Long Time, No See Y’all

Atla Gen Week 2022.

Day 2: Culture.

The Fire Nation has some strange and extreme customs. Some just.

[ID: Mini comic with four vignette in monochromatic magenta.

In the first vignette, teenage Azula, Zuko and Lu Ten walking uphill toward a volcano. The setting is tropical and the three are seen from the back. Azula says “Since the last eruption of that volcano 50 years ago, new species of plants continue to be found”, Lu ten replies “Excellent! It is an opportunity to see first hand what is there”, and Zuko mentions “Who knows, we might find some hallucinogenic mushrooms that I’m missing”.

In the second vignette, Zuko and Azula are shown in the foreground observing some mushrooms on some rocks with other plants. Azula says “I don’t think you have those in your collection, Zuzu” and Zuko adds “I had never even seen this mushroom before”.

In the third vignette, Lu Ten quickly snatches the mushroom from the rock and chews it, saying “For science!”, while Zuko and Azula look scared and surprised yelling “Lu Ten, no!!”.

In the fourth vignette, there is a note in the Recipe Book that says “An investigation after the incident with the Fire Lord Lu Ten, the use of that mushroom was allowed as an ingredient for an exotic culinary sauce, which properly prepared and depending on its concentration, its effects vary from sweating to hallucinogenic visions”. End ID]

@atla-gen-week

need a fic where butterflies start following ellie around and she has no idea sarah loved butterflies or there's any connection whatsoever but when they're sitting outside on the porch one day and a butterfly lands on ellie's shoulder joel thinks he's going to pass out

Why isnt this ship more popular? I mean, they lived in the same house, literally raised a family together, zoey sacrificed her immortality to save aphmau and have i mentioned that they were ROOMMATES

Anyways, have this drawing of them together

I GOT THE WHOLE TAOB SWT GANG (plus zuko and zi se, unplus katara and sokka. Another time guys <3) ALL DRAWN @hella1975 NFJWKSM. They are definitely not perfect, but I combined a lot of the og show, my imagination of the characters AND the other taob fanart I've seen haha

AND DID ANYBODY EXPECT A TEENAGE ZI SE I SURE DIDNT- I made this up on the spot as I was sketching stuff, don't take any of it really seriously lmao. His clothes are mixed with Fire Nation and Water Tribe because I Said So. the boy is a rascal and we all know it

(And then under the cut is a transparent version of the SWT, and one with notes all over it so I can point out the details I did on purpose lol)

Fic Snippet!

“Are you out of your mind?” Zuko rushed across the courtyard and bore down on Aang with an intense, almost palpable fury. “Do you know how badly you could’ve hurt her?”

“I was just…I didn’t mean to-“ Aang stammered.

“Fire is not a toy!” Zuko bellowed at him. He turned to Katara, examining her for injuries. “Are you okay?”

“I’m alright,” she assured him, her voice shaking. “I’m fine.” She was trembling visibly, and there were singe marks on her clothes, but she otherwise seemed unharmed. Zuko turned back to Aang, how was looking down at his feet in shame.

“What were you thinking?” Zuko demanded.

“I don’t know,” Aang mumbled, kicking at the ground. “I was…mad.”

“About what?” Zuko was absolutely bewildered. “What could Katara possibly have done that you thought it was a good idea to do that?”

“Nothing,” Aang admitted sullenly. He didn’t say anything after that. Zuko glowered at him, took a few deep breaths to quell his own anger.

“You’re going to clean this mess up,” he said gesturing to the torn up stones, dirt and cooling lava. “Then you’re going to do 100 fire squats. Then you’re going to work on your forms for an hour. And I don’t want to see so much as a curl of smoke out of you. You’re not responsible enough for fire. Understood?” 

“What? That’s not-“ Aang’s protests died on his lips when he saw Zuko’s expression.  He huffed, kicked at stone, and finally nodded.

“Get started,” Zuko ordered through clenched teeth. He turned back to Katara, who was watching the exchange. She was still shaking a bit. Zuko draped his arm protectively around her back and guided her away. He glanced back once more at Aang, and almost rolled his eyes when he saw the younger boy still moping at the ground. It was hard sometimes to reconcile the awesome might and eminence of the Avatar with the reality of Aang, the child.

“I’ll be back,” he warned Aang. “Have this mess cleaned up. And don’t even think about asking Toph to help.” 

I know canonically, the Lava Fissure Incident takes place while Zuko and Sokka are rescuing Hakoda, but I wanted to have Zuko see and react to it. Personally, I think it was another accidentally accurate depiction of how unready Aang is to be the Avatar. And it is also another incident that the narrative decides not to call Aang out for, so the chances of him growing from it are...well, we all know how things turned out in LoK.

I just remembered my second Pride, where I made different flag themed daisy chain bracelets/necklaces to hand out. I need folks to understand something:

They were free.

They were fucking free.

They were maybe ¢60 of acrylic yarn each at the most, and the whole ziploc bag of them took 2 hours max.

Three people gave me sad eyes until I took their money.

Someone who was clearly the mom friend of their group made me take a $5 and gave a 10 minute pep talk.

At least four more people insisted on getting change to pay for the, once again, free bracelets.

In spite of all these shenanigans, the absolute best was this one person who I can only describe as, “queer surfer dude who looks like a boyfriend who looks like a girlfriend.” I can remember nothing of the outfit, only the impeccable vibes. I did the same thing I did with everyone else, explaining the bracelets were free, and they nodded along as they took the last 6 strand rainbow bracelet. As soon as they had it on their wrist, they pointed at something over my shoulder and, like a fool, I looked.

Next thing I know, they’re running off cackling, yelling, “YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME!” and I’m holding a fucking $20. I had to stop at least two people from chasing them, cause they thought the person stole something, and then they tried to give me money cause they thought it was funny seeing me flail over people being Too Nice.

That was the year I got reverse-robbed at Pride. I hope everyone out there is having a good time and, in particular, that queer surfer dude is out there still causing benevolent chaos.

Artist Zuko really is one of the best things in the world!!😍

HE IS!! I love the idea of it being therapeutic for him (hence his characterization in All the Lights are Shining). I also love the idea of him just being super casual about it. I headcanon that it was something he had to learn as part of his formal education like all of the other noble kids, but he just became exceptional at it. His mother encouraged him (of course) and Iroh continued to do so once Zuko was in his care. So Zuko is just like, “Yeah. This is a skill I was required to learn, but it’s also one of my favorite hobbies and it helps me work through all of my emotions and trauma. And I guess I’m kind of decent at it?”

Also, when the Gaang finds out he can draw, Suki and Toph mercilessly tease Sokka about how much better an artist Zuko is than him. And Katara and Aang want Zuko to teach them how to draw. They keep asking him and he finally relents. It turns out Aang is pretty decent, but Katara is just as bad as Sokka. Zuko is just perplexed by that because Katara excels at so many things, so how is she so bad at this?

(I just have a lot of ideas surrounding artist!Zuko. 🥰)

Y’all want some really dumb Modern Jetko hcs?

What am I saying of course you do. 

This ended up being way longer than I intended so I’ll put them under a cut, but let me know if you want more. I think about these two a lot.

Keep reading

This is the beginnings of a Zue au where Zuko is banished to the North Pole/used as a pawn to keep the water savages under the Fire Nation thumb. If their prince marries Yue, he becomes the chief consort, so it's like the Fire Nation took over without having to actually do anything.

At first they are distrustful, since they've both been raised with stories of the other nation being evil. But Zuko is such a sweety and Yue is smart, they figure out that they are actually destined to be bffs!

Also, the person giving Zuko away here isn't Ozai. It's some diplomat.

If you're still taking TOH requests, would you draw Darius, maybe bonding with either Hunter or Eber? He's one of my absolute favorite characters too!

*cries on the floor and never recovers*

I NEED MORE DARIUS!!!! I get the feeling we might've gotten more of his backstory had we not been robbed of season 3.... Like, why he and Amity's dad fell out of friendship, his relationship with the old golden guard. There's so much mystery left to explore!!!!! TAT!!

And with those kind of themes being played out on the kid main characters too, I could totally see an episode meant to happen where the show deals with an adult having to come to terms with old burned bridges.

Like how Willow and Amity became friends again. But imagine it between adults, y'know? That has held these feelings for so much longer. The drama. It is so... juicy!!!!

AND HIS "I TOTALLY DONT CARE" ATTITUDE BUT HE TOTALLY SO DOES CARE!!!

Adult characters that is like "lmao I hate everyone and these children annoy me" and then wind up being their designated best parent is... ... one of my fave tropes...

I am.. weak... for this character type.

I love him. TTATT!!! Dariiuusss!!!!