currently on my zutara fix

adult — any/all — iranian

[ghelnevis]

hello!

this is a new blog. i made it hoping to find people as obsessed with zutara as me :) let's be friends

i'm currently writing a slow-burn au zutara fic after letting the ship stew in my head for like a decade

adult, any pronouns

en/fa/jp

free palestine; free all the imperialized and colonized

[banner]

[ghelnevis]

Just posted Chapter 6 of my conservative debater Zuko x organizer Katara AU slow-burn :) excerpt below and you can read the whole thing here.

Katara marched up to him with a purpose, catching his eye only a moment before she reached him. He stopped and lowered his phone; surprise stretched out the features of his face as he scanned her.

“Uh,” he said.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourself,” she started, poking him in the chest with a finger.

Zuko leaned back, startled, and blinked. She saw his wide, amber eyes hold hers, something unreadable in their depths. His brow lowered as the shock faded, and knitted together with a distressed grimace that confused Katara.

“For your information, I’m not.”

“Wha—” Katara sputtered, her finger still pressing into his sternum. She closed her eyes, cleared her thoughts, and opened them again. “Look, asshole. It’s clear you know what I’m talking about, so listen carefully. We can trade barbs in the spirit of open debate or whatever as much as you like, but you crossed a line.”

He averted his gaze and pressed his lips together. As much as he was leaning back, Katara was pressing forward, refusing to give him an inch. She could see a few curious students pausing to watch the exchange, but she paid them no heed.

“I don’t care if you get me riled up with your bullshit arguments,” she continued, bringing the finger to point at his chin, “I don’t care if you sit there pompous behind your little desk all day and peddle your colonial rhetoric. But you keep it there, in your realm of tiny ideas and weak words, and out of the personal lives of other people.”

He held his hands up and took a step back to force some space between them. “I do keep it there,” he said, scowling.

[nuinokata]

Katara romantically ending up with someone to whom she constantly has to act as sole parental figure (along with two out of three of their eventual children) and Zuko ending up (as far as we know, I can personally only hope that m/aiko is never canonically confirmed as his endgame relationship) with someone who’s cold and apathetic towards him AT BEST, cruel and callous at worst, is so genuinely depressing for both of their characters considering their respective childhoods and accompanying traumas. Bryke wrote two “romances” that would have been perfectly in place in a tragic, grimly realistic story about how childhood trauma, if left unaddressed, can negatively shape and impact all of the relationships in a person’s life going forward, and then tried to call it a happy ending.

[ronnierad365]

[ghelnevis]

can you just imagine what might have happened if zuko and katara had one more minute, just sixty bountiful seconds, in the catacombs before aang and iroh reached them? theirs was the kind of conversation which, if it had been permitted to continue just moments longer, would have changed the entire course of the story.

[demaparbat-hp]

Katara has many regrets in life but giving her boy the Jinshi Haircut is not one of them.

[ronnierad365]

katara’s favorite pillow <3

[demaparbat-hp]

Zuko said, “When I saw the Dai Li attack you, I didn't think. I just helped.”

And I heard, “When I saw Azula attack you, I didn't think. I just jumped.”

Manifesting the Final Agni Kai in NATLA.

.

Sketches + full view of the lightning burn under the cut!

[ghelnevis]

thinking about how, when Zuko jumped in front of Azula's lighting, he had every reason to believe he was about to die. he didn't hesitate in that split-second despite the certainty that he wouldn't be able to redirect the lighting this time. this wasn't an abstract sort of risk—he was staring down the barrel of that gun and chose to put himself in its way. how many people have acting to make a sacrifice of that magnitude and immediacy for Katara? i can only think of one other…

and note, also, that this says something of Katara's willingness to be vulnerable around him, of all people…

[ghelnevis]

as much as the Gaang might be exasperated by Katara's reluctance to accept Zuko in the group, I think it reflects a particularly pragmatic view of forgiveness on her part. his was an extraordinary sort of wrongdoing and harm, not just against them as a whole, but against her specifically; it's only natural that it would take extraordinary reparation for her to move past it. what's interesting about this is that we know she doesn't feel obliged to forgive, because she doesn't grant that to the soldier who killed her mother. unlike Aang, she doesn't believe in indefinitely many chances or in forgiveness for its own sake—there is a line which, once crossed, cannot be walked back.

but it's exactly this pragmatism that gives Zuko a concrete target. he can redirect all that guilt and shame into the effort to earn Katara's trust and forgiveness, in spite of everything. and because he can see for himself that this is not something so easily given, it becomes all the more valuable when he finally achieves it. their bond is forged from his resolution to compensate for his own violent wrongdoing. it's impossible that this should not be an intense, tempered bond.

[nohardheroes]

ZUTARA → Memes (again !!)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

→ please don't use, download, or screenshot my gifs without permission or credit! these are specially made and took time to create, so please ask first!

[tonydestiel67]

Fanart #3 done!

(I didn't feel like drawing a background 🤣)

"Surprise, my Sun!"

Guess where their hands are 🙈🔥

I don't know why, but lately I've been thinking about Katara showing up wearing Zuko's clothes, and poor Zuko literally catching fire 🔥

(Don't let me draw when I have a fever ever again, this was the "softest" thing I felt comfortable posting.)

I’ll be working on something cuter and more wholesome between today and tomorrow 🥹

[demaparbat-hp]

The answer is always yes

[ghelnevis]

something that's so important to me during the southern raiders is that, after his moment's surprise at Katara's bloodbending, Zuko's eyes narrow and he unflinchingly presses forward. because in that moment, even if he doesn't recognize what it is that Katara is doing, he recognizes the rage and anguish driving her actions—he can see what she's feeling and it doesn't perturb him because he understands. it's an ineffable state of mind, not something she can explain to someone else with words, but in Zuko's case, she doesn't need to. that implicit understanding is so important to me.

[ghelnevis]

if i followed u it's probably because i've been going thru anything tagged with zutara in an effort to jumpstart this blog :]

[demaparbat-hp]

Waiting for the S3 photobooth promo to drop

[didules]

a peaceful nap