Avatar fandom is exploding with gen or lightly shippy fanfics with the theme of "people are nice to Zuko and validate his existence"

I'm here for it

I feel like Zuko is a lot easier to relate to by people who aren't watching the show concurrently with Naruto

My favorite sub genre of this is "Katara is extremely mean to Zuko at the Western Air Temple and this is both valid and contrasts nicely with them being friends later"

I feel real called out all of a sudden Nerdo

I'm just saying, the newer fans are overall nicer to him

Extremely legit on all counts.

I wouldn't say nicer on average necessarily

There's also a popular trend of "AU where Ozai throws Zuko into a torture dungeon or labor camp instead of a banishing"

Zuko is super popular and we love to see things happen to him

These days more people are shipping him with Sokka, I wouldn't say he beats out Katara now but he's definitely taken down Jet

The most popular entirely platonic Zuko CR seems to be Toph

On the grounds that she missed her life changing field trip and that's ripe for correction via fanfic

However a new trend is Azula redemption arc which usually does involve Zuko since he blazed himself a trail on that one

I think less people are taking Iroh at face value when he said "she's crazy and she has to go down" and are being more mindful of

I am LIVING for these fics

Her being raised in a very hostile environment, and being 14, and for the last three years the only family members with any morals were out of the country being lambasted as traitors and scapegoats

Today's mindful writers are like "Azula IS mentally unwell and she needs to 1. Stop setting other people on fire 2. Be given a safe environment and lots of therapy"

Avatar holds up super well and has lots of enduring characters

new atla fandom keeps me living

it's such good nuanced content!!!!

loving this resurgence