#wuko

In general, my favorite thing about writing this fic is my approach to Mako's character this time around. Usually, I like to write Mako as being confident in his sexuality and pretty experienced. I have a lot of reasons for liking this approach to his history---he grew up in republic city where views on queerness aren't super regressive, he grew up without parental supervision so I feel like he would definitely be having a lot of sex pretty young; and I love headcanoning the triads and homeless population as being super chill with queer people---who care about other people's gender or sexuality when you've got to do crime to keep food on the table? Let people enjoy what few pleasures life can offer, who cares!

But for this fic, I took the approach that Mako wouldn't have even bothered exploring his sexuality because he had way more important things to worry about. He was living in a state of hypervigilance, constant food insecurity, terror, trauma, and every waking moment was spent trying to deal with all these problems. He didn't have time to go fool around with another horny teenager running numbers for the triads. He had to keep himself and his brother fed and alive. And even though republic city is canonically less regressive than the rest of the avatar world when it comes to queer people, it's also clear that there's a strong culture of heteronormativity. Comphet would have been operating in the background for this version of Mako, so even when he did eventually have the safety and freedom to explore his sexuality, it wouldn't have registered that maybe he doesn't fit that mold. He was too emotionally stunted to understand that his feelings for Korra and Asami maybe weren't actually romantic---he hasn't had anyone to teach him otherwise, and he didn't grow up with any queer role models to help him realize that anything else is an option!

Basically, it's just been really fun to explore a different version of Mako. I still love my slutty bisexual Mako, but this deeply repressed and sexually inexperienced Mako is really delightful too.

And that's what I've loved about this fic generally, and going hand in hand with that, I really had fun writing chapter 11 and giving Mako a sex dream about Wu. He's so repressed that his subconscious has to send him subliminal messages via wet dream lmao. I've been looking forward to writing that scene since I thought of this fic.

Another little detail I've loved focusing on, is Mako's relationship to food. Mako will never ever turn down food. His childhood food insecurity has wired his brain to still operate on a scarcity mindset. He will always eat if there is food available, because his traumatized inner child is always thinking "we don't know when the next meal will be. Gotta eat while we can." So you know when he declines food, there's something major going on to override that heehee