great Eye and Ear. So if she was leaning at a table and someone had seen her in the intimidating uniform designed for the Sun around which the Eyes and Ears orbited they wouldn't have been surprised much.

They might have raised an eyebrow at some of the images and the letters but even then they might have seen it as an effort to gather intelligence on someone important. At a level of detachment far higher than Ursa had been able to afford for years, that was precisely what it was. In times of lulls in her job she would do this, take out scrolls where her daughter had written her heart out in increasing sophistication from when she was very young and seeking to understand her as a person.

In the beginning it was guilt and shame that motivated her. Guilt that she had failed all three of her children in different ways (even if Kiyi and she were much happier now, happier than they'd been as Noriko and Kiyi in a way. She did not think that, Kiyi had told her and it was one of the phrases she was grateful her kids sincerely thought). Shame that she had so woefully misjudged her elder daughter rather than letting the actual person shine through.

She had seen the girl as a young child as someone far older than she was. The writing of the six year old and the nine year old made that clear. Sketches, doodles. Her thumb and forefingers pressing smudges of soot onto a page. Some of the drawings were childish but a bit mean-spirited and she remembered some of the images she'd drawn herself as a child.

Later, with the designs and sketches and attention fully focused on them the drawings changed. Many of them were beautiful. There was one she had quietly taken and had framed in her room. A sketch of her, distant and staring into a window in her full regalia, shadows around her.

Other sketches of Mai and Ty Lee, including the other one she'd framed from the war. The three of them against a tree, Azula drawing herself asleep sitting up, painfully dignified. Mai was curled on her right side, an image drawn from life. Ty Lee was sprawled on her front in a shape that left Ursa wondering how many splinters it gave her but that wasn't her problem or her concern, really.

It was the recognition of her daughter's gifts. For so long she'd struggled to get her to take art seriously and then there were these sketches. Images. Azula had. It was not the art she'd wanted her to do, it was a sense of realism that she had never seen or imagined anyone might do.

Those were among the things she'd learned, earlier. Now........now it was another time in between crises, as the so-called Salvation Committee had clearly begun to arm itself and to form its Storm Battalions. Other movements were lurking in the wings, and her own native island had sent her an invitation that she had said nothing to. Not then, anyway.

So very easy to bury herself in who Azula had been rather than confront the rising tide filled with the mythical leviathans of the western ocean, fangs and claws and ready to devour all they wished. Earlier it had been the girl of childhood. Now it was the girl of thirteen and fourteen.

Beyond that, there were those images and stories, some of them surprisingly annotated. She'd seen the annotations and shook her head with a wry amusement. No, bodies could not do that. Yes, men did write of breasts as if they had sapience and yes, men did write stories like this.

It could have and perhaps would have alarmed her slightly that her child seemed to treat stories like this as a measure of reality, let alone that she was growing up enough to think like this. Instead Ursa simply let herself see a glimpse of some of the very most hidden parts of who Azula was, and who she had been.

There were these things, that were very serious and taken seriously.

And there were comical drawings of Admiral Zhao holding a fish and getting the fish's tail to smack him with a character in red ink, not black. There were characters for 'idiot,' 'damn fool', and 'fucking idiot' that Ursa knew well in the standard Fire Nation writing. Azula had used a special one to write 'world's biggest fucking idiot' and it was part of a scroll with scathing comments on her father's lack of wisdom in deciding to approve anything that could lead to the Moon being attacked at all.

That was the part that she kept being drawn to. Again and again her daughter showed she was brilliant, that she was not blind to the truths of what she saw. She might criticize her father's actions yet she still loved him and was loyal to him, and the ideas of going to the war (a sadness crept into her at that thought but it had happened, all of these words were written years ago and they could not be changed) was written with a painfully naive earnestness. And yet she'd rightly written of her father's decisions as reflecting at best a deliberate blindness to the nature of the realm he ruled.

Those were words that made her think, and think more than she'd ever really thought about much of the views she'd held. She knew what the Fire Nation had done to her family, to her grandfather, her mother (a small spike of anger flashed through her at that memory). To her and to Ozai, to their children. Yet a fourteen year old who was dutifully loyal still saw things that Noriko had not seen at that time, nor had Ursa.

She kept being drawn to the image of Zhao. It was a caricature of his with his sideburns hanging down from his face and giving him the image of an overgrown shaved red ape (not entirely untrue to the man in life), the image of a fish-fin with the moon-rabbit slapping him in the face with a spray of water.

She couldn't not laugh at it.

#atla aus #ba sing se au

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a-todd-illustration · 5 months

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What if Huamei and Lee met at the fancy party? Neither one can afford to give away the other- katara has to keep her eyes on the prize while they look for the king, and that Long Feng guy has been looking for an excuse to cause problems. Zuko has to keep a low profile for similar reasons.

But that doesn't mean she can't give him shit and interrogate him while he's forced to serve tea.

#myart #fanart #avatar the last airbender #atla #avatar #zuko #avatar au #katara #zutara #ba sing se

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cringefailmoment · 8 months

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A normal hangout.

First

Transcript:

Red: "See that stick over there, Reuben?"

Red: "That's our target."

Red: "That weirdo hollowhead."

Red: "You're asking me why? It's pretty simple."

Red: "THEY'RE STEALING MY FRIENDS!!"

Red: "Blue never wants to experiment with me anymore. It's always "The Dark Lord" this "and The Dark Lord that!"

Red: "And Yellow always has ideas they want to try with the Dark Lord so they're always too busy to hang out."

Red: "And Orange--"

Red: "A-Anyways! No more of that! Today, I'm dealing with them once and for all--"

TDL: "Is that so?"

TDL: "And here I thought we were getting along just fine."

TDL: "But I guess I can't blame a pest for their nature."

TDL: "So what was that about dealing with me?"

Red: "AAAAAAAAAAAAA"

[Please stand by.......]

TDL: "A petting zoo?"

Red: "Yeah... I wanted to ask if you wanted to go with me."

TDL: "Pft. I thought you were trying to kill me."

Red: "What?! I wouldn't kill you."

TDL: "So why?"

Red: "That's easy! Petting zoos are AWESOME!!"

Red: "There are so many cute animals, and you even get to cuddle them! They're a great place to relax--"

TDL: "No."

TDL: "Why me?"

Red: "Well, you're Orange's friend, right? If I don't want to be left out, I have to become friends with you too!"

Red: "So?"

TDL: "...Fine. I'll come."

#alan becker #animation vs animator #animation vs minecraft #ava tdl #ava red #roommate au #I’m fine I’m normal about stick figures I’m fine #there is no plot in ba sing se (lies)#might redesign tdl.... do not enjoy their human design oomphies

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glassandhoney · 4 months

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everyone’s always like taylor swift this, lana del rey that when it comes to zutara

but to me zutara is so måneskin coded

i have no idea why. just the ✨vibes✨ and the lyrics make sense to me in zk way in my head

but maybe that’s just me

#zutara #zuko #prince zuko #katara #atla #pro zutara #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #avatar the last airbender #edit:#i mostly had honey (are you coming) on my mind when i wrote this #like #imagine the ba sing se refugees au to that song #the potential #immaculate

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waterfire1848 · 1 month

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Avatar AU - The spirits see that Azula, Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee are about to take over Ba Sing Se and claim victory in the war, they decide to interfere and turn the four into little kids.

#just putting this here so I remember it #I’m committing myself to writing this one day #ba sing Se #avatar the last airbender #avatar au #au #azula #zuko #katara #sokka #Aang #toph beifong #Mai #Ty Lee #de aged Azula #de aged Zuko #de aged Mai #de aged Ty Lee

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