He has trouble expressing himself but tries to make thoughtful gestures and give little gifts to people he cares about to show affection.

Early on when Iroh and he are living in a cave and he's going through one of his Robbing People With Swords phases he steals a fancy tea set for Iroh in a misguided attempt at showing affection.

In another misguided attempt at affection he gives the Earth Kingdom boy his knife.

After struggling the entire night to bond with Jin because he's socially inept he does his cute little gesture of lighting the lanterns and risking outing himself as a firebender because he wants to make her happy. And then gives her a coupon for a free cup of tea when she clearly wants to kiss him, because he's clueless.

We see this style of showing affection come out with Mai as well except she sneers at it and shuts him down and hurts his feelings about it. He is the kind of sappy bastard whose first instinct on seeing something pretty is "I'm going to give this to my girlfriend :)" but it seems like this is supposed to be showing us that he and Mai aren't a good fit. He tries being sweet and vulnerable and makes little gestures, like seeing a beautiful perfectly intact conch shell and trying to give it to her, and she verbally rolls her eyes at him and hurts his feelings about it.

Later on when he's with the gaang and starting to feel safe being his true self, he's showing them affection in his typical way by making and serving everyone tea (and on a more subtextual level I think this is a way to demonstrate humility to them, since he comes from royalty he's trying to show that he sees them as equals).

He does other kind gestures to show his new affection for them in the forms of leading a prison break with Sokka and taking Katara on a trauma closure (but murder not NOT on the table if she wants) mission and waiting outside her tent all night like a wet dog on her doorstep.

I'm so happy for him when he actually gets to make tea for the gang and they happily accept his token of friendship instead of throwing it back in his face

In some later versions of the story of Heracles, storytellers added in their own little side fic to it, where Heracles is getting force-fem'd and has to live as the maidservant of this wealthy dominatrix lady and this addition to the story got so popular in retellings that it's considered its own equally valid version of the myth. Literally someone's Heracles femdom fanfic that got so popular it was accepted as a "canon" part of the story by the people of the time, most of whom probably didn't know that it wasn't in the older versions of the myth because it was the only version they'd ever heard. So now someone's dominatrix OC they created to ship with Heracles is an official part of Heracles lore and listed as one of his wives on Wikipedia (with the caveat that she's not in every version). This part of the story arose at a time when ideas about gender and sexuality were shifting somewhat, so I think we can see why people in a time period like that found this addition to the story to be intriguing and wanted to explore them through a popular myth.

"Canon" is a modern concept born from a religious concept that was designed as a tool of social and mental control. Canon should be considered like draft 1 of the contemporary myth and all fanfic and retellings are just alternative versions of the same story just like how classical mythology has multiple versions depending on who's telling it and when.

Was Iphegenia sacrificed by her father or did the goddess Artemis step in at the last moment to spare her? Both, because both versions exist and are equally valid and real because both are fictional. The one where she IS sacrificed came first (I believe) but was changed in later tellings, probably because human sacrifice was a huge no-no in Ancient Greek religion and practitioners were probably not buying the idea that a god would demand a human sacrifice when such things were strictly prohibited, and they decided that they were ignoring and rewriting that part of the "canon" because they couldn't make sense of it in the context of how they understood their religion. Kind of like how I cannot make sense of a highschool aged girl wanting to make out with a 6th grader based on my understanding of teenage girls as someone who used to be one. It was one of the first ever instances of "she would not fucking say that," so the folk fixed the error they saw in the story, and we do the same thing today with fanon and fanfiction.

They weren't buying that Artemis would ask for a human sacrifice, they decided she was acting OOC and to fix it, just like how I do not buy that Katara wanted to kiss that little boy or that Zuko would be happy with Mai, and as a result I am changing the story in the way I retell it.

So if I decide that Zuko ended up happily married to Katara and they had beautiful steambabies, then fuck it, that's what happened. Because I said so. Because that is how telling stories has worked since the dawn of humankind.

The version of ATLA where Zuko and Katara end up together is just another version of the contemporary myth. It might not be canon, but it is just as valid and just as real, because neither are real, both are imaginary, and arguing that people aren't "allowed" to disregard canon and decide for themselves what happened is basically like arguing that your imaginary friend is more real than someone else's imaginary friend. Both are imaginary. Neither are real. These are not historical events they are fictional stories and no one can stop you from deciding that something else happened because thought crime is not real and you have free will.

Deciding to disregard canon and make up your own version of fictional events is using free will to its fullest extent tbh. More people should do it when a story they like ends in an unsatisfying way. It's very fun.

Ending this rant on some Henry Jenkins wisdom.

And this one:

"'Fandom' is a vehicle of marginalized subcultural groups (women, the young, gays, etc.) to pry open space for their cultural concerns within dominant representations; it is a way of appropriating media texts and rereading them in a way that serves different interests, a way of transforming mass culture into a popular culture."

Jenkins, Henry. “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5, no. 2 (1988): 85–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038809366691.

Thank you for listening. Zutara forever.

He has trouble expressing himself but tries to make thoughtful gestures and give little gifts to people he cares about to show affection.

Early on when Iroh and he are living in a cave and he's going through one of his Robbing People With Swords phases he steals a fancy tea set for Iroh in a misguided attempt at showing affection.

In another misguided attempt at affection he gives the Earth Kingdom boy his knife.

After struggling the entire night to bond with Jin because he's socially inept he does his cute little gesture of lighting the lanterns and risking outing himself as a firebender because he wants to make her happy. And then gives her a coupon for a free cup of tea when she clearly wants to kiss him, because he's clueless.

We see this style of showing affection come out with Mai as well except she sneers at it and shuts him down and hurts his feelings about it. He is the kind of sappy bastard whose first instinct on seeing something pretty is "I'm going to give this to my girlfriend :)" but it seems like this is supposed to be showing us that he and Mai aren't a good fit. He tries being sweet and vulnerable and makes little gestures, like seeing a beautiful perfectly intact conch shell and trying to give it to her, and she verbally rolls her eyes at him and hurts his feelings about it.

Later on when he's with the gaang and starting to feel safe being his true self, he's showing them affection in his typical way by making and serving everyone tea (and on a more subtextual level I think this is a way to demonstrate humility to them, since he comes from royalty he's trying to show that he sees them as equals).

He does other kind gestures to show his new affection for them in the forms of leading a prison break with Sokka and taking Katara on a trauma closure (but murder not NOT on the table if she wants) mission and waiting outside her tent all night like a wet dog on her doorstep.

He has trouble expressing himself but tries to make thoughtful gestures and give little gifts to people he cares about to show affection.

Early on when Iroh and he are living in a cave and he's going through one of his Robbing People With Swords phases he steals a fancy tea set for Iroh in a misguided attempt at showing affection.

In another misguided attempt at affection he gives the Earth Kingdom boy his knife.

After struggling the entire night to bond with Jin because he's socially inept he does his cute little gesture of lighting the lanterns and risking outing himself as a firebender because he wants to make her happy. And then gives her a coupon for a free cup of tea when she clearly wants to kiss him, because he's clueless.

We see this style of showing affection come out with Mai as well except she sneers at it and shuts him down and hurts his feelings about it. He is the kind of sappy bastard whose first instinct on seeing something pretty is "I'm going to give this to my girlfriend :)" but it seems like this is supposed to be showing us that he and Mai aren't a good fit. He tries being sweet and vulnerable and makes little gestures, like seeing a beautiful perfectly intact conch shell and trying to give it to her, and she verbally rolls her eyes at him and hurts his feelings about it.

Later on when he's with the gaang and starting to feel safe being his true self, he's showing them affection in his typical way by making and serving everyone tea (and on a more subtextual level I think this is a way to demonstrate humility to them, since he comes from royalty he's trying to show that he sees them as equals).

He does other kind gestures to show his new affection for them in the forms of leading a prison break with Sokka and taking Katara on a trauma closure (but murder not NOT on the table if she wants) mission and waiting outside her tent all night like a wet dog on her doorstep.

Zuko is not an aloof jerk when he's with people he feels safe with. At his core he is a fucking sap whose immediate reaction to finding something he thinks is pretty is to give it to his girlfriend. He is the kind of boy who would do something incredibly personal and thoughtful like hand-pick wildflowers to make a tiny bouquet and then worry that it's stupid but give it to the girl anyway.

He is quite literally a subversion of the bad boy archetype. He is a failure to bad boy by design. His whole characterization from the beginning is that he's empathetic and cares about others, was punished for it, and goes out of his way to try to be the kind of man his father wants him to be opposite to his true nature. As long as he tries to be this person that he is not, he will suffer for it and fail until he embraces who he is and rejects the notions his father put into his head.

________________________________________________________________

Let's go over some of the common traits of the bad boy archetype!

Charisma/Confidence

See Zuko's complete social awkwardness and inability to talk like a normal person. He's literally a sputtering mess; he actually gives me second-hand embarrassment.

Emotional Unavailability/Avoidance

Zuko pretty consistently is empathetic, and especially with Katara is more than comfortable talking about his feelings and pretty personal life issues in an open way. He also is pretty consistent about persistently confronting problems and dealing with them even when it's an uphill battle. He takes issue with Mai being more shut down and avoidant. He doesn't ignore problems or run away from them.

Manipulative

He literally is incapable of being manipulative or deceptive, he's too forthright; times when he does try to lie, he is shown messing it up spectacularly and being incredibly obvious. If he was more manipulative or used any of his circumstances to make excuses for himself, his life would have been so much easier gaining sympathy with and getting into the group. But he takes the hard way through almost everything he does. He is a blunt instrument and takes the most direct path even if there's 100 obstacles in his path.

Mysterious/Unpredictable

LOL Mr. Capture the Avatar Restore My Honor. He's got literally one thing on his mind and spends the entire show realizing that this narrow path he's clinging onto around every turn is not the only one.

Rebellious/Cool

Spends the majority of the show following the path put in front of him. His only true rebellion happens at the end of season 3 where he is arguably at his most "good", and it's him rebelling against the worldview put in front of him by someone evil. This is also when he sheds trying to be someone he's not, and his personality is furthest it's ever been from being like unto a bad boy.

I'll cede that his design might be cool, or his abilities- but competence at anything is cool on its own and does not make an individual's personality cool. He's a loser; he gets styled on so often for yuks. He's a dork. His personality is cringefail. He is cringe and he fails at nearly everything he does. It's great, it's endearing how uncool he is. He practices talking to himself to hype himself up to talk to the group, says "Hello, Zuko here", is like "no that's stupid I gotta say something else", and then goes up to the group and is like, "Hello, Zuko here." PLEASE.

Socially more dominant

My boy sat outside Katara's tent all night like a wet cat because he cared about her feelings so much, spent the rest of that episode making sure things were taken care of for her, and in general kept trying with her pretty patiently while she was consistently raging at him. He took his lumps from her for a long while. Also, the progression of his facial expressions seeing her to when he finds out she's mad at him are literally :D -> :c

Also, he's just constantly being clowned on to the point of utter resignation. He's very often a character you're supposed to point and laugh at.

The whole "fixing him" element, the emotional rollercoaster instability, maladaptive responses to conflict

But Zuko fixed himself. Him coming back and trying to prove himself is all his choice. The appeal of him with Katara is that he balances her out and makes an effort for her all on his own. He knows it's her choice to forgive him and he doesn't expect her to; he acts because he wants to and cares.

He is also shown to be stable and safe; she lets herself be mad at him for all manner of other issues because he's a safe person to be mad at, and he doesn't feed the flame or run away from the problem. In TSR he is the rock to her storm; he is a consistent, stable counterpart fully determined to show up for her no matter what just for her peace. There is no hot and cold to their dynamic. No emotional dysregulation. They actually help each other process their emotions when they talk about their problems. The appeal is that it's healthy and reciprocal (and dare I say cute)!

And for the whole "he corrupts Katara" argument I see against him in TSR all the time, look at his dialogue again. He doesn't once tell her what to do, he just trusts her to make her own decisions... like an autonomous human being... who he respects. He solely backs up the decisions she chooses to make, and makes sure she's taken care of and safe in the meantime. When she makes a decision contrary to what he expected, he goes along with it. He is just there to be there for her. His only motivation is to get Katara closure and justice on a man who otherwise will never see it and leaves it up to her how she wants to go about it. (In this case, justice was letting him live out the rest of his miserable life.) Is it toxic that he let her make her own decisions regarding her trauma and helped her process her emotions about it, or is it toxic that people act like Katara is incapable of making her own decisions and it must be because a man forced and corrupted her?