#maiko high school au

[king-bumis-armpit]

What would your headcanons be for Modern AU Mai?

I could talk about Mai for hours! I have so many thoughts about what she would be like in the modern day. I’m working on a modern au fic right now, so consider this a little teaser for that ^^ This was my first time writing head canons, so I hope this is what you were looking for. 

First things first, music. I think it would be a big part of modern Mai’s life:

Her parents definitely made her learn some instrument as a kid, and she didn’t hate it as much as her other forced hobbies

As a teen and adult, she listens to metal, classical music, and top 40 hits indiscriminately. People always freak out when she recognizes Taylor Swift songs because they assume she’s too alternative for that.

But the truth is that she drowns herself in music and always has airpods in, so she listens to a wide variety. Because of her airpods, sometimes her parents think she can’t hear them, but she definitely can. She will play into this by waiting to respond to questions until her mom asks them a few times.

She also writes songs, but she has never shown anyone. Not even Zuko or Ty Lee. Her songs are the place where she feels completely safe to be emotionally vulnerable, so I don’t think she’ll show Zuko until they’re married. Alternately, I like the idea that he finds her notebook at some point after they live together.

There’s a song called “Think of You” by Rose Betts and I swear Mai wrote it about Zuko after one of their breakups. You have to listen to it! It will give you such Maiko feels!! OMG

Career

I think that Mai did very well in high school. Her parents’ invested in the best education of course, but I also think Azula would play a big part in her success. Azula is very motivated to be the valedictorian of her graduating class, so she makes Mai and Ty Lee study with her for hours. (Mai would have done just fine without Azula, but I think she would have cared less about school without the extra encouragement.)

In college, Mai has enough AP credits from high school to easily double major in Political Science and Philosophy. 

She becomes a professor of Political Theory at a small local school and all of her students love her. The job is a bit social for her comfort zone, but she loves studying game theory and political power structures. And working with students reminds her of her time studying with her friends. She accepts no nonsense in the classroom, but her quick wit and dry humor earn her a good rapport with her students.

On the weekends and in the summers Mai also works part time as a tattoo artist. This earns her extra coolness points with her students as well.

Zuko

Our emo cuties are still very in love

I envision them being childhood friends. Ozai is a big politician and Mai’s dad is one of his top campaign donors. So Mai and Zuko and Azula end up at all the same press events and become friends. 

They start dating in her sophomore year (his junior year) of high school and everyone thinks they’re not gonna last, but I say they do ❤️

When they’re teens, they fight because they don't know how else to communicate. They never learned properly for obvious reasons. But they also really value each other since they relied on each other during the hardest parts of their upbringing 

Sometimes they do take breaks in the early years of their relationship, but they rarely if ever see other people. Zuko uses the time to focus on himself and his mental health, and Mai uses the time to focus on her career.

They get better at communication with time and they don’t take each other for granted. Zuko proposes to Mai after her senior year of university (his first year of law school), but they opt for a long engagement and wait until Mai is done with grad school to tie the knot officially. 

When Izumi is born, Zuko and Mai are both fortunate enough to be able to take parental leave from their jobs for six months. They are determined to give her all of the love and support that they lacked. Despite her apprehensions about being a mother, Mai enjoys taking some time away from her busy lifestyle and building her family. (Nonetheless, she’s happy to return to work and have intellectually stimulating conversations again.)

Other Family 

Mai’s parents are SUPER wealthy, but she hates feeling dependent on them. I bet she’d get a crappy customer service job as soon as she's legally old enough to work so that she can have some money of her own saved away

Her parents set very high expectations for her in childhood, which she cares about less and less every year.

When Tom-Tom is little, she tries to counteract her parents’ messaging. They’re a bit softer on him since he’s the youngest, but Mai never resents him for it. She goes to all of his school events and little league games, even when their parents are busy. The two are quite close, even into adulthood.

[aquatint-101]

Random Maiko AU: there's a talent-show ish event in their school where students can audition in solo/groups to sing songs from Broadway musicals. Mai and Zuko are involved in theatre, but they're specifically the kids who move the spotlights around (Zuko is too shy about his scar and Mai has lots of insecurities because of her mom). They're also best friends since they're up there for every musical, play, and performance with snacks and energy drinks. Zuko gets the idea to perform The Phantom of the Opera because he'll get to wear a mask, and he ropes Mai in because she can hit all the Christine high notes. This is just a big build-up to them kissing on stage because I'm cringe like that.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

tumblr com/damnfandomproblems/757983788815007744/fandom-problem-5430-im-going-to-start-by-saying

Not about Avatar, but this can apply. What’s your opinion on this?

I don't agree at all. If we label even shipping as AU, that pretty much opens the door to "Any headcanon/interpretation is therefore an AU, even if it doesn't contradict canon and just expands it, because it wasn't what canon stablished."

Even when it comes to people writing fics, "Zutara is a thing instead of Kataang/Maiko" should not be labelled AU, because literally the only thing they changed was these characters relationship to each other. The setting, or the universe, is still basically the same.

But one in which there was no war ever, or some other nation was the one attacking everyone instead of the Fire Nation, or bending is not a thing, or the story is taking place in some different time period (modern high school/college, some futuristic cyberpunk shit, etc)? THAT is an AU. Because the setting, or the universe, the story takes place in, is not the same as the one in the show.

This feels very much like someone who either didn't understand what "AU" is supposed to mean and think it just means "Anything that is different from canon" instead of just the SETTING of the story being different, or someone that, despite claiming otherwise, is deeply bothered by fan interpretation/content existing and is using "AU" to make it all sound less "valid", to them at least.

[krastbannert]

As @calcliffbas, for some reason, can't send me asks from his blog, he sent me a message when I first reblogged the "5 Headcanons About an AU" ask game, so I'm putting them here in this post.

Maiko in a small-town Grocery Store AU

I've read a story similar to this one, actually, called photosynthesis of the soul, where Iroh and Mura owned shops in a mall (tea and flowers, predictably) that Zuko and Mai worked at. It was really adorable, actually.

Mai is the floral department associate, running it under the supervision of her aunt Mura, the floral department manager. She doesn't mind it - it's quite, and she likes the hidden meanings that flowers can have.

Zuko works in the deli, usually in the background; he started in the customer service area but that didn't work out so well after he got in a fight with a customer named Jet.

Mai had already been working there when Zuko was hired, and she thought he was a little weird, but handsome. She likes him, at least from a distance, and his awkward flirting is cute whenever he comes by.

Zuko usually ends up in the floral section when he takes a break, at first because it reminds him of his mother, who had been a florist. That's how they end up meeting (actually meeting, not just locking eyes from across the store); Mai wants to know why he keeps coming over here and interrupting her drawing/flower-arranging.

Azula had come to the store to bother their uncle (the owner; he bought the store from Ozai) and she almost instantly became best friends with Mai the moment she walked in. She proceeded to viciously tease Zuko and Mai until she eventually had enough of their pining, and set them up on a date.

The Dragon Prince characters' misadventures at a Friday night youth club

This one...hmm.

Opeli and Ibis are the technically the two running the place, and she is incredibly tired because all these kids are causing a lot of trouble. Opeli survives Friday nights mostly on caffeine; Ibis needs about four hours of meditation instead of twenty minutes.

Nyx causes a ton of trouble by playing pranks on everyone. And I mean everyone. Opeli, Soren, Rayla, Callum, Ezran - she even plays pranks on Bait, sometimes. Everyone says they hate it, but they love it. Really, they totally do.

Soren and Claudia are new additions to the group, coming from a relatively troubled home; Rayla invited Soren after they made up, following several fights on the sports field. Claudia was a harder sell, but eventually Soren managed to convince her. Turns out they both really needed a place to get away from home.

Amaya, Janai, Opeli, Ethari, and Ibis shouldn't have one, but they have a bet going about whether or not Rayla and Callum will get together, since the two have been dancing around each other for a very long time now and they're all frustrated. Marcos, Amaya, and Gren have a different pool for Nyx and Soren - they all lost, though, because Nyx and Soren got together, secretly, before the pool was started.

Bait, Zym, and Stella cause lots of trouble by breaking into the pantry and eating...well, everything. Ezran, Callum, and Rayla think its hilarious. Soren is scandalized and upset that all the food is gone. Claudia just wants some hot brown morning potion. Nyx is the one who let them in.

Sokka and Suki's meet-cute in their very own College AU

I actually kinda wrote this already, believe it or not😅may not be exactly what you're looking for but this is what I got.

Suki is a health physics major, Sokka in aeronautical engineering; they met, technically, years before, during high school soccer, but had fallen out of contact. They met again during freshman year physics. Sokka was surprised to see her, but he was nonetheless, still humbled.

Sokka is, of course, still hung up on Yue. Her passing affected him quite a lot; it took a lot of conversations with Zuko, Iroh, and Katara for him to get it into his head that no, past did not equal present or future.

They actually got together almost completely on accident. They got dinner after a class they were TAing together, and then they just...stayed out. And then they were together, under the moonlight.

Katara, Azula, and Aang were not surprised in the least. They both saw it coming from a mile away. Zuko was mildly surprised (Zuko, in any AU, is still Zuko), but he figured they went well together. Ty Lee called bridesmaid the moment she heard.

Suki, for her part, was just glad they got together. She'd been thinking about Sokka for nearly two years after they first (actually) met, and she knew she was crazy - her aunts both said it to her face - but she held on to him, hoping they'd meet again some day. For all his faults, he'd been a good guy. (And he was cute. That was a bonus, too.) When she finally did see him again, it was a rush of happiness, mixed with a little," Oh, crap, this guy again." (She did still remember when he said girls shouldn't play soccer or do martial arts. And she also remembered running circles around him.)

[plentyofsoup]

Working on backstory for this AU

Chick - born to a pair of chicken Tengu (though only one of them being their bio-parent. The other bio-parent being an Owl Tengu.)

They were a pretty big baby, almost half the size of their parents. They were born with severe scoliosis, though it thankfully didn't cause any health problems besides affecting mobility. Their parents have them wear a brace to fix the issue slowly.

Toddler - Brace has straightened them out to the point they can move around without issue. Picked up speech and reading fairly quickly. They have a habit of mimicking people, actions, and things they'd hear. Which helps them pick up skills quickly.

Kid - Quiet, but smart, and incredibly tall for their age. Unfortunately, they follow their friend [Ace] around and tend to mimic what he does. Which usually isn't good things. They cause a lot of chaos and mischief.

Their adult feathers have started to come in, but they still have mostly down feathers.

Teen - After a fire took the lives of their parents, they fled their home and were taken in by an instructor of a Maiko school, taking a strong intrest in the classes taking place and mimicking things they picked up from watching. eventually fully brought into classes. They've lost contact with their friends during this time.

All of their adult feathers have come in at this time, but they are unable to fly very high due to the length and curlyness.

Adult- As an adult, they've fully transitioned to a place they're comfortable with.

As a hobby, they gather objects and combine them into art to sell, but otherwise, it does a lot of traveling.

[flameohotfamily]

goth cheerleader mai yes a sss tier like her altering her uniform for her liking but still with mini skirt, pop pom weapons chefs kiss. imaGING EVERYONE'S REACTIONS

zuko would be ASTONISHED for sure.

and wait a minute, i guess i had a post about it haha <3

[minisokka]

[sokkastyles]

I do not know if you will watch the adaptation from Netflix, but if you have seen the cast, what do you think? It seems to me that Katara will not be with Aang, not with Zuko, and will remain an independent character without a love line in the series, which is actually quite good.

I don't care either way, honestly, because I doubt I will watch it, and even so, the live action series probably won't end up making a nickel-sized dent in the pop cultural impact of the original series, so what they do with the adaptation doesn't change anything about the original series and characters. I don't know if that rumor about it being a high school au was ever confirmed but wow that sounds like an immediate recipe for disaster.

But I agree, it wouldn't be bad at all for the show to treat any relationships Katara (and Aang) have as ambiguous. One of the things I thought was unnecessary about the original series was the amount of times they felt like they had to show adolescents making out in a cartoon show.

And honestly, as far as chemistry and ambiguous implications, a lot depends on how it is portrayed. The actress who plays Katara can look older or younger depending on how scenes are shot, makeup, and costuming. Same with Zuko and Sokka. Aang still looks prepubescent but that's how he looked in the original series so people who think he is too young for Katara will still think so. The only real difference I see there is that because kids that age grow fast, we will see him grow with the series. Which is what I predicted they would do, cast a young actor that we would watch grow throughout the show, because Aang's story is very much a coming of age, and his romance with Katara is meant to have that flavor as well. The problem I foresee there is that the actress who plays Katara is young enough that she is also still growing, so you might end up with a Katara who ends the series looking a lot older than Aang. Casting children is such a mixed bag and this actress already looks like she could be an older teen. I don't think she looks bad next to the actor playing Zuko at all. That doesn't mean I want them to do explicit scenes, some of y'all need to get your minds out of the gutter.

As far as Zuko and Sokka, the reason they were cast as adults is probably because they have the least ambiguous relationships (with girls, don't @ me) within the course of the series. Atla loosely implies that both Sukka and Maiko had sex so the show could, ahem, expand upon that (please no). We'll see when we get info on who is playing Suki and Mai.

The guy playing Sokka looks a little too white-passing to me, but he is indigenous, I believe.

[madsmoonlight]

fic ideas I might never write

these are all up for grabs if you credit me for the idea btw lol

-maizulee au in which zuko and Mai are exes so Mai throws papers at his window to annoy him in the middle of the night bc it was a Bad Breakup but she accidentally gets Azula’s window while she’s having a sleepover with ty Lee. Tyzula is established and Mai hangs out with them to bother zuko, but then oh??? She genuinely likes them??? Mai and zuko make up eventually and she’s like btw I’m now in love with your sister and Zuko’s like,,,oh?

-yuetara ice skating au. Katara’s a hockey player and Yue is a figure skater and they’re both captains of their respective teams and argue about who gets the ice today etc etc. It’s rivals to lovers slow burn yuetara‼ idk where it would go from there,,,I can see it many different ways

-this one is actually a wip so pls don’t steal💀sukka childhood friends to lovers fic where Suki is adopted or fostered and her parents aren’t the greatest, they kind of favor the ‘real‘ children of theirs so sometimes Suki sneaks out her windows to meet up with Sokka. They end up dating in high school and into college but then break up- not sure why yet- and then Suki gets a rebound guy who Sokka HATES. There’s more to it than that but yeah just jealousy, angst, and childhood love :)

-haunting of bly manor yuetara au with the moon spirit as viola, yue as dani (heterochromia yue<3) and katara as Jamie (PLANT GAY KATARA !!!) and Hannah as Suki maybe, and Sokka as Owen (it fits it fits it DOES) anyways I just think this would be so interesting...I’ve always kind of wanted to write something where instead of it took Yue’s life all at once, the moon spirit slowly drew her away in a way similar to viola slowly growing over dani so this idea makes me so excited

-wandavision esque au with Azula as scarlet witch and ty Lee as Vision. Something happens to ty lee and Azula has a breakdown similar to wandas in ep 8(I think) and yeah. I don’t have much for this au lol

-the way I loved you (Taylor swift) au with kataang as ‘perfect relationship’ from the verses and katoph as the ‘screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain’. the way I loved you always has and always will be a comphet- or at least wlw- song to me due to personal experiences so I’d love this tbh

-i love maiko but I dont have any ideas for them I’m sorry </3

-katyzutoph (cannot explain how much I hate that ship name) au where they just. Chill and live together post war? Idk but I just want to see them together 😭 being their only shipper is tiring y’all

anyways like I said before these are up for grabs (except the sukka one) as long as you credit me on here or as @/azulaacelesbian on ao3! My maizula fic is being published on Friday!!!

[shrinkthisviolet]

happy ffwf!! what's your favorite fic (or one of your favorites) that you "collaborated" with someone on? how did that person influence the story (maybe you both wrote it, maybe you bounced ideas off them, maybe they were just a great cheerleader who helped get you through the rough parts)? feel free to promo the fic, too! (- thinkingisadangerouspastime)

Ooh this is an interesting one! @ohsalamanders has kinda played that role for most of my fics, but ESPECIALLY this one! I’ve rambled about my Coraline Maiko AU before but I honestly wouldn’t have written it if Salma hadn’t been like “NO YOU HAVE TO WRITE THIS IT’S INCREDIBLE” and I’m so glad I did!

She’s also been such a cheerleader for me while writing the CK time travel AU! It’s still ongoing, and I’m not quite done with the first fic yet. But the next fic is gonna have a lot of hijinks (high school drama without stupid love triangles), most of which are thanks to Salma’s encouragement and suggestions 🥰

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

📓

for you, my darling anna, i shall talk about my maiko theatre kids au, a currently nonexistent fic that would pull heavily from my own theatre kid experiences (should i ever choose to write it). mai would work tech, jointly managing costumes and makeup with ty lee. zuko would be an actor, maybe with a one-sided rivalry (on his part) with aang bc i think that would be hilarious and definitely a required rivalry with azula (even tho they are never up for the same parts and azula, bless her heart, is terrible at acting). i don't know what show they would be doing; i've currently contemplated Macbeth or Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Dog Sees God, or possibly a musical, like Chicago or Something Rotten!. alternatively... something else entirely, lmao.

it would be a lighthearted fic for sure, just kids trying to make it through high school while also putting together a show. i'd probably write it so zuko like,, just transferred in after a long time away from home so he and mai are Reuniting like they did in Ba Sing Se in atla canon (bc i want that childhood friends element lolol). they're relearning their dynamic! it's a good time!! (zuko is very stressed bc mai is still the most gorgeous person he's ever seen. ty lee thinks his awe is hilarious, mai finds it irritating bc they have a show to put on, get it together zuko.) i really don't have much of a plot worked out, just Vibes, but y'all know me - fluff and fun (and gratuitous theatre references), practically my brand 😌

[lottienatyellowjackets]

i’m a slut for maiko single parent aus <3 like they’re childhood friends and stuff and even maybe had a will they won’t they in high school but they grow up and marry other people and both marriages end poorly (because angst) and they both have children who become friends and suddenly they’re reminded how much they enjoy the others company and of course it ends with one big happy family <3

[gecsha]

BASE MODERN AU. VERSE INFO.

The Lady was born as Izanami Akacho, the only child of a poor Japanese family, washed out former nobility who were more than a little disappointed in having borne a single daughter as their restaurant’s heir rather than a son. Her childhood was unusual, and thus she became an unusual child; such was to be expected from a girl who was practically locked in a single, filthy bedroom for nine years.

But after a certain event, Izanami's craving for freedom too strong to be denied by even her fear. She began to sneak out the window, in search of amusement, play, and food. Food, food, food ------ that was always the most important task. Be it from searching the garbage, terrorising the local wildlife, or simply fighting others for theirs, she was determined to find something to eat. Her parents rarely remembered to feed her, and there was hardly ever anything edible in the house to begin with. Ironic, considering their family’s occupation. Thus, she became the playground weirdo; a strange thing in a yellow raincoat that no kids ever saw in class  (  for she had never been enrolled, unfortunately  )  , but learned to avoid in fear of earning her ire ------ or her infamous bite. Soon enough, she grew so bold as to argue with her caretakers, to scream and insult and hurt them back when they chose to punish such actions. 

Little Miss Akacho was in school by the next year.

With puberty came metamorphosis; the silent, tactless Izanami became the beautiful, charming Lady President of the school council, an ever charismatic figure who seemed to be the ideal student and daughter both. What a convenient mask for a girl struggling to keep her own mind in place. As a teenager, she lived alone in a single room apartment on the bad side of town, but having to constantly toil for such a meagre place was far better than the alternative. At eighteen, she moved to Kyoto to train as a maiko, soon becoming a geiko. It was a dream come true.

At twenty-two, she retired from that profession to instead run The Maw following her parents passing. She was not particularly bothered by it, and failed to attend their funeral. There were better things to do. Beneath her careful watch, the restaurant became immensely popular, a luxury feasting hall fetching high prices and illustrious guests. 

Although her true name is no secret, most simply refer to her as The Lady; a title earned by her beauty, grace and wealth. It was a moniker she had already grown used to from her high school days, and so she allowed it to take root once more. She wears a mask or a veil of some sort while appearing to Guests. She dislikes being bothered in public, after all; it is best to not give most visitors the chance to take photographs.

[flameohotfamily]

recently i've been rewatching some old teen comedies, so i got an idea about a cheerleader ty lee who wanted mai to join their team because it's funny (besides mai did gymnastics in middle school.)

mai was refusing of course but ty lee somehow convinced her (idk how, somehow).

just imagine for a second, mai in the cheerleader uniform with these two hair-buns, doing their routines and supporting the school team.

and zuko, who's running across the field (cause he plays in the school team) noticed her at the game and stopped with wide eyes like wtf, mai??? 

and then the ball flew right into his head. the end.

[soopersara]

Why and when did you start shipping Zutara?

You want the long version or the short version? Just kidding! There really isn’t a short version. My history with ATLA in general is kind of a mess. 

I saw my first episode of ATLA around the time it was airing - I think it was in 2008 or so when Book 3 was almost done. Anyway, I was babysitting some of my younger cousins, my aunt told me that the boys were allowed to watch a couple of episodes of the show they’d been recording on the DVR. Cool. I’d never heard of it before, but if middle-school me didn’t have to come up with a ton of activities to occupy three little boys until their bedtime, I wasn’t gonna argue about it. 

So I got the boys settled in on the couch, hit play, and I watched my first ever episode of ATLA. The Western Air Temple. And HOLY BUCKETS, dude, I was hooked. Honestly, in a way, I started shipping Zutara right then and there. There was just so much emotion and tension between the two of them. And sure, it was clearly not a romance yet, but the whole point of the episode was Zuko trying to join the Gaang, and for me (then and now), Katara felt like the emotional center of the Gaang. She was the one who seemed to have the most personal history with Zuko, she was the one who was most opposed to him joining, and she was the person whose approval Zuko seemed to want the most. And... damn. I wanted to see that conflict play out and resolve SO BADLY. I wasn’t consciously aware of this at the time, but there’s an old saying that love and hate aren’t opposites, love and apathy are. And that was the first time I ever felt the truth of that statement and wanted to watch the enemies to friends to lovers dynamic play out.

But then my babysitting night ended, and my parents drove me home, and I spent the rest of my middle school and high school years back in my normal life in a house with one TV, no cable, and no internet. I couldn’t have watched the rest of ATLA if I wanted to, and I was unaware of... the majority of what was on the internet in general at that point, so I didn’t know that fandom was a thing. Also, my family has... poor taste in entertainment. They don’t like ANY fantasy/sci-fi, not because they had problems with the plots, tropes, or themes associated with the genres, but because they think that people who enjoy those genres are “weird” and because of that, they’ve never bothered to consume any stories in those genres. Which meant that they teased me for my tastes in stories. A lot. All the time. I wouldn’t have had the guts to watch ATLA in my house even if I had access to it. So I just let my brain run wild extrapolating story ideas from the tiny snippets of ATLA that I had seen and started never finished a few original stories with nuggets of inspiration drawn from the Zutara dynamic.

Then I went off to college a few years later and it occurred to me a couple of times that I could probably find ATLA and watch it online, but I never actually looked for it until a few of my friends in the dorms mentioned that they loved this old kids’ show called Avatar the Last Airbender. I waited until I finally had free time (the few days when I was stuck on campus after finishing finals), and finally got around to watching it. 

And watching ATLA was... not what I expected. Based on what I’d seen of the show several years earlier, I knew that Zuko started off on the wrong side of the war, but I wasn’t prepared to see him be such a raging jerk for so much of the show. Don’t get me wrong, I loved him the whole time but it was a I want to shake you and and tell you to pull your head out of your ass because I know how much better you will be later and I want that NOW kind of love. I knew based on the episode intro I’d seen in middle school that Aang was the protagonist, but I wasn’t prepared to see him drive so much of the show, since he was just... not the central character in the first episode I saw. And on some level, I knew that there had to be a lot of history as enemies between Zuko and the Gaang to cause the amount of animosity I saw, but I didn’t expect his joining the Gaang to come so close to the end. I thought there would be at LEAST a solid season with him as a Gaang member, not... half a season. 

So... I liked ATLA. It was good. The finale was a huge, beautiful spectacle that worked so well on an emotional level, but... there were enough things that niggled at me that I didn’t see it becoming a major interest of mine. At the time, I really only had media/stories that I revisited over and over and over because I loved them unconditionally and media/stories that was... too flawed or not compelling enough for me to revisit.

But ATLA was different. I thought it was going to end up in my list of “meh” stories that I liked but bugged me enough that I’d never go back to it. But I just. Kept. Thinking. About. It. And after a while, I started watching the show over. And over. And over. But those problems still niggled at me, and I didn’t really know how to articulate what my problems with the show were. 

So then I finished college and moved in with a friend. And after she introduced me to a few shows I’d never seen before, I decided to return the favor and introduce her to ATLA. And after that rewatch, I finally started picking out and trying to articulate some of my problems with the show. Two of the first things I realized were that I HATED Maiko as presented in canon (it reminded me too much of my high school classmates whose romantic relationships alway boiled down to “I hate spending time with him/her, but I’m horny.” UGH. I don’t know how many times I had to restrain myself from yelling, “JUST BREAK THE F*CK UP, YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY TWO HORNY TEENAGERS ON THE PLANET.”), and Kataang was... meh. I didn’t hate the idea of them being together eventually, but the development felt half-assed and the kiss in the finale was WAY too sudden for me. I finally remembered that I liked the idea of Zuko and Katara together way back when I first saw The Western Air Temple, and because the internet has a creepy way of reading my thoughts, Pinterest started feeding me Zutara fanart. I. Loved. It. Knowing that I wasn’t the only one who wanted them together was AMAZING (keep in mind, this was like... 2016. I came SO late it’s unreal).

I decided that I wanted to write a Zutara fanfic at some point, then got the idea for an Avatar Katara AU now my mega-slow updating WIP, A Tale of Ice and Smoke. And I started writing it. And posting on FFN. Then some of my scrolling through Zutara content on Pinterest led me to Zutara metas (which reinforced a lot of the conclusions I’d reached about my own issues with the story and helped me identify a few others that I’d noticed but hadn’t been able to express) and other people’s fics, and I started reading those while posting the first few chapters of Ice and Smoke. Then I finally created my own Tumblr and started getting more and more involved in the fandom. When I say that I fell ass-backward into this fandom, I mean it.

So. TLDR: I started either started shipping Zutara in 2008 when I saw one episode (to this day The Western Air Temple is still one of my favorites), or I started shipping it in 2016 after thinking about the show way too much, and deciding that fixing a lot of my problems with the series would most likely lead to Zuko and Katara being together. 

[attackfish]

Inspired by your Noir AU, how would the Gaang work if they were all detectives/cops?

I actually have a Maiko cop AU that features District Attorney/organized crime boss Ozai, Police Chief Zhao, ADA Mai, and detective Zuko: [Link]. Rather than make a new AU, I'll just expand that one.

Hakoda was mayor of the county seat until he was charged and convicted of murduring his wife. Ozai prosecuted him personally. He was in prison for six years before he was able to have his conviction vacated after an appellate court ruled that eight year old Katara's eye witness testimony to her mother's murder should have been admitted, as should ten year old Sokka's testimony that his father was with him when Katara called them with the news.

Katara is going through her residency to become a medical examiner. Sokka is creeped out and horrified, and convinced this has something to do with their mom having been murdered, and how the medical examination in that instance had been bungled. Sokka meanwhile is an investigative reporter who works to uncover corruption in high places. This is how he and Zuko know each other.

Ty Lee is also an ADA, and also aware of the nepotism that got her, a school friend of Azula's, hired.

Suki is a rookie cop, whose mother was a cop, rapidly becoming disillusioned with the bullying, corruption, and unnecessary violence she sees from many of her colleagues, and one too many comments to this effect have lost her any real chance of advancement. She has her degree in criminology and sociology, and studied what should be proper policing pretty thoroughly, and the reality of how she's expected to act by her fellow officers horrifies her.

Toph is an intern in the DA's office. Her parents are close associates with Ozai. She is a major source for Zuko and Mai's investigation, and spends a lot of time using her family's connections to keep her from getting fired as she loudly points out all the ways the DA's office is not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Aang is an aspiring journalist, newspaper intern, and journalism student, witnessing firsthand the slow death of the industry he wants to enter. Maybe he should just give up and change his major.