Hmm, so how about 5 headcanons for the au where Zuko is Mai’s older brother and Ukano’s heir?

attackfish:

Yeah well shipping them is definitely out, and Zuko is so much better at repression than he is in canon.  Which says a lot really.

1. The thing about all of these “Zuko is someone else’s kid or otherwise ineligible for the Fire Nation throne” AUs is that ultimately what ends up interesting the political science nerd that is yours truly isn’t actually how Zuko is different, or his new family is different, or any of those lovely character things that I’m usually interested in, because I’m too busy working out who gets the throne and how that affects everything.  So for this AU, Azula is an only child.  I guess that means at the end, Iroh has to take the throne.  He has no other choice.  This infuriates large segments of the Earth Kingdom, especially the Earth Kingdom military, because to them, he will always be the Dragon of the West and a war criminal.  Also, he will need to remarry and make an heir.  He’ll have to choose his wife carefully, because at his age, there’s every chance that she will become regent to their child.  Unfortunately we don’t know enough about the Fire Nation aristocracy to point to a suitable candidate, but she would have to be at least tacitly anti-imperialist, from an appropriate family, and of childbearing years, and preferably in her thirties, so that she’s both relatively mature and also wouldn’t likely have difficulties conceiving.  And then no matter who Iroh chose, the other noble families would be in a snit over it.  There are some very tricky politics here that canon Zuko just didn’t have to deal with, not having Iroh’s history, and having a suitable potential spouse in Mai.

2. As I mentioned, Azula is an only child in this verse, and by age eight, she is the undisputed heir to the throne.  Her childhood relationship with her father is different than in canon, since there is no unfavored sibling to collect all of Ozai’s scorn, which means that Ozai swung between adoring and praising her, and hating her and blaming her for being less than worthy of being his daughter.  Azula in this universe is less outwardly confident in herself, though she puts up a good act in front of other people, and also much more willing to contemplating removing her father from the picture.  And because she’s relatively close in age to Zuko, and they already have an in with Mai being her friend/minion, his parents keep throwing him at her as a potential husband.  Zuko is terrified of her, and wants nothing to do with her, which, as far as Azula’s concerned, makes him perfect.

3. It’s not just that Zuko would make a compliant consort, there’s something about keeping him under her thumb that Azula enjoys.  When he leaves with his family for the newly conquered Omashu, she is severely displeased.  When she goes hunting the Avatar and her fugitive uncle after Zhao’s colossal failure, she reclaims him along with his sister.  Hoping to convince Mai to follow him, and desperate to get away from Azula, Zuko ditches the group and heads to Ba Sing Se, and runs straight into Azula’s fugitive uncle on the ferry.  He stays with him for a while, but when Azula offers him the chance to help take over the city with her, he accepts to protect Mai, and also Tom-Tom.

4. When he runs away to the Avatar’s gaang, it’s an act of total desperation, after Azula gloated to him about how her father had decided to implement her Earth Kingdom genocide plan.  The entire time, he is terrified for his sister and baby brother.  After Mai turns traitor too, at the Boiling Rock, and he’s unable to rescue her, he assumes his entire family is probably dead in retaliation.  When he sees his sister again and finds out they’re okay, it’s the best feeling in the world.

5. After the war, both Mai and Zuko powerfully resent Ozai, for effectively giving them to his daughter as playthings.  They don’t have especially warm feelings toward their parents, either, and when
Ukano

tries to rope them into his conspiracy to put Ozai back on the throne, it goes over like a lead balloon, pretty much exactly the way it does with Mai in canon.  Mai goes to the flower shop, and Zuko gets a job in a tea shop, and they share a crappy apartment, take care of Tom-Tom, and carefully don’t talk about family.  Half the neighborhood thinks he got her knocked up, and they’re shotgun spouses, and Tom-Tom is theirs.  Mai finds this hilarious.  Zuko just finds it really awkward.