I just finished your mailuki fic, and I loved it! I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on the ship/characters/dynamic etc.
Thank you! I’m so glad you enjoyed it, and I’m always down to talk about this ship.
To be honest, I started shipping Mailuki for two reasons. Mai, Suki, and Ty Lee are all underappreciated in the fandom and I wanted to show them some love, and I love Mailee and Ty Luki, so why not combine them and make it even better?
Now to the ship itself: the 100 year war has been a major part of every character’s life in ATLA, Suki, Mai, and Ty Lee being no exception. I headcanon that after the war ends, Mai feels lost and purposeless and she isn’t sure if she belongs in this new world. So when Ty Lee announces that she’s going to travel to Kyoshi Island with Suki, Mai decides to come along too.
Of course, it’s not easy. The three of them don’t quite fit together yet. Suki’s relationship with Ty Lee is a lot less strained than it is with Mai, but it takes her a long time to trust them, and a longer time to like them.
It is Ty Lee and Suki who fall in love first-they’re both more open and in-tune with their emotions, and Kyoshi Island has always accepted people for who they are. Mai watches them together, and feels jealous of surprisingly both Ty Lee and Suki. Still, she knows she could hide those feelings deep inside herself and never act on them, but even more surprisingly, she doesn’t want to.
