since i cannot work on my WIPs or anything new rn, i figured i may as well post some of my abandoned zukka sketches. top left, long haired sokka being extra in a fire nation robe, tying (or untying?) his sash and stickin he leggy out, might have drawn zuko Appreciating the look; top right, originally was going to be part of the kiss scene from Blue, zuko’s perspective looking down on him, but i never got around to adding zuko’s hand on his cheek or like… finishing it at all; middle left, zuko bein clingy while sokka’s eating, sokka does not mind :))) ; middle right, back view of the boys after a sparring match, was thinkin about giving them cupping bruises on their back; bottom left, another SWT zukka, just holdin’ hands n shit; and bottom right, modern zukka, zuko is trying to work/study and sokka is bein a clingy annoying shit, and probably telling him “Wow your heart’s really racing you must love me so so much huh :)“ while zuko is “go away bitch dont love u hate u >[ *blushes*”
[ID: Two gifs of Mai from Avatar: The Last Airbender, in the episode The Boiling Rock Part Two. She is shown from the shoulders up, with her right side to the audience, while slouching her neck slightly. Her eyebrow is furrowed, as she looks at Azula (offscreen) and speaks. In the first gif she says, “I guess you just don’t know people as well as you think you do.” In the second gif she says, “You miscalculated,” as she straightens her neck. The sky above the cliffs of Boiling Rock have been edited to indigo. End ID]
Hakoda having to realise how big Sokka and Katara truly are.
That even outside of a war they aren’t the little kids he had to leave behind, clinging to his shoulders and making his war paint run with tears. He didn’t expect to come back to them like that, not really. He didn’t expect them to find him either, on the back of an ancient bison with the world’s lost hope grinning from ear to ear.
But realising that Sokka has carried on hunts alone, finding tradition in Gran Gran’s stories and clinging to it desperately. How he had remembered the way Hakoda framed his kayaks, but perfected it. Bending the bone and skin in ways Hakoda could never imagine, making it sturdier and sleeker and stronger and Hakoda can’t believe that the little boy who stood on shore screaming for his father is now cunning enough to outwit half the world. How his little boy can go toe to toe with any one, bender or other wise. When the day comes that Sokka can look Hakoda in the eye without craning his neck, the father has to take a moment alone to mourn and celebrate.
Hakoda realising that Katara is more like her mother than she has any right to be. How her laugh is like Kya’s, how the grit of her teeth and the furrow of her brow is like Kya’s. But even she does things Kya could never do. She’s not the little girl who shivered in his arms every night, begging for her mother to come home. How she heals everything she touches, how she stands her ground like a polar bear dog, how she does not bend to anyone’s will (not even her father’s) and how she loves. Hakoda wonders who taught her to love like that, so fiercely and unabashedly.
It is at once a comfort and a punch to the gut. Because Hakoda felt the waves pull him back to his children every waking moment, petrified of what could happen in his absence. Of what they would be without him.
But they are so much more than he could have ever imagined, so much more than he could have raised them to be (he thinks).
He just wishes they were small enough to hold again.
okay so i know there’s a whole bunch of discourse on how azula’s personality is at least partially fuelled by ursa having seemingly loved zuko more than her but like
i don’t know, man, parents are still human and they aren’t perfect and zuko was always a little boy with a gentle heart who just couldn’t keep up with his great prodigy little sister who was therefore clearly heavily favored by ozai, and ursa felt the need to protect zuko because she was legit afraid of azula which was totally fair a) because of azula’s own behavioral tendencies which started very young and b) because azula must have reminded ursa so much of ozai
and tbh as someone who grew up abused and with siblings who took after the abusive parent and was not protected from them, lines like “my own mother thought i was a monster” don’t hit the same way because, yeah, i get azula was only a child but ursa was right and ursa was probably also terrified of ozai which would make her even more afraid of azula and sorry not sorry but i just can’t blame her for wanting to keep zuko safe and making that such a high priority, and of course azula is perfectly entitled to have been negatively affected by that but to me it just doesn’t feel like much of an excuse for how azula turned out at the end of the day and ozai is still way more at fault for that and at least ursa had any good intentions at all ever in her life
this is on my mind again because i just had a massive breakdown last week about how much i still desperately wish i’d had an ursa in my childhood (some of you never lived in such a very specific parent-sibling continuing-the-cycle abuse hellscape playing the starring role of physical and emotional punching bag who was at fault for being the weak and timid one and it shows) and just
hi yeah this is hardcore an ursa stan blog, ursa defense squad for life
(and i’m even just gonna ignore for the time being there is literally no evidence at all that ursa didn’t love azula and just go with, as the zuko of my situation, she did her fucking best and we should all be so lucky to have a parent who actively cares about their hurt child that much)
ifesbob 