The Reading Pond

Use the Ask to send me Fics to read and post my reactions!

Helpful Tags:

Today I Read - Fics I've read on my own time!

Pond Writing - Fics I wrote!

Pond Draws - Sometimes I do Arts too!

Fic Rec - Fics you should totally check out!

Fic Plots - My Plots! Replace 'fic' with zuko or jack to narrow it down further~

Caturday - Pictures of my kitties~

My OTPs!

Jetko (Jet/Zuko)

HarlockShipping (Guzma/Cyrus)

Open Activity(s)

Winner Chosen, Writing in Progress!

Find Me On...

AO3 | Bluesky | Discord

If you like what I do, consider donating~!

Zuko Plot 218: Turtleduck Trouble

Sokka has been working painstakingly on the perfect poem to give to Zuko, and he thinks he's FINALLY completed it! The perfect verse! Eloquent, visual, expressing all his true feelings! He'll never write another poem this good in his life! He even took the time to illustrate it!

Of course, doing this outside probably wasn't the best idea in the first place, but he had to do it in secret and Zuko had the frustrating ability to always know where Sokka was when in the palace and show up unexpectedly anywhere! Stupid Ninja!

It was probably the palace staff giving him away, really, but all the MORE reason to do his work in outdoor seclusion!

So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that as he lifted his magnum opus of poetry and love confessions, the very paper he'd created upon was snatched from his hand by a no good dirty rotten poem stealing Turtleduck!

Sokka chases a turtleduck around the palace grounds in increasingly more comedic and cartoonish methods in order to get his poem back so he can give it to Zuko on the anniversary of their breakout from Boiling Rock. Eventually, Zuko gets the poem, dropped by a startled turtleduck, right before Sokka can finally grab it.

so the thought was.. a vampire gets into this guys house and he panics and flings a bunch of cereal or something on the floor and the vampire has to start counting. but the vampire is INSIDE the house, so the sun cant hit him to kill him while he's trapped counting. so he just keeps counting. any time he finishes the dude living there flings some more stuff for the vampire to count. and eventually he's just like "Oh hey, still counting the cheerios today?" "Stfu! you're gonna make me lose count!"

Zuko Plot 161: Doctor Zulittle

Zuko was born with the ability to talk to animals. This does not make things easier for him in any way. As awkward as his communication skills with people are, somehow he manages to be even more awkward speaking to animals who have their own cultures and slang.

After being banished, Zuko asks every human and animal about the avatar and still gets nowhere.

Appa is actually terrifying. The few times he's around, Zuko can hear him plotting violent promises to him if he hurts Aang. Maybe he should reconsider messing with the Avatar while the Bison is around… It's not until after Zuko rescues Appa from Lake Laogai that Appa starts speaking better about him, even offering to "add him to the herd" like the rest of the Gaang. Sweet and all, but uh… no thanks?

Zuko Plot 125: Combustion Bender Zuko

Zuko is born a combustion bender and trained his whole life as an assassin. When word gets out that the Avatar is on Kyoshi Island, Zuko is sent by the Fire Lord to end him.

Thanks to Aang's luck, Zuko fails repeatedly to the point he is fired and banished, told he can no longer return to the fire nation after such failures.

He decides to set up shop in the Earth kingdom as an assassin, and ends up encountering the Gaang again while on a different job. Seeing potential in a hireable firebender, they try to pay him to teach Aang. He laughs and nopes out of there. As if he could teach normal fire bending.

I found this Lesbian Pride cat in the closet lol! xD

Zuko Plot 208: Woodburnt Betrothal

Zuko discovers that the Northern Water Tribe proposes with necklaces, and decides to make one for Sokka in secret. But he cant seem to get the carving right, and it's frustrating him to no end. Then someone puts in his head that it doesn't have to be made of stone. And he starts working with other materials.

At first he tries metal, but firebending metal isn't working out well for him, constantly coming out too lumpy or too heavy for what he wants. And while he could ask Toph to help him out, he feels like getting help with this project would weaken the meaning behind it. It's about the determination to make it perfect, right? To show he'd do anything for the one he loves?

Eventually he ends up having to take a walk in frustration and while out he's fidgeting with a stick and burning patterns into it. When the sun hits the wood just right his eyes are drawn to what he's done and he realizes that wood burning would be a valid method of creating a pendant, wouldn't it?

So instead of carving a necklace of stone, Zuko carves the pendant out of wood and uses his firebending to burn designs into a wooden medallion and make a betrothal necklace that way.

Now all he has to do is present it to Sokka! No big deal, right? Ha ha ha….

Zuko Plot 106: Spirit Haunting

Blue Spirit Zuko haunting Sokka after Sokka discovers a portal to the spirit world hidden in the secret tunnel.

Sokka got separated from the Gaang AND the nomads. On his own, he tries to logic his way out of the cave. Thinking he found an exit, Sokka instead stumbles into the Spirit world. Therein a curious and confounded Blue Spirit begins following him around and eventually leads him back out again, this time OUTSIDE the cave no less! Heck yeah! "Uh… Thanks but uh, you can go now?"

The Spirit does not leave. Only Sokka can see them and everyone thinks he hit his head or something in the cave.

Aang could see him if he meditated into the in between where he's a ghosty in the real world. And inexplicably Toph is aware someone is there so never questions who Sokka's talking to until somebody else brings it up, irritated. "What are you talking about? Quiet guy's right there."