#Sokka's outfit in this fic was also inspired by Blee's gorgeous art and I about lost my mind when the follow up piece came out

[erisenyo]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ELECTRIC LOVE!!!

Ohhh this was tough to pick! I'll go with this bit from their shopping date:

“What’s this?” Zuko asks, holding up a deceptively simple-looking circle of thin, stamped leather. “An armband? This is nice?”

“…Let’s do one thing at a time and save armbands for later,” Sokka suggests, doing a double take at the raised-eyebrow look the shopkeeper gives him over Zuko’s shoulder as Zuko shrugs and goes back to the basket.

“My son works for a wholesaler in Zhou,” she says, lips twitching.

“Ah,” Sokka says—it’s a frequent stop for Southern trading vessels, even before the end of the war—as he waves away Zuko’s questioning look and goes back to looking through the basket again with a new purpose in mind.

I am unable to resist teasing a proposal between the two of them but not actually writing it, as it turns out, and I really liked the idea of using that in particular to show the boys' relationship progression here and to orient the reader into this post-canon moment where they're together but also still figuring it out, to some degree.

(I also just love the detail of armbands for the SWT as a sign of commitment, from the novels)

Both Sokka and Zuko's attention is caught by something proposal related in the story (Sokka here with the armband, Zuko with the jewelry making to anyone who has read some of the other stories set in this AU). But neither of them directly references it or brings it up to the other, and Sokka outright redirects the conversation. There's a readiness that isn't there for either of them yet for that conversation, even though they feel very sure and happy with each other--which makes sense, since they're probably 18/19ish here (I don't feel like doing the math) and both still heavily involved in their individual post-canon rebuilding efforts and functionally in a long-distance relationship.

And there's still a level of unfamiliarity with the details of each other's cultures, too, in the fact that Zuko doesn't know about armbands (where this vendor whose son would interact with Southern traders does). I wanted to show the ways they're still learning and sharing with each other, and also suggest their tendency to get very caught up in each other and the giddiness of being back together. Plus, it felt like something Zuko wasn't likely to get in a Fire Lord briefing ahead of some formal visit South, and that no one else would think to tell him.

For this Fanfic Directors cut ask game!

#asks and answers #ask games #chitsangenthusiast #Sokka's outfit in this fic was also inspired by Blee's gorgeous art and I about lost my mind when the follow up piece came out