#azula/suki

[ranilla-bean]

Baby, you've got it bad for me

Rating: E Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender Pairing: Azula/Suki Words: 8,370 Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern with Bending, Gym Sex, Athlete Suki, Barely Redeemed Azula, Character Study, Light Dom/sub, Azula is complexes georg, copious amounts of lesbian sex that make everyone worse, don't try this at home i won't be held responsible for any injuries

Summary:

“What about you?” Azula snipes back. “What makes a promising young athlete turn the club gym into her personal sex dungeon?”

This time, Azula doesn't know—she swears she doesn't—how she gets roped into fucking Suki at the gym.

and this one's for @ashcremated, buon compleanno mio fratello di brutte vibes! 😘🎂

[bellatrixobsessed1]

The Lava Tube

Summary: Azula and Suki explore a cave together.

Azula remembers the first time that she had truly felt alive again. 

It was at the top of a cliff with the wind thrashing violently at her hair as a torrent of ruthless rain splattered her upturned face. The air was charged, backlit by rapid flashes of lightning. 

The irony of it all; she had gone there to die. 

They had suppressed her spirit and dimmed her personality—smothered and stomped out all of the things that had made her who she was. All of her ‘undesirable’, hard to work with traits. They had whittled her away until she didn’t love herself either. And nobody liked her any better for it. 

She is standing on a cliffside again, but not nearly as close to the edge. A renewed lust for life, keeps her further back. A desire to avoid another rock climbing safety lecture from Suki adds a few more feet or distance. 

Today the jungle is alive and golden. Dragonflies hum through clouds of pollen and dust. Azula can hear the soft rippling of the river that they had been walking parallel to. It is now distant and the distance has reduced it to just a backdrop to the parrot-iguana calls and toad-squirrel chitters.

Now and then some creature shakes the branches of the canopy and rattles a coconut out of place which drops to the ground with a thud. 

Suki wipes some sweat from her brown and Azula swats at a fly that has taken a liking to her arm. “It will be cooler in the cave.” Azula mentions–her subtle way of trying to get Suki to hurry up. 

It isn’t that she doesn’t also admire the glorious overlook that they have of the jungle below. It isn’t that she can’t appreciate a good rainbow cast by a close yet distant waterfall. It is more so that she wants to admire something that she has never seen before. Something with a bleakness that is both eerie and alluring. Something that very likely hasn’t ever felt human feet on its rocks. 

“Have you ever gone caving before?” Suki asks. 

Azula shakes her head. “Have you?” The faint tickles of nervousness decrease only slightly when Suki nods a yes. 

“Once or twice. It’ll be nice to not have to carry a torch while we climb.” 

“I am going to be using both of my hands, you know?” 

Suki shrugs. “Katara tells me that you can breathe fire.”

Azula’s cheeks pinken. “You all need to stop discussing that day.”

“And you need to talk about it more.” Suki counters. “You tend to keep a lot of things inside.” She holds her palm over Azula’s heart. “That’s another thing that you and Sokka have in common; you two just don’t talk about how you feel.” 

The pink on Azula’s cheeks darkens. She clears her throat. “Yes, well I…”

“You need to get used to it. You’re safe.” Suki promises. 

Azula swallows. She supposes that she is. That she has been for a while now. But old habits are so deeply ingrained. “Can we…?” She gestures to the cave opening.

Suki smiles. “After you.”

Azula makes her way towards the edge, squats down, and insects the opening. “It used to be a volcano.” 

“It smells like one.” Suki agrees. “Is it still active?”

Azula shrugs. “I suppose that we’ll find out.” She ignites a small flame in her palm. “It looks like our descent will be less of a climb and more of a walk, if we navigate the slope right. Of course, we could still climb if we choose but it isn’t a straight drop that would require all of our equipment.” Although she feels inclined to use it anyhow, just in case. She supposes that, in the worst case, she could break her fall with well timed jets of fire to propel her upwards. But Suki doesn’t have that luxury. 

What time is eaten away by dressing themselves in all of their gear is made up by a much easier descent. Even so, Azula is slightly breathless by the time they reach the bottom. She holds her hand out and helps Suki climb over the boulder. “Watch your step, there’s a hole on the left.”

.oOo.

Suki had never taken Azula for someone who would be fascinated by rocks. But the woman seems mighty invested in running her fingers over many of them. She names them too, tells Suki all about the different formations that she observes.

“It’s mostly basalt, but there’s a lot of obsidian here too.” 

Suki can’t tell if she is actually speaking to her or if Azula is muttering to herself, a habit that she has taken on as of late. Azula has many precious little habits. Ones that she doesn’t seem to notice but they mean the world to Suki. The way that she flicks her bangs when she is bored or nervous. The way that she purses her lips and scrunches her brows when she is focused or determined. She likes to rub her thumb and pointer together and create little sparks when she needs a subtle way of keeping her hands busy. 

After years of sitting rigidly, quietly, and politely, Azula has become a touch restless. She likes to be busy at all times. Frankly, Suki hopes that this little adventure will coax her to rest a little bit. Not that Azula isn’t speedily inspecting every nook and cranny of the entrance chamber.

Suki hastens her pace and follows Azula and the light of her fire towards what first seems to be a very narrow crack. “Azula, I don’t think that I’m going to fit.”

Azula looks her over. “You’ll be fine.” 

Suki bites her lower lip. “Azula, you’re tiny.”

Azula frowns. She picks up one of their torches. “I’ll go in myself and tell you what’s in there.” 

“Azula…” She pauses. “I would rather not be alone. Every time I’ve been in a cave I had a few people with me.” 

Azula’s frown deepens. “I will be quick.” She declares as though that settles the matter.

They have talked about this. They’ve talked about it several times. And Azula never seems to relent. Suki sighs. She really doesn’t want to have this discussion in a dark and lonely cave. “Well what if you get stuck?”

“I won’t.” Azula assures. “See.” She has herself partially squeezed into the crevice. 

“Fine. Go.” 

Azula seems tenses. “It’s fine. Never mind.” 

Suki can hear the enthusiasm leaking out of Azula’s voice and her heart sinks. 

“I just don’t want either of us to get stuck. That’s all.” Suki knows that Azula is aware that there is more to it than just that. And that is precisely what has stolen the joy right out of her. “There’s a bigger opening over there.” She tries. 

“Yeah. Sure.” Azula mumbles. 

Suki’s heart sinks further still. She had been very excited to explore that cavern and seeing all of that delight turn to disappointment makes her wonder if she is in the wrong here, makes her feel guilty. She doesn’t think that Azula does this on purpose. The princess probably doesn’t even notice. Which is a problem in itself…

“It’s fine, we can see what is in that opening.” She pauses. “The other one was probably just a dead end anyhow.” The silence is tense as they enter the larger opening. Suki opens her mouth several times but can’t come up with anything to say. 

They are a good distance into the tunnel when Azula begins to run her fingers over the rocks again, slowing her pace to trace the craggy linework of them. “It’s a lava tube.” She concludes. “I think that it was connected to the initial cave entrance.” She pauses again. “This might take us closer to the heart of the volcano.” 

“You think so?”

Azula nods. 

She resumes her silence until the tube begins to widen.

And with its increasing width comes an increase in heat. An increase that has Azula dabbing at her forehead. “This might just be an interesting discovery.”

Some of the butterflies in Suki’s stomach go still. Azula’s voice has a bit of that spark back. 

“Look at this.” Azula stands with her face towards the ceiling. “I think that those are lava stalactites. I’ve never seen formations like these before. There are some crystals on them too.” 

Suki cranes her neck but she can’t seem to see what Azula does. So the princess gently takes Suki’s head in her hands and turns it in the right direction. And there it is, a twinkling spiral of translucent orange gems. “What kind are they?”

Azula hums. “Citrine? Orange Fluorite? I’m not sure. I will have to refer to my scrolls when we get back to the palace!” 

Suki manages a smile. 

Azula takes her hand. “I’ve always wanted to see a lava waterfall. Of course we won’t be able to get very close…” She pauses. “Unless you would like to turn back now.”

The rest of the butterflies disperse. “We can keep going and see if it gets too hot.”

.oOo.

Perhaps she hadn’t gotten to explore that small crevice but she did get to see a lava waterfall in all of its roaring, furious glory. The sound it had made was a toss between a clap of thunder and the crackling pop of a campfire magnified tenfold.

She hadn’t been able to stare for too long with the brightness being so violently golden and complete. But what she had seen of it is burned into her memory. The cascade splashed into a thick molten pool. In her head she had pictured dragons bathing in its ebbing flow, rising out of the lava with unscathed and dripping wings. Powerful beasts basking in nature’s power. 

The glow from which followed she and Suki well down the length of the lava tube as they made their exit. Even for her it had grown much too hot. By the time they reach the much cooler entrance chamber of the volcano, the both of them are perfectly ready for a break. 

With the light of the entrance streaming in, Azula lets the fire in her palm snuff out and lays herself down on the cool ground next to Suki. “I suppose that I should thank you for dissuading me away from that crack. It would have been terribly boring in comparison.”

Suki smirks and brushes a few strands of hair out of Azula’s face. “Is that right? Are you actually admitting that you were wrong.” 

Azula sniffs. “Absolutely not. The crack would have been exciting in its own right.” 

Suki rolls her eyes and gives Azula a little nudge. “If you say so.”

“I do.” Azula replies. 

Suki wiggles closer and takes Azula into her arms. “Well I’m glad that this whole caving thing went well.” 

Azula relaxes into her embrace and nods. “I would like to explore the Cave of the Two Lovers next. The Avatar made it sound like a fascinating place. Of course, it won’t compare to the lava waterfall. Unfortunately, we have already seen the pinnacle of natural beauty…”

“You’re looking at it right now.” Suki agrees. 

Azula crinkles her nose. “Apparently it takes at least five years of being in a relationship for the other person’s terrible sense of humor to rub off on you.” 

“Sokka’s sense of humor is an acquired taste. And if his sense of humor has rubbed off on me then my sense of humor will rub off on you. So you will have Sokka’s sense of humor too.”

“I’d rather pitch myself into that lava lake.” Azula grumbles. “My own sense of humor suits me just fine and it will eventually dominate Sokka’s sense of humor and instill itself within you.” 

Suki laughs. “You are very intense, you know that?”

“I have been told.” She replies. “But you are still here so…” She shrugs. 

“It’s part of your charm.” Suki admits. 

Part of her charm…

She swallows. Mostly, people seem to get uncomfortable with her intensity. Suki takes it with a laugh and a smile. 

“I think that it’s also part of your sense of humor.” Suki presses her forehead against Azula’s. They fall into a serene sort of silence. For a good while, she is perfectly content listening to the rush of air as it works its way through the cave. Perfectly content to listen to the squawking of birds outside of the cave and the squeaking of flutterbats from within. 

“We should probably head back now.” Suki suggests. 

“Yes, I suppose that we should.” Azula agrees. They will likely reach the palace well after dark. If they reach it at all; she supposes that she wouldn’t be too upset to spend the night under the stars. “We could spend the night in this cave.” 

“We could.” Suki taps her chin. “Do you want to spend the night in this cave?” 

“Well I don’t particularly feel like rushing back to the palace.”

“Alright. Let’s try it.” 

Azula snuggles herself closer to Suki and nuzzles her cheek against the woman’s chest. At any rate, she is rather drained from this adventure and Suki is plenty comfortable. She kisses Suki’s neck. “By the way, I found this for you.” She draws a small crystal out of her pocket. “It was in the crevice.” 

Azula watches her turn the small red gem over in her hand. “It’s really pretty, Azula, thank you.”

Azula smiles to herself and looks towards the mouth of the cave. Warm rays of dying dayling wash golden over her face. 

Finally, days are becoming kinder to her. 

Suki squeezes her hand.

[crowlion]

The Gaang's hands (with Team Azula and Yue) + headcanons

This series was inspired by @thyinum's Avatar's Hands series!

[ssunphire]

honestly i will NEVER get over how pretty sokka looked in kyoshi warrior makeup and i think we should talk about it more

[pichichustudios]

Every girls in Avatar the Last Airbender

[nanamis-username]

here r all of my avatar girlies’ profile portraits - without the procreate taskbar 😋 feel free to use them as icons or wallpapers 🩷

[jasminedragonart]

all 12 are done. I’ll let you guys know when I have the digital calendar up which should hopefully be sometime tonight

[tobiasdrake]

*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.

I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.

But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.

Katara

So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.

They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.

And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.

Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.

This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."

"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.

Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.

In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.

But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?

No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.

And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.

In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.

Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.

Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.

The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.

Suki

Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.

They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.

Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.

Yue

Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.

"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."

Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.

They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.

Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?

June

June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.

Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.

She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.

Kyoshi

And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"

She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.

Azula

Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.

There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.

This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.

They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.

This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.

Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.

Conclusion

The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.

Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.

But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.

The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.

"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."

The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.

[avatarfandompolice]

Oh great another female character for NATLA to butcher and throw to the side

Sorry…but…um…WHAT ABOUT HER NOT BEING FEMININE MAKES HER LESS “HUMANIZING”??? WHAT???????

If anyone is a Toph fan and is defending this then you’re not a Toph fan. Sorry.

[mesapies]

Ummm...No thanks

No hate to miya cech!! She's a wonderful actress and I'm sure she will do great with what she has to work with!! But making toph "more feminine" kinda goes against her character of rejecting traditional roles that were forced onto her.

Them getting rid of sokka's sexism and now making toph more feminine. I'm sensing a pattern here, and I don't like it

[crowlion]

Continuing the Gaang's hands + headcanons

Azula and Katara here

This series is inspired by @thyinum's Avatar's Hands series

[bananahkim]

Atla icons !!!!!

You can tell I had fun drawing each background of the characters. Also I got to draw a lot of Zukos and fire.

Please credit me when you use these. Don’t edit my icons!

[demaparbat-hp]

Izumi (steambaby) sketches.

[saphizzle]

THERE WE GOOO atla dragons !!! 🐉🐉

Genuinely the most fun I’ve had drawing something in a while AA