All works (that are x reader) are gender neutral unless specified
Marvel:
Bucky Barnes:
Take Two : Bucky Barnes is a traitor (just some good ol' they had us in the first half, not gonna lie)
Another One? Bucky and his spouse didn’t want kids, but nobody said anything about a pet. or four.
Tomato Soup: You've bumped into Bucky, broken your phone, gotten his number, and all because of those damn soup cans
Slang: As much as you love Bucky, you draw the line at slang. However, someone has been teaching Bucky slang and he may have just used it at the most inappropriate time ever
Peter Parker:
Your Son's Undead: Peter Parker might be a genius, but he's an absolute idiot sometimes. Like now, for example, when he's managed to convince the world he's dead.
and we were best of friends: Peter's definition of sexual assault is messed up. OR: Peter's unique way of dealing with the aftermath of the Skip Westcott Situation (and how he skilfully stays in denial)
Natasha Romanoff:
Chocolates: You've had a chocolate for every day you've worked at SHIELD. It's just left at your desk, no explanation, no note, but you're quite certain who the culprit is. (Natasha Romanov x fem!reader)
Pjo/HoO:
Laser Tagging (Solangelo): Based on the prompt: take me laser tagging and push me into a corner and kiss me. then shoot me and walk away
She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power :
Just Her And Adora: Catra has always had a crush on her best friend, but no biggie, she's working on it. of course, Adora chooses to come out just then. (catradora <3)
The Technicalities of kissing girls: Adora and Catra sitting on a tree
F-A-L-L-I-N-G
And I Can Go Anywhere I Want, Just Not Home: Adora blames herself for everything Shadow Weaver does to Catra.
Cut Yourself a River (And Drown in it of Shame): Glimmer is left a little too alone with her thoughts while held captive by Horde Prime, and the full-length mirror in her room just makes it worse. (TW SELF HRAM)
The Owl House:
Cotton Candy Haired Goddess: A mint-haired Amity slips into a time-pool and is absolutely horrified to see her Luz kissing some purple-haired homewrecker
The Black Phone (2022):
Nothing proves I'm dead, nothing proves I'm alive: Robin and Finn just have a little well-deserved quality time together (after literally being traumatized also Robin lives shush)
Hamilton: An American Musical
You Kept Me Like A Secret But I Kept you Like An Oath: Alexander gets married tomorrow, and John is completely and totally okay with the fact that Alexander will no longer be his. Then why does it hurt so much? (LAMS lolz)
DC Universe:
Adrenocorticotropic Hormone: Meeting a random girl in the lab in the middle of the night isnt how most love stories go-but he'll take it. (Jonathan Crane x fem!reader)
Avatar the Last Airbender:
These Shackles of Gold: Ozai is a careless leader. She learns this early on, wary of his scathing tongue and biting words, yet intrigued by how he doesn't hold back, even for the sake of diplomacy. This is not how you rule a country. This is how you start a civil war and lose all your allies.
Azula is careful, she picks and chooses and strikes when the time is right, not before and not after. She realizes that her father is a careless leader, and that, if left to him, the entire Fire Nation will be burnt to the ground. This will not do, Azula will be Fire Lord soon, and a ruler needs her subjects. Logically, the only thing to do in this case is seek the help of her dead brother, traitor uncle, and their miscreant group of friends that they seem to have acquired, including the avatar he was sent to kill.
Part 1: The Child
Part 2: The Abandoned
Part 3: The Burnt
Part 4: The Father
Part 5: The Blue Spirit
Part 6: The Princess
I think we need to start correctly identifying the “weird ‘girl’ gets a makeover and becomes all dainty and femme” trope as trans(andro)phobic, not just misogyny. It recreates the same fantasies transphobes have about detransitioning transmascs through forced feminization with the message that even if we don’t want it it’ll make us “happier” in the end. That we all secretly do want to be girly girl womanly women and we just need other people to force show us that we can be, because there’s no way we could actually know what we want ourselves. It’s just as damaging as any other transphobic stereotype yet most people don’t even realize it because it’s been so normalized and our struggles are seen as not worthy of consideration.
FOLKS I WAS BROWSING THROUGH GOOGLE LOOKING FOR SCENES OF BARBIE AND THE THREE MUSKETEERS (don't ask) AND I FOUND A DRIVE WITH BASICALLY ALL MOVIES. LIKE, ALL MOVIES. FOR FREE. THANK YOU RANDOM REDDIT STRANGER
*almost* all the barbie movies (2001 - present) in 1080p
Sheet1
Sl. No.,Title,Release Date,Director,Writer(s),Quality and Availability
BARBIE'S ENCHANTED CLASSICS (2001–2009)
1,Barbie in the Nutcr
If OP's folder has nutcracker, fairytopia, magic of the rainbow, diaries, mariposa, fashion fairytale, fairy secret, princess & popstar in good enough quality to be upscaled to 1080p
I'll do it & update the links on my sheet
Oh, also gotta rip Epic Road Trip but I'm not too sure about that one as it's an interactive CYOA kinda thing...
on a even darker side of things in the clusterfuck that is my life, i have, for the first time in the past 6 years, developed a crush. unfortunately for me, this is a white man. a fucking straight white man. lord help me he has the stupidest american accent and he unironically says 'bet' i need to bite him.
im also super ill-versed in flirting but i have been insulting him day and night and have also been bullying him as much as i can. i tell him to kill himself on a daily basis. not a day goes by when i dont mock him. do you think he's picking up on the hints or no?
on a even darker side of things in the clusterfuck that is my life, i have, for the first time in the past 6 years, developed a crush. unfortunately for me, this is a white man. a fucking straight white man. lord help me he has the stupidest american accent and he unironically says 'bet' i need to bite him.
i kinda hate being artistic/having potential and actually loving literature and writing and being in a STEM field because i also love my field of study and i cant choose, and im so deluded w this idea of 'i can do both' but the truth is i cant do either, there simply isnt enough time, and now both are slipping out of my grasp like ive forgotten what it feels like to both create and learn like. wtf dawg
Despite Ty Lee’s endless complaining, they succeed. Azula is so close to victory that she can feel the warmth of it on her fingertips, the sweetness on her tongue. She smiles at Long Feng, who holds not a speck of honour or loyalty towards his country, and says you weren’t even a player. He’s nothing more than the dirt beneath her feet. The game has barely begun and she’s already won.
And then her brother shows up.
Mai freezes. Shuriken clutched in a white-knuckled grip as she stares, dumbfounded and displaying blatant emotion for probably the first time in her life. Ty Lee fumbles, missing a precisely aimed two-fingered jab as her mouth drops open in shock. Azula feels her own heart drop in her chest, and the fury that follows is what fuels her next two attacks.
Why can’t Zuko just shut up and lie low? Why does he have to intervene and ruin everything? She’s worked so hard and he insists on destroying it all and for what?
I should have killed him when I had the chance.
Azula sips tea with Sora as she laments her fate. She is fourteen years old and her best friend is a middle aged minister. No matter, said minister is far more intelligent company than half the bumbling fools presented to her.
“-truly one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted, and he had the audacity to grab Lu Ten and I to gain our royal approval,” she takes another sip of her cinnamon tea, and Sora laughs.
“Is that even allowed?”
“I presume it is. If I were Fire Lord, I’d have the man hung to death for attempt to poison royalty,”
“Princess, I think bad soup does not equate poisoning,”
“Child abuse, then. He’s a scribe, why he felt the need to try his hand in the kitchen I will never know. Nevertheless, I told him I’d burn his eyes right off if he ever so much as looked in the direction of the kitchens again, and Lu Ten was of no help, as always,”
“Did he rat you out?”
“No, he merely laughed,”
Sora laughs at that, “I can see why he felt the urge to do so,”
Sora is different. She is warm, and she doesn’t treat Azula like an idiot. Sora also knows. She’s terrifyingly smart and impressively perceptive, and if Azula wasn’t certain she was an ally, she’d panic.
Any and all doubts Azula had about Sora’s loyalty, despite the fact that she regularly fed her when she skipped meals, brought up snacks and fruit for her in between breaks, and took the time to get to know her, beneath the rage and prickly exterior and careful cruelty, had vanished halfway through Spring, last year. She’d handed Azula twin knives, not pearl like the dagger Zuko had, but carefully crafted metal, dark and lacking all the luster fancier knives came with. Yet, these ones were expensive, rich metal and sturdy grips. Excellent to sneak around with. She’d scoffed, handing them back, “I am a firebender, Sora, I am my own weapon,”
“I understand, Princess, but I recommend carrying these with you just in case? Blue fire is extremely rare, a defining quality of yours, and I’d hate for you to get stuck in a situation where you couldn’t use your weapon,”
Azula had tensed, mind racing through all the possibilities, all ending with Sora dead and Azula a murderer, which was kind of sad because Azula had actually liked Sora. “Pardon?”
“I am not implying anything, do not misunderstand me. I simply insist you accept them, I purchased them with you in mind. I hear all the vigilantes nowadays use weapons instead of bending, better for concealing their identities, I suppose.” She pressed them into her hands, looked her in the eye, painfully sincere, and said, “They suit you,”
And gone was the shroud of secrecy, and with it came relief.
But Sora has not once betrayed her trust, and although she’s prepared in the case she does, Azula feels, for some inexplicable reason, she won’t. Still, there are things she won’t tell Sora. Things like the fact that her brother is alive, and her uncle is a traitor, and so is she, in more ways than one. Things like the fact that she’d received a letter, a month ago, from Uncle telling her that Zuko had somehow spotted the fucking avatar. If anybody could be desperate enough to find a century old legend, it was Zuko. The thought is enough to give her a stress ulcer, but she seriously doubts her brother’s abilities to capture the literal avatar. Especially not with uncle there to sabotage him every step of the way. It will all be fine. She goes back to her tea with Sora.
It is not all fine. It’s absolutely not fine, Azula would go as far as to say that is is terrible. She kneels on the stone cold floor and prays that lightning strike Ozai down right now. Capture the avatar. She is Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, she cannot fail. But if she succeeds, she dies anyway.
She smiles up at father, cold and cruel, and hopes he cannot see through her. “Of course, father,”
Her nerves are frayed. She’s falling apart and it’s all because of stupid Zuko with a death wish.
She stalks towards Sora’s quarters, well aware she has a meeting in fifteen minutes. She does not care. She doesn’t bother knocking, opens the door carelessly and stands expectantly in the doorway. Sora is hunched over her table, aggressively scribbling something onto a piece of parchment. Her handwriting barely looks legible, but that doesn’t seem to concern her.
“I’m leaving,” Azula says, deciding to forgo all pleasantries and manners.
“So soon?” Sora looks confused.
“What? What do you mean? Did you know I’d be sent?”
“What…” Sora seems to struggle for words, a rare occurrence, “What leaving are we talking about?”
“I am leaving to capture the avatar,”
“Oh.” Sora flushes, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly, “I thought-well, you were leaving. Like, betrayal to the throne type of…” she trails off, shaking her head with a quiet ‘nevermind’
Azula ignores how Sora had fully expected her to turn against her own nation (she’s already done it, hasn’t she? Or has she simply turned against the throne?), and continues on, “I came to say goodbye,”
“Goodbye, Princess Azula. Ensure you come back relatively unharmed,” she says, smiling as genuinely and softly as ever. She dropped all diplomacies around her the day she went from Minister Sora to Sora, And Azula wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I will be back with the avatar in chains,” she says in lieu of responding.
“I bid you a safe mission, Princess, may the seas and the sky be kind to you,”
“A safe mission, Sora? Not a successful one?” it’s playful, she doesn’t truly mean anything by it, but Sora sobers up so quickly it’s jarring.
“Always a safe mission, princess, but never a successful one,”
It clenches at her heart and squeezes until it hurts. She does not let it show, and nods passively instead, “I will succeed,”
“I have no doubt in your ability, princess. Safe travels,”
Saying goodbye leaves the taste of ash and dust in her mouth.
Mai is bored. She’s been forced to attend diplomatic meetings, sit through rounds of formal dinners and be dragged off to regular dress fittings and she’s bored. She does not voice out her disinterest, but it’s painfully obvious to anybody who knows her. Her family does not know her. Azula swoops in, a hawk to prey, a savior to the helpless, have your pick. She whisks Mai off with the promise of capturing the avatar and genuine excitement. Mai follows her with no grievances.
Ty Lee, on the other hand, seems reluctant about joining her. Which is, frankly, ridiculous. She’s made a home amongst the circus goers and the animals put on display, she dances and traipses and flips amongst them, an acrobat in her element. It’s warming, she’ll admit, watching the smile on Ty Lee’s face, but it’s also stupid. She deserves fine accessories and assorted jewelry and robes that flow like water and glisten under the Sun, tailored of the finest silk. She’s given away a life of luxury to sully her hands and dirty her feet.
Normally, Azula would be careful. Careful not to damage her, well aware of her skill and her talent. She needs an alive chi-blocker, after all, but Azula’s nerves are frayed and irritation has made a home inside the furrows of her mind. She sets Ty Lee’s safety net on fire, and the feeling of her fear is intoxicating. It sends a sick thrill through her, the knowledge that Ty Lee is afraid of her, that she’s right to be.
Everything annoys her. The ship captain with his unsolicited advice, the bumbling fool of a cabbage seller who swears he saw the avatar, miss, right there he blew up my stall! and the letters from uncle, which she reads over and over again, trying to decipher what is wrong with the man. She cannot believe he’s managed to fail at sabotaging a mission, that Zuko’s still found the avatar and almost run into multiple generals and officials repeatedly. She thinks of Zhao, who saw her brother, who is now blessedly dead, and thanks Agni.
She finds the avatar almost immediately. Ba Sing Se, the fool is hiding in one of the safest Earth kingdom cities, and also one of the most easily manipulated ones. Azula knows the ins and outs of court like the back of her hand, the years spent forming alliances with the dark and the rebels have done her good. She knows of the king’s constrained status, of the Dai Li that are loyal to nothing but power.
She thinks of Uncle Iroh’s failed siege on the city, of the lives lost, of Lu Ten, killed in battle. She thinks, what a stupid man. Why they aim to create war when such issues can be combated by diplomacy and subterfuge she will never know. She thinks of Zuko, a tea server in Ba Sing Se, alive and useless at the moment, and feels momentary peace. There is logically no reason for him to even be near the avatar right now. He has discovered solace cleaning filthy cups and doing customer service, and although the thought in itself is revolting (royalty serving customers, she’d rather impale herself on a rusted pole), it guarantees her that he won’t be a problem. An anomaly she won’t have to account for.
She practices. She says, almost isn’t good enough and wonders how much of that applies to her existence. What if she were to fail? If she couldn’t bring the avatar back? Would she be led away in chains herself? Be locked up for the rest of her life in a fire-proof prison? Or would she be burnt like Zuko? A scar spanning across half her face, rendering her forever asymmetrical, a sign of her failure permanently etched onto her face? Or would she just be killed, her body disposed of in the dead of night?
She tries not to think about it too much.
The Suki girl and her companions are almost too easy to trick. She thinks, for half a second, that it’s a trap; that surely, nobody can be this easy, and then waves off the idea. The Kyoshi warriors are, in fact, that easy. They’re skilled fighters, but Azula is simply better. She swings forth, blazing blue, with Mai and Ty Lee at her sides, a battalion of three. Ty Lee moves like the wind, gliding and arching, rendering their warriors incapacitated and paralyzed on the floor, and Mai strikes like lightning would, rough edges and dangerously sharp movements, knives pinning the bodies of their enemies to the floor.
After that, it’s easy work. They don’t even have to go to the avatar, they just wait for him to come to them, instead. They have Ba Sing Se in the palms of their hands, all that’s left is for them to close their fists. Azula wonders why she ever thought this would be difficult.
“This is so difficult” Ty Lee whines at her side.
“It’s really not,” Mai drawls, eyes trained on Ty Lee’s struggling form. For the first time in years, Ty Lee’s struggling to do a handstand.
“How do they even fight in these clothes? They weigh more than I do,” she continues complaining, and Azula scoffs.
“It’s traditional, they’re trained in the art of combat in these clothes, it’s protective gear,” Azula says it like it’s common knowledge, not like she spent an entire day scouring the library on information about the Kyoshi Warriors. It serves well to be prepared. “Now,” she adds, “shut up before you get us caught,”
Despite Ty Lee’s endless complaining, they succeed. Azula is so close to victory that she can feel the warmth of it on her fingertips, the sweetness on her tongue. She smiles at Long Feng, who holds not a speck of honour or loyalty towards his country, and says you weren’t even a player. He’s nothing more than the dirt beneath her feet. The game has barely begun and she’s already won.
And then her brother shows up.
Mai freezes. Shuriken clutched in a white-knuckled grip as she stares, dumbfounded and displaying blatant emotion for probably the first time in her life. Ty Lee fumbles, missing a precisely aimed two-fingered jab as her mouth drops open in shock. Azula feels her own heart drop in her chest, and the fury that follows is what fuels her next two attacks.
Why can’t Zuko just shut up and lie low? Why does he have to intervene and ruin everything? She’s worked so hard and he insists on destroying it all and for what?
I should have killed him when I had the chance.
Azula feels nauseous. She will not lose. She cannot lose. She looks at Zuko, standing in the midst of battle, conflict spelt across his face as clear as day, and feels a smile tug at her lips. It’s a longshot, but if her brother now is anything like how he was when he left, then she might just stand a chance. She might just come out of this victorious.
A well-aimed shot sends the waterbender flying back, blinded by ash and rubble, and she throws herself at Zuko, executing a perfect flip mid-air to land a few feet near him, barely stumbling. She needs to be in control here. She needs to ensure that this is all according to her plan. Fake it ‘till you make it.
She holds her head high, and regards Zuko with a sardonic smile, “Zuzu, father wants you back,”
He blinks, “What?” his voice is raspy, like he’s been screaming. She wonders whether it’s a consequence of his burn, or whether he truly had been screaming before she’d gotten there. He’d been left alone with the water tribe peasant, after all, and she’s skilled, albeit slovenly. Azula realizes that she hasn’t heard her brother’s voice in years. She boxes that thought and carefully places it in the shelves of her mind, hidden away. Focus.
“Are you deaf, brother? Father, he wants you back, is willing to accept you if you’ll help me,”
“Why?”
“He misses you,” she says, and rolls her eyes when he levels her with a look, “Fine, he has also admitted that he was blindsided by anger and thus your banishment was an act of immense rage. He’s willing to accept your return if you accomplish your mission with honour, which would obviously mean assisting me,” her voice in nonchalant, her expression casual and collected, but the more hesitation he shows the more anxious she gets.
Then, he nods, a jerky, stilted motion, and then he’s off. Perfect, she thinks, allowing herself a minute of satisfaction before reengaging with the fight.
He catches him again, firing a flame against the waterbender. She leaps off her own raised platform, lit ablaze by blue, and she feels some sense of twisted camaraderie with her brother as they aim their dual attack against the girl. She’s skilled, but she’s no match for her and Zuko combined. She goes down, collapsing, and Azula almost laughs. Poor girl, was she not taught how to bend despite injuries? This is what you get for having a softhearted instructor unwilling to go the extra step. Perhaps father was right.
The avatar charges at them with the earth under his palms, but he’s pathetically easy to throw off. He truly is just a child, she realizes. They’re all children. She doubts a single person there is above the age of seventeen.
She squares her shoulders and smiles. They might be children, but they are children of war. They chose this fight.
The waterbender is up and fighting again, her against the numerous Dai Li agents. Azula wonders how long she can hold out for. The avatar glances at the girl, and then at them, and encloses himself in crystal. Azula blinks. Is he scared? Is he hiding? Is he an idiot?
And then the crystal enclosing glows, and she realizes that the avatar is powering up to go into the avatar state. She’s read about it, and heard stories whispered in the dark about the avatar at his fullest during the night the moon died. She will not allow that to happen again. He’s mid power-up when Azula shoots him full of lightning, prays he dies. Hunting down another avatar will be so much extra work.
They’ve almost won when Iroh blocks them, shouting at the waterbender girl to go, I’ll hold them off for as long as possible.
Uncle is apparently a traitor now. She snaps out of it and bodily hauls Zuko. She does not have time to deal with everyone’s crap right now.
It’s when she’s back on her ship that she allows her body to uncoil, shoulder muscles relaxing under the promise of safety. She’s sent Mai and Ty Lee straight to their cabins, instructed none of the guards to so much as look at Zuko, and has effectively ensured that he’s completely isolated.
She considers what to do next. She could pin the entire thing on uncle. He’s a traitor now, it would make sense to simply push him deeper into the hole. She could tell father that uncle faked Zuko’s death, that he aimed to snatch the throne from father’s hands but Zuko was loyal, to the throne, to father, to his nation. Zuko killed the avatar, he’d return a hero.
But then the question remains: will that be enough to deter father? If he feels even slightly suspicious, it’d be the end of them both. She cannot guarantee that father won’t just strike Zuko down then and there, even if he believed her story. It’d be the more politically sound decision, and Azula almost decides to let father kill him, but she did not go through all this hassle to just have him die anyway.
She sighs. This would’ve been so much easier had he been killed early off.
She has an idea. She’s always been an excellent liar, and although the plan she’s formulating sounds far-fetched and unbelievable, nothing is unbelievable when it comes to Azula. Not when you play it off right.
She stalks down to where Zuko’s treating his injuries, in the little office she’d emptied out for him. He sits on a cot, applying anti-infection ointment to various little lacerations with a white cloth. They’re not that bad, only mildly grotesque.
She seats herself on a chair, posture purposefully relaxed, and crosses her legs. He watches her every movement warily.
“Father thinks you’re dead,” she begins without preamble. He gapes at her, one hand still clutching the white cloth in a death-grip. She ignores his sputtering. “The entire fire nation does. Has since you were ‘banished’”
He finally figures out how to regain his verbal skills because he breathes out a quiet, “What?”
“Yes. Shocking, I know, discovering that you’re dead,”
“Azula,” his voice is tight and his jaw is clenched, and she notices a small tremor in his hand. The scar stands out starkly against the pallor of his complexion. “This isn’t funny,”
“I’m not joking, brother. I’ve been an only child for three years now,”
“Azula,” he says her name like a prayer and a curse at the same time. “Explain,” desperation bleeds onto the word and she allows herself a moment of pity.
“Fine. You fought the Agni Kai, you lost. Uncle and I presumed that you wouldn’t last another week alive in the palace, and so we loaded you onto a ship with a few honourably discharged soldiers that were loyal to uncle, and sent you off. Uncle said he was setting sail for some spirit thing for Lu Ten, and we told father you’d died in the night from the extremity of your burn. He did not attend the funeral,” she throws in the last bit simply to watch him flinch. Dear Agni she’d forgotten how pathetic he was.
“And…” his voice is somehow raspier than usual. He clears his throat, begins again, “And the mission? To capture the avatar?”
“I was certain you wouldn’t last a day alive left to your own devices if you knew you weren’t coming back. I had to think up of something. Although, I must admit, I didn’t expect you to actually find him. Consider me impressed,” A little bit of flattery gets you everywhere.
Zuko blows out a breath. And then, almost like he’s afraid of the answer, he asks, “And father? What did he say, when I died?”
He’s getting a hang of this whole ‘dead’ thing wondrously. “He said that Agni had a plan for us now, and that the future of the nation had been ensured with me at the throne,” Zuko flinches again. This boy.
“So uncle knew? This entire time, and he just…” he shakes his head as though the whole thing is unbelievable. “That’s impossible, he can’t have-”
“Of course it’s possible,” she interjects, offended, “I orchestrated it.”
“Right. So he was just, what, humoring me?”
“More or less. He might be uncle, Zuzu, but he’s also the dragon of the west. Don’t tell me he lived up to his name whilst aiding you,”
She gives her brother a minute to mull over this, before he turns to her again, slumped over and exhausted. “What now?”
She smiles, “Now, dear brother, I introduce you this wonderful little thing called deceit,”
A/N: zuko after managing to accomplish the unaccomplishable task azula gave him:
azula, who is half a second away from killing him fr:
mai and ty lee:
Agricultural and educational meetings are one thing-the councilmembers do not lower her intellect by simply being present in the room, and opt to almost put her to sleep rather than turn her brain to mush. She does not know how to express how little she gives a flying fuck about children’s textbooks or rice. She wants to slam the minister’s head into the table and scream in his face for five minutes straight. She does not do this. Instead she sits straight and stoic-faced and ignores her legs which have begun cramping up.
Meetings where she has the opportunity to use her brain, but is actively discouraged from doing so lest she is specifically asked to, are the worst, though. She can physically feel her brain activity reduce. She sits in on these with clenched hands and an irritated air, although her expression remains blessedly neutral.
She can’t help but want to set the room on fire. By Agni these people are so stupid.
People often seem to underestimate how much planning and practice and training it takes to become Fire Lord. She supposes the reason father fails so miserably at his job is because he had no years to practice or prepare, he was ascended to the throne almost abruptly, handed over the throne overnight. Azula will be better.
Unfortunately, Azula being better means, by proxy, Azula having to endure the relentless torture that is accompanying her father to meetings. Even the interesting ones, like war and strategy, seem dulled down and dreary owing to her father’s painfully stupid set of ministers. They would be a lot more entertaining, she’s sure, if she had the freedom to set them on fire every time they said something stupid and counter their proposals with better ones of her own. Alas, she has not been granted the leniency to do so, and will have to make do with subtly suggesting and hinting to her father in private.
Were Mai and Ty Lee present there with her, they’d have told her that she’s impatient. It’s not that she lacks patience, per se, you simply cannot be a bender as skilled as her without having enough patience to meditate and control and practice, but rather that she lacks patience for idiocy. Something her father’s council seems to have in abundance.
Agricultural and educational meetings are one thing-the councilmembers do not lower her intellect by simply being present in the room, and opt to almost put her to sleep rather than turn her brain to mush. She does not know how to express how little she gives a flying fuck about children’s textbooks or rice. She wants to slam the minister’s head into the table and scream in his face for five minutes straight. She does not do this. Instead she sits straight and stoic-faced and ignores her legs which have begun cramping up.
Meetings where she has the opportunity to use her brain, but is actively discouraged from doing so lest she is specifically asked to, are the worst, though. She can physically feel her brain activity reduce. She sits in on these with clenched hands and an irritated air, although her expression remains blessedly neutral.
She can’t help but want to set the room on fire. By Agni these people are so stupid.
“-And we don’t even know where they’re getting their rations from!” A man-she has not yet bothered wasting her time to learn their names, they will be disposed of the minute her ass hits the throne-screeches, and she wishes someone would tell him that they are in an enclosed area and to shut up, “It could be stolen Fire Nation supply for all we know!”
“Minister Meiwaku,” A woman in glasses begins tiredly, “We hear you perfectly clear, you need not raise your voice to make a point,”
Azula immediately likes her. When she will be Fire Lord she will grant this woman a place in her court, but only this woman, for accomplishing the impossible feat of having some semblance of intelligence and a working brain.
Minister Meiwaku flushes, “Apologies, Minister Sora, I am just passionate on the subject, you see,”
“While I understand your grievances, I must implore you explore other aspects of this situation,” she continues, and Azula’s affection towards her grows by the second, “We are currently unsure if this even is a rebellion uprise-”
“What else could it be?” Meiwako screeches, and Azula prays that he burst a blood vessel somewhere and die on spot.
“Do not interrupt me, Minister, I was not finished,” Azula has never felt admiration so strong for a councilmember before, where has this lady been all her life? A fellow intellect, at last. “As for your question, they could be an organization dedicated to assisting refugees, many of these refugees are Fire Nation, mixed and not mixed,”
“So they’re helping war mutt and whores?” Someone snarls. Azula keeps herself steady.
“They are helping our people, Minister Orakomono. The Fire Nation treasury has remained unaffected, as have our funds across the nation, which means we can rule out stolen Fire Nation ration. They have the ability to reach where we cannot, and elevate the living situations of those affected by the war in ways we cannot, while simultaneously sparing us the effort to do so ourselves, not to mention funds and manpower. What use would it be to get rid of them while they are relatively harmless, the only influence they have is over the sick and needy, after all. It’d be getting rid of another resource,”
Azula is impressed. She thought she had long lost the ability to be impressed by someone in her father’s court, but this woman has impressed her thoroughly. She’s new, here on high recommendation (no surprise there), and ready to burn down the world to get what she wants. Azula wants Minister Sora to be given a raise and a promotion immediately, regardless of what guidelines or whatever say.
“And when they turn against our people, against our authority?” Father asks, his voice daring. Minister Sora looks him in the eye-her first mistake-when she answers, unflinchingly.
“We destroy them,”
New ministers are supposed to be cowering lambs, subdued and in need of highly skilled men to coax them out of their shell. Especially if they’re female. Minister Sora is a storm, blowing everything out of her path on her very first day. It’s admirable, but it’s the wrong move, in father’s court. Father will remind her who she belongs to, who they all belong to, even if it means a few lives.
“All those in favor of crushing the rebellion and finishing the matter before it grows out of hand,” Father says evenly, and Azula knows that with a singular word of approval he could’ve turned this whole thing around, that his wording makes it clear he disapproves of what Minister Sora said, and those that do not agree with him will be ostracized. Minister Sora does not raise her hand, everyone else does. “It seems you are outvoted, Minister,”
Minister Sora nods stiffly, “It seems I am. What will we do with the refugees?”
“The Fire Nation ones-pure Fire Nation-we provide shelter in neighbouring villages. The rest? Kill the men, the women can be whores, these refugees often tend to be unfairly pretty, and we’ll see what to do with the children,” Meiwaku says. They turn to look at Azula, the only girl there, the underage, little girl sitting in the same room as a man proposing to turn helpless women into prostitutes. Azula looks straight ahead, perfectly still. She takes a measured breath and plans.
Azula corners Minister Sora when she is headed to her own quarters. She says, “I want a list of names and locations we believe the rebellion to be hiding. Unofficially,” Unofficially, meaning, without my father’s knowledge.
“Princess Azula?” The minister blinks down at her, and then nods slowly, “Of course, if I may ask, what for?”
Azula has no self-preservation. She has also found an authority figure she agrees with and has latched on. “I must fulfil my royal duty and do what is best for my people,” she says, the confession stilted. Sora grins, wide and toothy. “The list, minister,” Azula reminds her, ignoring how huge her smile was.
“Certainly, if you would follow me, princess. And please, refer to me as Sora, I’ve only been minister for a day.” A pause, “Unofficially, of course,”
“Sora,” she tries the name, see how it feels on her tongue, and Min-Sora grins.
The first time Zuko had questioned the Fire Lord, he had half his face burnt off and had been presumed dead. The first time Azula had questioned the Fire Lord, she’d received a folder when she’d been getting ready for bed. A list of names, fifty people, lost in battle, all under the age of twenty. It had contained their credentials, their official documentation, and a note: Under command of Princess Azula, a newly recruited battalion of seventy was sent, out of which fifty two suffered as casualties, dying either on impact or due to infection and severe injury later on.
She had not left her room for two days after, not even for practice or food. Azula knows well enough by know that if she questions her father, she will only be granted more deaths to her name.
She also knows that there is a passage of secret tunnels that run all throughout the palace, her, Lu Ten, and Zuko thought they were ideal hide-and-seek spots, and were forced to stop when they couldn’t find Lu Ten for a whole six hours. She also knows that her constant rapport with the guards, as well as her occasional bribery and sneaking out, be it to watch the stars from the roof or roam the streets in peasant-wear to collect information or get in contact with someone, has served her well, because nobody questions it as she leaves her quearters, and then the palace entirely. This time it’s different, this time, she’s on a mission.
It takes three hours to get to the closest base. Meaning, a six hour travel time, and a maximum two hour conversation. She goes to bed at eight and rises with the sun, at around half past four, according to Earth kingdom time. This does not give her enough time to finish her journey. However, if she skips breakfast and goes straight to training, grabbing something on the way, she will have managed to scrap together enough time. It’s extremely risky, but she’s the crown princess, if someone has to do something, it has to be her.
She has a mask. When they were little, mother took them to the theatre, despite Azula’s insistent complains. They had fun, she thinks. Mother bought them masks at a stall outside the theatre, an intricate blue one for Zuko, one she’s packed in his stuff owing to some sentiment she harbors for him, and a plan black one for Azula. It’s wooden, and Azula’s taken the liberty to paint two red incisions around the mouth, almost as though it’s spewing flames. That, or its mouth has been brutally mutilated. Nevertheless, it’s a lot more elegant and convenient than Zuko’s. He always was one for the dramatics.
Maybe she should write to him. She’s been in regular contact with Uncle, but hasn’t spoken to Zuko in months. Ultimately, she decides against it.
She pockets the mask, climbs an ostrich horse, and heads towards the nearest base.
She had forgotten how terrible riding an ostrich horse was, and by the time she has to get off the dreaded creature her stomach churns uneasily and she has force herself to take a few sips of water. She makes her way inside the dingy shop, an ideal base, considering that it’s no more than an ill-kept pawnshop. She doubts anybody would bother enough to deeply investigate the rundown building, it looks barely large enough to hold the tiny counter and assortment of items. There must be an underground hiding spot.
She dons the mask and slips inside the shop. A bell jingles overhead, the sound shrill and sharp against the quiet of the night, and a large man looks at her tiredly from behind the counter.
“We’re closed,”
“Your door’s open,” she points out, before remembering what she’s actually there for.
“And?”
“I wish to meet Akari, refugee support group leader,” the minute the words are out of her mouth she has a hand clamped around her forearm. She almost snarls at the sudden contact.
“Name and purpose,”
“I will only speak to Akari; the mask stays on, you may search me for weaponry,” she herself is a weapon, but they don’t need to know that. After a brief pat-down, with the man more uncomfortable than Azula herself, he leads her to the basement, his grip on her arm almost painful. It’s strangely thrilling; she’s always been feared, servants flinching at her terrifying aim and people whispering of her cruelty-she smiled while her brother burnt, Agni knows what she’ll do to us when she’s Fire Lord-but now, they don’t know her. They don’t know her face, nor her rank or ability, and she feels strangely comforted by the anonymity. They still fear her, which is logical, but it makes her light up on the inside with something sick and twisted.
“Akari,” he grunts when they reach the doorway. The woman is tall, too, huge and muscled and clearly blessed with the ability to snap Azula’s twelve year old body in half like a twig. An intricate tattoo covers her right shoulder, disappearing beneath her combat robes, and Azula feels her mouth go dry. She blames the rapid thudding of her heart and the flush on her cheeks on adrenaline and a completely rational fear for her life. “Runt wanted to see you,”
“How dare you, I am not a-”
“Leave us,” Akari’s voice is silky and courteous, the complete opposite of what her appearance would suggest. Never judge a book by its cover, I guess. Zuko used to say that. She turns her sharp eyes onto Azula, and she feels like a bug pinned under a microscope. “Mask off, we leave your hostility and anonymity at the door, buttercup,”
She hesitantly reaches for a mask, sends a quick prayer to Agni, and yanks it off. Immediately, there’s a knife at her throat and Akari’s snarling near her face, demanding an answer as to why the fuck the Fire Princess decided to show up and what she wants.
“I come in peace,” Azula says, out of breath, ready to summon a flame at a moment’s notice. “I come with news. Besides, if I wanted to attack, I would’ve done so already. Or better yet, I would’ve informed my father,”
The woman lowers the blade, staring at her warily. “Explain,” she demands, stepping away.
“The Fire Lord knows of all your hideouts. You have a traitor amongst your ranks, someone who knows the ins and outs. They know you’re in charge, they strike day after, a raid on all your bases. Leave,”
“And what do you gain from all this, your highness?”
“The ensured safety and treatment of my people. You will heed my warning, I did not travel three hours to the middle of nowhere only to have a brute and a distrusting leader put their hands on me,”
“If this is a trap, Princess Azula, I can assure you that the Fire Lord will have to console himself from the distress of losing another child,”
“I doubt he’d mind much, but you may have my life as guarantee if that assures you. How will I know to find you again?”
“Keep wearing that creepy ass mask, we’ll find you,”
She nods, suddenly exhausted. She’s been awake since sunrise, constantly training and studying. She wants her bed.
“I will take my leave now,” she says stiffly, considering bowing but deciding against it. She’s up the steps and almost out the door when she hears Akari command her to wait.
“Thank you, Princess. I look forward to your days on the throne,”
Azula smiles, really, genuinely smiles, and leaves. If her subjects treat her like this, then she must be doing something right.
Father learns that they have a traitor amongst them and loses his shit. He asks her, out the corner of his eye, for her advice, and she easily answers, says, Minister Meiwako was the only one with enough time to have given them a warning, considering that he was the one who presented us with the leader’s identity. She does not regret it one bit when he’s dragged away screaming.
A/N: is sora a made-up character bc i felt like it was unfair azula was left to fend for herself with no stable adult figure whatsoever? yes. is this a projection? yes. do i care? no.
