lost-in-love-maze - Tumblr blog

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Older Zuko and Katara with their babes

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my first girlfriend turned into the moon🌕

sokka finally joins my ATLA series! you can view the rest of my atla series below⬇️

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Zutara Month Day 14: Exposed

Katara could get used to Fire Nation fashion. She quickly got over her shock at the skin-bearing nature of the outfits worn by the women in Caldera, and even enjoyed how the breathable, silky fabrics felt like soft butter against her skin and flowed beneath her fingers like water.

She could even get used to the practice of both men and women stripping down daily to bathe in several feet of hot water, often publicly and socially.

During a particularly hot summer spent in the palace, she'd been advised that it was often customary to sleep in the nude. This was something she herself had not been desperate enough to try, but she'd found out just how common this practice was one night when she'd woken to sounds of a scuffle coming from the firelord's chambers.

Katara rushed down the moonlit corridor in the nearly transparent bedrobe that clung to her form like spider's silk, drawing water from the humid air as she went.

When she'd pushed open the door, she saw the would-be assassin unconscious on the floor in a puddle of moonlight, Zuko standing over them, still poised in a fighting stance. A thin trickle of blood oozed from his nose, but he was otherwise unhurt, Katara quickly noted as her eyes roved over his body, checking for injuries.

His unclothed body.

"You're fine," she'd said, relieved, then instantly mortified as the words escaped her mouth. Unfortunately she hadn't stopped staring at him, though, and Zuko was just staring back at her, not even having the decency to cover up. Then he reached a hand up to casually wipe the blood from his upper lip. The movement, added to his...everything else, was what finally made her blush and turn away.

"Everything's fine," he said.

Back in her chambers, Katara told herself it was the heat that prevented her from returning to sleep that night. Or the perfectly understandable effects of adrenaline and fear from her friend being nearly assassinated. Her friend who she would picture clothed only, thank you very much. Adrenaline and embarrassment, that's all it was. Katara decided that in the morning she would investigate whether anyone in the Fire Nation took cold baths, by themselves. And if her cheeks pinked at the thought of Zuko, remembering the way his eyes had met hers and not looked away, it was only because it was another thing she'd have to get used to. It didn't mean anything, and she was sure Zuko thought nothing of it, as she did.

Nothing at all.

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“The Fire Lord and the Southern Water Tribe Ambassador sure are chummy lately…” I have this headcanon (and I’m sure others do too) that Zuko and Katara have a lot of inside jokes/similar sense of humor from being friends for so long, and the Fire Nation nobles and officials are like… gee, they sure get along. I don’t know what they’re laughing about, but I just love the lead up to Zuko and Katara getting together being rife with Ambassador/Fire Lord flirtation, so I thought I’d do a quick grayscale sketch for that idea. Sorry it’s not like, super polished looking, but just had to get the idea of them laughing together as they leave a meeting out of my head. n.n  Please do not repost or use without permission, thanks.

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took a break to do this for valentine’s day ❤️ so happy valentine’s day to them and only them, sila lang pwede magcelebrate.

I have a lot of zk wips to finish (mostly Ambassador Katara and Fire Lord Zuko) I hope I finish building up my portfolio as soon as possible, so I can make more zk fanarts 😭.

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✨”It’s nice to see you again, Zuko.” ✨ ✨~ Reunion ✨

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I cannot for the life of me find the original post (tumblr is a hellsite) but this was sent in an atla gc:

@the-badger-mole

and tbh i always kinda felt like kataang was weird exactly because of that one-sidedness??? like there's one episode of katara maybe sort-of seeing aang as a love interest (when the fortune teller tells her she'll marry a powerful bender), but then the rest of the show is her being passive in the relationship or actively pushing aang away (like their second kiss). and then at the end she just randomly decided "okay i like you i guess."

whereas aang got a bunch of pining moments and you actually believed he was in love with katara.

and most of their relationship was about how she helped aang - he did contribute to her character development over the course of the series especially as a bender of course but it didn't feel as emotionally/spiritually deep as katara's literal one episode sidequest with zuko.

but then someone else wrote "I would argue the opposite? Kataang is where Katara choose the peaceful nomad which subverts the trope presented where zutara is where she chooses the strong protector/combatant. Aang as a character is a subversion of the typical hero while zutara is like,,, coloniser romance idk"

and honestly... i kinda get that. aang was problematic in a lot of ways, but he was definitely a subversive protagonist, and i can see the power of allowing the woman to choose the pacifist vegetarian over the extremely obviously hot jock badboy. this is an incredible oversimplification of their characters of course, but the point stands.

Basically, Kataang is the ship we all logically want - the sweet, friendship-based, seemingly subversive one. But Zutara is the one that actually makes sense in the story, with these characters, not their tropes. Aang is subversive, but he and Katara are also kind of terrible for each other - he isn't mature or selfless enough for Katara, who needs someone to force her to take care of herself because she's always the one taking care of everyone else (wonder what that's like). That's why she and Zuko are so perfect, because he not only takes care of her, he makes HER prioritize herself. Aang... does not. He's pretty selfish, which yes is partially due to his immaturity (I personally don't count Korra as canon because it treated ALL the og characters terribly so I'm speaking purely from his 12 yo self), but it's also just a basic incompatibility thing. And Katara is actually equally bad for Aang - she enables him waaay too much, and he needs someone who doesn't. Who forces him to stand up on his own two feet and take responsibility. She's too much of a mother, and her relationship with Aang is too mother/older sister-ish.

With Zuko, on the other hand? Katara started out HATING him, forcing him to prove himself to her instead of handing him everything she had like she tended to do with Aang and Sokka. He had to earn her care, and as a result he appreciates it way more and demands way less of it. He's a far less selfish character generally for the same reasons, and is much more mature/has a better understanding of life and gray areas. Southern Raiders is a great example of this - he's down for whatever Katara decides because he understands that there's no one right answer, unlike Aang who simply preaches forgiveness. I'm not necessarily attacking Aang about that either - I do believe that grudges eat away at a person, and taking a life does haunt you, so forgiveness isn't necessarily bad advice. But it's not what Katara needed. Aang is great as a friend, but I don't think he's what Katara needs from a romantic partner. Zuko just... is.

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Darker times will come and go

Times you need to see her smile

And mothers' hearts are warm and mild

I would rather feel this world through the skin of a child

—AURORA; Through the Eyes of a Child

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Day 4 - Ashes

ash

noun

plural noun: ashes

1. the powdery residue left after the burning of a substance.

• the remains of something destroyed

find this post on…

[ twitter ]

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just finished a rewatch of atla...still ship zutara...

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🤣🤣🤣

Yep I’d dig this… 😄👍🏽💜

Found this in deviantart dated 4.16.12 tho…

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make a girl smile today.

give her a sword.

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i'm a worst case kid / in a plague pit town

zutara month, day 1: reluctant allies

summary: ever-slight canon-divergence in which zuko accepts katara's offer to heal iroh after feeling his too-weak, dying pulse, as his injury is bad enough zuko is unsure he will survive otherwise. not much else changes. it was never going to.

warnings: canon-typical depictions of injury, violence, and trauma responses.

other notes: title is a lyric taken from tommy lefroy's "worst case kid". starting pov is zuko's, ending pov is katara's. two pieces of dialogue are directly taken from the show.

*

The wind is whistling in this dry, abandoned, dead town, dead like—

Zuko does not shiver, and he does not cry.

He used to be able to tell himself things like that and mean it. When did that stop being true?

Uncle’s pulse is so faint, for a moment, he thinks it isn’t there at all. Even when he feels it, he knows it might as well not be. He might not have long at all.

Zuko hears the other footsteps approaching, their silence loud and almost mournful, but he bristles on instinct. They can’t see him like this, can’t see Uncle like this—how could he be so stupid as to turn his back on the enemy? 

“Get away from us!” he shouts as he looks back. They’re all staring at his uncle’s prone form, and Zuko turns back to him, too, heaving heavy breaths. He needs to do something, but he is weak, useless, outnumbered—

“Zuko, I can help,” the waterbender insists, and Zuko wants to snarl, yell, reach for his fire, and he raises his hand to do so—and frowns. 

What does she mean?

He looks back to where Uncle lies prone.

A heartbeat shouldn’t feel like that. The Dragon of The West shouldn’t go down so easily.

Uncle shouldn’t be able to seem so small and worn and fragile.

Slowly, Zuko lowers his hand and looks to her striking blue eyes. There’s no pity or malice there, he doesn’t think, she just looks… still cautious and unyielding, but sad and sincere, too.

He’s fallen for tricks like this before, though—Azula has always loved how easily she could fool him—and it feels a little like he’s standing on the edge of a steep precipice.

It would be naive to just… trust the word of an enemy. She has no reason to want to help him. He knows this.

The rest of them still watch his uncle’s maybe-dying form, but the waterbending girl stares at Zuko unflinchingly, almost as though in challenge.

Uncle groans brokenly, the noise like that of a wounded animal. 

“How?”

*

The world is dead silent.

The prince of the Fire Nation is staring at her with tears threatening to fall from his right eye, though not the left, which is twitching lightly. She’s never before noticed how he can’t seem to open it fully due to the scar tissue set against it. She’s never had much reason to take in his features as anything more than the face of their enemy. 

His gaze is still steely and untrusting. In this light, his scar looks violently red and painful. He asks after her offer with a voice that cracks, though he doesn’t seem to pay that any heed. His hair is short but growing in, and he’s traded out his Fire Nation attire for earthly green and brown robes. He looks so different from when they last saw him. 

He looks so… young.

It’s all a little bizarre.

“Be careful, Katara,” Sokka insists from behind her, though when she glances back, his focus is on Iroh, a complicated expression playing on his features. Aang is staring at him, too, eyes wide and verging on teary. She doesn’t yet know Toph very well, but Katara can tell her body is rigid, her feet tense as her toes curl into the dusty ground beneath them. Toph doesn’t know that Iroh has been their enemy. But Iroh also helped them at the North Pole, and again just now against that princess, Zuko’s sister, she supposes, with her calculating eyes and strange blue fire.

Katara nods but says nothing further. If Zuko was going to make a move against them, he could have done it when his sister vanished.

They had turned away from their futile attack against her, and he’d already been kneeling at his uncle’s side.

She approaches slowly, circling to the side opposite him. When she kneels and reaches for her waterskin, Zuko nearly growls and takes hold of the edge of Iroh’s sleeve tightly, like he might try to drag him away.

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Katara says, flush with indignation. The dirt beneath her chafes her knees even through her clothing. “I need space to heal.”

“I’m not moving, so forget it.”

Katara tilts her head and looks into his eyes as he glares back. He now looks every bit the angry, hateful prince that had tracked them around the world for months, but she can see something else filtering through his expression, too, something like fear.

She almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it. Why should he be afraid of them?

“Fine,” she allows after a moment. “Just don’t get in the way.”

He nods tightly, and at the agreement, Katara opens her waterskin. She calls the water to her and sets it against Iroh’s the right side of his chest, his robes black and charred. Closing her eyes, she calls out to his chi and focuses her energy on it. She doesn’t know if she can do it, doesn’t know if Iroh is truly too far gone…

After a few long moments, his breathing evens, and Katara sighs. Across from her, Zuko’s features soften just a fraction, but when she meets his eyes, somehow, she knows exactly what they both are thinking, united in nothing but this.

It doesn’t change anything, Katara's thoughts insist as her friends draw closer. Zuko tenses again. It can’t.

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Zutara Month 2024: Day 1- Reluctant Allies

What if Katara when into the tea shop instead of running?

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Hi! First I want to say I love your Zutara dissertation. I was in a convo with a friend who said they don’t like Zutara because it hurts Zuko’s arc. I then linked them to part two of your dissertation where you explain how Zuko and Katara getting together would strengthen their arcs and the themes of the show. They then replied, “I see all these points. I just think this can be done via friendship. I think the idea that Zuko heals the world via friendships fits the show more since friendship played a bigger role then love stories.” Do you have any rebuttal argument for this that I can show them?

please give my commiserations to your friend for the frustration they must have felt when avatar: the last airbender ended with a grand romantic kiss because naturally, the all-important question of the finale was whether the hero finally got the girl after spending three seasons suffering in the friendzone. i'm sure your friend, being such a proponent of the importance of friendship over romance, must be just as critical of kat.aang in the finale as they are of a potential zutara relationship (and if they aren't, then you know where this argument is coming from and it's certainly not a place of legitimate media analysis.)

but on the off-chance that we're dealing with that rare breed of zutara anti that isn't a raging hypocrite: i fail to see why there's this weird dichotomy being made between platonic and romantic love at all. what exactly is wrong with zuko healing the world with both friendship AND romance? his platonic bonds with sokka, toph, aang and suki don't suddenly cease to exist just because he's dating katara, so why are we acting as if it's only one or the other?

atla is a story about the power of friendship, yes, but more than that it's a story about the the power of love. love for your family, blood and chosen. love for your friends. love for your countrymen. love for strangers, for enemies, for humanity. at its core, atla is centred around love in all of its varied forms - and yes, that includes romantic love.

or are we saying that sokka's love for yue, katara's romance with jet, sokka's relationship with suki, zuko's feelings for jin all had absolutely no bearing on their individual character arcs and the overall plot of the show? even kat.aang and mai.ko, badly written as they are, were important to aang and zuko's arcs in helping them realize the people they were truly meant to be (at least, before the finale fucked it up).

i, and many other zutara shippers, have always said that we'd have been fine with atla ending with no canonical romances, or with only a hint of zutara. i wouldn't replace the kat.aang kiss in the finale with a zutara one, even if it made more narrative sense, because i agree that romantic love was definitely not the point of atla - but that doesn't mean that it had no significant role to play at all.

given that your friend seems fine with zuko and katara's friendship, i'd love to hear why said friendship turning into a romance would suddenly be detrimental to zuko's arc. was sokka's arc about unlearning his misogyny ruined because he eventually entered a relationship with suki? was suki being inspired by sokka to take a more active role in the war undercut because she became his girlfriend? if not, then why would the zutara dynamic be the only one negatively affected just because they can kiss now?

zuko is a character who is fundamentally defined by love. his love for his people kickstarts his entire character arc. his love for his mother, and her love for him, is integral in reminding him to stay true to who he is. iroh's fatherly love guides him to the path of redemption. the gaang's platonic love, and the love he holds for them in return, gives him the confidence and support he needs to fulfill his destiny. so romantic love, the right kind of romantic love (and notably the only kind zuko never truly receives in the show) would only add to zuko's character - not take away from it.

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I was asked to make the header art for @zutaramonth this time again!!

Happy zutara month!!