the most introverted introvert you'll (never) meet

ZK Week 2026: LEGACY (for KING)

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Deep Water AU:

Itijuk knows who he is and what he wants. The life of Prince Zuko is far behind him, buried under a sunken ship. His fate was chosen when Hakoda saved him from the water's depths and named him a survivor. This will be his destiny, if he has any say in the matter.

(As it turns out, he doesn't.)

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Or: When the Chief's daughter carries the Avatar's dead body into the Southern Warrior's camp, Zuko finds there's some things one cannot forsake.

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KING AU:

Come morning, Ozai will be Fire Lord. His wife has planted poison in his father's tea and joined dinner to secure an alibi. Pointless, he thinks, she will be gone by dawn as well. Ozai doesn't spare her a second glance. He's busy with his glory. Busy with his drink.

Suddenly, the world blurs and his hands begin to tremble.

“Oh, dear husband,” Ursa whispers lovingly in his ear as Fire Lord Azulon bursts into the room, Royal Guards trailing behind him. “You never did appreciate subtlety.”

(Come morning, Ozai is found dead in his cell.) .

In the video the survivor said “Never seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And they’re all temporary problems.”

It’s very honest. It’s very clear. It’s very kind. It presents you with a lot of information and a lot of understanding and lets you take it all in like the autonomous human you are, and make decisions from an informed place. It goes over the reality of suicide attempts, pain involved, likelihoods of survival, after effects of attempts, and how to get help if you want it after reading all of that and learning about the reality of suicide attempts.

You can read it for free here: https://qprinstitute.com/pdfs/Forever_Decision.pdf

subtitles/captions on videos, readable fonts, good contrast between background and text colour and dont make it tiny asf. and thats barely the bare minimum honestly

this doesnt just affect disabled people, its also just fucking annoying and hard to understand/read if your font is yellow on a white background, three pixals tall and in a font never seen since the bronze age

zutara week 2026

@zutaraweek day 5: legacy

But when every ship participates in ship weeks, they aren’t just celebrating their respective ships. They’re paying respect to the first Zutara rebellion. Alta resurgences ebb and flow, but that kind of an impact is part of the undercurrent that sustains all of your other fandoms.

“Not a couple!”

But there’s a high chance when you pick up a crazy popular romantasy book from the late 2000s to today, you’re reading something that is, in some way, paying tribute to Zutara. A writer who polished their craft through the mythopoetic writing that surrounded this pairing, who was so inspired by them that they wrote them into existence in another fictional world, creating an entire world for them, just so they could complete their love story and have them fall in love over and over again. This ship has become part of the creative lineage of many writers/authors.

“Not a couple!”

But romance isn’t a mathematical equation where canon decides whether the chemistry adds up. It needs emotional coherence, tension, and significance. Not a wedding certificate from the creators.

“Not a couple.”

But the moment you introduce the hypothetical scenario where Zuko isn’t from the Fire Nation, their entire argument falls apart. And then what? What disingenuous morally outrageous argument are they going to pick up next?

“Not a couple.”

But they’re such a controversial topic in the fandom that even discussing their platonic dynamic has become taboo.

“Not a couple.”

there was once a little boy.

he is born disabled. his body hurts, and he can’t walk properly the way the other children do. he doesn’t understand why. he’s a little boy. but he plays with wooden boats and pulls toys on a string.

somebody makes him a tunic. they sew ducks onto it in red and green and yellow and blue. the bright colours of a child.

the little boy is eight years old, and he’s going to be king now. there’s a big ceremony about it. he doesn’t really fully understand what’s going on, because he’s eight, but he wears the tunic with the brightly coloured ducks for the occasion because he loves it. look at his ducks! aren’t they great?

he is a child. the adults around him manipulate and coax him to gain more power for themselves. he still plays with toys.

as a teenager, not yet an adult, he fathers children. they do not survive. he’s not even old enough to have full agency in his job and is still being manipulated, but he had babies and they died.

he does not make it to his twenties. at eighteen or nineteen years old he dies, and is buried. his babies, so tiny, are buried with him.

and so is his tunic with the little ducks that he loved so much he kept it long after it no longer fit.

yeah i think that like. especially with historical figures in your mind people who were kings and queens or important nobles were adults. even if you know how old they were it doesn’t really click. it doesn’t seem real

but then you get something like a little tunic with brightly coloured ducks on it and it hits you like a fucking truck that this really was a little kid and no matter how far removed you are a little kid is still a little kid. their brains didn’t develop any quicker back then. he was just as developed/mature mentally as any 8 year old now. he had cartoonish animals on his clothes and he played with toy boats and probably terrorised the local cat population.

tutankhamun was a child and he didn’t make it to adulthood because he was unfortunate enough to be a very important child

his dad died when he was 8. he saw his own babies die when he was still just a boy himself.

tutankhamun had a little pair of sandals with ducks on them. he had earrings decorated with ducks. he kept those, and other items of childhood clothing. some toys. keepsakes. things he loved, and treasured. he kept them all in a little wooden chest. the chest… was carved with ducks.

and that little duck chest, filled with things he kept from his childhood, was buried with him. maybe he was keeping them for the little babies who did not make it. maybe they just reminded him of good days and fun times.

WITH PLEASURE

(greyscale makes it hard but the duck head is on the right above the toe strap. always takes me a while to find it too)

ZUTARAWEEK2026: DAY 3 - AURORA

"once upon a time, the planets and the fates, and all the stars aligned..."