prompt: Ozai has Azula watch Zuko (his progress or rather lack thereof) from way earlier on, possibly even before Aang gets away from the iceberg in the first place
There it is, written at the bottom of his banishment notice, wobbling in and out of his vision and he’s not sure if that’s his eyes—
(father wouldn’t have meant to blind him, so the way his eyes flinch away from bright lights and reading, even from the scrolls Uncle brought for him for some reason--this is a serious mission, why did he bring play scrolls, if they don’t take this seriously it’s going to take forever to get home--the way his eyes flinch away doesn't mean anything, because being blind isn’t going to help him catch the Avatar so he’ll just not go blind—)
It’s either his eyes, or. Or the rage. It has to be the rage.
So Zuko reads the line again, and lets the fire brim up and overflow, until sparks chase the shout from his lips.
“Banishment to be overseen by Crown Princess Azula?”
- - -
“Prince Zuko,” Azula says, standing as tall as an eleven year old can. She’s using his title, so that he’ll use hers. And if he doesn’t than he’s ill-mannered and not fit for his own.
“Crown Princess Azula,” Zuko grits out.
“I’ll just be inspecting your ship, then. Father’s orders.”
Two men are in shackles by the time she’s done.
“—Fostering mutiny against your prince,” she is yelling, and somehow her voice is just as high-pitched as his without sounding childish at all. “When our father hears about this—”
- - -
“So you had them executed,” Fire Lord Ozai inquires. Lightly. And from behind his flames.
“Of course, father,” says the kneeling child. “It was an attack on our family.”
Her father doesn’t say anything.
Azula is eleven. Eleven, she had presumed, was old enough to count.
One, two, three. Four, with Uncle. The royal family.
Her father is silent still.
One. Two.
“Forgive my impertinence, Fire Lord,” she says. “I will bring them to you for judgment next time.”
“Do so,” Fire Lord Ozai says. He does not contest the ‘next time.’
- - -
“Crown Princess Azula,” Zuko says.
“Your bandage is off, brother,” Azula says. “Are you blind?”
“No.”
(The blur of her red robes, the eye-searing glint of sunlight off her headpiece—he’s not blind in that eye. He’s just… still recovering.)
“Lovely,” she says. “Then what’s your excuse for the condition of this ship?”
…He has an increased budget for repairs, by the time she’s done.
- - -
“Brother,” Azula says, “traditionally knives are to be delivered to the back.”
“I… what?” her brother says, still holding out the inexplicable thing. “No, I bought it at port. For you. See, it matches the one Uncle got me.”
“How original,” she says.
Her brother turns a shade of red that puts his bending to shame. Not that it’s a particularly high bar. “Fine, I’ll just—throw it out.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. At the least, Mai will want it.”
- - -
“Nice knife,” says Mai, looking at the hilt peeking out of Azula’s boot.
“Be silent,” Azula says, thus ending that conversation.
- - -
“Did great-grandfather… did we…” starts her brother, fresh from scurrying about the Eastern Air Temple like some particularly dim-witted pheasant-monkey, the dust not even brushed from his clothes even though he knew her ship was waiting down here. “Azula, there were children—”
“Be silent,” she says.
- - -
“You’re leaving frequently,” comments father, as his knife cuts through the pheasant-monkey, clicking against the plate below. The persimmon-cherry sauce is thick and red and smearing.
“I find it advantageous to cultivate a working knowledge of our nation’s tactics,” Azula answers. She does not push around her meat like a child, but she does eat only lightly; the dish is more sour than she remembers.
“And your brother?”
“Oh, him,” she says, to which her father smiles.
- - -
“...What?” Zuko asks, blinking down at the scrolls.
“It’s your birthday,” Azula says. “Apparently, I should have gotten you a calendar.”
“Thank you?”
She sighs.
- - -
“Do we… tell him we can hear him?” asks the assistant cook, as the prince continues monologuing. Dramatically, and loudly. Through the pipe connecting the drain of the kitchen sink to the ones in the shower.
“Ssh, I think this is one of his new plays.”
- - -
She gets him a calendar for his next birthday. It’s not funny.
- - -
He gets her a doll, for hers. The look on Uncle’s face as she torches it in front of them both is hilarious.
- - -
“Brother,” she says, looking up at the damage to his ship. “This is not the way to requisition additional repair funds.”
“Captain Zhao,” her uncle says in the background, with heights of pleasant antagonism she can only aspire to. As if a general could mistake Zhao’s new insignia. Particularly with all the polishing he does.
“It’s commander now.”
“How did you manage this?” she asks.
“Uh,” Zuko says. “Can we… speak alone?”
She eyes her brother’s shifting stance. Eyes, too, the way Zhao’s men are already moving to intercept and interrogate his crew. One of the new commander’s more noxious habits is stalking her brother’s every move.
Well. She’d been meaning to deal with that, anyway.
Azula snaps her fingers at the commander’s guards.
“Detain him,” she says. And for a moment, just a moment, her dear uncle freezes, as if she were talking about someone he actually cared for.
The guards don’t. She’s trained them better than that.
“Princess,” Commander Zhao says, his snarl well hidden behind a smile. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Crown Princess Azula,” she corrects. “Now ssh; the adults are talking.”
- - -
They have an Avatar to catch, apparently. Her brother is coming home.
#her brother is coming home#it may be time for some other changes as well#how does the pheasant-monkey taste father?#oh of course I haven’t had any#you know I haven’t liked that since I was a little girl#are you feeling well father?#why don’t you have a little lie down father#oh is your crown uncomfortable?#let me just remove that for you#hush now#sleep#goodnight father#say hello to grandfather for me (tags from @muffinlance)
ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds
I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study
after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines
et voila
and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)
Love how we've gone from Alhaitham teaching Paimon to read to him enrolling her in the Alademiya. She's a full-blown Vahumana scholar now. With exams. Alhaitham's signed her up for Driyosh. Soon the Traveler's gonna be hanging out, exploring Nod Krai, and Paimon will pop up behind them, like, 'Hey, could you take another look at that mural? I need it for my thesis' lmao
Actors: Jensen Ackles (Soldier Boy, Beau Arlen, Dean Winchester)
List will updated periodically as I write for more characters, I will also start writing for characters separately so watch out for that. If you would like to be added to a tag list, just shoot me a message, comment, ask.
gun to my head, you show me the cover and tell me to guess the plot, I a) would never have come up with something as painfully non-horny as above and b) no actually i'm still stuck on point a.
The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.
Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.
So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.
Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.
As the OP of this post, I’m going to threaten that if this gets to one million notes by the 10 year anniversary on 1 June 2026, one year from today, I will get a lower back tattoo of the loch ness bear monster.
My prediction for the next Benoit Blanc film is that after Marta (accused of a murder, scared but works with Blanc), Helen (pretends to be a murdered person to work with Blanc), and Jud (accused of a murder, keeps trying to confess to it and has to be stopped by Blanc), the next in line is going to be someone who has not committed a murder, but really wants to do so and Blanc has to continuously talk them out of it while also trying to find a different murderer.
Watson #4, absolutely losing it: Everyone already decided I’m guilty, and all of my problems could be solved by just becoming the person everyone tells me I am! Don’t you see? I can fix this! I just have to kill him!
A very frazzled and exhausted Blanc: Ah don’t knohw how tuh tell you this buht… no. Do nawt do that.
girls with adhd playing long rpgs like "i am overwhelmed by the state of the save file i left off with last time my attention arbitrarily fell onto this game. time to start from scratch."
"yeah i fucking love this game. i've bought it on console and pc, and then the remaster too. i have no idea how it ends, i only get 40% of the way through the main story each time"
I've been saying for a while that with the trials of apollo and the books past that, it kinda feels like riordan wants to do an overthrow of zeus storyline, but is scared to commit bc he doesn't know how it'll go. and I have to wonder if this weird move with zeus in the tv show is an extension of that? like in the books, zeus gets worse with every series, but his One redeeming quality has always been that he cares about thalia. he saved her as a tree, he shut down the other olympians when they wanted to vote to kill her, and he wasn't opposed to her joining the hunters so it's not that he just wanted her alive for the prophecy. thalia even tells jason that before he was born zeus/jupiter was like, actively parenting and spending time with her. so having him be the one that kills her in the tv show is...certainly a creative choice. could this be riordan giving them the idea to gauge if fans would be receptive to an overthrow of zeus storyline before he commits to writing it himself? or was this the showrunners going rogue? idk how they're gonna spin this to justify thalia still siding with olympus in this series. will there be follow through where we see luke and the army do something even more fucked up than killing your daughter bc you don't like her tone? or is she just gonna take annabeth's side no questions asked?
pjo: just because a family is dysfunctional and messy doesn't mean they don't care. sometimes trying has to be enough
hoo: sometimes you will need your family but it's important to realize you can stand on your own without them. they will break promises and you have to be able to do the work yourself
toa: your abusive father will never apologize to you and you need to learn that you don't need an apology to get better. you can break the cycle even if the rest of your family won't try
syt: Zeus Has A Teenage Sex Slave (and is forcing Percy to jump through hoops to justify being alive even after he fought two wars for olympus)
solangelo books: the monsters? don't want to eat children anymore and are allegeding the gods forced that role onto them??? apparently????
pjotv: Zeus straight up murdered his daughter. Athena tried to kill her daughter. Poseidon and Hermes seem to be outliers in the family for wanting their kids to live even when they piss them off???