1. The avatar did not awaken. Instead, the Earth Kingdom army and the Northern Water Tribe invaded on the Day of Black Sun and overthrew Ozai. Zuko’s ship was captured soon after, and Iroh put in prison. Zuko was put on the throne as a puppet monarch. Zuko has not had his redemption/recovery arc, so he is still a hostile snarly, anxious unhappy twerp, only now Ozai is dead, and Zuko is free to lionize him without having to face the reality of who Ozai really was. Also Iroh is in prison in the Earth Kingdom awaiting execution, and Azula is running around making everything about a hundred times more difficult.
2. Azula makes a bid for the throne, persuading a group of Dai Li and disgruntled Fire nobles to back her. At the same time, Iroh escapes and makes his way home. Somehow this ends with Zuko still on the throne, Iroh safe, and the Dai Li at least out of Zuko’s court. But the other upshot is that Zuko needs to marry an Earth Kingdom noble in order to prevent another invasion. The Bei Fongs manage to luck out as the family to garner the most backers in he Earth Kingdom, so their thirteen-year-old daughter is escorted to the Fire Nation by her mother and several regiments of the Earth Kingdom army.
3. Zuko takes one look at her and marries her just to get her away from the people who are willing to marry her off at thirteen. Consummation of this marriage is not going to happen for a looooong time. But Toph might be a frightened child, but she would never let that show. She keeps running away. Not back to her parents as might be expected, just away, to the wilds of the Fire Nation, to the inner city, anywhere she can get to. She bends the glass out of her windows, she tears up Zuko’s mother’s garden, the only person who can really get her to do anything is Iroh, and now he has two intractable, bad tempered teens to look after, and Zuko is now even less willing to listen to him now that he’s got a crown.
4. Eventually, the two of them settle into a siblingish relationship, and Toph eventually grows up to realize no body here really has a choice, so she’s going to have to just deal. She still absolutely despises everything involved with being Firelady. Also Zuko resurrected the prewar custom of official concubinage when Mai accidentally got pregnant, and Toph is careful only to take firebenders as lovers.
5. Doesn’t matter. Both her children are earthbenders, even Lin, who is actually Zuko’s. Izumi, his acknowledged bastard, has to take the throne. The mess that is the royal inheritance at this time very nearly touches off a civil war, and a couple of islands do break away and declare Lin their queen. Lin has to go down there to knock some sense into them.
Tag: iroh
Could we have more of that combustion man au?
Continued from here: [Link] and here: [Link]
1. Zuko is not stupid. He has known for years what his father wants from him. He has known that if he goes along with it, in a decade or so, he could become head Fire Sage, and that someday, he would be the one to crown his sister Firelord. He understands this.
2. He doesn’t know what to do now. He has been captured and he knows there is no hope of rescue. He has no idea what to do with the life and the choices he has right now. It wouldn’t be so bad, he supposes, asking Chief Arnook for asylum, as Arnook has told him over and over he can. He could build a life here. It’s not like he has a life back home in the Fire Nation waiting for him. He wouldn’t have to worry about going home and trying to fight, and figure out what he should become, and if he even wants out of the trap his father has set for him. It could be so easy. But instead he’s just frozen and silent.
3. Back in the Fire Nation Ozai reacts to his brother’s disappearance with rage. He orders his brother’s apprehension and return to the Fire Nation. His brother is not well, he tells the nation through gritted teeth. He should have been in a hospital, but Ozai softheartedly tried to have him treated in the palace. Sadly his condition makes him dangerous. Fire Nation soldiers should take no risks when attempting to capture him and return him home.
4. Pakku fills Iroh in on how his nephew has been doing. He tells him that Zuko is well cared for and safe, and Iroh tells him to his shame that he is unable to ensure the same for him. But he also tells Iroh about Zuko’s total silence and blank expression, and about the way that Arnook says he just sits there. He doesn’t tell Iroh that Arnook tries to dote on the boy as a way to stave off mourning for his daughter, or the lost look the Chief has described in his eyes sometimes when he thinks no one is looking at him.
5. Pakku also tells Iroh that Zuko is not well guarded. He has made no attempts to escape, so there is no real point, especially since Arnook is reluctant to keep him prisoner at all. Iroh goes to his nephew’s room, wakes him up, takes him by the hand and leads him down to his boat, and they set a course for the open sea.
5 hc + au combustion bender zuko? i loved your first post <3
Continued from here: [Link]
1. Iroh hasn’t seen his nephew since he left to lead the siege of Ba Sing Se more than eight years ago, more than half of Zuko’s life. Zuko disappeared from court to train as a combustion bender before Iroh returned. He has no idea what the boy even looks like anymore. But still when Pakku sends word to him asking if he knows who the young man captured by the Northern Water Tribe who tried to defend the moon could be, Iroh knows it has to be Zuko and he sneaks away from court to go find his nephew and rescue him.
2. Zuko is well treated in the North, kept in a pleasant room with good food and a comfortable bed, much more comfortable than his own quarters back in the Fire Temple, or on Zhao’s ship. He stood against his own people to defend the moon, and if he had succeeded, the Northern Princess would have lived. If he were to ask for asylum, he would have it without question. But he doesn’t speak. He has a vow of silence, but he knows that’s only an excuse. He can’t even begin the process of finding the words to say, or any words at all.
3. He is visited often by the Avatar and his companions. At first Arnook hopes that children his own age will draw the strange young man out of his shell and get him talking, but to no avail. He remains stubbornly silent.
4.Yet Aang continues to come. With his shaved head and third eye tattoo, he reminds the young Avatar of his own people, and even though he knows this resemblance is illusory, that the firebender is no more an Air Nomad than Katara or Sokka, or any of the other fragments of family he will gather to himself, he can’t help it. He still goes to see him every day, to talk to him, and try to make him laugh. Last week he made him smile. That’s something. A small victory. but a victory none the less.
5. A small steamboat slips past the Northern Water Tribe defenses and docks in a hidden harbor outside the fortress. The old man who enters the fortress under the cover of darkness goes straight for the home of Master Pakku, who wakes with an old friend’s hand on his shoulder, and a finger to his lips.
Continuation on Regent Ursa AU?
Continued from here: [Link]
1. As I alluded to in the previous Regent Ursa post, Ursa is an imperialist. As kind and loving a mother as she is, she was raised in the imperial Fire Nation system and has never really had a reason to question it. She has never met a non-Fire person, and it doesn’t occur to her to wonder how the war affects the conquered. So the war continues apace. And Zuko and Azula are educated to continue the war in their turn. Many of Azula’s lessons focus on getting her to aim her cruelty at acceptable targets. This is something Iroh quietly seeks to rectify with only marginal success.
2. Iroh sneaks both Zuko and Azula into the war meeting when they are thirteen and eleven. He hopes it will be instructive for them. He intends for them to see and be horrified by the tactics used. And Zuko at least is. He still stands up for the Fire Nation soldiers. Only it’s not Zuko who is punished. Ursa has Iroh banished, while Iroh insists that the young Firelord had every right to be there anyway. In truth, it’s just an excuse to get him and his meddling away from her children.
3. This is of course a miscalculation. And Iroh not at court is an Iroh out from under her eye, and an Iroh sufficiently recovered from his crushing grief to plot, at that. He heads straight to the Order of the White Lotus with a plan to kidnap the young Firelord and his sister.
4. As Zuko reaches his fourteenth birthday, Ursa focuses more and more attention on educating him in the skills he will need soon when he takes power. He now has his own invitation to the war meetings, and she expects him to spend time with her as she conducts royal business, and as he receives lessons in governence, Ursa becomes ever more painfully aware that these are lessons she never received, and skills she as a ruler does not possess. She intends to see Azula educated in these skills as well, but Azula is younger and doesn’t have a looming deadline upon which she will have a nation to run. So Ursa doesn’t rush her ahead of Zuko as Ozai might. Go on. Guess how Azula perceives this.
5. Yeah this is when Ursa proposes that the Earth Kingdom, an exciting and exotic land, might be a fitting place for Azula to rule in her brother’s name someday. She never wants Azula to feel like she is less loved or less worthy, even if her brother is already Firelord.
Could you do some headcannons for Toph and Zuko being like brother and sister please!
Do you mean this AU where they actually are brother and sister?: [Link]
I also have this one, where Toph is the Fire Princess instead of Azula: [Link] Wow I have a lot of five headcanon AUs.
Anyway, I’m going with the one where Zuko is a Bei Fong.
1. Zuko, Iroh, and Jet all end up on the same ferry into Ba Sing Se. Zuko is completely at loose ends, because he’s supposed to be hunting his sister and bringing her home, but he just can’t bring himself to do that to her, and he can’t go home without her, and he has never been anything but the Bei Fong heir. Without a nephew to teach and keep out of trouble, he’s spiraling into a bit of a depression at the site of the place where his son died. He’s there to offer his services to the Earth King in the fight against his brother, but sometimes it’s hard to hold onto that purpose. Jet is… Jet.
Anyway, Iroh meets Zuko when he’s passing around the food he stole with the freedom fighters, and he feels it’s his duty to provide a better influence for this kid before he gets arrested. This is how Zuko comes to be standing next to him when Iroh does his heating the tea thing. Zuko freaks. Iroh clamps his hand around the boy’s mouth, tells him who he is, and his plan, and Zuko decides to follow him to keep his eyes on him, since after all he doesn’t have anything else to do except try to keep tabs on his sister.
Iroh very quickly rethinks his plan after finding out about the Dai Li, and this is how he and Zuko end up running a tea shop together while they wait for the comet and plan to help defend the city.
2. Because there is no Prince Zuko to rescue Aang after Zhao captures him, it falls to Iroh, who has been spending his time on the front for the past two years, since court was so unpleasant with Ozai as Firelord. By the way, Zhao tries to have a rivalry with him, but Iroh just finds him amusing.
3. It’s Sokka that Azula strikes at in the abandoned village before making her getaway, something Iroh tells Zuko all about. Zuko just wants him to get back to talking about the time he talked to his sister. More Toph, less Water Tribe dude.
4. Toph has so many mixed feelings about her brother the secret rebel who hooked up with the renegade Dragon of the West. On one hand, yay! Her brother is awesome, and she loves him, on the other hand, she already has mixed feelings about the way he used to help her, and also help their parents control her, and she doesn’t know what to do with him, and also it;s kind of her fault he had to leave home, and hey Zuko, you may be a lavabender, but I can metalbend. I invented it. So nyah. She’s feeling a lot of things about him at once.
5. There was this really cool Kyoshi Warrior with a bunch of knives who came in for tea, and Zuko served her, and he almost spilled tea on her, but she came back, and then she saw Iroh and didn’t come back after that, and it turns out she wasn’t a Kyoshi Warrior after all, and Zuko’s pissed off at that, because he’s pretty sure she was spying on him. Not because he thought she was really cool and wanted to kiss her. No.
AU where Zuko has Toph for a sister instead of Azula.
Hmm, this is a hard one, because it isn’t one I’ve actually given a whole lot of thought to. I assume you mean that Toph is the youngest child of Ozai and Ursa?
1.Toph in this verse is a prodigy firebender instead of a prodigy earthbender, but because she’s blind her father thinks she’s weak. This drives her to train harder, and to work to develop ways to “see” with her bending. This is much more limited than her earth sense, and works like Zuko’s fire sense in Quiet Shadowed Places.
2. Between Toph’s blindness and Zuko’s compassion, Ozai in this verse does not play favorites, because he is too busy believing both his children are completely useless and worthless. This right here fundamentally changes family dynamics, history, everything.
3. Ozai is constantly pressuring Ursa to have another child, meanwhile, he keeps trying to convince Azulon to let him divorce Ursa and marry a woman who won’t give him such “defective heirs.” This all comes to a head when Lu Ten dies, and Ozai ends up strangling Azulon himself after Azulon suggests that maybe it’s Ozai that’s the problem. Then, he pins the murder on Ursa and has her executed.
4. Ozai becomes Firelord, remarries, and gets with the baby making. As soon as his new wife is pregnant, he starts looking for a way to dispose of his useless older children. Meanwhile Iroh has all but adopted them. When he exiles Zuko on a pretext, he accuses Toph of plotting with her brother to dishonor the general and the Firelord, and exiles her as well.
5. Because of this changed dynamic, Zuko’s daddy issues are different from canon. He still has the intense drive to prove himself, but he does not believe daddy will ever love him, and he is extremely depressed and has low self esteem. Meanwhile, Toph’s intense need to prove herself leads to recklessness. Between the two of them, Iroh has started to go bald from pulling his hair out. Instead of looking for the Avatar, however, Iroh has convinced them to settle down in the colonies with him. This is when the Avatar finds them, or more precisely, when the Order of the White Lotus sends the Avatar to them.
Then I’m asking for long term Regent Ursa!
I… It’s not like I didn’t predict this ask.
1. So first things first. how does Ursa get into a position to become regent? The answer is that Ozai dies. The poisoning does not go to plan. Ozai can’t help but gloat over his father’s intended demise, and with his last breath, Azulon fries his son with lightning. Ursa has to think fast. She claims that the second prince was assassanated, and Firelord Azulon died of the shock of seeing him like that. Frantically she writes to Iroh. but he does not answer. She is forced to consolidate power on her own. She claims to be ruling in his stead until he returns, and indeed she intends to step down. She just neglects to mention he never appointed her.
2. And then Iroh does return home a wreck. He has no interest in the throne she so capably kept warm for him, and sinks deeper and deeper into grief fueled mysticism and attempts to journey to the Spirit World. Ruling on Iroh’s behalf while he is right there in the palace is growing old fast, and Ursa’s position is becoming increasingly tenuous. This is something she tells to Iroh. Rather than pull himself out of his grief. Iroh abdicates in favor of his nephew and appoints Ursa his regent.
3. Ursa is furious. This is not what she wanted, and Ursa sees it as Iroh abdicating not only the throne but his responsibilities, and his duty. This is not something she will forgive easily.
4. This does mean she now has near complete freedom over her children’s education, and that Zuko is suddenly officially Firelord. Azula can stop scheming now. She has no path through the throne that doesn’t go directly through her brother. She doesn’t stop scheming of course, but she adopts the dream of conquering the Earth Kingdom and ruling the colonies as Zuko’s viceroy. This is a dream that Ursa encourages, being an imperialist. Azula’s dreams, motives, and insecurities change under her mother’s careful guidance, as she builds a more resilient sense of self and learns to stop using others for her own gratification.
5. Iroh meanwhile is nursing his newfound anti-imperialism, which given how he decided he would rather dump the responsibility of ruling on somebody else in Ursa’s eyes… She disagrees with him, and she doesn’t see why he should get a say now.
Cheloneuniverse 