i keep seeing atla modern au fics where azula's like. the popular mean girl in school and i don't wanna say ur fic is wrong but like.
did any of u watch the beach episode?
azula is not a popular mean girl. azula has no social skills. ty lee is the super popular head cheerleader and azula is her friend who basically never talks and seems super intimidating until you try to talk to her and she immediately infodumps about the current political climate on you.
ppl write azula like this charismatic teen icon as if she didn't try to flirt with a boy by telling him he'd be useful for world domination (in gruesome detail) and then when it didn't work fled the party and lit his house on fire later.
mai is more popular than azula because she is objectively cooler than her. she does knife throwing, ok? and she's mysterious and apathetic on purpose instead of just not being good at talking to people. mai and ty lee are the cool fun popular kids and azula is their weird nerdy friend out of pity because they know her home life is shit. the only reason azula isn't actively bullied is because she can and will beat the living shit out of someone when prompted.
also zuko one hundred percent goes to a different school where he is also more popular because all the girls (and the gays that's it) think he's a poor tortured soul in need of love but mostly because he's friends with aang who gets away with openly skiving because his grades are damn near perfect and everyone fucking loves him.
katara is more popular than azula and only knows who she is through hating ty lee for no good reason. (i love katara but she one hundred percent hates anyone who isn't as invested in social action as she is and you know what? she's correct.) they spoke once and katara mentioned some political injustice and azula infodumped about strategic voting and katara tried to murder her for being rich. (again, she was well within her rights.)
sokka knows azula as 'zuko's fucked up baby sister' and the one time he spoke to her she had to leave so she didn't break his nose just for referring to her like that.
aang literally doesn't know who she is. like he has a vague idea that zuko has a sibling but he thinks it's an older brother who died (lu ten).
azula made exactly one (1) friend on her own and it's toph because they go to the same gym. she infodumped about her favourite book series on toph who didn't care and pointed out that she couldn't read so azula paid for custom made braille copies and got her the audiobooks on an iPod because the braille took like three weeks to come and she needed her opinions now goddamnit. (toph pretends like she thinks they're just ok but she's secretly really invested.)
toph is more popular than azula but that's because everyone wants a token blind friend so she just hangs out with azula sometimes and aang sometimes.
(edit: @chucktaylorupset rightfully pointed out the issues with toph's section being centered on her blindness while everyone else gets more detail and honestly i have a lot more thoughts on this)
toph is more popular than azula despite the fact that her parents homeschool her (she and aang have been fighting this for years - so far unsuccessfully) because she's reigning champion of the semi-legal underage fight club at the school's gym. she's also the only person who's ever beaten ty lee in a fight which only served to boost her status.
because she's got a bit of a one-track mind, it takes azula about three months to connect the dots and realise that toph from her gym and toph ty lee's biggest rival are the same toph. by that point they're already pretty good friends so she just stays carefully neutral on the whole "fight club" thing.
azula is a huge nerd and she would never be popular no matter how rich her dad is.
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