Avatar: The Last Airbender
One of the great unanwered questions of the old Avatar series is what happened to Ursa and it looka like this will be answered in a Dark Horse comic called The Search; this will be written by Gene Yang with input from Bryke like The Promise. Frankly, this does not bode well. I actually liked some things about The Promise like Toph's metalbending academy and even the scenes between Zuko and Ozai which finally gave Ozai some depth and intelligence but overall it seemed to ignore three seasons of character developement for a contrived conflict and cheap drama.
Azula will feature heavily in The Search and I swear if she gets redeemed after a hug from Mommy my laptop will be in serious danger of being hurled across. I think Azula is an interesting character and a great villain but I also think she's a sociopath despite any soft touches appearing in The Beach. A pet peeave of mine in Avatar fandom are the Azula apologists. The ones who say she actually had it worse than Zuko. They blame Ursa, they blame Iroh, I've even heard them say that Zuko should've been a better brother to her or that if Mai and Ty Lee had been real friends they coul've been her anchor. Blaming Ozai is justified but at least one person proceeds to go on about how she was sexually abused by her father and her life had been so much worse than Zuko who only got a scar which prompts me to wonder if I missed a special episode in the third season detailing said abuse. Azula apologists seem to be jealous of Zuko on her behalf; he's a crybaby, she would've beat his in if she'd been in her right mind, she's had a harder life than him and would've been good too if Ursa wasn't a mean mommy and Iroh wasn't a misogynist; otherwise he would've have fixed her. Never mind that as a little she refers to himderisively and that Iroh wasn't even able to fix Zuko or Crossroads of Destiny would've had a different ending; in the end Zuko had to fix Zuko. People also seem to forget that Ty Lee was actually forced to join Azula when the latter set her safety net on fire preferring to ignore this in favor of Azula apologizing to her once in The Beach.
Argh, I know, fandom being fandom. In happier new I've really gotten into some Avatar fics.
Sunchild by weirdlet
Features a genderswapped Zuko exiled in disgrace because of a pregnancy which sounds like it would be outrageously bad but its fantastic. Its deep and graceful and somehow just so true to the characters in show, particularly Zuko.(now called Zura) Honorable mentions go out to Iroh, Jet, Ozai and the counterparts of Mai and Azula. A work in progress that probably won't progess which makes me a sad panda.
World Stops Spinning by Nautica
I just love her style, the way she puts words together and each character's introspection. Some things I wonder about. Why didn't the airbenders ever try to contact Aang or wouldn't the Royal Family make sure their spouses were either firebenders or closely related to Firebenders but overall I love this AU.
Stalking Zuko series by emletish
Just really fun to read. Its Zutara but the whole Gaang and friends get love and developement which is impressive considering its strictly from Katara's point of view. I find Katara's changing feelings believabla and at the same time its about so much more than that. We get her struggles against Water Tribe sexism, her aspirations to become a healer, her faith in Aang as the Avatar is explore as well as her views of several characters besides her characters. At the end of each chapter is emletish's meta about the character so that you'll at least know where she's coming from even if you disagee with her.
Kindle the Wind by attackfish
This is a series of fics about Avatar Zuko that the author says she can't figure out an overarching plot to so we get vignettes jumping throughout the series. I really like Zuko's interaction with Sokka and Katara and of course Iroh but what I really loved was him meeting the past three avatars before him. And I just love it that Ozai essentially exiled Zuko to go find himself.
If you've decided based on this list that Zuko is my favorite atla character you'd be right. I didn't particularly like him at first though he always seemed to be a humanized character.
Azula will feature heavily in The Search and I swear if she gets redeemed after a hug from Mommy my laptop will be in serious danger of being hurled across. I think Azula is an interesting character and a great villain but I also think she's a sociopath despite any soft touches appearing in The Beach. A pet peeave of mine in Avatar fandom are the Azula apologists. The ones who say she actually had it worse than Zuko. They blame Ursa, they blame Iroh, I've even heard them say that Zuko should've been a better brother to her or that if Mai and Ty Lee had been real friends they coul've been her anchor. Blaming Ozai is justified but at least one person proceeds to go on about how she was sexually abused by her father and her life had been so much worse than Zuko who only got a scar which prompts me to wonder if I missed a special episode in the third season detailing said abuse. Azula apologists seem to be jealous of Zuko on her behalf; he's a crybaby, she would've beat his in if she'd been in her right mind, she's had a harder life than him and would've been good too if Ursa wasn't a mean mommy and Iroh wasn't a misogynist; otherwise he would've have fixed her. Never mind that as a little she refers to himderisively and that Iroh wasn't even able to fix Zuko or Crossroads of Destiny would've had a different ending; in the end Zuko had to fix Zuko. People also seem to forget that Ty Lee was actually forced to join Azula when the latter set her safety net on fire preferring to ignore this in favor of Azula apologizing to her once in The Beach.
Argh, I know, fandom being fandom. In happier new I've really gotten into some Avatar fics.
Sunchild by weirdlet
Features a genderswapped Zuko exiled in disgrace because of a pregnancy which sounds like it would be outrageously bad but its fantastic. Its deep and graceful and somehow just so true to the characters in show, particularly Zuko.(now called Zura) Honorable mentions go out to Iroh, Jet, Ozai and the counterparts of Mai and Azula. A work in progress that probably won't progess which makes me a sad panda.
World Stops Spinning by Nautica
I just love her style, the way she puts words together and each character's introspection. Some things I wonder about. Why didn't the airbenders ever try to contact Aang or wouldn't the Royal Family make sure their spouses were either firebenders or closely related to Firebenders but overall I love this AU.
Stalking Zuko series by emletish
Just really fun to read. Its Zutara but the whole Gaang and friends get love and developement which is impressive considering its strictly from Katara's point of view. I find Katara's changing feelings believabla and at the same time its about so much more than that. We get her struggles against Water Tribe sexism, her aspirations to become a healer, her faith in Aang as the Avatar is explore as well as her views of several characters besides her characters. At the end of each chapter is emletish's meta about the character so that you'll at least know where she's coming from even if you disagee with her.
Kindle the Wind by attackfish
This is a series of fics about Avatar Zuko that the author says she can't figure out an overarching plot to so we get vignettes jumping throughout the series. I really like Zuko's interaction with Sokka and Katara and of course Iroh but what I really loved was him meeting the past three avatars before him. And I just love it that Ozai essentially exiled Zuko to go find himself.
If you've decided based on this list that Zuko is my favorite atla character you'd be right. I didn't particularly like him at first though he always seemed to be a humanized character.