Zuko enthusiast, amateur artists (im trying)I got an Instagram too, where I repost the art I draw so yippee (same username over there as on here)
186 posts
Latest Posts by strawberrycake-sweetfake - Page 6
this tweet made me giggle because this is something i feel like jet would brag about
“Hey Lee did you know I look just like this totally badass hot anime protagonist?? 😏😏😏”
I'd love to see a fic that's structured as a behind-the-scenes documentary showing what Zhao's crew think of him.
With @chiptrillino:
INTERIEWER: So... what do you think of Zhao?
OFFICER: *buries face in hands*
MIDSHIPMAN: if I hear another fucking word about that fish—
CUT to break room with portrait of Zhao pinned to dart board.
Handheld camera zooms in shakily on the dart board.
BOILER MAN: He read me a list of names and asked me which of them sounded more more impressive. Zhao the Conqueror. Zhao the Destroyer. King Zhao.
THE BLUE SPIRIT, disguising his voice poorly: Not a fan.
LIEUTENANT: He wants to strike while the moon is full. City full of waterbenders, while the moon is full. I ask him why, and he says, “for dramatic effect.”
BOILER MAN: The Zhaore Lord. The Zhao-inator.
OFFICER: I pointed out that we're a fuckin' island nation and without the moon we'll be flooded beneath the sea, and he wrote it off as a technicality.
MIDSHIPMAN: So fuckin' done with that fish.
Statistical analysis of the most popular A:TLA fics on AO3
(All of this is accurate as of May 27 2024)
I like numbers and statistical analysis and for some unfathomable reason I find it calming. So last night I made this spreadsheet!
DISCLAIMER: This is not a judgement of the quality, value, or merits of any of the fics on this list. It's just me being curious about what's popular with the A:TLA fandom on AO3. I was genuinely surprised at some of the results!
Observations and analysis under the cut:
TL:DR, the fandom fucking loves putting Zuko into Situations.
Methodology: I'm including all fics from the first page of results from the most kudos'd, commented, hits, and bookmarks tagged under the Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon, 2005) tag on ao3. I am deliberately not including any larger multifandom flash fiction or drabble collections because I don't think they're super relevant. This ended up including 38 fics in total.
I put all the fics into one single spreadsheet in order to compare the differences between fics that are really high on the kudos count but not the hit count, or what has a lot of comments but fewer hits. Basically, I'm throwing a lot of things together to observe what gets engagement and looking at patterns that emerge!
Top 5 most popular fics by hit count:
Salvage - MuffinLance
Fractures - EvieNyx
Embers- Vathara
Towards the Sun - MuffinLance
The Art Of Burning - hella1975
Max: 1,407,170 (Salvage -MuffinLance)
Min: 78,168 (Risking it all - Sreeder)
Average: 349,442
Top 5 most popular fics by kudos count:
Salvage - MuffinLance
The Family You Choose - TunaFishChris
where the stars do not take sides - WitchofEndor
Fractures - EvieNyx
The beginning of a new and brighter birth - aloneintherain
Max: 59,947 (Salvage - MuffinLance)
Min: 3293 (Risking it all - Sreeder)
Average: 19,868
Top 5 most popular fics by number of comments:
The Art Of Burning - hella1975
Salvage - MuffinLance
Fractures - EvieNyx
Towards the Sun - MuffinLance
War Games - Lovely_Elbow_Leech
Max: 13,469 (The Art Of Burning - hella1975)
Min: 358 (Hallowed - Haircrescendo)
Average: 3634
Top 5 most popular fics by number of bookmarks:
absence of heat, excess of destiny - theycallmesuperboy
Salvage - MuffinLance
where the stars do not take sides - WitchofEndor
The Family You Choose - TunaFishChris
The beginning of a new and brighter birth - aloneintherain
Max: 150,317 (absence of heat - theycallmesuperboy)
Min: 430 (Risking it all - Sreeder)
Average: 9297
Highest kudos/hit ratio: Safety First - Haircrescendo (20.36%)
Lowest kudos/hit ratio: My Heart Burns For You - alwaysZutarian (0.89%)
Average kudos/hit ratio: 8.25%
Fic Ratings:
G: 9
T: 18
M: 6
E: 2
Unrated: 3
Popular authors (people who showed up more than once):
Aloneintherain (3)
Haircrescendo (5)
MuffinLance (4)
WitchofEndor (2)
Characters:
Literally all of these fics are Zuko-centric. Not all of them are Zuko-pov but every. single. one. focuses on Zuko as a main character. At least one of the following tags is on every single fic in this list: "The Gaang & Zuko", "Zuko & Zuko's Crew", "Zuko & Iroh" "Zuko & Azula" and "Zuko & [insert gaang member here]"
Relationships:
Ok this is what actually shocked me the most. I fully expected to see more Kataang, Zutara, etc in the top rated fics, but NO! Only 21 out of the 38 fics had any relationship slash tag, and of those, 20/21 were Sokka/Zuko (shoutout to My Heart Burns For You as the token Zutara fic to make it into this list). I did NOT realize Zukka was so popular! Now I'm super curious about what it would be like to run these numbers on FF.net because I know so much A:tla fanfic was written before ao3 existed and most hasn't been cross-posted, and Zukka wasn't a popular ship until more recently.
Other random observations:
There seems to be a pretty even split between post-canon firelord Zuko fics and canon-divergent "Zuko joins the Gaang early" fics.
Only one modern au as far as I could tell! (shoutout to "The Good Vanilla")
We all seem to love a Dadkoda fic
There is a very strong correlation between one-shots and a high kudos/hit ratio.
Seemingly no correlation between word count and number of kudos. The top kudos'd stories were mostly under 10k words, while all the other catergories were dominated by fics in the 100k+ word count.
I didn't really see much correlation between hits, kudos, and comments overall.
There were LOTS of fics that only showed up in one category, which was really interesting! I figured each list would look pretty much the same, and there were several fics that did show up on the front page of every category (Salvage definitely sweeps the board for overall most popular fic), but there was a lot of variation between each list! Some fics had TONS of hits but very few comments, some had truly wild kudos/hit ratios, some were just massively bookmarked.
Thank you for indulging in my nerdiness, and feel free to tell me what I missed or anything you're curious about!
Update: I did it again, this time with Legend of Zelda
air 🍃
matching zuko, katara & toph:
(ID in ALT Text) Happy very, very late Mother's Day!
I am not saying that zuko is sokkas substitute for kya. or they look in any way similar! The whole concept here is that something was happening at the moment, be it how they were laying in bed, how the hair pooled over the pillow, or how sokka was able to hold onto it. It just brought sokka back. It triggered a memory, and suddenly he relived a brief memory. Making him suddenly miss his mother again. hope you enjoy!
Drew two more drawings of Zuko
Firstly, The Beach episode zuko!
Secondly Zuko being a cutie pootie in BaSingSe!
The Dragon Masters episodes is one of my favorites purely for the ceremony dance
School au zukka … they have my whole heart
atla doodles... i wish i could watch it for the first time again
I did some sketches of semi sleepy zuko:D
Firstly we have what at first thought looked like zuko laying his head in his arms (like how you do with a school desk, ykwim?) but also jsut looks like he’s laying down
Second is day dreaming/sleepy zuko, im quite satisfied with this one
I typically don’t draw like, “freehand” like, I almost always have a reference, if im drawing pencil and paper im basing it off a reference image, if im on digital im drawing overtop the original image, ssoooo im trying to draw more freehandedly and zuko has fallen victim to being my practice model, he’s fun to draw, especially with his various hair styles. I’m still trying to find my own style and stuff so, this is fun and I decently like these two sketches (there was a third but it is not it :/)
reposting some of my ATLA fan arts
Flip your phone for best experience
Enjoy:)❤️❤️
top sketch is zuko in ✨Sokka Vision✨
after school at the jasmine dragon 🐉
(narrated) process vid here
the greatest earthbender😊
Hello Zukki Nation, please let me in
So embarrassing but I’m having a zukka moment rn
Also Azula + Sokka bffs bcs if she got the therapy she deserves I’m telling u their brains together wud be unbeatable
(Ugh I keep flipping Sokka’s scars forgive me)
A tale of Ba Sing Se.
brought to you by me realizing that Jet meeting the Blue Spirit in book 2 before he meets Li is feasibly canon compliant....
AU where Sokka’s high-on-cactus-juice encounter with the giant mushroom takes a dark turn. (Also he has a gun)
based on this beautiful tumblr post
bonus:
Imo, atla has a bittersweet ending
Aang is sitting alone and wearing the air nomads clothes, his culture clothes, a necklace similar to GYATSO's necklace. I can't even imagine the emptiness and sadness he was feeling here
There are no airbenders in the crowd
All nation gathered..... except the air nomads.
No one else in the crowd wearing orange or yellow.
Aang won the war, but his people are still gone.
Yes, he has the Gaang, he has Katara, he has Momo and Appa. But he's still the last airbender.
This is so heartbreaking.
Aang and Zuko's relationship is underrated and that’s sad
They are literally the BETTER Roku and Sozin
Not only there are great parallels/connections between the two since the first series, but is Aang (and Iroh) that ultimately makes him change sides
Let alone that Aang's kindness is the only reason Zuko is even alive. Katara and Sokka would have left him to die in the snowstorm at the north pole 😭
They are precious
Ah, Zuko asked to built an Aang statue (an huge ass statue Imao), this dude was so dedicated!
rewatching atla after like 10 years and zuko is so insanely pitiful
I doodled Zuko and Sokka, I did Aang too but oh god, can’t post that
I’m proud of that Zuko drawing -based it off the comics and Sokka off season 3 in his fire nation clothing
“You said you didn’t know how to dance, Sokka!”
Why is this picture so fucking cute and perfect?! 😍🥰 All 3 of my avatar Boos! ❤️
The Gaang Grown Up
Firestarter
another take of this meme but with tht one foaming guy & aang
Just things they can connect about… Zuko you should bring up the fact that you burned down Suki’s village again, I’m sure she’d appreciate it.