#btw shaun and katy totally went as zuko and toph on halloween

[mellpenscorner]

My Long and Totally Unsolicited Shang-Chi/A:tLA Headcanon

Ok, so Katy is a young millennial who strikes me as a little bit of a nerd anyway, right? She would have 1000% grown up watching Avatar and LOVED it. She also strikes me as the type of person who wouldn’t have given two hoots about it being a “kids’ show“ and would have kept rewatching it all through her teens (as everyone should). So when she meets Shaun and finds out that he’s never seen it, she’s scandalized and makes plans to binge it with him over their fall break. They’ve known each other for like, a couple months at this point.

Shangqi had been willing to watch whatever this American cartoon was because Katy seemed to like it, but from the first time he hears Zuko say “I have to restore my honor,“ Shangqi is hooked. Katy had their marathon planned out so they could watch the series in a week, but Shaun just keeps asking to watch the next episode, and they manage to do it in three days. Katy’s psyched that he loves the show as much as she does, but there’s also something different about how he’s taking it in. He’s not just watching a cool story; he’s invested, and Katy’s not exactly sure how to deal with that. He hangs on Iroh’s every word and follows Zuko’s arc like his life depends on it.

Katy hasn’t seen Shaun show much of any emotion yet, so now she panics when they’re watching the season two finale and she looks over to see pure devastation in his face. The episode closes on Zuko’s betrayal and Aang’s injury, and Shaun hangs his head like his best friend just died. Katy leaps up from her place on the couch next to him and puts in the next DVD, quickly assuring him that it gets better, but she's still just as confused when he ends up crying almost every other episode for the whole third season.

They finish the show, and Shaun loves it. It becomes his favorite series of all time, to the point that it kind of weirds Katy out, but she gets used to it. Years later, a few months after they get back from their multi-dimensional monster-killing vacation, Katy crashes on her couch and queues up her favorite comfort show, and the realizations hit her like a brick to the face:

Fifteen-year-old Shangqi had been away from home barely a year when he watched this for the first time.

He had seen a kid the same age as him struggling to prove himself to his father by hunting someone down.

He had watched Zuko’s determination fizzle out into uncertainty when he realized he couldn’t go back home.

Shangqi had seen Zuko make the wrong choices, but had also seen that he still had a life to live and choices to make after that.

He had heard echoes of his mother in Iroh’s love and wisdom, and had seen Zuko taken back by someone he loved after an unspeakable betrayal.

And finally, Shangqi had seen Zuko reject his father’s plan and build his own legacy.

When Katy sees Shaun later that afternoon, she hugs him extra tight and asks if he wants to watch Avatar. As always, he says yes.

TL;DR: Shaun/Shangqi is Prince Fire Lord Zuko and the emotions HIT.

#MCU #Marvel #shang chi and the ten rings #shang chi #avatar #avatar: the last airbender #atla #btw shaun and katy totally went as zuko and toph on halloween #at least twice #shaun #katy #shaun x katy #they are now #otp #textpostsbymellpen #convoswithmoystarushka