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[Go check out Dogs In Love 2 on JelloApocolypse’s YouTube Channel!!]
A draw for Halloween, I hope your like It !
Me I’m really happy to see the results final with the shadow ! :D
ok here me out even more. as an avid zukka shipper lemme put this in here. toph: just chilling and vibing (she just wants her parents off her back) so she does not give a shit. zuko and sokka are like 'fighting' over her but it becomes too competitive at one point that they just start randomly dating. they dont know its happening and no one else except toph realises because, again, shes just vibing. suki and mai DO eventually realise and partake in the chaos by dating each other. suki still stays as 'team zuko' though, just cause she thinks its fun. MEANWHILE zuko and sokka still havent realised whats going on because yes they are smart but theyre also dumbasses. the earth king joined in on the bidding wars with hakoda and ursa but because hes a neutral party he bids for toph to not get with either zuko or sokka. aang's in the corner on the verhe of a mental breakdown trying to keep everything under control. agni himself shows up in zukos dreams telling him to 'beat that water tribe kid otherwise tui and la would tease him for all eternity'. reminder that zuko's still trying to run the nation. aang eventually uses his avatar powers to trap zuko sokka and toph in the spirit world until they figure it out. king kuei of the earth kingdom wins the bet
ok hear me out - when Zuko and Toph got to like 21 and 17 respectively they started being each other’s dates to fancy events they had to attend
Which of course the newly emerging media was taking to like fish to water, publishing all sorts of rumours and musings about whether the Fire Lord and heir to the Beifong fortune were being matched (which definitely would be an advantageous one)
And naturally Zuko and Toph both love it. Zuko because his advisors aren’t badgering him about marriage (whilst he continues to pine after Mai), and Toph because her parents think she’s months away from being the Fire Lady and so aren’t trying to set her up with suitors. So they basically encourage it, always walking into parties arm in arm, both looking hot af, playing up to the crowd
But the rest of the gaang (namely Aang, Katara and Sokka) HATE it because Zuko and Toph won’t actually admit they’re faking it. So even though they all keeping rolling their eyes and saying “we know you’re just messing with us” internally each one of them is like “zuko and toph afksrgkhjrh!!!!!”
Sokka keeps trying to get Toph away from Zuko because he’s like “no you’re too old this is inappropriate” and so is always trying to drag her away and interrupt dances but this just leads to the media thinking that the fire lord and the next chief of the southern water tribe are fighting over the same girl and they LOVE it
Aang is getting really cheesed off because every time he tries to do a press conference he keeps getting asked if he’s Team Zuko or Team Sokka
Suki 100% is living for the chaos
Katara proudly shows off her Team Sokka shirt in the clinic odd days
there are a lot of bad takes in the atla fandom (like, atla fandom may as well be a bad take generator) but something that has really been pissing me off lately is the assumption that you can categorize the fire nation royal family into good guys and bad guys. first of all, obviously, they're all bad guys. they are imperialists. but the idea that "sozin ozai azula bad" and "iroh lu ten ursa zuko azulon(?!) good" is actually insane.
lu ten died attempting to conquer the earth kingdom. lu ten was there because his father, iroh, was leading the siege. ursa laughed when iroh joked about burning ba sing se to the ground. zuko laughed too, mirroring his dear mother who taught him about the wonders of imperialism. and the fact that some people think that azulon was a good guy because he favored iroh is crazy. he favored iroh because iroh was the better imperialist, was more charming and tactically savvy as he bent the world to his will. people who think that azulon didn't like ozai because ozai was cruel literally have it backwards. ozai was cruel because azulon didn't like him. sozin shaped azulon, and azulon shaped iroh and ozai. azulon reigned for most of the war, and he was responsible for decimating the southern water tribe and colonizing the earth kingdom.
iroh only realizes the error of his ways well into middle age, after spending a majority of his life colonizing the world. he only stops to reconsider once he experiences the adverse effects of war for himself through the loss of his son. likewise, zuko can only gain empathy for the victims of the war by being one himself, as a refugee in the earth kingdom, and bonding with people who have been hurt by the fire nation. azula doesn't get that chance. ozai doesn't get that chance. azulon, lu ten, and ursa are dead, so they will never get that chance. but it's not like there is some ontological moral divide separating azula from zuko. zuko was a sensitive child whereas azula was better at embodying fire nation values of power and cunning. zuko was punished for his outbursts whereas azula knew how to keep her mouth shut. therefore, zuko experienced circumstances that led him to disavow fire nation imperialism.
but that doesn't mean that azula is ontologically evil. azula was the iroh of her generation to zuko's ozai, and iroh (eventually) disavowed conquest as well. there is no inherent divide between good and bad, monster and human. ursa was a warm and loving mother to zuko, just as iroh was a warm and loving father to lu ten, but they both laughed at others' suffering. their values were shaped by their circumstances and experiences. their ideologies do not make them less human, or less capable of change, just as their interpersonal behaviors do not negate their abhorrent ideologies.