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firelords-honour · 6 months ago

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Maiko wedding: the tea ceremony

Fire Nation weddings include an elaborate tea ceremony where the newly wed couple serve, in turn, the family of the bride and the family of the groom. Mai’s family includes both her parents, at least one uncle, at least one aunt, probably some grandparents, possibly some cousins, and her little brother.

Zuko’s family… well, he just has Uncle.

Ozai is in prison and is definitely Not Invited. Ursa is missing, presumed – well, Zuko’s not given up hope, but there are no leads. Azula is… recovering, but neither she nor Zuko is really ready to see the other again yet (and her therapist advises against it). Zuko feels incredibly guilty about it, but he and Mai both still feel tense (read: scared) at the prospect of being around her, especially at such a time of heightened emotions.

They consider delaying the wedding, but (quite aside from any question of ensuring the succession, which is a valid concern) Zuko knows how much Mai needs this expression of commitment and Mai knows how much Zuko needs this expression of acceptance, and they can’t put off moving forward with their lives for the chance that a future time will be better.

So it’s just Uncle, for Zuko’s family. And Zuko loves having tea with his Uncle, these days, but thinking about the contrast with Mai’s big family makes Zuko lonely.

Zuko wonders if he can, should, could, invite Aang. He is his great-grandfather, kind of. But Mai counters by suggesting they invite the whole of Team Avatar to take part in the tea ceremony as Zuko’s family. Zuko is hesitant – will they really want to? Would they really want him? He stumblingly checks with Uncle first, afraid he’d be offended, but Uncle is fond of them all as well and is nothing but happy to welcome them as family.

Of course when he does ask, they all accept with joyous glee.

On the day of the wedding, they have a very formal tea ceremony with Mai’s family first. It’s awkward. Mai’s mother’s attempts at currying favour with the Fire Lord are embarrassing, and she’s definitely judging Mai. They’re supposed to be avoiding politics, but Mai’s father crassly drops hints anyway, ‘if you need my advice’. It’s awkward with Mai’s uncle because of the whole Boiling Rock thing. The only family members they are at all comfortable with are Mai’s Aunt Mura and Tom-Tom.

Zuko has to pull out his Lee-from-the-tea-shop persona to get through it, topping them up quietly and efficiently and trying to stay in the background. He only notices that’s what he’s doing when he has to stop himself from asking ‘Can I get you anything else?’ after the third cup.

But then they repeat the ceremony with Uncle and the Gaang and it couldn’t be more of a contrast.

It starts in the traditional ritual manner, even if the participants aren’t so traditional. Mai and Zuko serve Uncle in the role of Zuko’s parent, and then Aang as Zuko’s esteemed great-grandfather. Zuko has tears in his eyes as he and Mai address Sokka as ‘brother’ and Suki, Katara and Toph as ‘sister’.

The tea is drunk and appreciated; Zuko is pretty good at making tea these days. But the formal ceremony quickly degenerates into joshing and teasing and putting people into headlocks and massive cuddle piles. Uncle watches with a smile and suspiciously damp eyes. It all feels warm and loving and companionable and… safe.

It feels like family.

#gently holds #ESTEEMED GREAT GRANDFATHER #maiko #Zuko #Mai #the gaang #atla #fire nation

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firelords-honour · 6 months ago

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who r ur atla ocs?? can u infodump abt them

Oh mygod

anon you’re a hero (for asking this) and a fool (you have no idea what you’re unleashing)

Alright so I have 4 girls in total

Sung Shu, Nataroq Issanuk, Shao Taijing, and Sanjay Gurun

It was by complete coincidence that I ended up with 1 of each bender. Sung and Shao are for ATLA, Nataroq and Sanjay are for TLOK. Sung, Nataroq, and Sanjay all get to live their lives with crushing guilt of their past actions meanwhile Shao was always looking out for number 1 (earth kingdom) and she’s doing pretty good lmao

I am proudly deranged in that my primary way of enjoying a story is often by making up semi self insert OCs. Sung was the first and I made her up during my first watch of ATLA in 2023

There’s literally way too much to explain of all 4 in one post, but Sung’s on the mind rn so let’s put her under the microscope. She joins the gaang…at some point at the end of s1. It gets kind of hard to pinpoint because her introduction would be a whole entire episode, but she comes in after Jeong Jeong and before they reach the NWT. She grew up in a noble capital family, was one of JJ’s students, was in an arranged relationship with Zhao (fuckin’ toxic leech), and was a commander in the Fire Navy alongside him (which I’ve taken the liberty of claiming to be an equivalent to a rear admiral in the usnavy), all up until she defected 6 years pre-iceberg.

Jeong Jeong’s desertion speech was the first crack in the imperialism armor. A lot of small things after that (among them possibly reading more about her great-grandfather) kept adding up until Sung was there in the room when Kya was killed. Watching Captain Rha kill the defenseless surrendered woman (whom she was expecting to take prisoner) and a conversation she had with Zhao after the fact was the final straw that broke the ostrichhorse’s back.

Commander Shu was declared KIA by Zhao when she’s found to be missing while docked in the colonies. Eventually, after a lot of character developing experiences such as a few months with the Old Masters, Sung ends up in a village in the northern earth kingdom named Daolin. At first she was masquerading as a wandering nonbender warrior, and met Kola Dao on the road. She helped Kola’s family, the village’s leaders, defend themselves against warmongering bandits that had been terrorizing them ever since all of their earthbenders went to fight the war. It’s halfway through that ordeal that she’s forced to reveal her real identity to the Daos. They, naturally, Really Don’t Like Her Now, but when all is said and done Sung has proven herself enough that they let her stay around for a couple days, while they recover.

A couple days become 4 years, and ‘that firebender’ becomes ‘our beloved friend & protector, and also that girl who’s head over heels for Kola (mutually)’

Annnnnnnnd then the Avatar and his friends show up asking after this little local folk legend of ‘The Defender of Daolin’

That’s Sung’s whole backstory more or less. I won’t ramble so much as to outline that whole story of the meeting but she volunteers to be Aang’s fire teacher when he’s ready. Except the invasion buildup kinda messes with that so Zuko still does a lot of teaching too. The Siege of the North is the first proper battle Sung ever fights against the Fire Nation, and yes she does have a cathartic fight against Zhao while he’s beelining for the Oasis. If memory serves correctly I think the first time she properly meets Zuko is the ghost town fight (lowkey one of my favorite scenes in the show).

OH also Kola’s a member of the White Lotus. Sung isn’t in the know about that but when she leaves Daolin Kola gives her their symbol as ‘a good luck charm’ which Iroh later notices on her at the Oasis and internally goes ‘oh we cool???’

I’m listening to Epic as I write this and Penelope’s “Though I never thought that these would be the lengths we go for love!” is so Kola

So Sung’s along for the ride for all of s2 (well, except for Bitter Work, she’s kinda on a personal side quest spying on Iroh explaining lightningbending. By the way at this point lightningbending is considered a technique only possible to be performed by benders of royal blood. Can’t stop Sung from her own bitter work in trying to do it anyway though.) And most of s3. In the time jump she makes amends with Hakoda and they commanded the invasion together, and went to the Boiling Rock together. Eventually in the finale, Sung has a reunion with JJ after nine years and gets to be shocked by Kola at the camp. She fights alongside Sokka, Toph, and Suki in the airship battle (and up there, with the comet’s power, was when she achieved the thing she’d spent months practicing, and became the first example that anyone could learn to lightningbend.)

Postcanon…well the first thing she does is marry Kola of course. Sung Shu goes down in history as not just a hero for turning sides in the war and a member of team avatar, but also as a co-founder of the United Republic and as the first Grand Marshal of the United Forces.

Sung’s friendship/dynamic with Hakoda makes me so ill btw in another world, she and Kya would’ve been good friends. Also Sung is Momo’s secret favorite.

Since I mentioned Kuzon, lemme show y’all the Shu Family Tree I constructed at 2am last night.

Tozan was basically a metalworker slash samurai in Roku’s Team Avatar, and his family was elevated to nobility by Sozin. His son Roulan built them into a renowned lineage of swordmakers, and Tozan’s grandson was Kuzon. Kuzon spent his life having to be subtle and secretive over how much he despised the war and what Sozin had done to the world and the Air Nomads. It was his son Karwan who turned the Shu family into profiteers as armory artisans, and it was completely against Kuzon’s wishes that Karwan joined the army and his daughter Riosha joined the navy. (Captain Shu died in the first war against the northern water tribe.) Additionally, Karwan married an admiral of the navy. Their first son Fezan died as a lieutenant in the Southern Raiders, and so Suli, Sung’s father, inherited the dynasty. Her twin siblings Sunan (the heir) & Juyin were nonbenders like their parents; Grandmother Nori was the last bender until Sung came along. (sidenote Sung & her siblings are mixed hawaiian, thai, and chinese)

I thought it’d be fun if I changed Michi to be Sung’s sister Juyin; specifically Ukano’s second wife after Mai’s mom. Which means Tom-Tom is Sung’s nephew (& the heir to the Shu clan) and Mai’s her niece in law :D

…and I also had the vision last night of Sung, after the war ends, taking Aang and Bumi to the Shu family mausoleum after she’d connected the dots that her great-grandfather who’d professed his grief over the air nation in his last will & testament, and Aang’s old friend Kuzon, were the same man. Cue sobbing.

AND NOW, I have this big ramble that I wrote a while back explaining Sung’s relationships with the gaang and it is very long and thus under the cut. Oh also, I lied, Sung’s name isn’t Sung it is Jerkbender and it will be for the rest of eternity (according to Toph & Sokka)

Sung and the Gaang’s relationship is complex. On the Gaang’s side, Sung is their friend, but also a mentor, a protective figure, and for some their first positive elder figure. Sung was the first firebender they ever met who was fully on their side, meaning she had to prove herself to them I say them when I mean Sokka but she also set a precedent in their minds that the Fire Nation as whole wasn’t evil like it felt.

On Sung’s side, Aang and his mission are the first things Sung really finds herself believing in after she became disillusioned with the FN. the Gaang gave her something to believe in, people to care about who needed her just as much as she needed them, and something greater to fight for. These kids are the north star of her life even while she acted as a rock for the kids, and others, when things got the worst. Naturally, honor is one of the most important things to her, which was why when the eclipse invasion failed she refused to use her ‘special status’ as the kids’ own team member/sifu in order to escape when the rest of the adult army stayed trapped. She trusted them above all else, above the odds, and that trust was rewarded when Sokka and Zuko went on the first of the life-changing field trips(tm)

To look at Zuko for a moment, Sung also played an indirect part in his journey. By virtue of what time she joined the gaang, Sung probably had the least reason to hate him. While the other three saw the guy who chased them across the world, Sung saw the s2 crown prince who clearly didn’t know what path he was even leading. Her dramatic entrance into the ghost-town fight was her saving him from one of Azula’s fireballs, and she said to him, he needed to figure out whose side he was on. For a while he thought she was merely some traitorous ally of the Avatar, but by the time Sung was back with the Gaang in the Western Temple, Zuko and Sung started training Aang together and she told him, she’d have no qualms calling him her prince. (Oh! And they can have a moment when they realize Lieutenant Jee, Zuko’s subordinate, and Captain Jee, Sung’s friend and right hand man as a commander, were the same guy.)

Speaking of s3, Katara shared her Zuko Fieldtrip with Sung as the trio hunted down Yon Rha. Sung could fill in the blank spaces among Katara’s memory and Zuko’s knowledge of the raiders as a whole, and fun fact, that day they first met in Daolin was the very same day Sung realized Kya had been lying when she said she was the waterbender. Yeah I am not lying when I say Sung & the wolfcove family makes me claw at the walls

To Toph, Sung was basically the first adult figure in her life to care about her yet not smother her; Sung was cautious to a reasonable amount given their current lives, but she respected Toph even in ways their other compatriots didn’t; just due to their unique dynamic. Sung…I can’t really put a label on what she was to Toph; she definitely wasn’t like a parent, but ‘mentor’ doesn’t feel right either. She wasn’t a teacher. ‘Aunt-figure’ maybe? Not in the familial sense, but in the way Toph trusted Sung in ways she never could with her parents, and looked to her for things that maybe she’d look to her parents for if they’d all been different people. Sung was simply the first person to know Toph for who she was and respect her as an equal in capability, so Toph and Sung grew a relationship that wasn’t familial, but had some kinda…wise-safe-adult+independant-yet-advice-seeking-youth aspect to it.

Sokka was very distrustful of Sung at the beginning, mainly due to him being the most stubborn guy in the South Pole and finding it hard to believe that ‘firebender =/= evil’. But ironically, Sung kind of became…sort of a surrogate to the empty space left by Hakoda. Again, Sung was not like a parent to anyone, but she was this seasoned warrior who’d taken it upon herself to protect them, something Sokka thought had to be his job. While I wouldn’t describe her as mentorly to Toph, I’d say she was something like that to Sokka. Thinking about it, Sung was probably also the final megaboss in the dregs of his sexism’s doomed journey lmao, as the whole reason they made a stop in Daolin was because Sokka wanted to learn from this nonbender warrior who could never be burned or beaten by the firebenders. Sung was a confidant to Sokka as they went on, he could talk to her in a way he couldn’t talk to Katara or Aang. Sokka would be—and was, when the inevitable Hakoda & Bato meeting / Kya conversation came up between s2/3–the first to jump up and defend Sung as a trusted warrior of the right side of history, and Sung was the first one to see through Sokka’s mask and teach him how to really be a warrior and a leader, but at the same time encourage him to do what his heart said it wanted; not what his head thought anyone else expected.

I suppose Katara was the one Sung was the most parental with if I had to say so. Because Katara had to be the ‘woman of the house’ since she was 8, and for all of her adult life had no mother-figure in the traditional sense, Sung was the first older woman to become friends with her—that wasn’t her elderly grandmother—and be there to take some of that load off her shoulders. Sung was finally there to listen. Conversely, Sung felt a little bit of a debt whenever she was there for Katara. She felt like this was the way she paid her repentance to Kya for standing there in between the latter and her family and not stopping Yon Rha. If Kya couldn’t be there for Katara and Sokka, partially thanks to her, then…she could try to do it on her behalf. Not to mention these two are a duo on the battlefield and you should probably run.

And…Aang. This is moreso postcanon, but Sung was, above the whole rest of the world, the one advisor as the Avatar that he could always count on to be able to fall back on, to be strong for him, to be the stoic ally always behind him. Grand Marshal Shu was even willing, if they had no other choice, to be the threat standing behind his preaching of peace in the worst case scenario. When she joined their travels, Sung had reiterated what Jeong Jeong’d said, about fire needing to be the last element and she wouldn’t teach him until he was ready. Watching her own bending for the months in between helped quell Aang’s fear of hurting someone with it, particularly when she explained to him that that’s something all firebenders go through when they’re learning, herself included. Throughout their whole journey Sung was always there as a safe harbor, and Aang was always there as that ray of hope that kept Sung afloat. Random fact: Sung also fights with a bostaff, so she and Aang are staff buddies. Also meditating buddies. Really just buddies in general. Also, tangential, but Sung was 100% the prime aunt-figure of all the Gaang’s kids, kinda even taking on that same nurturing role she maintained with Toph when the young ones were having issues with their own parents. (Especially Tom-Tom, Izumi, & Bumi II)

I guess that’s the right way to put it. A safe harbor for all the people in her life.

Sorry for not including Suki, I do think she should be considered a Gaang member but I just don’t have much interaction between her and Sung versus the rest of the mcs

I’ll finish this with one of my favorite lines from The Tale of Sung, aka her day off in Ba Sing Se:

I have a thing I like to call ‘The Monster Doc’ because I fixated so hard on Sung in April 2023 that I ended up with a doc of snapshots of Sung at various points in canon, adding up to 30k words, and still firmly a WIP. But…it might be getting posted soon

welllll THAT SURE WAS A READ….and so I’m gonna end this post here, but feel freee to ask anything about any of my OCs please <3

#oc sung shu #brain blorbos #ATLA #ATLA oc #kuzon #firebenders #the gaang #asks

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