Coming Into A Fandom Late

Got inspired by the fic “When you accidentally marry your worst enemy” by the amazing stormysilverfox

Every single time I see a take that amounts to "if you write about X happening, or like fiction where X happens, you like X" I'm reminded of this one time I was at a casual friends house as a young kid. We were in her room, pretending to "be orphans" escaping from an evil orphanage and having to take care of each other and fend for ourselves. It was all very Little Orphan Annie/All Dogs Go to Heaven and based on the 80s pop media.

And this girl's mom comes in, hears what we're playing and gets all MAD and UPSET. She says that if we play act something, it's because we want it to happen. So her daughter must WANT HER TO DIE.

First off lady, we were 6 year year olds, so take it down several notches. We barely had a concept of mortality for fucks sake. She made us feel so guilty and ashamed, because she was taking our game personally.

Now I have a 5 year old. And sometimes she looks at me and says "pretend you're dead, and I have to -" Whatever it is. Some adult task she's assigned herself.

And it's just so transparently obvious that she's practicing the idea of having to do things on her own. Which is exactly what 5 year olds are supposed to do. I actually find it very flattering that the only way she can envision me not being available to help her is to be literally deceased. Otherwise, obviously, she wouldn't have to do scary hard things alone.

It's a natural coping mechanism. She's self-soothing about what would happen if I wasn't there by play-acting independence in a perfectly safe environment. She's also practicing skills she needs, and making up excuses for practicing them on her own, without taking on the responsibility of being able to do them by herself all the time yet.

Humans mentally rehearse bad this in their brains all the time. We can do that by ruminating- going over worries over and over again, which tends to lead to anxiety and helplessness and depression. Or we can do it with a sense of play- by recognizing that the fiction is fiction and we can dip our toe into these experiences and expose ourselves to bad things without actually being injured.

My daughter does not want me dead. And I don't want bad things to happen in real life. But fiction and pretend help me face the horrors of the world and think about them without collapsing or messing myself up mentally.

I wonder how many gay people are actually transgender & dont know it because people thing being transgender is transitioning when it’s literally just not being cis.

This hc has been gnawing at my mind all night)) in the Fire Nation they propose with knives. we know that the NWT (and maybe SWT) propose w necklaces. I’m imagining Zuko giving Sokka this gorgeous knife but sokka doesn’t know it’s a proposal thing. So he’s like “thanks babe :)” and Zuko is just waiting for a yes or no. But sokka is oblivious. And so Zuko is like “he prolly just has to think abt it and talk to his fam”. Like a month passes and sokka mentions it to iroh and finds out the truth

Yes. Yes. YES!!!!

Okay, so

Zuko has been meticulously hand-carving the handle of this knife or weeks wanting to make sure it is absolutely perfect for when he proposes

and he’s so goddamn nervous and second guessing himself

like they might’ve been dating since the war ended but what if Sokka still thinks he’s moving too fast?

Or what if Sokka never actually intended for this to end in marriage?

(that’s crazy and Zuko knows it’s crazy but anxiety doesn’t have to make sense)

He’s so nervous he doesn’t even tell anyone his plans to propose because he’s so scared of failure and doesn’t want to deal with the ‘how’d it go?’ if the answer is ‘bad’

Zuko just decides it’s better if he kept this decision to himself until after he asks

Because then, if Sokka says ‘no’ well... Zuko won’t have to relive that every five minutes with everyone impatiently asking what happened

So he finally finishes the knife right before joining Sokka on a trip back to the South Pole

That’s where they met, after all (tho their meeting was definitely less than romantic lmao)

But it’s also where Zuko confessed his feelings for Sokka after the war

Where they had their first kiss

And where Sokka first said ‘I love you’ to Zuko

It only seems natural that he propose here, too

And it’s Sokka’s home

Like yeah, he might primarily live in the Fire Nation now but that doesn’t change anything

Their first day there is filled with catching up with Hakoda and Bato and Katara and Aang

So Zuko waits until the next day to give it to Sokka

It’s after dinner when everything calms down and the sun is setting that Zuko pulls Sokka outside over by the pier where he first confessed to him

And Zuko has this little speech that he’s planned out in his head which gets mangled together and bits and pieces thrown out until just the bare bones of it remain in a somewhat coherent form for him to say

Which essentially ends up being him rambling about how happy he’s been with Sokka and how much he loves him and recounting their first kiss that happened nearby several years ago

And he pulls out the knife and carefully presents it to Sokka while saying something hopelessly vague like

‘I wanted to give this to you. Please accept it.’ or ‘I hope you like this’ or even just nothing at all because this is Zuko we’re talking about lmao

And Sokka is like ‘wow - Did you make this?’

Zuko is just kinda like ‘yes?? it’s... tradition. Do you... like it?’

Sokka’s answer to that one is ‘it’s beautiful, Zuko’ and a kiss on the cheek

And Zuko is very confused because Sokka did not react at all like he expected

Like any of the worst or best case scenarios that Zuko’s run through in his mind (and there were a LOT of them) were so completely different

But Sokka didn’t really say ‘yes’ or ‘no’

(It doesn’t cross his mind that maybe Sokka doesn’t know what the knife was for)

But he doesn’t want to pressure Sokka for an answer because he knows that marriage is a big deal and all

He tries not to be hurt by the lack of an immediate answer, though because well maybe Sokka just wanted to talk things over with his family

and that’s fine, Zuko can wait

so he waits

and waits

....and waits

and his hopes are slowly dwindling but Sokka also hasn’t returned the knife or even... said anything about it.

He knows Sokka still has it, he’s seen it with him

Meanwhile, Sokka is trying to plan his own proposal and figuring out if he should make Zuko a betrothal necklace or maybe go with the Fire Nation tradition which...

he realizes he doesn’t actually know what that is

But he wants to find out and weigh his options or maybe he can combine the two traditions together somehow to make it really special

So he goes to talk to Iroh to 1. get his approval since he is essentially Zuko’s dad since Ozai is less than trash and 2. ask what the Fire Nation tradition is as far as marriage proposals go

So he takes a secret trip to Ba Sing Se and drops in just as Iroh’s closing up shop and they sit and drink tea

Iroh is THRILLED when Sokka tells him his plans to propose which takes a big weight off of Sokka’s shoulders already

...and then he asks what the Fire Nation tradition is

Iroh starts talking about it but Sokka doesn’t hear anything past ‘hand carved decorative knife’

bc ohFUCK

and Iroh like stops talking when he notices Sokka’s not listening anymore and is like ‘are you alright?’

And, shaking, Sokka pulls out the knife and holds it up and is like ‘would - is... does this look like a uh - a proposal knife, maybe?’

and Iroh looks at it and is like ‘Yes! That’s an excellent example. Where did you get that?’

And Sokka goes quiet and sheepishly is like ‘...Zuko gave it to me. Like. Three weeks ago.’

And Iroh’s just like deadpans ‘You are an excellent match for my nephew’

Sokka’s not sure if that’s supposed to be a compliment or not but, hey, the Uncle approves!

Now Sokka has to figure out how to un-fuck this situation, though

He travels back to the Fire Nation as quickly as possible and like sprints through the palace until he finds Zuko and like drops down in front of him, knife in hand and already rambling a million words per minute

About how he didn’t know Zuko was proposing marriage to him when he presented the knife

and essentially his whole journey realizing this including the parts where he was trying to figure out how to propose to Zuko

and ends it with ‘So YES, of course I want to marry you I just... didn’t know you were asking me to marry you when you gave me this bc i’m a dumbass’

Zuko is like shocked and has no idea what to do but also hella relieved bc omg he seriously thought Sokka was just trying to figure out how to turn him down this whole time and ahhh

and then Sokka is just like ‘so... so um... Is that offer still on the table? Are - Does this mean we’re engaged?’

and Zuko realizes he hasn’t said anything and breaks into a grin as he pulls Sokka into his arms to kiss him

only breaks the kiss to say something sappy or - actually, no, he’d be snarky af about it now that he knows it was a misunderstanding

prolly something like ‘No - I really want to see how you were planning on proposing, actually’ 

And like he’s teasing, of course, but Sokka still surprises him a week later with a betrothal necklace right before they make the official announcement of their engagement

(which there’s been a LOT of talk and rumors about with Sokka walking around with that damn knife not knowing what it was for lmao so no one’s really surprised in the slightest) 

Iroh’s speech at their wedding consists of him recounting the moment when Sokka realized that his now-husband had just proposed to him... three weeks later sitting in the Jasmine Dragon lmao

Beautiful.

First of all I apologize for the super long scroll u guys had to go through haha, and if u guys did read it thank you! I noticed I haven’t made any fanart with the Gaang all together so I decided to change that..It’s been a while since I did layout so this was a lot of fun to do.  I wrote this as a character study for my faves, but I’m really just projecting because I miss spending time with my friends irl. I’ve been reminiscing all the shenanigans  we got into before quarantine.

This is my first time writing a fic and I’m kinda proud with how it turned out. Big thank you for @lilith-the-first​ for being my beta reader and salvaging this fic omg. She fixed the grammar and made it  coherent  so now looks less like it was written at 3 am haha.

Venom is fuckken HUGE guys.  Made in Paint.NET, by the way.

actor Scott Haze, who plays Roland Treece, is 5′11″ or 1.8m tall

each square on the grid represents 10cm

Venom fits a 19x20 area on the grid

using the Pythagorean Theorem, Venom’s height is 27.6 squares (when hunched over)

which is 2.76m tall, or a hair over 9′0″

“Yeah, great costume, Twilight. You make a fantastic weirdo clown” ~ Pinkie Pie🤡

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“Luna Eclipsed” | MLP.FIM Season 2 Episode 4🌙

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