#ba sing se

[reddoo-k]

Sometimes taking a break is all you need

Im actually so happy with this piece yall! It's kind of a fanart for the very first scene of this amazing fanfic "Real Slow" by @zanimez on AO3. The vibe i imagined was so soft and cozy and this image just came to my mind

plus render timelapse cuz i remembered to record it halfway through

[beanofthequeens]

Jet from atla is so funny bc like, he's fighting zuko and taunting him being like "bet you wanna use some fire instead of those swords, dont u fireboy" which is a funny thing to say to a guy who is clearly very eager to fight using swords

[demaparbat-hp]

Existential Nihilism Squad™

[vidaliarkv]

Flowers Need Rain

pairing: ⸝⸝ Aged up! Zuko x Fem! Reader ⸝⸝

word count: 1.2k

warnings: angst to comfort, secret pregnancy, found family, Iroh's wisdom

The morning sun peeked through the ornate windows of the Fire Nation palace, but you didn’t feel its usual warmth. Instead, you felt that familiar, heavy churning in your stomach. It had been happening for weeks now—exhaustion, the sudden sensitivity to the smell of Zuko’s favorite spicy foods, and a strange, fluttering pressure deep in your abdomen.

You sat on the edge of the bed, watching Zuko sleep. At twenty-four, the Fire Lord looked older than his years when he was awake, burdened by the crown and endless meetings. But in sleep, his face smoothed out, looking more like the boy you had met all those years ago.

You pressed a hand to your stomach. You knew. You’d seen a healer in the lower plaza under a fake name, and the news had hit you like one of those boulders Toph would chuck at you during training sessions: four months. You were four months pregnant.

Bile rose in your throat. Five years was a long time to be dating, but Zuko hadn’t mentioned marriage. Not once. He talked about the future of the nation, about rebuilding, about his legacy—but never about a wedding. Did he even want kids? He was so focused on being a better man than his father that you worried he was scared to be a father at all.

For a week, you lived like a ghost in your own home. You ate dinner with him, kissed him goodbye before his council meetings, and practiced your firebending in the courtyard, all while your secret grew inside you. Every time he touched your waist or pulled you close, you flinched ever so slightly, terrified he would somehow feel the change in you.

By the seventh day, the pressure became too much. You couldn't tell him—not yet. You needed someone who knew Zuko better than anyone. You needed a person who lived outside the walls of duty and expectation.

Without a word or a note, you packed a small bag, slipped past the palace guards using the secret routes Zuko had once shown you, and boarded a ship heading for Ba Sing Se.

The Jasmine Dragon was quiet when you arrived. The scent of brewing leaves and steamed buns usually made you feel at home, but today, it just made you want to cry.

Uncle Iroh was wiping down a table when you stepped through the door. He didn't look surprised; he just smiled that soft, knowing smile and set his rag down.

"I believe I have just the blend for a weary traveler," he said, gesturing to a private booth in the back.

You sat down, and the moment the steam from the tea hit your face, the dam broke. You told him everything. You told him about the pregnancy, about the fear that Zuko wasn't ready, and about how much you hated yourself for running away.

"He’s Fire Lord, Iroh," you whispered, gripping your cup. "He has to think about heirs and tradition. What if he thinks I did this to trap him? What if he doesn't want a family because of... everything that happened with Ozai?"

Iroh reached across the table, his warm hand covering yours. "My nephew has spent his life learning how to love, my dear. He does not see you as a 'tradition' or a 'trap.' He sees you as his home. But I suspect he is currently making a very large scene back at the palace trying to find you."

"I just...needed a moment to breathe," you sighed, leaning back. "I feel like I'm carrying the weight of the whole world."

"You are carrying a life," Iroh corrected gently. "That is not a weight. It is a gift. Even if the timing feels like a storm, remember that flowers need rain to grow."

You spent the next few days helping Iroh in the shop. It was peaceful. You helped serve tea, you walked through the Middle Ring gardens, and for a moment, you felt like a normal girl again, not the secret girlfriend of the world’s most powerful firebender.

But peace never lasted long when the Avatar and his friends were involved.

It was a Tuesday afternoon. The shop was half-full when the front doors didn't just open—they flew off their hinges.

"Uncle! She isn't here! The guards at the harbor said a woman matching her description got on a ferry, but—"

Zuko’s voice cut through the air like a blade. He looked like a wreck. His hair was messy, his robes were wrinkled, and his eyes were bloodshot. Behind him stood Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph, all looking equally exhausted and worried.

Zuko stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes landed on you, sitting at a corner table with a plate of half-eaten dumplings.

For a second, nobody moved. Then, Zuko was across the room in three long strides. He didn't yell. He didn't demand answers. He simply crashed into you, wrapping his arms around you so tightly you could barely breathe. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, and you could feel him shaking.

"I thought someone took you," he choked out, his voice muffled by your hair. "I thought Ozai’s loyalists found a way into the palace. I thought I’d lost you forever."

"Zuko, I'm sorry," you whispered, hugging him back. "I just... I had to get away."

The rest of the group gathered around, a mix of relief and confusion on their faces. Sokka looked like he wanted to complain about the frantic trip, but Katara shushed him.

"We've been searching for a week," Aang said softly. "Zuko wouldn't eat or sleep. We had to fly Appa through a storm to get here."

Zuko pulled back just enough to cup your face in his hands. His thumbs traced your cheekbones. "Why didn't you tell me? Whatever it is, whatever is wrong, we can fix it. If you’re unhappy in the palace, we’ll change things. Just don’t leave me again."

You looked at his face—the desperation, the raw love—and felt like the biggest idiot in the world. You had been so scared of his reaction that you’d ignored the man he actually was.

Toph, who had been standing back with her arms crossed, suddenly tilted her head. Her milky eyes focused somewhere around your midsection. She frowned, her feet shifting on the wooden floorboards.

"Uh, Sparky?" Toph said, interrupting the moment.

Zuko didn't look away from you. "Not now, Toph."

"No, seriously," she insisted, stepping closer. "I think I know why she ran away. Or at least, why she’s acting weird."

"Toph, give them some space," Katara whispered, reaching for the earthbender's arm.

"I’m just saying!" Toph shrugged her off. "I can hear it. It’s faint, but there’s definitely a second little pitter-patter in there. A really fast one."

The room went dead silent. Zuko’s hands froze on your cheeks. He looked down at your stomach, then back up at your eyes. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Toph..." you breathed, your face turning bright red. "I was going to tell him."

"Wait," Sokka’s jaw dropped. "A second heartbeat? Like... a baby? Is there a baby in there?"

"Four months," you whispered, looking only at Zuko.

Zuko’s knees seemed to give out slightly. He dropped his hands to your waist, his fingers splaying across your stomach with a reverence you’d never seen. He looked terrified, but beneath the terror was a spark of something that looked a lot like wonder.

Uncle Iroh stepped forward, clapping his hands together. "Alright, everyone! I think the Jasmine Dragon is closed for a private tea ceremony. Aang, Sokka, why don't we go find some meat skewers down the street? Let's give these two some air."

With some grumbling from Sokka and a knowing wink from Iroh, the shop was cleared out. The broken door was pulled shut as best as it could be, leaving you and Zuko alone in the golden afternoon light.

Zuko still hadn't moved his hands. He was staring at your belly as if he expected it to start talking to him.

"Four months?" he finally asked.

"Yeah," you said, your voice trembling. "I’m sorry I ran. I was just... I was scared, Zuko. You haven't asked me to marry you, and you're so busy being Fire Lord, and I didn't know if you wanted this. I didn't want to be a burden."

Zuko let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. He pulled you into his lap, sitting on the bench and tucking your head under his chin.

"A burden?" he repeated. "I was going to propose on the anniversary of our first date next month. I’ve had the ring in my desk for half a year. I was just waiting for the perfect moment because I wanted everything to be right for you."

You pulled back, staring at him. "You have a ring?"

"Of course I have a ring," he said, a bit of his usual grumpiness returning to hide his emotion. "I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment I realized you were everything I wanted."

He leaned down, pressing his forehead against yours. "As for being Fire Lord... my father didn't care about his family. He only cared about power. I want to be the opposite of him in every way. If that means I spend my days ruling and my nights rocking a cradle, then that’s the best life I can imagine."

You felt a massive weight lift off your shoulders. You reached up, running your fingers through his hair. "So you're not mad?"

"I’m furious that you ran away," he admitted, his eyes darkening for a second. "I was scared to death. But about the baby?" He let out a long breath, a small, genuine smile breaking across his face. "I think I'm going to be the happiest man in the world. Even if Toph found out before I did."

"She does have a way of ruining surprises," you joked, leaning into him.

Zuko kissed you then—a long, slow kiss that tasted like home and jasmine tea. For the first time in weeks, the churning in your stomach stopped. You weren't alone in this anymore.

"We should probably go tell them we're okay," you said after a while, though you didn't move.

"In a bit," Zuko whispered, his hand still resting gently over your heart and the tiny life growing beneath it. "Let's just stay here for a minute."

Outside, you could hear Sokka arguing with Iroh about whether sea-prunes belonged in tea, and Toph laughing loudly at a something Aang made. But inside the shop, it was quiet, warm, and finally, perfectly right.

[benyavin]

i will NEVER understand why bryke thought that quasi-face stealer amnesia plotline in the search comic was a good idea. never till the day i die.

because here’s the thing. i’ve harped before on how fucking dumb it is to take the character whose central line in the og show was “no matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are” and have them immediately afterwards 1. actually somehow just not leave the country they were banished from, and 2. deliberately and knowingly choose to have their own memories wiped. like ???????!!?

and yeah, that then leaves the question, when it’s revealed in late s3 that she was banished and is possibly still alive: why didn’t she ever come back for her kids? why didn’t she at least seek out zuko, who was also banished and therefore at least theoretically accessible to her? why didn’t she try to intervene when she presumably learned about the agni kai and her son’s disfigurement? and if she never learned of it, how could that be without her either deliberately forgetting she had kids or choosing to actively ignore any opportunity to get information about them?

and my friends, this is where the silliest part of the whole kerfuffle is. because there was ALREADY a built-in, solid, well-explored piece of worldbuilding that could very easily have answered all of those questions in a way that wouldn’t fundamentally violate the basic foundations of her character’s nature. that piece of worldbuilding? the city of ba sing se.

As a writer, this solves so many of your problems. If Ursa ends up in ba sing se (which there’s decent reason for her to do, given that it’s entirely reasonable that she’d be worried about ozai changing his mind and deciding he needs to tie up loose ends, and that the city just repelled iroh, making it about the most secure location she could get) then once she makes it inside the walls she discovers there is no war in ba sing se. suddenly, trying to get information about anything to do with the fire nation, let alone the royal family, becomes extremely difficult and dangerous. she has a plausible reason not to know, or have very little and extremely delayed awareness of what’s happening to her children.

also, the city is fucking massive and packed to the brim with refugees. even with zuko and iroh getting all about the lower and upper ring, it’s completely plausible for her to have even still been there without amnesia and just. never happened to cross paths. big cities are like that. you could see a million people in a day that you’ll never see again and they’ll only be a tiny fraction of all the people there that you’ll never catch a glimpse of. plus, once you’re lucky enough to get in as a refugee, it’s probably not so easy to leave again, especially if you want to have a chance of being able to come back.

if you really want the amnesia plot, the dai li/joo dee worldbuilding is already set up there too! all you have to do is have ursa keep trying to find out about her kids, maybe even discover zuko’s banishment and try to either reach out or leave the city in response, and have the dai li catch her in a sting to crack down on citizens promoting awareness of the war.

badabing, badaboom, ursa gets joo dee’d and now you have an amnesia plotline without ursa deliberately abandoning even the memory of her kids.

[your-uncle-iroh]

I was at the market today and a young man was very rude to the tea vendor. He said the tea was "just hot leaf water." Then proceded to laugh at the vendor.

He is correct. It is hot leaf water. And the leaves matter. And the temperature of the water matters. And the vessel you drink it from matters. And who you share it with matters most of all.

Everything is "just" something, if you are determined to miss the point.

[lujinarchive]

Last batch of my atla characters as kids series

• gaang version

• maizulee version

[darkvoodou]

Everything’s fine over here in the Earth Kingdom