#but I’m sure he is constantly thinking of what he can do for Sokka | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comradekatara · 3 months

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In your modern au who in the gang goes to college/grad school and what subjects do they study? would they end up at schools close to home or go far away? How do there relationships change after highschool and with people moving away?

okay wow that’s a great question but also. a lot.

aang is a year below katara so his top choice school is just. the school katara goes to. it’s small and affordable and he studies philosophy and religion (but also takes any sort of fun elective offered to him) and joins a lot of clubs and makes a lot of friends and generally just has a nice time. he and katara overlap for three years but after she graduates they still live together, so he basically sees her every day anyway. it’s nice :)

katara genuinely considers not going to college but then she gets a sports scholarship she’d be a fool to reject so she’s like “fine, i’ll go, but i’m gonna phone it in the entire time.” she assumes that college will basically just be like high school, yet another prison where she will be forced to do math against her will. but she actually finds that she kind of enjoys some of her classes, and she can devote way more time to sports, and azula isn’t there (a weight has been lifted off her shoulders truly), and she actually meets a whole group of people who don’t find her intimidating and abrasive, but instead share her interests and actually organize with her. also, the fact that sokka isn’t there means that she doesn’t constantly have to compare herself to an impossible standard, and she finds that she actually enjoys learning when she gets to go at her own pace. and in fact…. she’s actually a great writer???? and really enjoys theory and philosophy and criticism and history and sociology and literature????? and she might actually be really fucking smart????? she graduates with honors. but there’s absolutely no way she’s pursuing grad school lmao. everyone knows that shit is a scam.

sokka goes to princeton for undergrad because, and i quote, “it’s nearby.” full ride, obviously. he double majors in physics and engineering, and also accidentally fulfills an art history minor without even noticing. everyone assumes that he’ll get a phd (at least one), but katara keeps insisting that grad school is a scam and so is the ivy league. and it’s not even that sokka necessarily disagrees with her, he just thinks that those are bold words coming from the girl who fell for a pyramid scheme. twice.

zuko goes to a small liberal arts college for undergrad and spends years attempting to justify his choice of going to a smaller, slightly less prestigious school by majoring in something dignified and respectable, like econ or business or engineering. none of which he is any good at. but eventually, after enough time spent beyond ozai’s purview, zuko just goes “fuck it” and double majors in theater and classics. his focus is on ancient greek drama. he then does a poetry mfa wherein he attempts to write on earth we’re briefly gorgeous without just rewriting on earth we’re briefly gorgeous (many such cases). he complains about his program constantly and how fake and pretentious it all is, but anyone who knows him can tell that it’s clearly the most fun he’s ever had.

suki doesn’t go to college. she figures that there’s no point in blowing money she doesn’t have and wasting precious valuable years of her time getting a fancy little bachelor’s degree she’ll never use for a job that doesn’t actually require one. and she doesn’t have any adult figures in her life to convince her that college is necessary (although sokka does spend a full week going “but are you sure…?” before suki realizes that she can just shut him up forever by claiming she can’t afford it). she continues to teach at the dojo, but because she basically already lives in her truck, she’s always driving over to princeton to crash in sokka’s dorm. she spends a lot of time just hanging out in the library while he does work, and finds that she doesn’t even need to go to classes to learn new things by herself. it’s funny how a formal education can make learning seem so much less interesting than it actually is. if she had actually gone to college, she probably would’ve spent the entire time blowing off classes and doing as little work as possible, but since she has no incentive to learn, she actually does. by the time sokka has graduated, suki is basically qualified to practice medicine, could tell you the entire history of the inca empire, and is basically an expert in mycology. and it didn’t cost a cent.

toph considers suki an inspiration, and by the time she graduates, she is already so estranged from her parents that she also has the agency to just blow off that whole thing. she moves in with sokka and mai and just follows them around. she sits in on their lectures whenever she feels like it (they claim she is mai’s little sister who is visiting her), and otherwise just kind of lounges about. occasionally sokka will be like “you know you could’ve just… gone to this school, right??? you’re literally a child prodigy and your parents are crazy rich.” to which toph just shrugs like “yeah……but nah.”

mai goes to princeton with sokka. it wasn’t even her top choice school, but once she realized that it’s where sokka was going, she couldn’t think of anywhere else that she would rather be. they’re roommates since freshman year and are basically inseparable. everyone assumes they’re dating, but sokka’s like “nah she’s gay, she’s just really clingy :)” which mai hates because he’s totally ruining her street cred. she’s a cs major, but she basically accumulates the credits for a math minor, a physics minor, and an english minor because all the cs classes are so easy for her (she first taught herself how to code when she was like six). sokka somehow convinces her to join his physics program for grad school, but after a year she drops out because she finds it so miserable. they continue living together, of course, while mai gets really into making esoteric indie games. zuko doesn’t really understands how video games work, but she still bounces her ideas off him because he’s the most ruthless critic she knows.

ty lee goes to college because it’s the sort of thing a girl from a decently respectable family does, but she’s pretty envious of suki’s lifestyle and wishes she could just blow off the entire thing. she goes to a decent school, one that appears acceptable on resumes but not so elite that it will raise any employer’s standards too high; she enjoys being underestimated. being in an entirely new environment gives her the opportunity to test out new personas free of consequence, and eventually she realizes that she’s kind of wasting her talents by pretending to be dumber than she is, so she actually applies herself and does really well. but then she gets bored of applying herself because now everyone expects too much of her and she misses when a B was considered a good grade. she’s technically a dance major because it’s the only thing she does consistently across three years (she graduates early), but she goes through different phases where she’s really into various fields, including but not limited to: abnormal psych, quantum physics, philosophical ethics, north african literature, microbiology, and women’s rugby. she keeps in touch with azula, mai, and suki, but she also just goes through phases of avoiding contact with all her former friends entirely. it’s fun to be aloof.

and last but certainly not least, azula goes to harvard for undergrad, and then harvard law. in fact, there is no other school azula could ever go to. even if she had lived on the other side of the globe, and not new jersey (or as she likes to call it, “manhattan”), azula would still go to harvard. she truly believes that it is the only school on earth capable of withstanding her towering intellect. anyone who found her insufferable in high school is in for a rude surprise once they realize that within a semester, harvard has somehow made her ten times worse. she’s technically pre-law, but she also studies pre-med and engineering, just in case. which is far too much for any one human to handle, and she ends up suffering a nervous breakdown during junior year where she eats nothing but cheetos for a week straight and tries to cut her own bangs with a pair of kiddie scissors. zuko and sokka go to cambridge to stage an intervention (mai and ty lee were too busy washing their hair that weekend) and help her out. you can tell it’s bad because she actually agrees to go to therapy. eventually she gets through it and decides to take a gap year before law school. she spends her gap year as a paralegal at a highly prestigious firm, and within the first couple years of graduating law school, she makes junior partner there. and they never speak of the cheetos and uneven bangs incident ever again.

in terms of who keeps in touch with whom, obviously mai, sokka, suki, and toph still hang out all the time after high school. mai and sokka are roommates for their entire twenties basically, and toph and suki pretty much also live with them. mai and sokka move to new york after princeton. and after zuko graduates, he also moves in with them. aang and katara sort of resist the idea of living in a big city, and instead decide to travel the world after aang graduates. but then when they go to visit sokka & co. katara realizes that it’s always secretly been her lifelong dream to work at a really cute little overpriced coffeeshop in brooklyn, and so she and aang get an apartment in like. red hook or something. ty lee actually moves to california, so they all assume they won’t see her often, but she flies back every time one of her sisters has a birthday, so they actually run into her pretty frequently. eventually she moves back to the east coast, and pretty soon after that she and mai uhaul together. none of them really hear from azula except for mai and ty lee, who are in a semi-active groupchat with her. but she and zuko reconnect after ozai’s funeral, and she gradually befriends the rest of the gaang, even if she never quite gets along with katara. so yeah, there are a few years where most of them don’t really talk to one another, but eventually they do manage to reconnect and stay in each other’s lives. they do all make other friends though. god could you imagine.

#averyho #asks #the gaang and #modern au #this was a fun one #the inherent comedy of being from new jersey. etc. etc.

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atlabeth · 2 years

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everything happens for a reason part 18 - zuko x fem!reader

Don't speak, I know just what you're thinking

part 17 | masterlist | part 19

a/n: and yn is finally reunited with her friends!!! as much as im sure you all enjoyed yn being constantly sad and depressed in prison i am so glad that i get to write her w the gaang again as well as suki in a more normal situation. those girlies are bonded for life

wc: 9.2k lmao OOPS

warning(s): some angst regarding zuko ofc but pretty tame; minor injuries, fighting, canon stuff from the boiling rock ep

chapter title comes from don't speak by no doubt!

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

After a restless night, Y/N was looking forward to meeting with Sokka and Suki again and formulating their plan for escape. Instead, she was met with the sight of not only Zuko, but Zuko in his very own set of prison rags.

“We, uh—” he glanced down at his outfit, “—we ran into some issues last night.”

“Didn’t take you long to mess up, did it?” she commented as she grabbed a mop from one of the buckets at the corner of the room. “I’m not surprised.”

“Y/N—” Zuko started, but she shook her head.

“Save it.” She gestured across the way with the stick of her mop where Suki stood, inconspicuously speaking with Sokka who was still in his guard disguise. Not even bothering to look at Zuko, she started on her way.

“Hey,” she said, offering nods of greeting to both Sokka and Suki. They returned them, and after ensuring that no actual guards were around to hear them, she turned back to them. “Are you guys okay?”

“I’m fine,” Suki said, and she smiled at Sokka. “A lot better knowing that you’re here.”

Y/N smiled inwardly at the faint blush on his cheeks as he spoke up. “We’re good too. Zuko ended up getting caught last night, but they still don’t know about me. But I’ve had a lot of time to polish my idea since I last saw you, and I can make it work in our favor. I think I’ve got a pretty solid plan, guys.”

“Please, spill,” Y/N said. “I am more than ready to get out of here.”

“Same,” Suki muttered.

Sokka looked behind him one last time to ensure that no guards were nearby, and then he ushered them into the corner next to the stairs for maximum privacy. Y/N and Suki set their mops against the wall and the four of them squatted down, Sokka lowering his voice.

“So, you know how when a firebender misbehaves or uses their bending, they get sent to the coolers?” They all nodded, and Sokka pushed up the visor of his helmet. “Well, I checked them out again — the whole point of them is to keep firebenders contained, which means they’re completely insulated and sealed to keep the cold in. And to keep the cold in, it also has to keep the heat out, right?”

Suki frowned. “Just get to the point, Sokka.”

“We’ve clearly been apart for too long,” he sighed, shaking his head. “You have no appreciation for my dramatics anymore.”

Suki rolled her eyes but couldn’t stifle her smile. “Whatever.”

He smiled as well as he continued. “Because of its insulation, it’s a perfect boat to get through the boiling water!”

Zuko’s eyes widened. “The cooler as a boat? Are you sure?”

“I’m telling you,” Sokka said, “it’ll work.”

Y/N frowned. “What about the guards? They have watchtowers around the perimeter—they’d spot us in a second.”

Sokka shook his head. “I walked it this morning. There’s a blind spot between two of the guard towers—we can launch the cooler there. The current will take us right through, and as long as we stay quiet, no one will notice a thing. Not until we’re long gone.”

“That sounds great,” Suki said. “But how are you gonna get the cooler out? None of us will be able to help you, and surely you can’t do all that work alone.”

Sokka opened his mouth to respond, but a different, unfamiliar voice rang out instead.

“Yeah. How are you going to get the cooler out?”

Y/N immediately grabbed her mop out of instinct—not that it would do much help if a guard had caught them plotting an escape—but when they all looked up, it was just another prisoner. He hopped down from the railing and landed next to them, ignoring their bewildered expressions. So much for privacy.

“What?” Sokka immediately started panicking as he tugged at his collar. “We— we didn’t say that!”

Zuko nodded. “Yeah. You heard wrong.”

His face remained impassive. “I heard you hatching an escape plan. I want in.”

“There’s nothing to get in on,” Zuko said.

“We’re just having a normal conversation,” Y/N said, her grip on the handle of her mop tightening. “Nothing you need to be involved in.”

“Yeah,” Sokka spoke up, “the only thing we’re hatching is… an egg.”

Suki gave him a disappointed look, Zuko groaned, and Y/N just sighed. Sokka was a genius, but he really needed to work on his improv.

The prisoner shrugged. “Either I come with you, or the warden hears about this egg.”

The four of them looked at each other, speaking with each other just through minute changes in their expressions, until they finally settled on what they knew they had to do.

Suki broke away first, relenting with a sigh. “I guess we have no choice.”

“Fine,” Sokka said, looking at the prisoner, “you’re in. But you follow our lead on everything, or you’re out just as quickly.”

“As long as you get me off this rock, I don’t care what my part is,” he said.

Sokka nodded. “Okay. Back to getting the cooler out. Obviously, Suki’s right, and I can’t do it alone, especially from the outside. But,” he looked at Zuko, “we can get someone to unscrew it from the inside.”

It took Zuko a second to understand, but then he nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Sokka took a wrench out from his back pocket and handed it to Zuko, and he tucked it into his tunic.

“You’re gonna have to use your firebending,” Suki said. “We see it happen all the time— a guard baits a prisoner into a fight, they use their bending, and they get locked in the cooler for a week for something that isn’t even their fault. If you’re seen blasting at Sokka, you’ll definitely get thrown in.”

Sokka shook his head. “As much as I’d love to fight Zuko, I shouldn’t be seen causing a scene with him again. We were already caught together last night—if that happens again, someone up top might get suspicious.”

“Zuko and I can fight,” Y/N spoke up. “I know how to dodge his attacks.” And to be honest… she wanted to throw a couple punches at him. She was still angry she had to work with him to get out of here.

Zuko frowned. “No way. I’m not fighting you for this, and I’m not gonna burn you.”

She snorted. “You had no qualms about doing it before.”

Zuko winced at the barb, and she couldn’t help but feel a sick sort of gratification. He should feel bad about what he did to her. She wasn’t just going to let him off the hook because they needed to work together for a day.

“Don’t worry, princess. You two don’t have to fight,” the prisoner spoke up, and he looked at Zuko with a smile. “I can get you inside.”

Getting Zuko in trouble turned out to be the easiest thing they’d done during their time here. He and the prisoner—Chit Sang, he finally told them—staged a fight, and the second Zuko sent a blast of firebending, Sokka called for backup and he got taken away. Y/N had to admit—it was nice seeing Zuko get shoved around, even if it was just pretend.

They were sent back to their cells a few minutes later for “security reasons”, and since then, Y/N had just been playing the waiting game. She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the blue beads in her hands as she rolled them between her fingers. Thankfully they hadn’t been confiscated after she became a prisoner here, but it had only taken a week for her to remove them from her braids and secure them in the safety of her cell. The last thing Y/N needed was for an even bigger target to be placed on her back, and so she made the difficult decision to take them out.

But now—tonight—they were escaping. She was going to get her life back. No more hiding who she was.

Y/N had just finished braiding the beads back into her hair when her cell door opened, and she smiled when the guard flipped up his visor and revealed his blue eyes.

“Sokka,” she breathed, darting up to her feet, “is everything okay?”

He nodded. “Everything’s going according to plan. I got Suki and Chit Sang out of their cells a few minutes ago—I’m on the way to get Zuko out of the cooler.” Sokka paused. “Do you want to come with me?

“No.”

“Y/N—”

“No, Sokka.” She shook her head. “I told you I would work with him just enough to get out of here. I don’t need to come with you.”

He stared at her for a moment before relenting with a sigh. “Okay. You know your way down to the shore?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet them there.”

“Good. Don’t get caught.”

Y/N smiled. “Take your own advice.”

Sokka chuckled as he pulled her in for a hug, stepping away after a good long moment. “I’ll see you on the other side?”

She nodded. “You know it.”

“Oh, thank Kyoshi you made it.”

Suki ran over and tackled her into a gopher bear hug the second Y/N emerged from around the building, instantly knocking the air out of her.

She laughed breathlessly and patted her on the back, extracting herself from Suki’s arms so they could walk back over to where Chit Sang was waiting. “Of course I made it—you think I’m gonna let something go wrong this close to our escape?”

“I have total faith in you,” Suki said. “It just took you a little longer to get here, and I immediately thought the worst.”

“It’s true,” Chit Sang spoke up. “She wouldn’t stop pacing.”

“Well, I’m here now,” Y/N said, “and Sokka’s on the way to get the cooler. Hopefully he’ll be here soon.”

It was then that she spotted two other people sitting on the rocks near them, a man and a woman.

“Um,” she said, “who are they?”

“Oh, yeah.” Chit Sang gestured at them with his head. “That’s my girl and my buddy. They’re coming with us.”

“What?” Y/N looked at him incredulously. “The deal was that you got to come—this plan’s already risky enough with only the five of us. You don’t get to bring in your own people when you’re only here as a liability.”

He raised his eyebrows. “This liability is fully willing to tell the warden about your plan. So either they escape with us, or we all get thrown back in the slammer.”

Y/N glared at him, fire simmering just beneath the surface, only quelled when Suki spoke up.

“I told him that,” she sighed, “but it should be okay. More people getting out of this place, the better, right?”

“Fine,” Y/N said, and she looked over at the two, “but you don’t do anything to mess this up, or I’ll throw you into the lake myself—okay?”

They both nodded, and she felt the slightest bit of gratification at their widened eyes.

Y/N sighed herself and sat down on a rock next to Suki. Now, all they could really do was wait.

And wait they did. It was another harrowing, anxious ten minutes until they heard noises—when Y/N looked behind them, they were greeted with the sight of Sokka and Zuko rolling down the cooler. They all immediately rushed up to support them, and with the strength of the five of them combined, it was a far easier effort.

“It’s about time you got here,” Chit Sang said , and he pulled the same thing on Sokka as he did on Y/N. “I brought my girl and my best buddy—they’re coming too.”

And Sokka reacted the same way she did—annoyance underneath, but cooperation above it.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “Stop it here.”

Y/N grimaced as she dug her heels into the rock, and they managed to stop the cooler just before the shore. Together, they turned it around, the edge of it just barely in the boiling water.

“Get in,” Sokka said. “It’s better we’re out before the guards can realize any of us are gone.”

Chit Sang’s people nodded and began to get in the cooler, but Y/N’s gaze followed Sokka as he walked over to a large boulder. He picked it up to reveal his Water Tribe clothes, and she was able to see his longing stare as he stood there.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Zuko asked, folding his arms as he and Suki joined them. “You’re the one that said you wanted to redeem yourself, redeem your honor. Rescuing your dad is your chance.”

Y/N’s eyes widened as Sokka slipped his sword over his back. “Your father could be here?”

“They’re getting a new shipment of prisoners in tonight,” Sokka said quietly, staring at the ground. “We overheard the guards talking about it—there are some war prisoners, which means my dad could be one of them.”

The meaning of it dawned on her—either they left and lost their chance at saving Sokka’s dad, or they stayed and lost their chance of escaping, possibly for nothing. It was an impossible situation, but Y/N knew Sokka—and for someone like him, the answer was obvious. Of course, his version of the answer would be to make the rest of them escape and leave him here alone—if it went wrong, only he would suffer the consequences. But that wasn’t going to happen.

“If I had just cut my losses at the invasion, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Sokka looked up at them. ��Maybe sometimes it’s just better to call it quits before you fail.”

“No,” Zuko insisted, “it’s not. You’re going to fail, Sokka, and you’re gonna do it a lot before things work out.”

Sokka stood up from his crouch, frowning as he looked at Zuko. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, it’s not. But it’s reality.” Zuko followed him as Sokka started going towards the coast. “Even though you’ll probably fail over and over and over again—”

“Seriously,” Sokka grumbled, “not helping.”

“—You have to try every time. You can’t quit because you’re afraid you might fail.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this… but I agree with Zuko,” Y/N said. “You can’t leave your dad, Sokka—you don’t even want to, I know that. But whatever happened at the invasion won’t happen again—we’re here to back you up, no matter what.”

Zuko looked at her in disbelief—whether it was the fact that she actually said his name, agreed with him, or even just entertained his presence, she wasn’t exactly sure—but she glanced away just as quickly. He sighed, and focused back on Sokka.

“So,” he finished, “what’s your decision?”

“If you’re all done cuddling back there, can we get a move on?” Chit Sang spoke up, holding the cooler on the coast with his hand.

Sokka looked out into the boiling lake, then back at Y/N and Suki, and finally at Zuko. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “No. I’m staying.”

He set the sack holding his clothes on the ground and looked at the three of them. “You guys go—especially you two, Y/N and Suki. You’ve been here long enough. I can’t keep you here for something that might be nothing.”

“Are you kidding me?” Y/N asked. “We’re not going anywhere, Sokka. Like I said—we’re right beside you.”

Suki nodded. “I’m not leaving without you, Sokka.”

“I’m staying too,” Zuko said with a small smile.

Just once, for Sokka, Y/N managed to bite back her remark. But their moment together was ruined by Chit Sang, who hopped into the cooler along with his friends.

“Not me,” he said. “I’m out.”

“We gave up our only chance of escaping.” Sokka sighed as he watched the cooler float away, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard. “I hope we haven’t just made a huge mistake.”

“We haven’t,” Y/N said. “I know it.”

Y/N watched the cooler float through the boiling waters, the mostly stagnant lake doing little to help aside from the occasional currents. With the new arrivals coming in at dawn and the fact that they couldn’t go back to their cells, the four of them were left to their own devices on the shore. Sokka and Suki sat together, her head resting on his shoulder with his arm around her waist, talking quietly with each other. Zuko stood a few meters away from them, his attention focused on the sunrise. Y/N was occupying her time by keeping an eye on the cooler and kicking a small rock around with her foot. They’d been there for an hour now, just trying to pass the time until dawn.

The sun was slowly, slowly rising—she swore that it was purposefully going at a more lethargic pace just to spite them—and she sighed as she kicked the rock into the lake. It sank beneath the boiling water, sizzling the whole way down, and she felt that tightness in her chest again. Spirits, she wished she had her bending. She would’ve been able to get them all out without a second thought—instead, all she could do was sit on the shore, useless.

Y/N heard footsteps behind her and she glanced over, figuring it was Suki or Sokka—instead, she was met with Zuko sitting down on the ground next to her.

She rolled her eyes and looked back out onto the lake. “Go away.”

“I just want to talk.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“You don’t have to,” Zuko said. “I just… need to say some things.”

Y/N kept her attention trained on the horizon, staying silent. There was nothing she could do if Zuko wanted to talk, but that didn’t mean she had to listen.

“I could tell you how sorry I am again, but… I don’t know how much weight that has. Especially right now, when we’re here. I— I am sorry, more than you could ever possibly know, but you probably don’t want to listen to me wallow. So I’m offering my help instead.”

She frowned a bit at that, but Zuko continued.

“Sokka told me you lost your bending. I lost mine too, when I first started helping Aang. It was because, before all of this, for as long as I had been bending, the source of it was my anger. But when I realized I was on the wrong side of it all, that anger went away, and my bending along with it. I had to find a different source for it; find the true meaning of firebending. If you figure out how your source was lost, then you can figure out how to get it back. And I want to help you get it back.”

Y/N huffed a mirthless laugh. “If that’s the reason I lost my bending, then I think I have a pretty good idea what caused it.”

“What—” Zuko started to say, but he was interrupted by Sokka.

“The gondola’s moving,” he said, and Y/N turned around to see him and Suki standing up. He pointed at the line that the gondola rode over to the prison, and sure enough, it was going across.

“Let’s move,” Y/N said.

The four of them rushed over to the ledge that went around the walls of the prison—Sokka gave Suki, Y/N, and Zuko a boost up by making a platform with his hands, and then climbed up himself with a little help from Zuko. They edged around the wall, being careful not to lose their balance, when all of a sudden there was a deafening scream from out in the lake.

Y/N’s eyes darted over and she saw Chit Sang standing up in the cooler, clutching his hand—by the splash next to the cooler, she took it he got a little too close to the boiling water. The distant commands of a guard could be heard as the alarm bell clanged on repeat, and Sokka’s eyes widened.

“The plan failed,” he said, horrified. “They’re caught!”

“Keep going,” Suki whispered.

They continued to edge around the platform together, and Y/N winced as she saw a bolt being fired, and after it caught hold of the cooler it began hauling them back in.

“Looks like we made the right choice by staying,” Y/N murmured.

“The gondola’s moving,” Sokka interrupted, and they picked up the pace as they finally reached the edge of the yard. They had a view of the gondola as it finally landed after what felt like an eternity, and they all fell silent, waiting with bated breath. “This is it. If my dad’s not here, then we risked everything for nothing.”

“We had to,” Suki said, and she squeezed Sokka’s hand. Y/N nodded.

The doors were opened by one of the guards, and prisoners began filing out. After the first man, Zuko looked over at Sokka.

“Is that him?”

Sokka scoffed. “My dad doesn’t have a nose ring.”

Prisoners continued to walk off the gondola until there were no more left, but not a single one of them looked like Sokka.

“Is… is that it?” Sokka shook his head. “No— no, that can’t be it. Where is he?”

“I’m so sorry,” Suki said quietly.

Sokka screwed his eyes shut as he let himself fall back against the wall. “He’s not here.”

But then a guard spoke up.

“Hey, you! Get off the gondola.”

Sokka’s eyes shot open, and their attention immediately went to the gondola. A man walked out after another moment—his dark brown hair was tied into the same kind of wolf tail Sokka had and Y/N saw every day back in the Northern Tribe, and two braided strands moved in the slight breeze. Sokka let out a haggard breath of relief as his eyes widened, full of hope, and Y/N knew immediately.

“That’s him,” he whispered. “Dad.”

They were able to sneak their way back without detection by melting back into the crowd of prisoners in the yard, Sokka joining the guards a few minutes after they made themselves scarce. There was a renewed energy in their group, knowing that Sokka’s father was there. It wasn’t all for nothing.

Zuko, however, wasn’t doing too great at the moment.

“Mai,” he breathed, his eyes wide as he stared at the girl he had left behind in the Fire Nation. Whereas he was used to seeing her completely emotionless, there was a hardened glint in her eye. It, to be completely honest, terrified him.

“How did you know I was here?” he asked.

“Because I know you so well,” she said.

Zuko frowned. “But, how—”

“The warden’s my uncle, you idiot,” Mai interrupted as she glanced off to the side. It was hard seeing her like this, seeing her here—now that he’d been reunited with Y/N, it only served to make things more complicated. “He sent a messenger hawk telling me you were here, and Azula intercepted it. You’re lucky I’m the one talking to you now instead of her.”

Zuko stilled. “Azula’s here?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course she is. When you betrayed the whole country, you betrayed her, too. You have a lot to answer for, Zuko.” Mai took a roll of paper out of the folds of her robes and let it unravel in front of him—it was the letter that he wrote her before he left to go join the Avatar. “I guess I don’t know you at all. I mean, all I get is a letter?” She scoffed. “You could’ve at least looked me in the eyes when you ripped out my heart.”

Zuko felt guilty, hoping that Mai felt the same way about him that he did about her. He loved her—of course he did, she was one of his only friends in the Fire Nation after Y/N had been forced to leave, and they grew closer than ever—but he’d come to realize it was solely platonic. He had no choice but to leave the Fire Nation, but maybe he could’ve broken the news in a lighter way to the girl who’d been by his side since he returned home.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I… I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t mean to what?” Mai interrupted, and he winced. She opened up the scroll with her other hand and walked behind him as she read. “‘Dear Mai, I’m sorry that you have to find out this way, but I’m leaving.’ You might as well have added, good luck dealing with the wrath of my sister alone, hopefully she doesn’t blame you for the fact that I’m gone!” The paper snapped as she shut it and shoved it back into her tunic. “You don’t ever think about anyone other than yourself.”

“This isn’t about you!” Zuko snapped. “It’s not even about me, Mai! I left the Fire Nation to help the Avatar learn firebending because it’s my destiny to help him on his journey—I did this to save the world, not because I thought it would be fun to— to annoy you. I’m trying to stop my father from hurting anyone else.” He sat up from his hunched over position and looked right at Mai. “You of all people should understand that.”

“You don’t get to use that line on me,” she fumed. Mai might not have been a bender, but there was a lot of fire simmering just beneath the surface. “It really makes me feel better, knowing that you actually couldn’t have cared less about me.” Her expression sobered slightly and she turned away. “You just wrote a letter and left—I had to fix the mess that you made.”

“What was I supposed to do?” he defended. “You’re best friends with Azula—you probably would’ve told her what I was planning to do and gotten me thrown in jail.”

Mai’s eyes flashed with anger. “You can’t seriously believe that.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Zuko marveled. “You’ve been attached to her side for as long as I can remember. I mean, you’re here now with her. It’s not that hard to think you’d turn me in.”

“You really don’t know anything about me,” she murmured.

That caught him off guard. “What?”

Mai didn’t have the chance to answer him as a guard stopped in front of the cell. “Ma’am, there’s a riot going on. I’m here to protect you.”

A riot—that must’ve been the distraction Sokka mentioned. It was now or never for him to get out of here; if he didn’t, Zuko was sure his next visitor would be his sister, there to take him back to the Fire Nation in chains. That wasn’t really an option.

Mai looked over at the guard, her expression once again impassive. “I don’t need any protection.”

Zuko chuckled. “Believe me; she doesn’t.”

“I’m sorry, I’m under direct orders from your uncle to make sure nothing happens.” The guard began walking into the cell, and Zuko took it as his chance.

He shot a blast of fire at the guard’s feet and ran past him and Mai in their shock, and he shut the door just as Mai slammed her fists against the metal.

“What are you doing?” she yelled. For maybe the third time in Zuko’s life, her eyes were filled with nothing but pure emotion—hatred, anger, confusion, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to get to the yard.

“I’m sorry, Mai,” he murmured. “You’ll understand someday.”

And Zuko ran.

Once again, Y/N was left to wait in her cell for Sokka. Before they dispersed in the courtyard, he told them he would find his dad first and then get back to them when he figured out a plan. It was tedious, but she didn’t mind it—after today, she would never see the inside of this cell again.

The door finally slid open, and though she tensed out of instinct at the guard uniform, it dissolved when he opened his visor.

“Did you find him?” she asked.

Sokka nodded and smiled. “Yeah. I found my dad and we talked—we have another plan, but… it’s risky.”

“We don’t have many options that wouldn’t be risky,” she said. “Let’s hear it.”

“We’re escaping today,” Sokka said, “but… we’re using the gondola.”

Y/N frowned. “The gondola? How?”

“We’ll commandeer it, and we’ll take a hostage with us to make sure we can get across without them cutting the line."

She frowned. “It’ll never work. There’s too many guards around the station.”

“That’s exactly what Suki said!” Sokka exclaimed. “Spirits, we need to get you two out of here—you’ve been spending way too much time together.”

Y/N smiled. “Keep going with the plan, buddy.”

“Right,” he nodded. “My dad figured that out—we’ll cause a distraction, a prison riot, so the guards will be occupied and we’ll be able to make it.”

“Even if we can get to the gondola, we’ll never make it across the lake,” Y/N said. “The warden prides himself on being in charge of an inescapable prison so much that he puts it in every speech—he’ll tell them to cut the line no matter what, and then we’re screwed.”

Sokka grinned. “That’s the thing. We’re gonna take the warden as our prisoner—that way, they’ll have to let us across, and they’ll be too scared to even risk cutting the line.”

“That is… an insane plan. But I think it might be our only shot.” She chuckled as she shook her head. “You certainly haven’t lost your spark as the plan guy.”

He laughed. “Like I could ever lose that spark.”

When Y/N’s cell door slid open, she could hardly believe it. Yeah, she trusted Sokka, but this was the beginning of the end. She was really going to get out of this dreaded place—she was going to see Toph, Aang, Katara again. The promise of seeing her friends again was enough to push her through anything this escape would take.

She joined the flow of prisoners into the courtyard—they had all been released, not just in blocks, so it was easy to blend in. Y/N kept her eyes peeled, and she eventually caught sight of Sokka, his dad, and Suki.

“You guys made it,” she breathed as she came to a stop in the loose circle, and then she looked up at Sokka’s dad, her eyes widening slightly. “Um, it’s nice to meet you, sir.”

He smiled. “There’s no need to call me sir—a friend of Sokka’s is a friend of mine. I’m Hakoda.” His eyes fell on the beads in her hair and his smile grew. “Another member of the Water Tribe? Looks like this place can’t keep any of us locked up.”

She grinned—she definitely saw where Sokka got it all from. “I’m Y/N—I’m from the Northern Tribe. I guess they really can’t.”

“As fun as it is introducing you to my dad, we’re in the middle of something,” Sokka said pointedly. Y/N just smiled and nodded, letting him continue. “We’re trying to start a prison riot, but apparently the bad guys in here are actually… learning to control their anger. It’s weird. Do you know what to do?”

Y/N shook her head. “I’ve only managed to get in fights by being really unlucky. Have you tried… yelling?”

It was at that moment that a gruff voice rang out behind them, a big hand slamming down on Sokka’s shoulder.

“Hey, you! You’re lucky I didn’t rat you out!” Chit Sang glared down at Sokka, but then he smiled a bit. “My generosity comes with a price, though—I know you’re planning another escape attempt, and I want in.”

“Can you start a riot?” Y/N spoke up.

He nodded. “Easily.”

“Do it, and you’re in,” she said.

Chit Sang walked forward and grabbed a prisoner by his cuff, lifting him up over his head as he yelled out to the whole yard. “Hey! Riot!”

To Y/N’s surprise, it actually worked. The prisoners immediately dissolved into chaos, fighting one another, shooting off blasts of fire, and just generally creating a mess as dust from the ruckus created large clouds all over. It was the perfect distraction.

Hakoda’s eyebrows shot up. “Impressive.”

They all took refuge by one of the walls, and Y/N looked at Sokka. “We have to get the warden now, right?”

“Yeah, but—” he looked around anxiously— “we can’t leave without Zuko. What is taking him so long?”

She resisted the urge to say they could leave him here, but it was imperfect timing, because Zuko showed up right as they mentioned him, fighting off a guard on the way before he settled into their circle. It was a shame.

“Zuko!” Sokka exclaimed. “You’re finally here! Now we can grab the warden and get to the gondolas.”

“How do we do that?” he asked.

“I, uh… I’m not sure.”

Zuko groaned. “I thought you thought this through!”

“And I thought you told me it’s okay not to think everything through!”

“Maybe not everything, but don’t you think this is important?”

“Hey,” Chit Sang spoke up, and he gestured over with his hand, “looks like your girlfriends are taking care of it.”

When Sokka and Zuko looked where he was pointing, they were both shocked.

Y/N and Suki ran through the crowd together, effortlessly dodging between the rioting prisoners. When they reached the wall, Y/N laced her fingers together and gave Suki a boost up. She grabbed onto makeshift handholds and footholds from deep grooves and missing pieces of metal in the wall, and when she was secure she reached down for Y/N. She jumped and grabbed one of her hands, and Suki grunted as she pulled her up just enough for her to get her hands on the wall as well. They began scaling it together, moving faster once they found easier purchase on the balcony railings.

Suki hopped over the rail and Y/N slid under, and together they ran down the pathway. Suki took down the first guard as she kicked him against the wall, but then three more came around the corner poised to fight.

“Get the warden!” Suki yelled at her. “I’ll take care of them!”

She nodded and got back up on the railing, the extra height giving her enough air to grab onto the ridge of the arched doorway and continue to climb. She hopped over the railing, and sure enough, the warden was standing at the end of the pathway with a single guard in front of him.

Y/N used her momentum to slide through the guard’s legs, landing right in front of the warden as she popped up. He tried to throw a punch but she caught his wrist and held it tight, the way Suki had taught her, and allowed herself a smug smile.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he growled.

Y/N stared at the man who was responsible for her months of imprisonment, and she couldn’t help but huff a laugh. “Try me.”

She yanked his arm down and twisted him around, untying the cord cinched around her waist to bind his wrists together. She then pulled down his headband to gag him, letting out her first sigh of relief since the whole plan had begun.

“Nice work.” She turned around to see Suki catching up to her with a huge smile on her face, the guard from before knocked out on the ground. “Looks like all those makeshift lessons in the courtyard worked out, huh?”

Y/N grinned. “I guess they did.”

She slammed the warden against the wall and tightened his bonds, unable to resist mocking him. “Sorry, warden,” she taunted. “Looks like you’re our prisoner now.”

Behind her, the rest of the guys were finally catching up, their heads hung as they sucked in deep breaths.

“Took you long enough to join us!” Y/N called, and she gestured to the warden with her head. “I got our hostage.”

Hakoda shook his head as he looked at them, a proud smile on his face despite being completely out of breath. “Those are some girls.”

Sokka and Zuko both spoke in unison. “Tell me about it.”

Chit Sang hauled the warden over his shoulder and they started on the final leg of their sprint. All they had to do was get to the gondola, and they would be home free.

“We’re almost there!” Y/N yelled, but she had just glanced back at the rest of the group to say it when she heard the sound of fire blasts, her head snapping back to see the guards firebending at her.

She didn’t even have the chance to move before Zuko shoved her out of the way, jumping in front of them—in front of her—to block the firebending. His movements were smoother, more fluid than the last time she’d seen him bend. Apparently his trip with Aang had done him some good.

Y/N shook her head. Now wasn’t the time to think about his bending, of all things. Just because he saved her once didn’t make up for anything else.

“Back off!” Zuko yelled, taking up a defensive position as more guards ran over. He pointed at Chit Sang and the man over his shoulder. “We’ve got the warden!” The guards paused for a moment, but then they cleared the way. “Let’s go!”

They cautiously walked through all the guards, poised for a fight in case one of them broke, but once they got through them all they began their run again. Suki was the first to make it to the gondola, and she slid the door open. “Everyone in!”

Y/N filed in after Sokka, but she looked out the window and saw that Zuko was starting the gondola—what in Kuruk’s name was he doing?

But then he broke the lever off after a few kicks, and he sprinted to the edge of the railing. Zuko jumped, and he was just barely able to make it as Sokka caught his arm and pulled him in through the window.

“What was that?” she scoffed.

Zuko shifted under her scrutiny. “I was making it so they couldn’t follow us.”

“That wasn’t your best idea, genius,” she muttered. “You nearly got left behind.”

Sokka and Zuko met each other’s eyes, both with the same thought. Sokka covered it up with a cough and patted him on the shoulder. “Way to think ahead.”

“This is it,” Suki smiled, nudging Y/N’s shoulder. “We’re actually getting out of here.”

“Wait,” Hakoda interrupted, “who’s that?”

Y/N, Suki, Sokka, and Zuko all moved to the window to look where he pointed, and she felt her heart drop.

“Azula,” she whispered.

“That’s a problem,” Zuko said. “It’s my sister and her friend—Mai said she was here, but now that she’s really here…” He shook his head. “I hope you all are ready for a fight, because that’s the only way we’re getting out of here.”

Ty Lee hopped onto the cable lines and began running across them with impossible grace, while Azula propelled herself up to them with fire. They were closing in fast.

“Oh boy,” Sokka lamented. “Guess we’ve got no choice, huh?”

“I don’t mind,” Suki said, cracking her knuckles. “This is a rematch I’ve been waiting for.”

“Me too,” Y/N murmured. After all, Azula was the reason why she was here. She willingly signed her death warrant. A rematch was a long time coming.

“Dad, Chit Sang, stay down here,” Sokka said. “We’ll take care of this.”

Hakoda nodded. “Be careful, son.”

The four of them climbed up to the top of the gondola, making it there just as Azula and Ty Lee landed, Suki and Sokka on the side of the chi-blocker leaving Zuko and Y/N to deal with the princess.

“How lovely to see you both again,” she said mockingly. “It’s just like our childhood all over again, isn’t it?”

Once again, Y/N wished she had her waterbending—she nearly went to flip open the cap of her waterskin before remembering she had neither the container nor her bending. It was frustrating beyond belief—especially when her enemy was one of the best firebenders in the world and their arena was a shaky gondola a hundred meters above a boiling lake.

So instead she eased into a grounded stance, the way Suki had taught her, and put her fists up. “Let’s skip the pleasantries.”

Azula smiled, sickeningly sweet with a glint of danger in her eye. “Gladly.”

She shot a blast of fire at them and Zuko blocked it, giving Y/N a chance to lunge forward and take a swing. Azula caught her wrist and twisted her arm, but she tore free and kicked her in the chest. Azula stumbled backwards, right on the edge of the gondola—Y/N was about to make a move, but Zuko’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Move!” he shouted, and when Y/N backed out of the way Zuko shot fire at her with both fists. Azula regained her balance at just the right moment and dispersed both blasts by moving her palms in a circle.

Y/N didn’t wait for Zuko—she was on Azula as soon as the fire cleared, kicking and swinging with all of her might. Her attacks were anything but clean, but it was a constant onslaught of attacks, and she could tell by the way Azula blocked them that she wasn’t as skilled at hand to hand combat as she was at firebending.

Everything was coming back to her, fueling the anger inside of her—from the cruel jabs at her when she was still a servant in the palace, to killing Aang, to sending her to the Boiling Rock to die. Red colored her vision, and it was what made her swing a little too hard allowing Azula to catch her off guard and knock her down.

Y/N fell hard, her head slamming into the edge of the gondola’s roof. The top half of her head hung over the open air, and she was just able to haul herself into a sitting position to avoid the certain death that a free fall would provide—now, as Azula stalked towards her, she was only facing almost certain death.

“I should’ve killed you back in the prisons when I had the chance,” she snarled, and she raised her fist.

“Yeah,” Y/N grit out, “you really should have.”

Before Azula got the chance to turn her to ashes, Zuko shot a huge blast of fire at her, knocking her off balance and forcing her back on the defensive. Y/N scrambled away from the edge, her vision still slightly blurred from her fall, but her heart was beating again. That was far too close for comfort.

“Get away from her,” he growled, and Azula just laughed.

“Even after all this, you still can’t let go of her. You really are pathetic, Zuko.”

Even from the ground Y/N could see the fire blazing in Zuko’s eyes, offset completely by the mirth in Azula’s. She saw this as a game—nothing more.

Suddenly, the gondola swung back and forth, tossing everyone off balance. Y/N grabbed onto one of the metal plates and held on for dear life—in the corner of her vision, she saw Sokka nearly fall off, just barely saved by Zuko catching his hand.

Ty Lee, from her vantage point at the top of the metal support, yelled down at Azula. “They’re about to cut the line!”

“Then it’s time to leave,” she said decisively. “Goodbye, Zuko.”

She blasted herself up with fire as Ty Lee backflipped across to the other gondola, and Y/N was finally granted a moment of respite. Even if they were about to fall to their boiling hot deaths.

A hand was extended in her vision and she took it without thinking, wincing a little bit as she stood up.

“Thanks,” she murmured, lifting her free hand to her head. There was no blood, but she wagered she would have a nasty bruise where her head had slammed against the hard edge.

“Are you okay?” It was Zuko that asked the question, and Zuko that helped her up. She ripped her hand out of his immediately, suddenly more than okay to walk on her own.

“I’m fine,” she grumbled.

“You did a good job against Azula,” he said. “We fought really well together.”

Y/N ignored his attempt at conversation, focusing on the more imminent threat as she swung back into the gondola through the window. Sokka and Suki were already there, and Zuko followed shortly after her.

“They’re cutting the line,” he said. “The gondola’s about to go.”

Hakoda blew out a loose sigh. “I hope this thing floats.”

But the gondola kept moving—no falling to their deaths at all. Y/N squinted as she moved to the window, able to see a distant fight happening but not able to distinguish anything in particular. “What’s going on?”

“Someone’s fighting the guards,” Sokka marveled. “Who is that?”

Zuko’s eyes widened. “...It’s Mai.”

Y/N frowned. “What in Kyoshi’s name is she doing helping us?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured.

The rest of the ride was smooth, and before she knew it they had arrived at the other side. They all ran out of the gondola, and Chit Sang tossed the warden back in.

“Sorry, warden,” Hakoda said. “Your record is officially broken.”

The rest of the group continued running away, but Y/N couldn’t help but stand there, looking at the prison from a distance.

“What are you doing?” Sokka questioned urgently, and she turned her head to see him waiting for her. “We need to get out of here before our luck runs out.”

“I know,” she murmured. “I just… can’t believe we did it.”

Sokka smiled. “Well, you better believe it, because we did. And now we need to finish the job.”

Y/N nodded and took Sokka’s extended hand, and the two of them ran to catch up to the rest of the group.

“Well, we made it out,” Suki said, directing it at Sokka as the two of them came over the hill. “What now?”

“My sister was on that island,” Zuko said. “That means she had to get here somehow.”

Sokka’s eyes lit up, and together the three of them crested the volcano. Docked at a landing in the water was the most beautiful thing Y/N had ever seen.

Zuko smiled as he pointed at the airship. “That’s how we’ll get out of here.”

It was a careful but quick descent down the side of the volcano to reach the airship, and after some firebending from Zuko and navigating between him and Sokka, they were on their way. Y/N took the chance to settle on a cushioned seat, the comfort a luxury she had sorely missed.

She could still hardly believe she was really free—the last time she was on an airship like this, it was to be transferred to the Boiling Rock. Months of her life had been stolen by the Fire Nation, and she couldn’t wait to see her friends again, to be around nature, to be free.

Y/N let out a content sigh, and she looked up at the sound of footsteps. Sokka had turned the corner, a folded map in his hands that he quickly stuffed into the folds of his uniform.

“How are you doing?” he asked. “I saw you take a nasty fall—are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “I’m fine. Once I get back to Katara and she heals it up, I’ll be good to go.”

“That’s good. Maybe she can also, uh—” Sokka gestured at her black eye using his own face as a guide— “fix that up for you.”

“Are you saying I don’t look like a super cool warrior with it?” she asked with mock disdain.

Sokka laughed. “You look like a super cool warrior anyways. Y/N, you did amazing out there. The way you and Suki got the warden, your fighting against Azula—I’ve never seen you like that, except maybe when we fought through the whole Dai Li to talk to the Earth King.”

She smiled grimly. “That’s what a couple months in this place does to you. Suki’s combat lessons in our yard time didn’t hurt.”

Sokka went silent, and when Y/N looked over at him she saw that his face had fallen. “Sokka?”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through all that,” he murmured. “The Fire Nation, and the Boiling Rock, and—” he glanced over his shoulder, “well, Zuko. I can’t even imagine what this has been like for you, and— and I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“You don’t have to do this, Sokka.” Y/N could hardly keep track of how many times Sokka had apologized to her, trying to absolve himself of a deep-rooted guilt that he didn’t deserve to have. “It’s not your fault, and I don’t blame you for it in any way. I mean— you’re the one that got me and Suki out!”

“I just feel like I should’ve been able to protect you,” he murmured as he crossed his arms, “both of you, then you wouldn’t have been in here in the first place. But I couldn’t.”

Her eyes softened and she patted the spot next to her. Sokka sat down after a moment’s hesitation, and she pulled up and folded one of her legs on the platform, allowing the other to hang off the side to sit more comfortably.

“Since we’re baring our souls to each other here, I guess it’s my turn,” she said with a slight laugh before her expression sobered. “Sokka, the honest truth is that I… I honestly thought that I was going to die in there. Princess Azula was the only person that even knew I was at the Boiling Rock, and the way things were, as a weak, non-bending fifteen year old girl who was known for working with the Avatar…” Y/N shook her head. “Let’s just say the warden wouldn’t have been surprised if he suddenly had an empty cell.”

Sokka’s face fell even further, and she took his hand in an effort to lift his spirits. “But I’m not dead,” she said earnestly, “and that’s because of you. Sokka, you risked everything to get us out—you came for your father, and you ended up saving him and Suki and me. You’re a hero, and you should feel like one!”

Y/N squeezed his hand, trying to get all of her emotions across in a simple action. “I love you, Sokka, really. You’re the brother I never had, and I can’t imagine living without you now. So thank you.” She smiled. “I owe you everything. I owe you my life.”

Sokka stared at her with slightly wide eyes for a moment before he moved forward and pulled her into a hug.

“I know I already said this, but I’m never letting you out of my sight again,” he whispered. “And I think Katara will join me.”

Y/N laughed a bit. “You’re gonna get tired of me before I even think about going somewhere. I’ve been away from you all for way too long.”

Sokka pulled away, his blue eyes shimmering with tears but a grateful smile showing how he really felt.

“I love you too,” he said. “I’m so glad we found you.”

“So am I,” she whispered. “So am I.”

After talking with Suki and Sokka some more and very pointedly avoiding Zuko, Y/N dozed off. The events of the past two days had left her exhausted, and now that she didn’t have to constantly have her guard up, her body practically demanded a break.

She was woken up when she heard Sokka shouting something about landing, and she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she sat up. Normally she would’ve gotten a knot in her back or shoulders from sleeping on the barely padded bed—the airships had small rooms for the guards for overnight trips, and they each chose their own—but after spending so many nights sleeping on concrete, her body had adjusted accordingly. Besides, this bed had a mattress, however thin it might’ve been. After the Boiling Rock, it was the height of luxury.

She pushed the door open and wandered into the main room, where she saw that the loading deck was open. She could hear Sokka and Zuko talking, while Suki, Hakoda, and Chit Sang waited a few meters behind them.

“Sokka’s explaining it all to them,” Suki whispered as she stopped next to her. “So they don’t freak out about the giant Fire Nation airship.”

“Smart,” she said, nodding sagely.

“—I caught the best meat of all; the meat of friendship and fatherhood.”

Sokka turned his head and gestured for them to come out, and when Y/N saw her friends she nearly burst into tears.

Aang had gotten taller since the last time she’d seen him, and he carried himself completely differently. From what Sokka said, he was in the process of mastering firebending—maybe that was why he looked so confident. He was also alive, which meant that a flurry of her worst fears dissolved, lifting a huge weight off her shoulders in the process.

Toph looked the same, and she was almost thankful for it. She’d always been a grounding presence for Y/N, mirroring her element, and knowing that she hadn’t missed everything made her feel slightly better about it all.

Katara’s hair was down and her outfit was new, but she had a different air about her, a steelier glint in her eye. But when she saw her father and Y/N, it completely disappeared as they widened in surprise.

“Dad?” she gasped, her eyes already starting to glimmer with tears. She ran over to him, embracing him tightly as she buried her face in his chest.

“Hi, Katara,” he smiled, patting her on the back as he pulled her in closer. “It’s so good to see you again.”

She picked her head up and looked at Y/N, shaking her head in disbelief. “And— and Y/N? You’re alive, a-and you’re here! This is like a dream!”

Y/N grinned. “I feel— woah!”

It was her turn to get attacked with love, and she fully welcomed it as her and Katara hugged each other so tight the other could barely breathe. “I feel the same,” she managed to get out, and she closed her eyes in contentment. She had missed them all so much.

“How did you do this?” she asked, looking over at Sokka. “How are you all here? Where did you go?”

Sokka smiled bashfully at her, scratching his neck. “We… kind of went to a Fire Nation prison and broke them all out.”

A laugh bubbled out of Katara, and she let go of Y/N to pull Sokka and her dad into a group hug. “Of course you did.”

And as Y/N looked at the three of them, then Aang absolutely beaming and Toph’s own smile at the ground, she couldn’t help the tears that welled up in her eyes. But this time, they were tears of joy.

She was finally home.

perm tags: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77 @simonsbluee @kwyloz @masteroperator

ehfar tags: @chandies-sideblog @zacatecanaaaa @anzanity @randomthingssss @escapingthoughtsandsecrets @shanksfav @shephard17895 @ilovespideyyy @carisi-sonny @selfship-mishaps @ilistentotayswifttocope @i-make-questionable-choices @3leni @thatobsessedreader @lostgreekgod @oriontingz @zerode-unhinged @badpvn @mimi-sanisanidiot @adhdhufflepuff @aquaamethyst96 @hollyismentallyillhelp @holypoetrygarden @islandgayneery @pitrii-petra

#zuko x reader #zuko x you #zuko x reader fic #zuko #zuko fic #avatar #avatar the last airbender #atla #avatar fic #atla fic #avatar the last airbender fic #atla x reader #avatar x reader #sadie writes #ehfar

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zukkaart · 10 months

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okay so what if Zuko never left the fire nation after being welcomed home. Zuko is crowned fire lord instead of azula because of birth order, when ozai becomes Phoenix king. the avatar movement has to go underground and things get worse. Azula never had her breakdown because she was never defeated but there's clearly something wrong. ozai gets annoyed with her paranoia eventually and decides to marry her off to the southern water tribe chief, against his (and her) will, mostly as a way to get rid of her. she arrives in a foreign land, expecting to be hated and kept as prisoner until she dies. instead the first thing hakoda says to her is "I'm sorry". sure they're all wary of her, but she's still a teenager, Katara's age. the second the fire nation embasarries leave he tells her he's built her an igloo of her own. Azula figures its a prison cell, but its really hakoda's way of saying 'i dont want anything to do with you wifely'. and suddenly azula is in less danger than she's ever been in before. basically just recovering domestic azula with dadkoda. and eventually azula and zuko reconcile and decide to take the fire nation down from the Inside and story plot blah blah. but mostly hakoda adopting azula and giving her the parental love she never got 😭

I absolutely can NOT even begin to tell you the brain worms this gives me.

I think it makes a lot of sense for the time period in which avatar takes place too because I think it’s supposed to be circa 1700? (Correct me if I’m wrong) and obviously in most places at that time arranged marriages were very common, and many rulers did not shy away from marrying their children (daughters especially) off to much older men as long as they gained significant advantages from it- I wouldn’t be surprised if Ozai did the same. (Sorry for the info dump I’m a history nerd)

If you read “the art of burning” by hella1975 on Ao3 it is basically all dadkoda content but with Zuko and it’s absolutely beautifully written- probably one of the best fics I’ve ever read.

Circling back on topic- I could see Azula resigning herself to what she’s been taught her “wifely duties” are and constantly telling herself “just one son, just an heir, then hopefully he’ll never touch me again” (Yes Sokka but let’s just say for political purposes her father wants her to provide a SWT/FN heir) and then she realizes that Hakoda would NEVER do that to her or anyone else - and her cold facade begins to drop revealing the scared little girl she really is beneath the conditioning.

Bonus: Zuko absolutely despises the marriage because that’s still his little sister and just because he accepted his role doesn’t change where his morals fall. So he plans a whole months trip to some remote place for “training” but instead steals his old ship and goes to the SWT to get Azula back and maime anyone who laid a finger on her regardless of the political consequences, but he shows up and Azula explains how Hakoda basically adopted her instead. Zuko actually finds himself jealous of Azulas situation outside of his fathers influence and finally having the childhood that neither of them ever were offered but is ultimately so grateful to Hakoda for it.

And then he meets the water tribe heir one night while he’s grappling with these feelings of jealousy vs grief vs gratitude and having dealt with his father leaving and losing Yue and seeing Katara and Aang being happy and traveling together while he stays in the south he completely understands and helps him work though it.

#avatar the last airbender #zuko #sokka #adult zukka #sokka avatar the last airbender #zukka nation #zukka au #zuko x sokka #Azula #arranged marriage #fanfic ideas #asks

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starfinss · 5 months

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mmm see that's what i was also trying to figure out. So far I've thought that maybe the gang is getting annoyed how they throw shade and purposely do petty things to each other that it's now effecting the group dynamic/missons?

ex. reader was tasked to get food but ended up "accidentally" not get enough for Zuko Zuko heated up water for everyone and gave the extremely hot water to her OR he heats up her food til it's slightly more overcooked/burnt than the others constantly bickering over what to do during strategy meetings cause they always disagree with one another

then Sokka or Aang (cause I feel either or be the one to crack and really set the severity of the situation in place) finally snaps and tricks them into going on a "hunting trip" by taking Appa and bringing them FAR from camp and dump their asses there to "learn how to work with each other" and he will come back to get them in 2 days OR if they can work together well enough to come back by foot on their own.

Maybe during this time they start to slowly open up to each other about their differences/past.

mmmm waterbender reader be cool cause the water and fire thing but tbh I think non-bender be better since then you could add that the reader in some way feels "useless/not important" to the group since they don't carry much to the group and only there because of their relation to Sokka and Katara or maybe they're friends with Toph and find out about her escape plan and tracked her? (not sure what to add to that part)

IM JUST WRITING THIS ALL AS I THINK TBH

Hmmmmmmmmm.

I love the hunting trip idea, that’s perfect, I’ll use that. I think the story is beginning to really take a solid shape. I’ve sort of divided it into three distinct parts— the beginning, with the bickering and the hunting trip, the middle, with them being emotionally tone deaf idiots, and the end, where the Gaang gets extra fed up with them being clueless idiots in love with each other, Toph traps them in an earth tent to talk it out, and then they do the do. It’ll probably be about three chapters in length.

As for the bender thing, you raised some interesting points. The relation to Sokka and Katara makes me think her being a waterbender would be cool, because Katara is a powerhouse prodigy child, and it’s easy to feel inferior when you’re on the same team as her and the fucking Avatar, who has mastery of not only your element but two of the others, with a pretty good grasp on firebending to boot. She’s surrounded by powerful benders, and feels like she’s not really giving much to the team, so she’s not confident in her own bending, or something like that. Maybe that could also be one of the reasons she gets along so poorly with Zuko in the beginning: he’s yet another very powerful bender, and she feels like she’s not strong enough in comparison even more so than she did before.

If you hate that and want to shoot that down, feel free, lol, I’m just saying what I’m thinking. She can totally be a non-bender if you like, I just think what I mentioned would be an interesting angle to go at it from.

#starry speaks #I tag this the same every time lmao #not a fanfic #avatar the last airbender #avatar zuko #avatar #atla zuko #atla #zuko #zuko x reader #prince zuko #the brain juice is juicing #I have the juice #it’s almost 11 pm time to fight god #I’m excited #friendly fire

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 7 months

Text

Vicarious (Part 16)

It isn’t perfect by any stretch but it is something. He can join them for meals comfortably now, even if he keeps quiet for most of it aside from a brief greeting. Now that it is out in the open, Azula speaks openly with him and he supposes that, that does help his case–rather her case.

He had always imagined that it would be easy to talk to the rest of the group since he doesn’t carry the resentments that Azula does for them. But he can’t stop himself from dwelling upon how he has been treated until now.

He feels like he has to ease back into liking his own friends but at least he doesn’t find himself flushing with anger upon seeing Azula interact with them. She is usually the first to invite him over. She or Aang.

They ask him how he is doing now, if he is taking care of his injuries, and if they are healing well. They ask him if he is eating and sleeping well. They don’t question him when he says yes even if they probably should. Granted he has been sleeping a little easier these days now that the loneliness isn’t driving him half mad. Now that he has memorized Azula’s optimal pillow arrangement.

They don’t speak about much of anything at breakfast. It is simply one of those mornings where no one seems to have slept well so everyone stays out of each other’s ways. He knows why he hasn’t slept and he has a guess or two about what is leaving Azula sleepy. He is pretty certain that he heard Mai and Zuko arguing last night–something about “you ate the last fireflakes!” That petty argument had descended into a much larger one about carelessness and a lack of respect.

At least he isn’t the only one constantly getting shit from his lover. He wonders if anyone is truly happy with their partners. He wonders what demons Aang and Katara have.

He turns his thoughts to the toast and eggs in front of him and tries to keep them there. Food is a safe thing to think about.

“I have good news for you.” Azula catches him after breakfast.

He could certainly use more of that on this drab morning. “What’s that?”

“I am taking Jin to a spa and resort.” She replies.

His brows scrunch. “For what?”

Azula rolls her eyes. “A date, Sokka. After witnessing that whole fiasco and seeing you…help me out, she decided that, perhaps, you could be sensitive and caring after all.”

“A-a date!? We’re back together?”

Azula nods. “She said that she wanted to give you another chance so I offered to take her to the spa and let her pick out the type of massage and the scents for the aroma therapy. She was torn between the hot stone massage and this water based massage so I decided to book a second appointment at the end of the month. You will be going with her as me. It will include a manicure and…”

He tries to listen to her lengthy description of both of the outing that she has planned but his head is once again caught in a whirlwind–a chaotic storm of conflict and confusion. He should be absolutely elated that Azula has managed to salvage his relationship. Instead he finds his tummy tickling unpleasantly. He is more thrilled to hear that she has managed to get herself a girl’s day with Jin–if they are lucky they’ll be back to themselves by then and she can have that hot stone massage firsthand. When it comes to her other supposedly good news…he forces a smile onto his face. It is the best he can muster.

And he can’t, for the life of him, place where this unease is coming from.

“Thank you, Azula, I appreciate it.”

Azula nods. “Sure, Sokka. You’ve helped me out, so…” she shrugs. “I’ll try to fix things with Jin for you.”

He would wager that she did quite a bit of work helping herself from the outside but he isn’t certain that she’d like him pointing that out. Instead he asks, “when is the date?”

“I’m going to start getting ready for it once we are through with the discussion.” She replies. “I just hope that it goes better than that last one.”

“Well this time you aren’t set up for failure.”

“Yes. Thank you for that one.” She grumbles. Her expression forms into something of a half pout. “I should start getting ready. Your hair is a nightmare to style.”

“You have much more hair.” He combs his fingers through the locks that fall over his shoulders.

The look she fixes him with can only be described as one of pure dread before her expression flickers back to something more deadpan. “Which is what the servants are for. You should let them know that they have permission to do your hair too.”

“Will this arrangement continue after we switch back.”

“Not a chance! My servants are my servants.” Sometimes it is hard to tell when she is being serious and when she is just messing with him. Either which way, her tone is much more vibrant now. She seems happier, and it fits his body much more.

“I’ll let you know how it went when I get back.” She places her hand on his shoulder as she passes him by. “Oh, and if you take the Avatar up on his offer to have tea, try a black tea, peppermint bled. I find that those make me feel refreshed. Enjoy your afternoon.” He can so easily imagine how those would sound coming from her lips. He repeats them to himself after she leaves, just to know for sure. Just to hear it for himself.

He very nearly understands where his conflict about Jin comes from. Perhaps if he dwelled upon it just a little more he would know for certain. He almost does–he almost recites her words using her lips.

Aang pokes his head around the corner and asks if he is ready for tea.

He hadn’t realized that Katara would be there too. Or that they would be having it in a rock garden. He doesn’t mind the change of scenery at all.

He hopes that Azula won’t be upset with him for taking Aang up on his offer for meditation and yoga. He can’t imagine that she will be when he tells her how much tension relief it offers her body.

.oOo.

All in all, Azula is in a good mood. She realizes that she has been lately. Coming off of years of complete and all encompassing hopelessness, this splotch of a chance has given her a weightlessness, a little lotus of light that unfolds in her mind in the spaces that were so heavily infested with dark thoughts. It makes even the slightest joys feel somewhat monumental.

It doesn’t take all that much to snuff that light right out.

She just thought that she would have it for a bit longer.

The date had been going so, so well. She had come out of that water massage feeling absolutely amazing. An entire month’s worth of tension and stress had been washed away. Eucalyptus still lingers in her nostrils even hours later as she lays on the bed next to Jin.

Jin who puts her scrolls aside and traces her pointer over Azula’s bare chest in lazy spirals. Jin who slides her hand up the side of her neck and strokes Sokka’s beard. Azula’s heart pounds in Sokka’s chest. Her breathing quickens. Jin’s touch is so pleasant, it is damn near everything that Azula has been deprived of, everything that she has been craving.

But she is scared. Scared beyond what she had ever imagined that she would be. No one has ever touched her like this. Not when real emotions were involved. Jin’s hand lowers from her cheek to chest. Her fingers trace over the lines of Sokka’s pectoral muscles and then over his abs.

She swallows hard, Sokka’s adams apple bobs.

“W-wait.” She says as Jin lowers her head, probably to place a kiss on her chest or naval.

“Wait?” Jin furrows her brows. “I thought that–”

She had made a mistake. She had let things get a little too romantic, let things go a little too far. She isn’t sure if Sokka wants this.Agni, she isn’t even sure if he wanted her to kiss Jin for him.

She knows for certain that it isn’t fair to Jin. Jin who has no idea who her hands are actually caressing. Who she has actually been kissing. “We can’t. Not now.”

“I don’t understand you, Sokka! One minute you’re so romantica and affectionate and the next you’re distant and detached.”

“Can’t a man have second thoughts?”

“Of course!”Jin exclaims. “I just wish that you’d voice them earlier. That’s the problem Sokka, you never tell me how you feel until after I did something to upset you. You bottle it up until things get weird and I get blindsided.”

Azula swallows. “I told you beforehand this time.” She tries.

Jin rubs her hands over her face. “Yes, and you’ve also told me before that part of the problem in our relationship is that we didn’t have more intimacy in our relationship. You were the one who has been asking for this. And now that I’m ready you’re suddenly not into it.”

“It’s not that. It’s just…this isn’t a good time.”

“Well let me know when it is, Sokka.” Jin frowns. “Look, I’m not mad about this, if you’re not in the mood then you’re not in the mood. But I want you to figure things out before we do anything else. I’m tired of trying to navigate mixed signals and awkward situations.”

Azula nods.

She had been so busy trying to mend things for Sokka the way he has for her that she had forgotten to take her own comfort and Jin’s into account. She has wasted both of their time and gotten Sokka’s hopes up.

Jin sighs. “I had a nice day, Sokka.” She squeezes Azula’s hand. “Thank you.”

Azula nods but she knows when there is a ‘but’ coming.

“But I think that you’re right, this just isn’t the right time for us. Why don’t we enjoy the rest of this spa trip as friends. You can invite Azula along.”

Inviting Azula along is precisely the problem. She is already here and she shouldn’t be. She just hopes that Sokka won’t be too disappointed when she extends the spa day invitation to him.

#avatar the last airbender #azula #sokka #sokkla #fanfiction

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transboysokka · 8 months

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Hiiiii I’m not sure if this is too personal so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I’m curious about writing adult Sokka with his leg injury. I’ve Googled about chronic pain but I think I saw a few posts you made about being able to relate to him with your own experience so I wondered if you had any tips?

Sure, I don’t mind answering this at all! I’ll try to be as informative as possible without rambling too much. Um I’ll pretty much tell you the parts of my experience that I think could also apply to him.

For context I’m pretty sure Sokka broke his lower leg and I fucked up my knee, but both injuries were from a high-impact fall. Also as a timeline note, I was probably around 20 when mine occurred but I’m in my late 20s now so that might be useful to know.

I also want to say that Sokka had access to Katara and a lot of great healers and I was in America when I got hurt— so I went to the doctor once for them to take an X-ray and tell me how bad I fucked up but then was kind of left on my own after that and didn’t do any PT or anything even after it healed so I’d LIKE to think Sokka’s injury healed better than mine? I do kind of HC a good chunk of his pain as being psychosomatic.

THAT BEING SAID, let’s talk about the pain. It hurt constantly for months and months right after the injury, and then actually I had a couple of years where everything was fine?? Then I started getting Older and now it’s always bothering me in some way or another. It’s a little different because I’m dealing with a joint, but it’s always crunchy and creaky. Like it’s impossible for me to walk up stairs without anyone hearing. It always LOOKS okay, but some days it just feels swollen up like a balloon. There are days when it just throbs, and on really bad days the pain just stabs, even when I’m not putting weight on it.

Actually, on the worst days, the pain is the same whether I’m walking/standing or resting. For me, weather doesn’t seem to play a factor but I do live somewhere where it is constantly super humid every day year round, actually really similar to how the Fire Nation would be, so keep that in mind I guess.

What helps the pain? Nothing really. Because I’m dealing with a joint I take glucosamine when I can, pain meds on bad days but I really wonder if they even do anything for it. Sometimes I wear a knee brace for extra support, especially if I’m hiking which I love. Actually pressure helps the most, like wrapping it up tight.

Speaking of hiking, the pain was always worst for me going uphill/upstairs, but I’m getting to an age now where I’m really starting to notice it going downhill/downstairs too, like it feels weak at those times.

There is also a bit of a sense of fear or impending doom around it? Like it’s manageable for now but has gotten worse over the years, and I’m a very independent person who relies a LOT on walking in my day to day life, and like I said my biggest hobby is hiking/bouldering/challenging stuff. I love to be active and I know my time for all that is going to run out at some point, probably sooner than later. I’m especially conscious of it on a bad day when I do have to cancel a hike. I used to enjoy running, but already can’t do that anymore. So that part sucks.

Another thing I want to point out for Sokka is if he did hurt his leg, then the bones probably healed in a way that would leave him with one leg shorter than the other, which down the line could make some big problems for the rest of his body, like his rib cage would shift and that would be a whole other thing.

So I dunno, lots to think about here. I hope that helps a bit, and I can answer more questions about this if you like.

#quesTian #atla #Sokka

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rosafloera · 5 months

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Bad Actor: ComradeKatara (aka Othelo aka Grendelsmilf Aka Noelleakopian)

Previously part of Lesbians4Sokka.

That should already ring some alarm bells, Lesbians4Sokka was a page notorious in the community for some of the most brutal cyberbullying. Think RAPE THREATS! Before I start showing supporting evidence, a disclaimer:

*Let's not add to the situation, do what we can to ignore her and move on. She is a troll that doesn't deserve our attention, nothing will change her mind. There are bigger world problems requiring our focus.

Fun fact: the L4S page IS now ComradeKatara, hovering over the old tag shows

TLDR: ComradeKatara headcanons Katara as a homophobe, constantly mocking/cyberbullying her and anyone who disagrees. In the same breath she is a devout Sokka x Zuko shipper, which is laughable and contradictory.

All ‘evidence’ they have ever provided consists of misinterpretations of canon so illogical it’s pointless to reply to.

Also I’m sure CK doesn’t publicise their Toph and Azula hate and homophobic headcanons that much because Toph and Azula stans are passionate and would rip them apart in a second. Get behind me, Katara. I love you 🥹❤️

CK's FAQ.

She hates Zutara because it's 'racist'. Which is hilarious when we see her ship Zukka. Even the explanation as to why she headcanons Katara as a homophobe, (which she so graciously replaced the entire word with 'straight') beating around the bush and actually explaining nothing at all.

Saying 2 contradictory things in 1 sentence is quite the talent and exposes that she is in constant agony over which side to pander to more. *She is nothing without pandering!* Poor CK doesn't love Katara at all.

In her own words....

'i think CK’s writing proves inconsistent with both the characters and the themes of the show, to an offensive degree. pretty much the only character treated with any sort of respect is momo, and that’s probably because he can’t talk.'

Leave poor Momo alone.

Don't be shy CK. Let it be known you were Lesbians4Sokka.

Lesbians who only hate on women, unsurprisingly have very queerphobic takes. Dear god, do they EVEN like women???

CK reblogged this btw.

At least they're aware?

If only they would leave these characters' names out their mouth, the whole of ATLA actually.

Oh, really. You had no idea when you mercilessly cyberbullied people with your cliques, I assume.

Nor of your lesbians4sokka past, huh?

Peace out.

More proof:

#l4s #lesbians4sokka

https://www.tumblr.com/comradekatara/search/homophobic

Wayback machine just in case lol:

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whisperedgiggles · 2 years

Text

Ear Gliding (Lee!Aang, Ler!sokka)

A short little drabble for the lovely @ticklishfanart! I hope you enjoy it!

Also on Ao3!

***

Sokka finally got it. He finally understood why kings, leaders, and generals seemed so drained when meeting the public. He’d fought crazy firebenders and guys with exploding foreheads, traveled the continent, survived the allure of cactus juice--so yeah, he’d been through some intense adventures and trials. But there was something about shaking hands and kissing babies that just sucked the life out of him. It wasn’t even that he didn’t enjoy it, to the contrary, being a hero felt great, and he loved the attention. But as he lay there, sprawled out on a surprisingly comfortable cot in a little village where he and Aang had recently finished kissing every single hand and shaking every single baby in sight…wait no that wasn’t right...where was he going with that? Oh yes right, completely exhausted. Maybe he had time for a little nap before dinner…just a tiny one--

“Hey, uh, Sokka? Can I talk to you for a moment??”

Sokka blinked back into half-consciousness at Aang’s voice and turned to see the monk sitting on the other cot in the small hut, looking at him with big nervous eyes. When had he even gotten there? Had Sokka already fallen asleep?

“Uh, yeah Aang, yeah, what’s up?”

Aang hesitated before letting out a quiet sigh.

“I don’t know if I’m good at this part.”

Oh, one of these talks. Sokka had gotten used to the place he ended up playing in Aang’s life, often offering advice to the younger guy. He was something like an older brother, but maybe more intense because of the constantly-being-in-life-or-death-situations-together bit. Hmm. Older blood brother? Wait no that was too intense. Hmm…he’d come back to it.

“What? What are you talking about, what part?”

“I don’t know…I just…I hadn’t thought about what would happen after we defeated Ozai. There’s so much more to do, Katara is helping your tribe, Zuko is trying to reform the Fire nation, I want to help them, and there are so many little things that I should also be doing as the Avatar, I don’t know, maybe I…”

Whoa, Aang had really big ears. How had Sokka never noticed that before, after all this time? Sure, they’d been busy, but still, how--oh wait, Aang was talking. Crap, he wasn't usually this tired when Aang came for advice. Gotta catch up, what’s he even talking about---

“...Ozai was the easy part.” Aang finished whatever he was saying with a sigh before falling back onto the cot dramatically.

Sokka took a second to collect himself before dragging his exhaustion-stiff body to his feet and over to sit next to Aang.

“Hey, buddy, it’s alright. It’s a lot I get it. Maybe you should take a little time to relax you know? Do some kid stuff.”

“I don’t think I can do kid stuff anymore, Sokka. People are counting on me.”

“Weeeell…uh…I’m counting on you to…take care of yourself! Yeah!”

Aang sighed. “Sure, but I don’t want to just abandon the world again, people needed me for 100 years, I have a lot to make up for even still, and I--GAHH! Aha, S-Sokka what are you doing?”

What? What was he doing? Sokka looked around for a moment before realizing that in his vaguely coherent state he’d been absently tracing Aang’s ear. Aang giggled and swatted gently at his hand.

“Oh sorry, I just noticed how, uh, how big your ears are.”

“My…you…what?”

“Sorry they’re just…do you think you could use them to glide with?”

Aang sat up and looked over at him for a moment, clearly perplexed at the turn the conversation had taken, until something seemed to dawn on him.

“Oh…Oh! Oh, you’re like, really tired! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to complain to you when you were trying to rest I--”

“Wait Aang, are your ears like, ticklish?”

“What? I mean uh, yeah kind of, but--Gahahaha! Wait Sokka--”

Sokka had gone back in, tracing Aang’s earlobes with spider-light touches, poking at his friend’s neck too for good measure.

“Whoa…I didn’t know you were so ticklish…”

“What are you tahhlking about ahah, you guys, ti-hihihickle me all the time--AHHH SOKKA!”

Sokka had started poking at Aang’s sides, which unfortunately for him were left exposed by his sash. Aang lost it when he felt Sokka’s alarmingly nimble fingers pinch and squeeze his ribs, and tried to curl into a little ball, pulling his legs up to protect his stomach. However, Sokka simply grabbed one of Aang’s bare feet and started to trace his sole, deftly dodging Aang’s attempts to protect himself with his other foot.

Aang finally got himself together enough to detangle himself from Sokka’s grip, rolling himself to the meek safety of the other end of the cot. He took a moment to gather his composure and huffed the last of the giggles out of his lungs.

“Sorry Aang,” Sokka started suddenly realizing that he may have picked the wrong approach, “I was just trying to--”

“No no, it’s okay! I appreciate it, trying to cheer me up, get my mind off things.” He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, “But I don’t think you can just tickle all of my problems away.”

“Well one; we haven’t tried,“ Sokka playfully wiggled his eyebrows in Aang’s direction, and smirked as Aand chuckled and rolled his eyes in response, “and two; maybe not. But I’d like to point out that part of the whole reason Ozai had to go was that he was making everyone miserable. And ruining the world. And you know…if we can’t enjoy ourselves even after he’s gone it basically means he’s actually still in power.”

Aang was starting to regret convincing Sokka to read more philosophy.

“Okay fair, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to deal with my responsibilities--”

“Never said that. But just because you have responsibilities doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy what you’ve done and the wonders of life and all that. Balance remember?”

Aang sat with that in silence for a few beats before nodding slowly.

“Right. You’re right. Ahh! I’m sorry that was stupid, I got caught up in my head. ”

“It happens.” Sokka stood up and stretched, finally accepting that his nap was over.

“Y’know,” he continued, “It’s a shame Katara isn’t around, she’s much better at being the stressed one than you are.”

“Honestly. But I don’t want her to be stressed either, I want her to be happy and relaxed and--Ahh! Sokka nohohoho!” Aang squeaked as Sokka was back at work squeezing his sides.

“Nope! Not going there again, and I’m not going to let you start gushing about how much you love my sister! No sir!”

“I ahahaha, I wasn’t gushing, gahahaha, I’m sorrryyyy!” And maybe he was, but he was leaning into Sokka as he begged, which was, as Sokka noted, the opposite of trying to escape. So he kept the game going and filling the hut--the whole village really, with the bubbling sound of Aang’s laughter. Finally, an incredibly pleasant (and very awkward) young lady came to retrieve them for dinner.

For the rest of the trip, Sokka would pounce like a rabid Owl-wolf whenever Aang let his thoughts start to spiral again. Aang didn’t complain, in fact, it occurred to Sokka one night that Aang had started trying to get tickled on purpose. Hmm. Maybe he would test that theory.

After some proper rest of course.

#tickle fic #atla fic #aang #sokka #friendship #ticklish Aang

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seyaryminamoto · 1 year

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What I’m trying to say is that I think there would always be tension between Zuko and Azula. But it doesn’t mean Zuko wouldn’t try to help her. And it doesn’t mean she’s incapable of caring for her brother.

Now this we can certainly be in full agreement about. Zuko doesn't try to help her in this story at all, like I've explained many times now, because he's absolutely stuck on a very toxic mindset that he refuses to break. It's a concept that I wanted to explore because of how often I've seen people reiterating that he's "allowed" to resent her and never forgive her and have nothing else to do with her.

I'm not even that harsh with Zuko in that story, I'd say (bet a bunch of you thought I'd have another Sokka-punch straight to Zuko's face if they came face-to-face in this one, huh? X'D), I refused to write him wanting her executed because, while certain fans HAVE said that, I don't think I want to write a Zuko who spirals to THAT extent. But of course, I wanted to show through the story what it means for some people, unlike yourself, to believe that Zuko can't possibly help her, that he shouldn't, that it's even unethical to expect him to do it, and just... why? Why would this be the hill you want to die on? Why would you want this traumatized boy to never learn to work through his trauma and never learn to see more than his own pain? It was a lot of pain, nobody needs to hide that... but for a character who's constantly touted for being such a symbol of empathy, it makes very little sense that some of those fans, the very ones who talk about him being all about empathy, would demand that he shows none towards his sister.

So... yeah. This particular AU is a rarity for me because I really don't want to explore Zuko in this direction. I mean, nothing good would come from it, either: if I went any further, he'd likely wind up losing everything if he keeps clinging to this mindset. One of the ironies of Zuko's behavior in this story is that, in clinging to resentment, he ends up effectively reversing the situation that led to Azula's breakdown in canon: first, Sokka picked Azula over Zuko. Then, Katara and Aang do it too. Toph, as well, by helping them when she does. Iroh did, too, by harboring Azula when he did. Slowly and surely, Zuko ends up resenting ALL these people he loved for not choosing to support him on his "Azula cannot be forgiven!" crusade, and he takes it as a betrayal, just as Mai and Ty Lee betrayed Azula for his sake. And if the fact that Zuko could spiral into a situation that mirrors Azula's breakdown doesn't feel like a massive red flag about this headcanon, I don't know what will. But I do believe that nobody who loves this guy should ever want him to wind up in a position like this one.

As for Azula, I absolutely agree, though I also believe that her way of caring about Zuko isn't what most people want it to be. I don't think Azula could ever become someone who coddles him and treats him reverently... but I do think she could look after him in tough-love sort of ways. I do think she could want to protect him if harm comes his way. Theirs would likely be a complicated relationship, I suppose... but I guess that's why people say that there's no set way to love a person. Love comes in many shapes and forms, and not everyone can love others the same way someone else does. I don't think Azula can love Zuko the way he wants to be loved by a sibling... just as I don't think Zuko can do that for Azula, either. But if they learn to accept each other, to truly understand one another, I do believe they could reach a level of respect and, who knows, even lowkey admiration for each other in the best of cases, and accept each other's care and affection in whatever form it comes, provided it's genuine, of course. As long as they learn to see each other with clearer eyes, I don't think their relationship could ever lose all hope. It could work... it just has to be done thoroughly, and the work to amend it NEEDS to come from both sides. Zuko making all the efforts for an unresponsive and ungrateful Azula would be just as unreasonable as Azula making all the efforts for an unresponsive and ungrateful Zuko. So, provided they both grow up a lot, individually, I believe they can grow as siblings...

... Which is something I have been doing for them in a certain other massive AU in which I may or may not have written my most wholesome and positive version of their bond, unintentionally :'D

I do think that it's possible these two could learn to let go of the spite and resentment, to be honest. It can be done, provided that they're handled by writers who know how to guide the characters in the direction necessary to achieve that goal. And I say this because I feel like I've done it pretty organically in Gladiator, obviously some people might disagree, but I actually feel good about the place where I've taken their sibling bond there. So I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibilities for these two to heal. Their bond can be better, but it takes mutual understanding, then mutual forgiveness, to make sure they can become better siblings for each other. It would take time too, yes... but when you're talking to someone who's spent a decade writing a fic, being told that developing something like this "takes time" almost comes off as a joke to me. Of course it would: that's no reason not to put in the work to make it pay off if you want it to. Otherwise, I would have given up on Gladiator in like 20 chapters, upon realizing it was going to be my biggest venture in this fandom and that I wouldn't possibly know how much time it was going to take me to finish it :')

#anon #leap of faith #for someone who has picked so many bones #with Zuko and with Ursa #I am surprisingly nice to them lately #it is weird #but I think you guys will understand why #somewhat soon #provided you read a certain insane huge fic of mine too #:'DDDDDDDDDDD #but yeah I refuse to believe Zuko and Azula can't heal #the only reason why they wouldn't is if the writer creating stories about them #be it fics or official ones #doesn't care to make it happen #simple as that

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digitalvalkerie · 1 year

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Tamersona Week 2022 Day 2

My partners?

Yes, that’s right, I have more one... the list seems to keep expanding, but hopefully the limit is... five...?

Now, we’ve gone over enough about me, Vick.

Let’s start with Saka, tied for my oldest partner and friend.

Saka is pretty straight forward, liking to fight and disliking being called cute. Hes pretty Macho-Man esque, and prideful to boot, feeling the need to show his masculinity often, and hide his emotions from most others (Myself and Teddy aside).

As we grew up, he began to grow out of the need, at least until he was in Champion form, where the masculinity complex was double its original state. Much like Terriermon from Tamers, he tries to get everyone to chill out in a serious situation, mostly saying “I’ve got this, no need to worry!”

I’m pretty sure he has a sensitive side too, he just... doesn’t like to show it a whole lot. He worries, he frets, but he plays it off in a manner that may come of as arrogance.

I gave him the nickname Saka, since it was hard to call him and his sister Teddymorphmon when talking at one or the other. I didn’t know how to spell the name, but he’s nicknamed after Sokka from ATLA, because his personality matches up pretty close~

Then we have his twin sister, Teddy.

Teddy is the maternal type, caring for everything smaller than her as I had done for her and her brother. I guess I rubbed off on them more than I thought. She loves babies, and will often visit our local primary village run by Leomon. (I have vowed to protect this man from the Leomon Curse >>)

Teddy loves sweets just as much as her brother, and will take sweets from him as he does from me. However, she very much dislikes bullies, and that fact as still never changed. When we came back to the Analog world, and I had to face my school bullies again, it was like she was a completely different mon, growling and snarling like a rabid dog to scare the bullies off.

She’s a worrier, for sure, and I maybe don’t help so much with the dumb stuff I do. But she always trust that I know what I’m doing when I say so. I gave her the nickname Teddy, simply because it was short for Teddymorphmon ^^;

Now, a Teddymorphmon, the species of these two, is a digimon that seems like a subspecies of Terriermon or Lopmon, when in actuality, it’s a whole other species. Much like how Red Pandas may look like pandas, or Koalas are called koala bears, they are their own classification out side of what they are compared to.

The base of their data cores is near identical in shape to the aforementioned rabbit digimon, but the rest is made up of other various things. Teddymorphmon get their name from their Teddybear like comfort, as well as the ability to change their appearance as they like. Sometimes, they can have bangs covering their eyes, sometimes they can have sharp little claws instead of nubby lil fingers.

They are also more like marsupials, in the sense that their neck “markings” are actually pouches of which they can store things such as eggs, or in Saka’s case snacks.

Let’s move on to Taru.

Taru is a centarumon (typically), that acts much like a knight of Arthurian tales would act, much having to do with Honor and Respect. He has a very interesting code of honor, and will not attack if he thinks the opponent would die from his strikes.

Outside of the battle field, he is a very sweet boy, adhering to rules (usually unspoken ones...) and making sure that everyone is safe and happy. He is constantly watching out for younger digimon, even when he isn’t much older than ten himself.

He is also very shy. While he’ll genuinely compliment on what ever I’m working on, with vigor, mind you, it only takes a “you’re the best!” or “you are just the cutest!~” to have him blushing profusely. (Even as I write this with him looking over my shoulder, I can see he’s blushing -w-)

I named him Taru from Centarumon, his Champion form. Typically, Taru likes to be in his champion form, if only because it makes him feel more useful than his Elecmon form. But recently, he’s undergone a data change that allows him to slide into FlareSpadamon.

Next lets get to Taco.

Taco is a spindly boi, with a love for hugs, pizza, and making everyone smile. He... kinda just showed up one day in my room, and before I knew it we shared a DPB. He’s very sweet, and tries to help the best he can, but most of the time, he’s just a big ole baby.

Now, Taco doesn’t seem to have a voice of his own, and will often mimic different people’s voices saying things in order to talk with me, or anyone for that matter. For example:

The phrase he wants to say is: “Can we please have Pizza for dinner? With breadsticks!”

He will say “Can” from someone’s voice, “Please” from someone else’s, “Pizza” from a PizzaHut advert, “Suppertime” from Little Shop of Horrors, and then “Bread” from Guilmon saying “Guilmon love bread” in Digimon Tamers, and “Sticks” from someone calling out the name Sticks in Sonic Boom.

So all together you get “Can Please Pizza Suppertiiiime? Bread sticks!”

It takes some deciphering, but you know he gets his point across just fine. I named him Taco, just because it felt right in my jellies -nod nod-

While it wasn’t an unwelcome addition to the team, his origins do still concern me... And yet, he’s still not the most baffling encounter for a partner.

That brings us to the latest addition, Chihiro

Chihiro is definitely a strange case. As a Digi-egg, she came to us in a package that I ordered. The order was only supposed to contain a Booster Box of the Digimon card game, and yet when I opened it up, there was an egg.

After months of keeping that egg close to my person at all hours of the day, including bath time, the egg hatched into a digimon I wasn’t too familiar with. I did my research and found out she was a newly discovered digimon, named Curimon.

It didn’t take long for her to get to rookie though, as she did not hold back on the eating thing. Doing more research lead me to learn she was a Gammamon, yet another recently discovered digimon...

Despite knowing next to nothing about her species, I still loved her all the same. She was a sweet little baby, who’s only downside was her constant need to feel things using her mouth. I still have some teeth marks in my head from yesterday...

She is very smol, so I often carry her around in her little pooket (which is just the hood of my jacket.)

I named her Chihiro, because of the noise she would make. She always went “Chih! Chih!”, and it just made me think, Chihiro from Spirited Away~

That’s all on my partners for now... Seriously though, I hope five is the limit, because I’m bout to run outta money to feed these guys x.x

#Tamersona #Tamersonaweek #Tamersona week 2022 #Digimon #Day 2 #Own art

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swimminginanunknownparadise · 2 years

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Wow

!modern au!

pairing: Sokka x Zuko

summary: The two young men went out but they had very different perceptions of what the night was. Eventually Sokka just had to show him instead of the hints.

a/n: so I’m aware that this is clunky but I think that it’s super duper cute. This is also the first MLM fic that I’ve posted (though not the first one I’ve written) so I’m not sure if my writing from a man’s pov in a longer format is the best, as I’m constantly learning. If you have any tips on writing for different types of characters and embodying them I’d love to hear them! That Zuko fic that I mentioned in the last post is still in the works as well as a Julian Devorak fic, a Arash Shirazi fic, and another Sokka fic. I’m slowly getting them done but they’re on the longer side so I won’t be pumping them out one right after the other. They are coming though!

He really didn’t want to think it was a date, they were just two buddies hanging out! Buddies go out to get dinner at one of their shared favorite Mexican restaurant, definitely. And buddies always go and take a long walk back to one of their places that’s only a few blocks away! And buddies definitely give the other stolen glances and shy smiles! They are one hundred percent not on a date! They were just hanging out like good buddies do! Well, that’s what Zuko told himself while he walked beside Sokka, not confident enough to start a conversation again. He had about a million questions like, do you miss home? Have you talked to your dad recently? How’s your family's business? Would you ever want to go back to the south? What was it like growing up in the south? Why do you enjoy that restaurant in particular so much? Is there a specific reason you always double check your locks the same way every time? What made you get in cars? Totally normal questions to ask your buddy, right?

“You good over there?” Sokka elbowed him in the ribs gently, a grin on his face, an eyebrow raised. Apparently he must’ve said it once or twice, but Zuko hadn’t noticed until now. “Yea? Why?” He gave him a look that bordered on annoyance and he sighed. In response Sokka just shook his head with pursed lips. “Jus’ looked like you had something on your mind, ‘s all.” He shrugged and gave him a dubious look. “Really?” Zuko shrugged again and looked down at the sidewalk. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

“Well if you were thinking about it so hard ‘s obviously something to you.” He elbowed him again, the corners of his mouth downturning slightly, a ghost of a frown forming in his lips. Zuko shrugged again, hands in his pockets. He was shrugging a lot but he didn’t have the words to say anything meaningful. But still he tried to convince Sokka as best he could that he was, in fact, fine. “It’s really not. Trust me, just a stupid thought.” Sokka shook his head. “Ya know you can talk to me. ‘S not like I’m gonna judge you or some shit. Especially if ’s about your family.” That made Zuko’s heart clench. As much as he wanted to believe that, a part of him wouldn’t let him. He could barely open up to his own uncle, or even Katara, much less anyone else. It seemed impossible to trust somebody that wasn’t Mai. Sure, Sokka was easy to talk to, and he was a good listener, he gave great advice, and he never seemed to judge him. But there was one thing he didn’t think he could ever tell him, well, aside from everything else. Only Mai knew about this one secret well unless she’d gone and told Ty Lee.

It had been on his mind almost all night, but he tried his best to hide it. He didn’t want Sokka thinking he was intentionally not paying attention, or that he was just in his head over nothing at all or something way too serious to even say out loud. He was very self-conscious about it, he wasn’t sure why though. Maybe he wanted to just seem normal to him? After all, Sokka was one of his first guy friends, well a good one at least. Usually the other guys he used to hang out with, well they weren’t actually his friends. He just hung out with them because of the circumstances. But with Sokka, he was truly his friend. And what if this one secret would ruin that whole thing? They had a good thing going, two best friends. What more could he want? Well, a lot more apparently. He internally cringed and kept on keeping on.

“I know, but I don’t wanna waste your time with something insignificant, ya know? It’s really not important, but if it was I promise I’d tell you.” He gave Sokka a grin and once again Sokka shot back a dubious nod. That was one of the things he liked about Sokka, but also something he absolutely hated. Sokka was so cynical, and on good days it only annoyed him mildly. Usually he could never get away with something for long, Sokka was usually always one step ahead of him in his own head. He was smart, calculating, and somehow he always knew whenever he was lying. He was like a human lie detector and he both loved and hated that about him too. “Well, if you’re sure.” He narrowed his eyes slightly, kinda like he was looking for a tell. With that, Zuko once again looked back at the sidewalk. It was very interesting, obviously.

Of course, he had no idea Sokka was under the impression that it was a date. After all, he did his best to get off work, he had to cancel plans, and he was even planning on paying his way, but of course Zuko threw that right out the window when he asked to split the bill. He left no room for argument and Sokka was sure if he even tried he would’ve been shut down immediately anyways. Zuko was a proud man, and Sokka was sure it would be the death of both of them. Apparently though, he was also not very self-aware, and apparently he was also horrible at taking hints. But Zuko had to know this was a date, right? After all, how many dudes go out with her best friend and get dinner alone and then walk to the other’s apartment stealing glances at the other? How many dudes look at their best friend the way he looked at Zuko? He was sure he was going to get a headache if he kept on being subtle, clearly it wasn’t getting him anywhere.

Clearly they were both in their head, as they didn’t realize they were back at Zuko’s as quickly as they were. They were both a little disappointed, but they had their own reasons. Zuko was disappointed because Sokka had to go home, and Sokka was disappointed that he hadn’t been able to talk to Zuko about their night. To be more specific, that he hadn’t been able to communicate what the night was. Clearly, Zuko thought they were just two guys hanging out but Sokka had hoped it would have been more. So, they were just standing on Zuko‘s porch exchanging goodbyes, just like always. Their normal, definitely friendly and only friendly goodbyes. But, Zuko didn’t know how long he could keep it up. “Nice to see you again,” Sokka smiled at him, scratching the back of his neck.

“Yea, you too.” Zuko smiled and pulled out his key from his pocket, acutely aware of how close they were on the small porch. He was pretty sure his face was bright red, but if it was, Sokka didn’t say anything about it. He was about to unlock the door when he heard giggles and shushing from behind the door. Suddenly, everything went quiet inside the house. He knew that Mai had invited Katara, Toph, Azula, Ty Lee, and Aang over. But he didn’t expect that there would be six pairs of eyes watching him from behind the curtains in the living room. Once again, Sokka didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t seem to notice much apparently. “We should hang out again, wanna come over next weekend? I’ve got Saturday and Sunday off now.”

Sokka grinned and nodded. “Yea, sounds good.” Zuko nodded and they fell into silence. “Well, I should get inside. I’m pretty sure if I don’t Mai is gonna tear me a new one for having the porch light on for so long.” His roommate was very on top of saving money when it came to the electricity bill. Sokka nodded and Zuko unlocked the door silently. But Sokka didn’t know how long he could keep pretending, so he figured he’d stop all together. “Hey, Zuko?” He glanced over at him and raised a brow, but before he could ask what he wanted hands were on his waist and Sokka had kissed him. That caught off guard, and he could vaguely hear whispering from behind the door. But apparently that only encouraged Sokka, and he dipped his head to get a better angle and Zuko just went with it. His hands were gripping his shoulders, and he grinned and bit down on Sokka’s bottom lip. Once they parted Zuko looked at his griining companion and he grinned back. All he could say was “wow.”

#zukka #zukka modern au #avatar zukka #atla zukka #atla fanfic #atla sokka #atla #atla fanart #atla zuko #avatar fanfiction #mlm #mlm yearning #soft fic

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nazumichi · 2 years

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⚧, 🏳️‍⚧️, 🏳️‍🌈, 🧡, 📖, ❤️‍🩹, 😋, 🪞, 🏡, 🗡, and ❓ if you have something else you'd like to share about marie and katara! i chose a. lot (sorry i am bad at decision-making) so divide them between marie and katara however you like! feel free to skip any as well :]

I’m gonna be extra and do them all for them both, if you don’t mind!!

Katara:

⚧ - pronoun hc: she/they!! demigirl of my heart, in fact. 🏳️‍⚧️ - gender hc: I like to think she never really felt comfortable being entirely a girl, and she got a lot of acceptance in this, a lot of space to find out how she’d like to be called. she and sokka are she/they-he/they hostility. 🏳️‍🌈 - orientation hc: bisexual, I’m literally telling u….. sokka wasn’t the only one pining over yue, is all I’m gonna say JWHJWHWJGW. 🧡 - everyone I ship with this character: aang, suki, yue, and I think that’s it!! 📖 - au id like to see them in: not to um express obvious favouritism, but I’d like to see how she’d fit into the divorced zukkaverse. how she’s chief and how she can sense something’s wrong with her brother, and how perilous everything is. oh, I guess chief katara au? that’d be cool.

❤️‍🩹 - angsty hc: I like to think that book 3 was…. particularly stressful for her (although it would be for anyone but). just. blending in with the enemy, wearing their clothes and walking among them, I think she’d be very on edge, paranoid. of course these feelings never last long, but they’re nagging at the back of her mind all the same. 😋 - funny/stupid hc: probably talks shit with momo. constantly thinking about how she asked for a table for two when it was just the both of them, I’m gonna take that a step further and say she holds whole conversations with him. 🪞- appearance hc: probably has very pruny hands, you know, because of the waterbending. sokka jokes that she looks like she has old lady hands, and is forcibly thrown into the ice-bucket challenge. 🏡 - domestic hc: keeps a VERY tidy living space. I don’t know what else to say on that matter, but she does. 🗡 - badass hc: chief katara, of course she’s the chief of the southern watertribe, it’s where she’s meant to be, she’s such a powerful bender, she cares so much about her people, she’d be such a good chief….

Marie:

⚧ - pronoun hc: she’s not telling you for free!! she/her, is fine with they/them though. 🏳️‍⚧️ - gender hc: transfem literally. transitioned once she got to anima city, I feel like she snuck in a deal or two with rose to get it for free (not that was rose trying too hard: “you understand that this sort of surgery is provided without cost, right?” “mhm sure, name your price.”) 🏳️‍🌈 - orientation hc: bisexual and demiromantic! being a public menace means she gets mad bitches (no it doesn’t, no one likes her too much). 🧡 - everyone I ship with this character: literally just shirou, they’re killing me rn. I haven’t been normal in at least a year. sometimes I mess with the idea of her and pingua being in a qpr at the same time, mostly for the jokes though, I just think they’re very close friends. 📖 - au id like to see them in: ooooh I got plany au. lately I’ve been thinking about working out her whole family situation (not the mob, her biological family) which is it’s own various projects. also I’ve got a toh au that I made some art/notes for a while back (and also this au I saw a while back that I thought was inch resting, I can’t remember it’s name, but michiru was muuuuuch younger and shirou essentially showed up to fights with a baby strapped to a carrier and I think putting marie in an au like that would be soooooo funny). ❤️‍🩹 - angsty hc: thinking about how she won’t be missed, if how she vanished one day no one would notice a thing, thinking about how smug and prideful she is but how she could buy into that, that no one would bat an eye, how she’d go forgotten, how the city would keep on its way and leave her behind. I made a post about couches once as well standing emoji. 😋 - funny/stupid hc: NOTORIOUS clothes thief, plain awful. michiru hasn’t had her baseball cap back in weeks, marie took it and occasionally flips it out her pocket and walks around with it on (much to michiru’s annoyance). of the three coats we see shirou with throughout the show, she has worn them all at least three times, they don’t get a say in it, collar too. “something’s different about you — where’s the collar, huh?” “i don’t need it. I’m done hiding who I am, this part of me that’s been dormant for so long. I’m finally …. free.” “…. can I have it?” “*hop pop “BWAH?!?!?!?” sound*.” 🪞- appearance hc: has a scar on her lip!! I haven’t worked out what it’s from yet, but it goes from her bottom lip and just reaches her chin. either she got it in a fight, or while running from someone and ate shit because of those heels, or it was an unintentional shirou-related incident (cough). I imagine she has a number of scars in fact, claw and tooth marks. city’s rough. 🏡 - domestic hc: I feel like at one point, in a barely further future, she lets that one chatty albatross guy, entirely new and enamoured by the city, stay with her. he doesn’t go to the co-op, thinks it would be “awkward” with shirou being there, somehow less awkward to ask to stay with this one person he saw after a massive battle. and she’s like “wait till you find out I’m that guy’s informant.” but I feel like they’d really gel, after the initial “can’t believe he doesn’t notice I’m a con-artist” and “I’m doing such a good job at pretending I don’t know she’s a con-artist.” 🗡 - badass hc: probably very good in a fight. come onnnn, she jumps out the way of a close-range crossbow bolt, she slashes boris like he’s warm butter, she literally says “oh yeah sure I can kill those guys, done it before, but can you IMAGINE the paperwork?” very nimble I imagine, she literally runs and fights in heels multiple times, she’s gotta be very light on her feet. probably tussled with shirou at one point, maybe even got out the situation with a sort-of-win. michiru thinks she’s so cool (till she demands payment).

#ask #did I mention I love talking #me after saying Things: oh haha nooooo I couldn’t say that….. nooooooo….. *says it anyway*#olly tag

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ciaossu-imagines · 1 month

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Of course and sure thing. Oh damn, that’s so horrible. I was actually kind of spoiled about the events as well, not in what happened exactly but that it did happen since at the time of the chapter’s release I was away on holiday with my mum’s side of the family and I usually don’t bother to block the tag since most spoilers are something I can scroll past and they’re usually not too big since I read it every week but yeah, I saw something referring to what happened in that chapter and gods that hurt so we both unfortunately had to deal with it being spoiled, though with you it’s obviously much worse. And yay. Looking forward to hearing all your thoughts on everything that happened if you want to share it all. Oh, there really aren’t many chapters of Persona 3. I see. I also hope you don’t have to stay late and I’m glad to hear that you have another day off tomorrow. I see. Can imagine that being quit annoying. You calling caffeine god is amazing. And wow. How long does it take you to get through a pot? If you don’t mind answering. I managed to write a few points about the things that stood out luckily so yay to that. Oh damn, he really does look like Lavi from D. Gray-Man. And I see. That’s nice to know. Sure thing. I finished the last season of Demon Slayer that’s out now so I’ll probably be getting to it soon. Yeah, which is really understandable since A:TLA is just such an amazing series in so many ways. Of course and glad to hear you adored Zuko and true to his redemption arc. And I can’t blame you for Sokka being your first initial favourite since I also really like him and like every time he tells one of his silly jokes, I laughed so he’s definitely someone fun to have around.

Yeah, the Demon Slayer manga is just 205 chapters long. And the fact that it’s so short and still tells such an amazing story is yet another reason as to why I love it so much. Yeah. Like the final arc consists of two mini-arcs, one of 47 chapters and the last one is 22 chapters long, so it would entirely be possible to split it up since the last arcs that they adapted were like 30 chapters long, but I actually do presume that they won’t since the first season of Demon Slayer put all of the mini arcs of the first main arc into the season. And I honestly don’t mind what they do since I’ll always be looking forward to whatever there is of it. So I presume we’ll probably just have a longish last season, but I’m up for anything, as long as it’s adapted well. Okay. Cool. And I did and I was just like constantly fangirling and at times I couldn’t tell whether it’s because I was enjoying the sound of his voice or because what his character, Genya, was doing because he’s just such a precious boy. Thank you for saying that. He actually has a small first appearance in the fifth episode of the first season and then he’s gone and doesn’t properly appear until The Swordsmith Village Arc.

Thank you. It’s wild since I usually don’t forget things entirely so it’s a whole new experience for me. But the fact that it happened so early does help it make sense. Yeah. Though later on, there is this arc in Fairy Tail called ‘Key of the Starry Heavens arc’ and it is entirely filler but it’s still really enjoyable to watch. Gods, that’s me with Lawless’s song. And I see. I’m not sure about the Beyblade that you watched, but the Metal Saga series does have the opening song translated like that as well. The fact that Iruma is very musical does sound very nice. Of course it’s adorable. And now I’m looking even more forward to seeing it but I’ll still wait until I’m done with everything else I have to do and watch.

Yeah, true. Like I think the movie does but from what I’ve heard / seen, the movie concentrates more on the characters themselves than the actual match which makes no sense because both are really important. And yeah, it definitely did. Like this match that was adapted is 34 chapters long and when the movie was first announced, people were talking about how it’d have to be a 5 hour long movie for all of that to be properly adapted. And the thing is, the saddest thing of all is that we’re not even sure we’ll be getting another season. There were two movies set to be released, so this one and another one that will come out who knows when, and the initial poster to advertise it was ‘Haikyū!! Final’ which just does not sound great so now me and other Haikyuu!! fans are hoping that the studio will use all the money they got from the ticket sales and other stuff to make a proper fifth season. Sure thing 💕 Hell yeah and Hinata has such an amazing moment at the beginning of the second season that people still referrer to to this day. I see. That makes sense. But yeah, none of the Haikyuu!! babies are one-note and that’s just another great thing about the series. And yes to all those things of you describing him.

Me too but it’s really difficult because she’s not very good at seeing the wrong in her ways. Like say if I were to tell her about it, she’d get so offended and she thinks she’s in the right for saying what she did. Yes, the fighting style really is. Like it is hinted at in the opening, but it’s nothing compared to seeing it in action and it’s just so cool 😭 And yes, be excited about him. I love the Shinazugawa brothers, what more can I say. Oooh. That sounds like such a lovely flavour. And that makes perfect sense. I hope you and your friend had a wonderful time together. Oh and that does sound like a good idea since then it’s all nicely together.

I’m so sorry to hear you got spoiled on that as well! I can definitely get not blocking the tag – I just did it because I know that if I see a spoiler, I’m going to read it instead of scrolling past, just because I can’t resist that temptation, haha! It sucks though that you got spoiled like that on such a big reveal, because I can imagine how much impact it would have had for people who didn’t know it was coming! And you know, it’s funny, because I’m as caught up as my manga app had (up to Chapter 254), but I don’t really have a lot of thoughts on it. I feel like the story is an absolutely brilliant one, the author is an insanely gifted technical writer because his use of things like foreshadowing and visual storytelling is gorgeous. I feel like I have solid grasps on the characters enough to write them; I know quite a few people excited to have me write them, so I’m going to. Overall, I very much enjoy the story and am excited to see how the rest of the story plays out to it’s ending, which is very close obviously. The writer’s storytelling has been well-paced for the most part, there’s little unnecessary drag or tangents, I’m going to be surprised if the series is still going active in even December of this year. I figure by early fall, absolutely latest, it’s ending with it being weekly. However, I can’t say I’ve fallen in love with this one like I have some of the other fandoms. Comparing my love for say, Servamp, K Project, or KHR and my love for Jujutsu Kaisen – my love for Jujutsu Kaisen is the little, tiny plastic cup you get to take your medicine with and the love for those other series is the big bottle of medicine. Again, the creator is absolutely a gifted storyteller. I fully believe they’ve known a least a full half an arc to a full arc ahead of where the story was currently what was going to happen, and I have zero doubts whatsoever that they’ve had at least a couple ideas as to an ending since the beginning and have a full, clear view of how everything’s ending now. Their world is well-built and constructed, their power-sets well figured out. They’re a tight writer with great focus and there are parts of their writing and visual storytelling that I wish I was even 1/10th as good at as a writer. However, I always kind of feel like JJK is very much a case of the story driving the characters and not the characters driving the story. When it comes to the JJK characters, I very much do feel like they were all created because the creator needed a character to advance the story or to fill an essential role in the story and that when it came to creating them, their characters were built around what role they needed to play and what they needed to accomplish so they feel less to me like real, actual people like some characters from other media and more like…just characters. Don’t get me wrong here, because both types of storytelling and character creation are entirely valid and both can be exceptionally well-done. JJK is a prime example of story-driven media done exceptionally well, if not completely brilliantly (because let’s remember, at the bottom of story-driven media, we have things like Twilight, which is that type of storytelling done exceptionally poorly). But I feel like most people are drawn more to one type of story-telling process than the other and I’m just more overall compelled by character-driven storytelling so JJK is in that ‘technically brilliant, I really enjoy it, but can’t get obsessed with it like some others can’ field.

Anyway, now that I’ve probably infuriated or offended some of the JJK fans, onto the rest of the message, haha! There really aren’t that many chapters of any of the Persona manga that I’ve found, so I’m kind of hoping that they’re all just really sort manga and that I’m not reading incomplete ones! And thank you for the well-wishes for the day off. Unfortunately, I had impromptu plans sprung on me that day that ate up most of my day, which made me a little cranky, not going to lie. I’m doing all I can to keep with commission timelines though, even with Etsy and real life…might require some burning of the midnight oil, but I’m holding up and doing well 😊 Yeah, caffeine is the god I worship, haha, as someone who isn’t overly religious. I don’t usually go through a pot that quickly though. Most mornings, I make the standard 12-cup pot around 6:30 and keep it on warm until I finish it around noonish. That day though, gone in about three hours, give or take. It’s not even keeping me awake so much anymore, thanks to having such a high caffeine tolerance, it’s more to keep away the migraines and because I find coffee soothing and sometimes, all I need is a short break to make a cup of coffee, just move and have a moment away from the computer to get the next burst of inspiration for what to write next. I’m excited to read those then! And I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw the resemblance then, even if it’s been a dog’s age since I actually watched or read D. Gray-Man. I wonder if that series ever wrapped up…things for later Dee to look up, I think! Speaking of Demon Slayer though, I paused everything else I was watching because I got in the mood to watch that. So I’m done the first season and the Mugen Train movie. However, when I go to the next season, it’s a really short season that just looks like the movie? I need to figure out if Crunchyroll just screwed up and put the movie into episodes or if those Mugen Train episodes are actually episodes or not, so I need to Google that too. Just every time I sit down at the computer, I get to working on creating playlists and storyboards for all the commissions instead of googling that, haha. I’m really enjoying it so far, though I’m pissed at the movies ending, because I thought I finally found a character that would be my favourite and then it was like the anime decided to just be laugh and be like ‘ha, fuck you’ lmao. I’m excited to continue it, just need to clear that up first! And Avatar is just incredible. I hope everyone has at least given it a try, and if any of my readers haven’t, please go check it out. You won’t be disappointed you did, I promise 😊 Sokka was definitely my initial favourite because of the comic relief, though I remember really liking Toph after her introduction too!

It still amazes me that the author was able to tell a complete and full story of the magnitude that Demon Slayer seems to be setting it’s story up in that few of chapters. It must have been very well-paced and without any extras then! I wish I could find the manga to read, though I am very much enjoying the anime (and to answer before the question is asking, I am watching the dub because it makes it so much quicker to watch). Thank you for explaining that and it’s really neat that the final arc was divided like that! I wonder if they’ll do a season for the first mini-arc then and a final movie to end it all, because that might be interesting if they do. I really enjoyed the first movie, felt it moved along well and was mostly well done (my biggest complaint about Demon Slayer so far is that sometimes the CGI is super noticeable and visually jarring and fuck me, were those CGI train tentacles something else and entirely unpleasant visually in that movie). I haven’t got to see much more of Genya other than Selection, where obviously you weren’t seeing the best of him. In fact, he was pretty damn easy to hate in that episode but still interested me, so I’m looking forward to re-encountering him in The Swordsmith Village Arc.

No problem, of course 😊 And I feel like a lot of the Bleach filler arcs were very forgettable, so I wouldn’t worry any! I definitely haven’t seen that particular filler arc of Fairy Tail, or if I have, I forgot it entirely, but I will check it out when I do a Fairy Tail reread! Thanks for the heads up on that! You know, I hadn’t thought about that, but I’m pretty sure the Beyblade I watched had an English opening song too, come to think of it! It’s been a real long time since I watched it, though it’s in my rewatch list (along with Digimon Adventures and Yu-Gi-Oh!, like the child I am, haha!). Yay, I’m excited for when you eventually get around to it 😊 And that sounds like a movie that I would absolutely adore, since I do love me some character focus, but if that was the only adaption the match got and it was an important match, then it also should have been shown and focused on in its entirety as well, so I can get the frustration. And it definitely sounds like it was a very important match, to have stretched across that many chapters, so I am so sorry the movie was such a let down. It also sucks to hear there might not be another season! It doesn’t make sense for them to wrap everything up in just two movies! Especially since a movie can’t realistically cover more than 20 decent-length chapters without rushing! I’m excited to get to that Hinata moment then 😊 And yeah, I’m noticing that about the Haikyuu characters and am appreciating the characterization in it, especially compared to some other sports manga I’ve watched or read. I’m sorry to hear that. I know people like that and do know how hard they can be to deal with, so I wish you luck and peace! I am very excited, actually, to see all the Hashira’s fighting styles, now that I’ve met them and seen at least one of theirs (somewhat…the Hashira did really little fighting in comparison to the others but we won’t get into my feelings on that.) And thank you 😊 We had had a lovely time! I hope you’re doing amazing, my dear!

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