Tantai Jin Apologist

Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals [9/x] - Ozai Goes On A Life-Changing Field Trip

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 20:56:54 GMT

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Relationship(s): Ozai/Ursa, Ozai & his family, Ozai & his issues

Summary: This fic is about two things:

1) Treating Ozai as an actual character with motivations beyond simply Being Evil For The Sake Of Evilness, & dealing with his relationship with his family.
2) Making him suffer.

OR:

Ozai makes a deal with a spirit. It does not go well for him.

Chapter 1: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 2: Things Go Very Wrong

Chapter 3: Ozai Cries in This One

Chapter 4: Azula Gets to Bully Her Father (As a Treat)

Chapter 5: Ozai Gives His Son A Hug (Out of SPITE, But Still...)

Chapter 6: Azulon's A+ Grandparenting

Chapter 7: [insert that gif of the guy walking in with pizza & there's fire everywhere, but it's Iroh]

Chapter 8 - Knife Wife

Chapter 9 - Ozai Goes On A Life-Changing Field Trip

Extract:

"So, what's the coolest firebending move you know?" he asked eagerly.

Hoping it would shut him up (and also make it clear that he was not going to be easily intimidated by that boomerang), he moved his arms, calling the energies to him and unleashing a bolt of lightning at a randomly-selected target.

The Water Tribe boy stared at the smoking tree. "That's a thing? That's an actual thing that Firebenders can do?"

Ozai raised his chin. "Only the very best ones."

"Well, it's good to know you haven't been sending your best!" There was a note of hysteria in the boy's voice. "Super reassuring!"

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Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals [8/?] - Knife Wife

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 17:26:05 GMT

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Relationship(s): Ozai/Ursa, Ozai & his family, Ozai & his issues

Summary: This fic is about two things:

1) Treating Ozai as an actual character with motivations beyond simply Being Evil For The Sake Of Evilness, & dealing with his relationship with his family.
2) Making him suffer.

OR:

Ozai makes a deal with a spirit. It does not go well for him.

Chapter 1: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 2: Things Go Very Wrong

Chapter 3: Ozai Cries in This One

Chapter 4: Azula Gets to Bully Her Father (As a Treat)

Chapter 5: Ozai Gives His Son A Hug (Out of SPITE, But Still...)

Chapter 6: Azulon's A+ Grandparenting

Chapter 7: [insert that gif of the guy walking in with pizza & there's fire everywhere, but it's Iroh]

Chapter 8 - Knife Wife

Extract:

The letter he’d written had been a frustrating experience to write.

He had sat staring at the blank parchment, brush in hand, for what felt like hours. He refused to beg her to come home. It was too late. Far too late. He wanted her back so badly. She belonged to him. But he wasn't going to lower himself to begging, and he had balked at putting down in black and white that his wife hated him enough to abandon him, even though Ursa had surely painted a horrific picture of him for her parents.

After some thought, he eventually settled on, 'As you surely know, your daughter, Ursa, has chosen to return home. I would appreciate it if you could confirm that she has arrived safely.' There. Concerned, but not overly-emotional. He had sent it via one of the fastest messenger hawks they had.

A week later a servant had handed him a reply. Excitement had gripped him as he broke the seal and unrolled the scroll... Only to see a message from a complete stranger, telling him that the old couple who had lived in the house before them had died, and nobody had come by looking for them.

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Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals [7/?] - insert that gif of the guy walking in with pizza

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 19:58:51 GMT

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Relationship(s): Ozai/Ursa, Ozai & his family, Ozai & his issues

Summary: This fic is about two things:

1) Treating Ozai as an actual character with motivations beyond simply Being Evil For The Sake Of Evilness, & dealing with his relationship with his family.
2) Making him suffer.

OR:

Ozai makes a deal with a spirit. It does not go well for him.

Chapter 1: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 2: Things Go Very Wrong

Chapter 3: Ozai Cries in This One

Chapter 4: Azula Gets to Bully Her Father (As a Treat)

Chapter 5: Ozai Gives His Son A Hug (Out of SPITE, But Still...)

Chapter 6: Azulon's A+ Grandparenting

Chapter 7: [insert that gif of the guy walking in with pizza & there's fire everywhere, but it's Iroh]

Extract:

Iroh gave him an unimpressed look. "You know women are good for more than just that one thing? You can make conversation."

He snorted. "That's rich, coming from you. And she hardly liked conversing with me."

This got him another Look. "I wonder why."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

A sigh. "Tell me, brother. Does anyone seek out your company when they have nothing to gain from it, or because of your station?"

He opened his mouth to answer... Only to be unable to come up with a single name. He'd always socialised a lot with courtiers, and more than a few women had tried to gain his attention before his marriage (though he'd always carefully kept them at arm's length, holding out such favour as a prize). But all of them had sought favours or political alliances, or simply wished to bask in being part of a prince's social circle.

Nobody sought out his company now. Except...

"Zuko! Zuko does!"

An eyebrow raised. "And nobody else?"

"You?" It wasn't meant to come out as a question, but it did, and he hated himself for it.

"So that's two."

(That absolutely was not relief that he was experiencing at that implied confirmation.)

"Now tell me, why do you think it might be that people avoid you?"

"They're fools," he snapped.

"Is that your only guess?"

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ATLA live action impressions part 2

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 22:18:45 GMT

Following on from last night's post, here are my impressions of eps 5-8

Still really loved it. Gonna be tarred & feathered for this but I actually like it better than the animated show

Highlights:
- Ozai giving Zuko credit for finding the Avatar. There's this weird idea in the fandom that Ozai never intended to take Zuko back. Even though we saw him do exactly that at the beginning of Book 3. Yes he set an impossible task, but when Zuko (apparently) achieved it, he was like 'ok yeah cool - you have met my standards'. Sure, there's no way Zuko would have continued to meet those standards if he'd stuck around, but Ozai did actually keep his word. The fact that he does it to make sure Azula knows she's overstepped & remind her she's replaceable, is an especially nice touch
- Getting to see how Azula is treated by her father. I've seen way too many people try to claim Azula was never abused because she wasn't literally set on fire like he was. Never mind that she avoided that fate only because she was able to meet his standards. And having to constantly strive to meet the standards set by someone who thinks 'find a guy who's been missing for a century' is abuse.
- Another annoying tendency of the fandom is to flanderise Ozai into some diabolical caricature who spends all his time thinking up new ways to torment poor Zuzu, so having that scene of him banishing Zuko was a nice touch. He genuinely believes he is being a good dad & raising his kid to be strong (note: This isn't me saying Ozai is right - I'm saying he thinks he's right.)
- The 41st Division 😭
- Iroh & Ozai interacting with each other
- Gyatso!
- I spy some female soldiers! A problem with the animated show was that it's all well & good deciding that the Fire Nation has female soldiers, but bias is a thing & 99.9% of the time if you ask someone to draw a soldier it'll be a man. Yeah sure they all stayed to guard the Fire Nation that's why we didn't see any till Book 3 suuure
- "Anything you need." "It has to do with Koh." "Anything but that." DYING
- Aang's whole speech to Zuko about how helpful his notebook was (let's be real Iroh probably sighed & told him it was a waste of time so this was the first time he heard 'Hey good job on the Avatar research!') & the way they bonded before he unwittingly set Zuko off
- "Quit it before they think there's something wrong with you. More than there already is."
- "The Firelord deems your performance... below average." OOF. Pretty sure that's the worst thing you can possibly say to Azula. She'd much rather be told she sucked outright than just 'meh'
- Waterbender Yue
- Non-arsehole Hahn
- Using Kuruk lore from the Kyoshi books!
- I like the changes to the NWT siege. Having the spirits' mortality be an occasional, temporary thing to gain an appreciation of life that occurs during a full moon when the powers of those who will protect them in that state are at their peak, makes more sense than permanent vulnerability that relies on nobody finding out. Also never made sense that a naval officer was stationed in a fucking desert & was able to just take time off to go through a spirit library, so having Zhao find his info from the Fire Sages works better IMO. I do hope we'll still get the spirit library though
- Ozai's lil eyetwitch when Azula backtalked him like if you agree
- Haven't mentioned yet but I love the costumes in this
- Also never mentioned Momo, the Real Hero of ATLA
- Sokka continues to be awesome

Lowlights:
- June calling Iroh cute & fawning over him. Normally I'd think it's unfair for the live action version of a character to be held accountable for what the animated version did, but this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Like og!Iroh's groping of June being treated like a joke has been called out many times so they fucking had to know what they were doing
- Why isn't Azula's fire blue? We got like 1 second of it & that's it. Maybe consistent blue flames are a power up she'll obtain later idk

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ATLA live action impressions so far

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 00:02:31 GMT

Currently up to episode 4 & really loving it so far. I know some people are pissy about the changes but I am all for them - I don't see the point in just doing the same thing but in live action. The essence of each character is still there & I love the relationships between them

Things I particularly liked:
- Sokka
- All of Sokka & Suki's interactions.
- KYOSHIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Zhao getting dunked on (Ozai being like 'idk who this is just some guy', Jee sharing gossip about how many times he failed). Just drag this guy
- Ozai 🔥🔥🔥
- Sokka again
- Both water sibs actually.
- Zuko & Iroh's relationship too. Felt a lot more real than the og show, probably because Iroh's characterisation is more consistent here (so far anyway). Whereas the animation was trying to awkwardly juggle making him a kindly mentor figure, while setting up a dark past (that it never really paid off on), while also making him goofy comic relief. He has humorous moments, but they haven't gone overboard
- The Freedom Fighters are perfect
- Aang is a precious cinnamon roll
- I like the way a lot of plot points were combined. Omashu + Jet + the Mechanist with a dash of Secret Tunnel for spice sounds like it'd be a hot mess, but it actually worked & the various subplots complemented each other & added up to a whole that made Omashu feel like part of the war
- Broom Lady
- Did I mention Sokka?

A few things I'm not so keen on:
- Really nitpicky but Aang not only confessing he's frightened, but getting really specific about what those fears are. IDK seems like a realisation that'd take time to come to. Really clunky & weirdI wish the Secret Tunnel Hippies' role was bigger. But maybe they'll be back?
- WTF was up with the part where Bumi sneered at Aang for always goofing off & playing around. But Bumi was the one who'd been messing around & wasting Aang's time. Felt like it was from some earlier draft of the script where Aang was more reluctant (as in the animation) or something & had been left in by mistake
- Actually Bumi in general. But then again I could never stand him as a character so in a way this is a point in his favour. Like yep he's obnoxious as fuck & I hate him. Mission accomplished!

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Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals [6/?] - Azulon's A+ Grandparenting

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 22:37:06 GMT

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Relationship(s): Ozai/Ursa, Ozai & his family, Ozai & his issues

Summary: This fic is about two things:

1) Treating Ozai as an actual character with motivations beyond simply Being Evil For The Sake Of Evilness, & dealing with his relationship with his family.
2) Making him suffer.

OR:

Ozai makes a deal with a spirit. It does not go well for him.

Chapter 1: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 2: Things Go Very Wrong

Chapter 3: Ozai Cries in This One

Chapter 4: Azula Gets to Bully Her Father (As a Treat)

Chapter 5: Ozai Gives His Son A Hug (Out of SPITE, But Still...)

Chapter 6: Azulon's A+ Grandparenting

Extract:

He tried to hide his nerves as he and Azula approached the throne and knelt before their grandfather.

(She looked perfectly calm, of course.)

They both waited.

"Rise, my dear grandchildren."

Slowly – at the exact speed dictated by their protocol teacher – they knelt upright. He almost looked up, but a quick glance out of the corner of his eye showed Azula with her gaze still lowered. It was usually safest to copy her, so he did.

That was a good sign, right? He'd greeted them as his grandchildren. "Dear grandchildren" too. And Zuko couldn't detect a trace of sarcasm or mockery.

Sure, so he was terrible at spotting stuff like that. But Azula wasn't, and she might be a good liar but she wasn't that good. She might look calm, but she was much tenser that she had been the few times that they'd met with grandfather with father present. He was pretty sure that even she would have twitched just a tiny bit if something seemed wrong.

He didn't allow himself to relax though. Whatever the reason for them being called here without their parents, it must be serious.

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Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals [5/?] - Ozai Gives His Son A Hug (Out of SPITE, But Still

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 21:51:51 GMT

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Relationship(s): Ozai/Ursa, Ozai & his family, Ozai & his issues

Summary: This fic is about two things:

1) Treating Ozai as an actual character with motivations beyond simply Being Evil For The Sake Of Evilness, & dealing with his relationship with his family.
2) Making him suffer.

OR:

Ozai makes a deal with a spirit. It does not go well for him.

Chapter 1: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 2: Things Go Very Wrong

Chapter 3: Ozai Cries in This One

Chapter 4: Azula Gets to Bully Her Father (As a Treat)

Chapter 5: Ozai Gives His Son A Hug (Out of SPITE, But Still...)

Extract:

While it was nice to get a change of scenery, and to feel the sun on his face, there was only so long that one could spend looking at some trees and grass, artful though the landscaping in the palace courtyards was. Fortunately, he had thought to bring a scroll to read, so he could focus on that, rather than having to endure conversation with his family.

Or he could, if he weren’t being constantly distracted by Zuko, sitting on the grass next to him, who kept jerking and looking around at something.

“What are you looking at?” he snapped, the fifth time it happened.

“Um, nothing!” he blurted out. Then he did it again.

Having had enough, Ozai turned to look.

One of Azula’s friends (Min? Mo? She was Lord Ukano’s daughter, he knew.) was sitting against a tree behind them, watching Azula and her other friend performing acrobatics. She glanced towards Zuko, spotted Ozai glaring at her, and paled, turning away hastily.

If he was interested in being a good father, he would tell the idiot boy to go talk to her.

He went back to his reading.

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Wed, 31 Jan 2024 21:52:36 GMT

Chapter 5 of Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals is done, & just needs editing

Which ain't gonna happen tonight seeing as Sony have a State of Play starting in a few minutes & I got work in the morning

So maybe there'll be an update tomorrow

We'll see

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Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals [4/?] - Azula Gets to Bully Her Father (As a Treat)

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 20:53:49 GMT

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Relationship(s): Ozai/Ursa, Ozai & his family, Ozai & his issues

Summary: This fic is about two things:

1) Treating Ozai as an actual character with motivations beyond simply Being Evil For The Sake Of Evilness, & dealing with his relationship with his family.
2) Making him suffer.

OR:

Ozai makes a deal with a spirit. It does not go well for him.

Chapter 1: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 2: Things Go Very Wrong

Chapter 3: Ozai Cries in This One

Chapter 4: Azula Gets to Bully Her Father (As a Treat)

Extract:

The moment her mother walked in, Azula had her face scrunched up in a perfect expression of terrified upset as she hunched over, hugging herself. She even managed a few tears.

“I- I just- I just wanted to s-s-say hi to dad! B-but he- he threw fire at m-me!” She pointed at the scorch mark on the wall, before rushing forward and pressing her face into her mother’s skirts, sobbing loudly and shaking.

Ursa glared at her husband. “What is wrong with you, Ozai?” He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “I know that you can be rather demanding where our children are concerned. But this is a new low, even for you.”

He tried pointing at the very obvious red handprint left on his leg, but she wasn’t even looking at him any longer, concentrating on her daughter. “Now then, Azula. How about we get some mochi and go into the garden, and you can tell me all about your trip?”

Azula pulled away slightly, looking up at her mother with a cautious smile that was as fake as her tears. “That s-sounds lovely, mom. I’d really like that.”

She smirked over her shoulder as Ursa led her out of the room, as he could only watch, too shocked to protest.

He’d taught her to be ruthless above all else, to seek out weakness and attack it without mercy. But she wasn’t meant to do that to him!

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OMG so this is awkward

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 16:53:00 GMT

So it's been months since I updated Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals, & I've kept meaning to come back to it but never got round to so much as opening the document

Just sat down to write today, sure that I had enough of the chapter written that it wouldn't take much work to get it done

Only it seems I was more right than I thought because it turns out I had the next chapter ready to go THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME??? And it must have been done since before I posted chapter 3, because the date the file was last fucked with is the same as the publication date

But hey! Guess I'll have the next chapter up tonight?

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Upcoming chapter titles on Always Read the Fine Print on Spirit Deals

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 19:25:37 GMT

1. ~~What Could Possibly Go Wrong?~~
2. ~~Things Go Very Wrong~~
3. ~~Ozai Cries In This One~~
4. Azula Gets to Bully Her Father (As A Treat)
5. Ozai Gives His Son A Hug (Out of SPITE, But Still...)
6. Ursa is Just So Done
7. This:

But since Ao3 doesn't allow you to use images as chapter titles it'll have to be [insert that gif of the guy walking in with pizza & there's fire everywhere, but it's Iroh returning from Ba Sing Se]

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Always Read the Fine Print On Spirit Deals [3/?] - Ozai Cries in This One

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:17:48 GMT

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Relationship(s): Ozai/Ursa, Ozai & his family, Ozai & his issues

Summary: This fic is about two things:

1) Treating Ozai as an actual character with motivations beyond simply Being Evil For The Sake Of Evilness, & dealing with his relationship with his family.
2) Making him suffer.

OR:

Ozai makes a deal with a spirit. It does not go well for him.

Chapter 1: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 2: Things Go Very Wrong

Chapter 3: Ozai Cries in This One

Extract:

“You have correspondence, Your Highness.” It was pathetic how much he perked up at those words, and how eagerly he reached for the offered scrolls.

Alas, they were not the responses from allies that he had been awaiting. A letter from Iroh. Addressed specifically to him, which was unusual – he normally addressed his letters home to Ozai and his family, which Ozai ignored in favour of the official reports.

And a letter from Zuko. He threw that one aside.

Iroh’s letter began with condolences for his injury and sympathy at his currently being bedridden (Just how far had news of his humiliation spread?). And he expressed a belief that Ozai would be back on his feet soon enough (Thank you! At least someone had faith in him…), but that he should take his time and not push himself too hard (Never mind.).

His brother knew him well enough to not waste any further characters on sentiment, and instead launched into a report of the siege (albeit one with more proverbs and anecdotes about tea blends than appeared in the official reports, because his brother could never resist the opportunity to ramble given half an excuse). It was dull, but it was better than nothing.

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Into the Fire [10/x] - Untitled

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 16:48:04 GMT

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Relationship(s): Mai/Zuko, Zuko & Iroh, Ozai & Zuko, Zuko & the Gaang

Summary: When Azula met her brother in Ba Sing Se & told him he could come home, he believed her, even though she had made this exact offer before. This time there was no loose-lipped Captain to give the game away, & he was brought back to the Fire Nation not as a hero, but in chains. When he is dragged from his cell months later, he expects to be facing his execution, not his coronation.

Chapter 1: A Decision is Made

Chapter 2: Preparations & Discoveries

Chapter 3: A Public Spectacle

Chapter 4: Prison Break, But Legally

Chapter 5: Casually Suggesting Treason

Chapter 6: Confused Hakoda

Chapter 7: Family Drama

Chapter 8: Iroh & Ozai Have A Custody Dispute

Chapter 9: The Phoenix Queen

Chapter 10: Untitled

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Into the Fire Update

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 22:41:07 GMT

The good news: I've got a chapter of Into the Fire ready to go

The bad news: It's kind of just some stuff thrown together & polished just enough to make a coherent chapter & that's it for the fic

Problem is I went into this one with no idea where it was going, which I usually avoid for just this fucking reason (not to say I usually know exactly how a fic is gonna play out - because I almost never do lol - but I always have some goal to head towards, even if that goal can be something super vague like 'let this AU play out in the canon timeline until X point is reached' & can shift a little along the way), but I had a premise that interested me & enough ideas to start off with & I'd hoped an actual plot would present itself along the way &... it hasn't

All I've really got is a few ideas for things that they can talk about in negotiations, & wanting to actually confront Iroh's past & not brush it off like 'He was good the whole time actually pls ignore how he joked about burning a city to the ground' like canon tries to

I made a meme & everything

And I just have other stuff I would prefer to be working on instead

I might not have bothered with a chapter at all, but I did kinda leave it on a cliffhanger so I wanted to resolve that (also it was a planned scene that has been written for months)

I can't entirely rule out that I might pick it up again. But in the same way that I can't rule out that I might win the lottery. Anything can happen. And knowing what I'm like, the lottery win is more likely

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Tue, 05 Sep 2023 13:11:28 GMT

I might maybe possibly have made some progress on chapter 10 of Into the Fire...

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