June 9: Role Swap (Firelord Roku/Avatar Sozin)

The ghost of Lue Ten haunts the halls of the fire nation capital,

Ozai was not one who miscalculated often.

He had ordered the death of his nephew in the hopes of destroying his brother’s claim to the throne. It had worked, somewhat but what his wife then did, cemented the success. His nephew was dead, his father was dead, his brother was too emotionally destroyed to take the throne, which left Ozai to take it.

He shouldn’t have underestimated how annoying his nephew could be.

He had assumed he was imagining things the first time he looked out into the garden and saw a soldier with blood rolling down the side of his head, sitting with his son by the turtle duck pond. He blinked and the image was gone. It had meant nothing.

Until the image returned two weeks later practicing cartwheels with Azula and her acrobatic friend. That time the soldier had looked dead at him and smiled. It wasn’t a kind smile and Ozai shivered as the image disappeared.

The third time he saw the spirit, as Ozai had no other explanation for the apparition of his dead nephew, he was following behind Iroh, as he always did.

Iroh unknowingly walked the halls of the palace, with his son at his heals. That’s where Lu Ten decided to stay, until the night of the Agni Kai.

As Ozai burned his hand print into his son’s face, he made the mistake of looking up. Lu Ten stood over him, his eyes burning with fury even as blood slid down his forehead into them.

Ozai stumbled back, having never seen his nephew’s spirit up so close before. The men he had paid to kill him had apparently tried to crush his head, if the slightly deformed skull was anything to go by.

Ozai shook himself and left the arena.

Lu Ten was in his office. Ozai left.

Lu Ten was in his throne room. Ozai left.

Lu Ten was in his bedroom and Ozai realized he was now the one his nephew was following. Iroh and Zuko were gone and now Lu Ten was following him.

Ozai caved after a week of his new spirit stalker.

“What do you want?” Ozai finally asked, looking up at the corner Lu Ten stood in staring at him.

Lu Ten moved closer to him and Ozai backed up. Lu Ten was only interested in the paper and writing utensils on his desk.

The truth to be known.

“I can’t do that,” Ozai said.

Then get use to me.

Lu Ten faded from view again and Ozai sighed in relief before feeling something cold on his back. He reached behind him and his hand came back with blood. He turned around only to fall from his chair as Lu Ten, more corporeal then ever before, laughed at his fear.

---

He’s there for revenge, but also to watch over his cousins and take care of his dad.

How long do you think it took Zuko to sew the dummy blue spirit mask?

been rewatching the scene where Joel finds Ellie after David because im trying to get a good reference photo so I've been rewatching that scene over and over again frame for frame and HOLY FUCK

the way Joel holds her and im not talking about their hug im talking about the way Joel holds her while she's fighting back in his arms with such ease like he doesn't just grab her arm and make her look at him no he at first garbs her arm but when she starts to scream and fight back and her legs give up Joel spins her around and is holding or at least trying to hold her like a new born like he's got one arm on her lower back and one on her upper back

and he's holding her till she has her knees on the ground and only ONLY when he knows she can't fall and hurt herself dose he slowly bring his hands up to her arms and then cups her face in his hands to then make her look at him and tell her "its me. its me"

AND A N D I M N O T D O N E. Joel. Joel Miller that parental motherfucker even has this worried "oh shit im about to drop my child" face while he's holding her like a newborn like OMFG HOW THE FUCK DID I NOT NOTICE THIS

like look at his face that’s a “im about to drop my child shit fuck shit “ face

for info I keep saying that Joel is holding Ellie like a newborn because when you hold a newborn you're supposed to have on arm around them supporting their back and one arm holding their head and he's holding Ellie the same way (obviously he can't hold her head in that moment because it would just make things worse but he still holds her like you would a newborn child) and this could be a parallel to how Anna held Ellie because she held her the same way.

Anna and Joel both held a screaming, fighting, bloody Ellie the same way.

I cannot do this anymore. im going to claw off my walls now and eat my own arm goodbye.

The fact that Sozin was born the same day as Roku when everyone in that world knew the next avatar after Kyoshi was going to be born in the fire nation makes me a bit suspicious that the royal family may have induced labor for his birth when they learned Kyoshi was close to death.

Basically, I think that the Fire Nation’s royal family was attempting to deliberately have a Fire Lord Avatar.

And the scary part is how close they got.

Ty Lee keeps a drawing that Zuko made of them playing with turtleducks together. Zuko keeps a sparkly bead bracelet with a little golden flower charm Ty Lee made for him when he mentioned it was his favorite color. They gave these things to each other when they were little, and they mean the world to them - even acting as comfort items despite their initial friendship having faded away and not having seen each other in years.

au where Zhao survives to see Zuko become Fire Lord and in their first meeting after the fact Zuko’s like “I am the leader of a nation and I will be a mature adult and I will not insult you BUT MY FRIENDS CAN, SOKKA GET IN HERE” and he makes Zhao stand there while Sokka roasts him for like an hour

Daaron stans stand up 💀

i think we as a society need to talk about this more

For Hearth and Home by @sword-and-stars has been giving me brainrot for the better part of a month

Ohmygods Jee in the cooler talking about how it’s nothing compared to the North Pole 😭

And then hearing Zuko get put in the one next to his and immediately thinking ‘must get him out of here’

I love this so much 💜💜💜

oh gosh, really glad you liked the drabble!

And yeah -- all of Zuko’s crew would probably go into “protect child mode”, mostly because they can all remember when zuko was ACTUALLY a child. hell, to lt jee zuko is STILL a child and still needs to be protected n