Fic-to-Art #25: A decade-long journey with Sokka and Azula
Yep. I can't believe it's been a full decade either, but here we are. Ten years later and it feels like it was yesterday, almost.
On this month on Patreon, I figured I'd just make a larger sort of tribute to my long journey as a fic writer. I've had ups and downs, big moments and small, but ultimately, that I've had the chance to be here for as many years as I have is certainly a privilege, and one I don't take for granted.
I've met lots of great people because of my participation in this fandom, particularly in the Sokkla community. I've honestly made some of the best friends I've ever known through the past ten years. I've graduated from university, I've grown in many ways as a person, artist and writer, something that kid right out of high school would have never imagined possible when she first set out on this journey with zero clue of how far it would take her, and how important this would be for her in the years to follow.
After all this time, it feels like the red string of fate from The Reason has woven itself through all my stories afterwards, resulting in a very curious relationship between all these stories and the one that started it all. I mean, technically it was OoPB that started everything X'D but The Reason is by far the flagship of that particular setting. I haven't even revisited those stories in forever, but I really am glad that I did it for this particular purpose.
Alright then, if you would like the specifics regarding which story is being referenced (in case you don't know), keep reading!
The Reason, the source of the red string that then spills down into the rest of the artworks!
Gladiator Part 1, the handshake that started it all.
It Had To Be You, their unintentional first date!
Gladiator Part 2... this is honestly just a general thematic Sokkla make-out session, which as we know they were very likely to do throughout Part 2 x'D
The Love Advisor, reading a book together for the first time.
The White Lotus International Games, their rejoicing after they rushed their finals to watch each other winning at their competitions.
Matching Heartbeats... I picked the Yakuza AU as a reference to this one because people really missed it this year. But DAMN did those tattoos kick my ass to kingdom come, most difficult part of this entire mini project x'D
Underneath Starlit Skies, I picked the final scene of the Happy Family prompt because I couldn't decide on a better scene from any of the other prompts that year hahaha.
Leap of Faith, here I chose my personal favorite story from this year, Toph matchmaking Sokka and Azula, with Sokka in his councilman outfit and Azula in her ambassador attire.
Gladiator Part 3... spoilersssssss!
Alas, it was crazy to work on a project like this one on relatively short notice and pull it off regardless. I did know I wanted to do something like this, should the chance arise, and it kinda did? So I'm really glad I could finish it, maybe not exactly on time (two days late actually), but still within this month, haha.
I really hope you guys enjoy this massive piece, thank you to everyone who has been supporting me for the last decade, whether those who have been here all along, those who have only come by my work recently, as well as those who come and go. That my stories have touched anyone's lives is a miracle to me, and one I won't ever stop cherishing.
Thank you for ten years of Sokka and Azula <3
(... and as ever, feel free to join my Patreon too if you would like to do so...)
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Millie held out her hand and Roy shook it. Then, his nose crinkled. “Your name is Millie?”
“Yes. Problem?”
“Is it short for Millicent?”
“What?” What the bloody hell did her nickname have to do with anything?
"Human beings were social by nature, and socializing had nothing to do with parties, or group outings, or catching venereal diseases because of reckless underage sex… so what was the problem if he decided to socialize through the Internet instead? What was the big deal if he chose to talk with people with similar interests to his own instead of getting drunk with people he wanted nothing to do with?"
It Had To Be You by Seyary
This!! This is one of the best things I've read. I love this one-shot altogether, a very good ModernAu. And I love it how Sokka is portrayed here. Tbh, the whole Team Avatar is very good and Azula of course. But Sokka is amazing here. As a boy, as a student, as teenager, as a son, brother, friend and lover*_*.
And especially this part is very good. To show that Sokka here makes so much sense and doesn't get influenced by others shit. A decent and wonderful teenage boy who is special and beautiful.
This quote is extremely good.
And a VERY VEEEEERRYYY PERFECT MESSAGE!! !!!!!!
Can't wait for the continuations. Nice long-shot =')
Frank kissed him then, soft and sweet, and Gerard had to resist the urge to touch his jaw, to thread his fingers into Frank’s hair.
He almost forgot the tickets in his rush to get out the door and had to run back up the stairs to get the envelope from where it was stuck with a magnet to the fridge.
Send me a word, if it’s in my BBB draft, I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in.
Still about the Christmas Sequel to IHTBY, I know I’m mean for it, but it would be hilarious to see Azula actually pranking her parents and Zuko into believing she’s pregnant, when it seems that she and Sokka didn’t even banged yet, in this setting. And the way you depicted Ozai is exactly like I imagine him in a modern setting. Also liked Ursa and Azula’s dynamic. Ursa clearly loves her children, but I can’t blame Azula for resenting her. And poor Zuko seems to be clueless about everything.
x'DDDD oooh hell, the trolling potential there is terrifying. I really don't know if Ozai would ever recover from such a shock. The man is just perpetually paranoid about that concept, he'd believe it 100% and he'd probably make her take an ecography test to make sure it's not true even after she says she's messing around and that it's not possible x'D while Ozai is certainly grateful, deeeeeeeeeep down, that Azula decided to date a good-hearted nerd, of all things, he still is an idiot about protecting his daughter from the evil claws of... this good-hearted nerd xD
I'm glad my depiction of Ozai works for you in this setting! I do know that the popular take is to make Ozai an extremely problematic/abusive parent and spouse regardless of the setting... but I really wanted IHTBY to be a pretty idealistic AU, in general, without the heaviest clouds of canon baggage. Hence why I refused to kill off Kya, I saw that happen so many times in so many AUs and most the time it feels like people just don't think Sokka and Katara could be the same characters without Kya dying? Well, sure thing, because they'd be a lot less traumatized :'D in short, I don't see the drawback in keeping her alive, and having a chance to play with the concept of Kya's character is always enjoyable. So yep, writing a pretty positive and wholesome AU allowed me to think about what kind of man Ozai could be in a world slightly less ruthless than the one we see in canon. And while he's obviously not a great, perfect dude, he's evidently a lot less unpleasant than many other Ozais I've written. (Yakuza AU Ozai still takes the cake in the "worst Ozais I've written" contest, I'd say...)
As for Azula and Ursa's complicated dynamic... yeeeeeah, there's a lot to work with there, haha. I have to admit I've developed a very unexpected liking to the potential bond between these two in later years, because back when I wrote the original IHTBY? I was just soooo mad at Ursa after The Search, so the whole angle in IHTBY of Ursa being with Ikem in secret and cheating on Ozai was mostly about me exteriorizing my frustration with that comic :'D
... Then the joke was on me because then the sequel made Ursa something like an emotional core of the story. The jumpstart of her development, when Azula brings them the invitation to Sokka's family's party, kind of unleashed my brain when it came to her character's potential XD There's a lot that can be done with her character in a lot of settings (... not so much for me in comic-compliant ones, but anyway...), but one of the things that the Christmas story was absolutely going to feature was Ursa finally facing Azula directly, reconciliating with her (and of course, ending things with a certain someone...) and eventually finding her place in her own family once more. So... yeah. I really should get going and just write it xD
Zuko may be the most hilarious character in this story, unintentionally so. He's constantly clueless about things, and in remaining clueless, he's surprisingly way more innocent than anyone expects from him. He was going to have a very lighthearted subplot in the sequel, definitely lighthearted compared to the much heavier plotline with Ursa, so... if you enjoyed clueless Zuko, all the more reason for me to get on with writing the rest of it, haha. He's just really funny in this story, most of all because he's not even trying to be funny XD
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On the other hand, Sokka’s family dynamic is adorable and it’s very nice to see Kya alive and very much in love with her husband, being excited about Christmas and embarrassing Katara. I feel for Azula when she couldn’t help but compare it to her own family. Ozai would really be the kind of parent that is cold and emotionally distant to his children and tries to compensate it with material things, huh?
Haha, I talked about it in the other ask but anyway, yep, I absolutely agree that keeping Kya alive, and letting her be a perfectly wholesome wife to her very wholesome husband, is a wonderful highlight of this AU. Writing that whole scene with Hakoda being ridiculously cute with the mistletoe, as well as their dancing... Katara's second-hand embarrassment was very relatable, but those two being the happiest married couple is just everything I could want for them. Any setting where I can get away with keeping Kya alive is a good setting xD
And yeah, that's 100% how I was trying to write Ozai here. He focused so much on business and ensuring to build a successful economic foundation for his family that he purposefully neglected his wife and kids. Which drives the wife to do some reeeeally stupid things, which then causes serious rifts in the marriage and the family life altogether. There's a lot of wrong on both sides in terms of how they act, it's very difficult to argue that Ursa's choice is justified even when Ozai isn't 100% blameless either... even she doesn't think she's justified xD hence why she acts as she does, constantly riddled by guilt and bleakness, virtually unable to talk to her daughter (who of course doesn't want to talk to her either) or her husband. The guilt really has been consuming her for many years: this sudden opportunity to rebuild this family is a wake-up call of a sort for her.
Meanwhile, Ozai is a lot more stable now and he's succeeded at his business ventures... which means it's about time he's more available and ready to be part of the family. But it also means he has spent about 15-ish years being pretty distant, increasingly distant even, to the point where narrowing that distance between himself and his family is just not easy. There's a lot of damage on all sides, even in what I do consider a pretty positive AU, but Ozai and Ursa would start making efforts to change things for the better... and that's basically the plot of the sequel x'D Oh, I really should get to it...
Are Sokka and Azula each others firsts in giving&recieving oral in Gladiator? Did they already have their first time in it had to be you? I loved that modern au
Question 1 is a yes, haven’t I said it before? I feel like I did? I don’t remember...
And no, they haven’t had their first in IHTBY because they’re good kiddos who behave themselves :’D tbh they’re more responsible in that story than in like... any other story I ever wrote xD Even if they’re happy teenagers in a happy relationship, they’re taking their time and just enjoying their relationship as it comes. I think a big factor that holds them back is that Ozai’s probably just... hovering. He accepts their relationship, TO A FAULT... but just to a fault. If Sokka is found doing anything he shouldn’t, Ozai will probably get a restraining order x’DDDD so Sokka knows he must be careful with his father-in-law until they’re all of age so he can’t be that much of a pain, legally, anymore xD
Tbh, in the sequel I haven’t finished (... good idea to write more of it rn, tbh!), there’s a scene where Azula has something important to tell her family and Ozai outright assumes she’s going to reveal Sokka knocked her up. Azula is ready to facedesk and walk out of the room right then and there xD I think that scene is available already? It should be within this post...
But yeah, basically they’re ready to wait a little longer, they’re younger in that setting than in basically anything I’ve written other than my recent canon AUs? And while I’m not crazy enough to believe teenagers don’t do this sort of thing, I do think these two, in a modern setting, wouldn’t necessarily be crazily impulsive and would do their best to make their big first time as perfect as can be... and while it may not be completely perfect in every possible sense, they’ll still likely think it is, once it happens.
