this is a masterpost that has all my atla fics (including ones about/containing ocs). ordered newest to oldest, and will be subject to change as works are added, edited, or maybe deleted!
growing fondness
Piandao and Jeong Jeong's feelings for each other through the years. Despite himself, Piandao manges to grow a fondness towards Jeong Jeong
jeong jeong/piandao, T, 4k, time skips, canon compliant
gentle tides
Like a fish in a gentle current, the thought swims languidly through Batoâs head. I love you, he thinks, I love you.
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Bakoda fleet week prompt: revelations
bato/hakoda (mentions of bato/hakoda/kya), teen, 1.5k, pre-canon,
inevitability
Bato is uncertain whether taking Sokka and Katara ice dodging was the right thing to do
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Fleet Week day 4: Fathers|Children
bato/hakoda (mentions of bato/hakoda/kya), gen, 823 words, post canon
the ocean on a gentle night
3 times Bato and Hakoda pine for each other and the 1 time they don't have to
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For all the fear and terror the ocean inspires, Bato thinks that she tries to make amends with nights like these.
bato/hakoda, gen 3.7k, post canon, canonical character death
love lines
Mai tries not to think about how nice it was to feel Ty Leeâs hand against her own, tries not to think about how it would feel to have her press kisses against her palms or feel her eyelashes fluttering against her cheek.[âŠ]  Mai hopes that Ty Lee will trip up, hug her for too long or too tight, press a kiss against her cheek in greeting as she does for so many others.
Of course, Ty Lee never does. [âŠ] She wishes she could think of a way to tell Ty Lee that she might be the only exception.
OR;
âšIntricate Rituals Constructed To Allow Mai To Touch The Skin of Another Woman
mai/ty lee, 3k, gen, modern au
lovesâ cold embrace
She misses the chill of the tundra, the crashing of the ocean and the shattering screams of icebergs colliding. She misses the soft embrace of caribou fur and leather in her parka and the softer embrace of the woman she was stolen from. She misses the howling winds that used to sing her to sleep as they passed over the great iced plains, and the gentle voices of her family as they laughed and needled each other. The ocean that used to live in her chest is now a desert, barren and dry.âš--âšOR;
Like the moon in the sky, Hama's love never really leaves her.
Kanna/hama, 3.8k, gen, post canon
tender hearts and tender joints
Hakoda doesnât know when he got so old. When all the years that heâs lived finally caught up with him, when the distance heâs travelled finally clawed its way back to his body, when all the weight that heâs carried over the years finally started to settle between his joints and in the lines on his face. Hakoda feels ancient in a way heâs never felt before, feels like the icebergs that stand older than anyone in the tribe that gets worn away, year after year.
bato/hakoda, 2.8 k, gen, post canon
overdue comfort
He looks so much like his mother, with his wide eyes, his flat, wide nose, and soft rounded cheeks paint him a perfect replica of Batoâs sister in her youth. Bato looks at him for a moment, wonders what some of the village elders must think when they see him and Nanuq together. Bato, aged and tired, with the ghost of his childhood sister.
Bato & oc, 3.4k, gen, post canon
warmth inside
Hakoda and Aang bond during a chilly, Southern evening.
aang & Hakoda, 1.5k, gen, post canon
confessions in the pages of a book
secret declarations of love for public view
Sokka/zuko, 2.6k, gen, modern au/author au
itâs safe to fall (if you just trust the ground)
Sokka is as beautiful as he is talented, and more than anything Zuko wants to stand up and walk over, sit close to him and take him all in. He wants to remove Sokkaâs sunglasses and his own and he wants to look him in the eyes. He wants to be close enough that he can feel and touch and know.
But Zuko knows he can't.
sokka/zuko, 15k, teen, spy au
carving out a life together
Of course, itâs Katara who brings it up, ever the romantic that she is. Itâs the evening, with the bulk of the dayâs work done, the remainder being tomorrowâs problem, and Hakoda is sitting in front of the fire in his home, enjoying a pleasant conversation with his daughter while they wait for Bato to return from his work, when Katara, suddenly and without preamble asks, âSo when are you and Bato getting married?â
bato/hakoda, 6.8k, gen, post canon
helpful hands and tender joints
5 times bato and hakoda spoke their own love languages and the 1 time they spoke each other's
> now with a podfic by @klainelynch !
bato/hakoda, 3.8k, gen, getting together
burned words
all that Bato can think is I love you I love you I love you I love you. The words burn his tongue worse than any of the strange spices theyâve encountered since theyâve left the South Pole.
bato/hakoda, 1.8k, teen, angst/canon
a shared life
It takes longer than it should for Hakoda to realize how much of his life he shares with Bato.
bato/hakoda, 3.2k, teen, modern au/getting together
my favorite piece of avatar lore iâve ever learned is that piandao apparently also deserted the Fire Nation military, but instead of going on the run he just. went back the Fire Nation. built a fucking mansion about it. and then when the army sent 100 guys to arrest him, he kicked the shit out of them so hard they just fucked off forever.
jeong jeong is out there in a hut in the woods living his most bitter life meanwhile piandao is sitting in his palatial estate sipping tea, fully daring the fire lord to fuck around and find out. bad bitch behavior
expanding on this, i think itâs significant that the fire nation as an imperial power promotes its actions as benevolent: it says, âwe are going to improve the worldâ, and frames its violence as a regrettable necessity. thatâs how empires work.
but, crucially, jeong jeong rejected his entire nation, and piando rejected the nationalism.
jeong jeong decided that fire had nothing to offer but destruction, pain, suffering. he lives in a hut as an aescetic. if art and culture and beauty is only available on the other side of a burning fist, heâll have none of it. heâll live an utterly uncultured life, as wretched as any unenlightened foreigner the fire nation has set out to conquer, because his own culture is abhorrent to him.
piando looked at the whole mess and went, âthe culture is great. even the violence can be a meaningful art. itâs the imperialistic overreach that fucking sucks.â so he went home and continued to practice martial arts, calligraphy, architecture, music. he loves his country and he loves his culture. he lives as a nobleman at the heart of an empire and, while he refuses to participate in the brutal ugliness of a century-long war of conquest, he certainly appreciates the beauty that kind of power can provide.
a concept: zuko waiting tables at the jasmine dragon as a well-deserved break from firelord duties, but he does not understand how he keeps getting recognized!!! heâs wearing green and everything!!! itâs inexplicable!!!
Zuko, deadpan: Yes. I am Lee, humble tea server, who has kidnapped Firelord Zuko and replaced him. You have seen through my facade. What gave it away? Was it the hair? I knew I didnât have the crown on right.
Alternately:
Zuko, deadpan: Oh didnât you know? The Jasmine Dragon was so successful that I was appointed Firelord.
ID: Katara and sokka in swimgear. in the first image, sokka is searching for something in the water. his hair getting wet. katara leans over to him saying "don't you think, its time for a haircut?" in the second image sokka rose form the water, a dog-shark creature in hand, swinging his hair in Katara face splashing her. smugly he says "no <3". End ID
i know its winter! i know it likley snowed by now on the northern hemilsphere! but... on the southern side is summer time right???
so... its fine.... this is fine!!!
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!!! please do not use or repost this artwork without permission!!!
post-canon (and tbh during canon too) hakoda is very invested in being the Cool Dad bc he feels guilty about leaving and this annoys bato because HE used to be the cool dad
bato was filling the role of the cool uncle/aunt who's single and doing their own thing and therefore really fun to hang out with bc they're not a parent and not your parent specifically but now he's their dad officially and hakoda is trying SO hard to be chill and cool and let the kids do whatever shenanigans they want and bato has always been the less reckless of the two so he finds himself being the voice of reason trying to rein everyone in and wait no this wasn't supposed to happen HE'S the cool one
the thing is these books are sort of known for not being as respectful to the water tribes as they could be (earlier in this scene kyoshi is disgusted by water tribe food) so i'm actually not sure if this is part of that or it's supposed to be a funny little foreshadowing hint
in any case, i kinda wonder if there was ever a perception among earth or fire that the water tribe fleet was a pirate fleet. like even though they are a decent-size long-range fleet they are still relatively small compared to the more industrial navies and generally operate in a more underhanded way, with ambush and explosives rather than direct military engagement. the difference is that a pirate's motive is plunder and the southern water tribe's motive is protecting people but in practice the southern water tribe probably scored some loot on occasion and if a fire nation ship was waylaid by pirates or by the southern water tribe it kinda wouldn't matter, either way a fire nation ship was taken out. i wonder if hakoda ever thought about that. he'd resent his fleet being perceived as criminal but at the end of the day the line between military action and piracy is fuzzy
#if youâve never gotten a tattoo before just know that this would hurt like a motherfucker#esp on like the thighs and backs of his arms baby boy you were like fucking eleven years old this leaves me SHOOK#like i have a VERY high pain tolerance and my tattoo was nothing but like it WAS in a very sensitive place and trust me the amount of TIME#he would have to sit there for HOURS AND HOURS#like they dont even have electric needles theyâre basically doing FILLED stick n poke wtf wtf wtf#i mean its incredible but i just dont think we talk enough about how fucking cool and badass and also PAINFUL this would have been for aang#no wonder heâs so proud of them tbh like-#my son#best boy (via @sokkaseboyhair)
there are a lot of episodes of ATLA where the main characters aren't totally right, because they need to learn a lesson about something. they're kids, it's a kids' show, there are morals to get across. that's not a bad thing; for the most part ATLA tells those stories really well without condescending its characters or its audience, which is why the cast gets to grow and change so organically and we're all still frothing about how good the writing is twenty years later.
but when Katara attacks that old man right there in public where everyone can see, she's right. this isn't a lesson about her needing to learn patience or humility or deference to her elders or respect for a belief system that's different than her own. in that moment Pakku is both the face of the Norther Water Tribe's cultural misogyny and an asshole who has disrespected Katara personally, and instead of having to find a way to play nice she gets to attack him with everything she's got.
she doesn't win. she can't win, it would be ridiculous. but the show knows this; Katara herself opens the scene by saying she doesn't expect to win while Sokka and Aang try frantically to talk her down. it's not about winning, it can't be. Pakku is, very literally, old enough to be her grandfather; he's had decades to master his form in a walled city untouched by war. Katara is 14 years old and the only bender from a village that's been diminished to nearly nothing. there's never been anyone to teach her; the artform died out before she was born. she has nothing. every scrap of knowledge she has is something she's had to struggle and steal for. how much of her waterbending has she learned on the fly, improvising as she fights desperately to keep herself and her friends and innocent bystanders alive? she's the Avatar's waterbending master, sure, but she's learning alongside him.
and she still gets to hold her own, for a few furious minutes. this old man doesn't even initially respond to her challenge, won't even dignify her by looking in her direction, treats her with scorn when he does finally address her. she is always, always at a disadvantage against him but she gets to make a scene, she gets to tear down entire structures, and she gets to be right. the fight ends with Katara immobilized in ice, completely outmatched, still seething and snarling at Pakku that she's not finished with him. she never backs down for a second, never doubts even for a moment that she has every right to beat this man's ass for the way he's disrespected her.
and the narrative backs her up on that, 100%. Katara is, frequently, unreasonably self-righteous to the detriment of herself and her friends, but this isn't one of those times. there's no moral for Katara to learn here; Pakku is the one who needs to get his shit in order.
a smug old man is a dismissive, sexist twat to a teenage girl who has suffered more than he will ever understand and when she sttacks him no holds barred she is framed as so completely, totally in the right that it's still cathartic two decades later as a woman in my late twenties. teenage girl moment of all time.
the firebending masters is a good episode but as a jeong jeong fan i resent it a little bc if anyone talks about jeong jeong at all it's usually to say that he was wrong and needs to see the dragons and like, i don't think it would hurt but imo jeong jeong's problem is less what he believes about firebending and more how he feels about firebending. he's taken his feelings of guilt over what he and others have done with firebending and decided that's the truth. he feels cursed, ergo he is cursed. just straight-up refuting his beliefs, letting him know that firebending in its original form was not meant to be destructive, certainly wouldn't be a bad thing, but it wouldn't get at the underlying issue and i don't like the way it's presented as a he's wrong they're right instant fix
it works for aang & zuko because they want to firebend, they just can't because they can't (and won't) get into the imperialist conqueror mindset and they don't know how else you do it. finding out they don't have to be angry and aggressive helps them find the motivation and mindset that works for them
jeong jeong doesn't struggle with the physical act of firebending, and has a unique defensive style that doesn't seem fueled by aggression at all. but he doesn't want to do it because it reminds him of when he was that violent conqueror, he's afraid doing it will make him into that person again ("razor's edge between humanity and savagery"). it'd be good to know that firebending doesn't inherently encourage that, but jeong jeong still knows he has that capacity within him. jeong jeong doesn't just need to know firebending isn't inherently destructive. he needs to believe that about himself, too. and no dragon can give him that.
zuko is a manlet @shortkingzuko - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
