#imo marriage is just when u coauthor a dissertation w someone....... so......

[comradekatara]

any headcanons for if Zuko/Sokka got married in the canon world like after Izumi's born and everything? What kind of couple would they be? What kind of parent is Sokka?

sorry this took so long to respond to! here be some bullet points: 

while i like where your head’s at, i also am deeply opposed to marriage as an institution and firmly maintain that zuko and sokka in fact do everything in their power to abolish marriage in the fire nation. in fact, i once even wrote an entire post detailing how they go about accomplishing this. 

i also don’t think that sokka ever lives anywhere full-time. i’m convinced he has a meticulously-crafted schedule of where he goes when during the year, and tries to divide his time among all the various parts of the world where his friends live fairly evenly. 

he crashes with toph (or aang when he has had enough of toph being a horrible roommate) in republic city, with suki on kyoshi island, with katara in the south pole, and zuko in the fire nation. not only do i think he’d get bored if he spent all his time in one place, but that’s frankly pretty irresponsible of him considering he is the official babysitter of every world leader (this not only includes, but especially goes for king kuei). 

and when he’s not with at least one member of the gaang, he’s traveling by himself thinking about how all his friends are doing important work meanwhile he’s just procrastinating and goofing off (he’s discovering quantum physics, but since literally no one else would care except for toph he wonders whether he should just bake her a cake instead and it would have the same effect on the world. only he cant bake for shit so), but actually whenever he’s not around, literally everyone (this includes iroh, for he knows no other pai sho opponents worthy) is like “damn when sokka’s getting back tho” (he gets tackle-hugged a lot)

the day zuko stops to be like “woah hold up. there’s a baby in this dumpster” is the day his entire life changes. for one thing, he’s deeply concerned that his citizens think it’s okay to dispose of babies by just. throwing them in the trash???? he establishes 200% more orphanages. but also, he’s keeping this baby, because how can he not, and look at her little face!!!!!! 

not only does sokka (obviously) help raise izumi, he also helps raise lin and su as well, because let’s be honest, toph needs the help. not to mention katara’s (not that she’s a bad mom or anything, but someone needs to teach her kids math, yknow?) sometimes people ask suki when she’s gonna have kids, and at first she was just like “why the fuck would you assume that i want kids” but then her go-to response just started being “with whom? sokka? he already has six” 

when izumi is crowned firelord and zuko can finally abdicate, he moves to a cottage on a mountain on an island in an archipelago off the coast of the fire nation, the location of which is only known by his closest friends and family, and is only accessible by dragon or flying bison. finally, he can live that sweet sweet #HermitLife babey! not a single piece of furniture in his entire house is red. 

in fact, red is BANNED. he got reprimanded every time he tried to redecorate the fire palace even a little (he only wanted to repaint all the walls and vandalize all the portraits of ozai, azulon, and sozin...) but now is finally his time to shine. he paints one room light blue, one room a soft green, and the other room a pale yellow. the only acceptable reds are on the covers of books and the fruits in the kitchen. when the firelord comes to visit him, which she often does, she takes off her crown and changes out of her traditional robes. she loves the fire nation, and takes pride in her country, its values and its history (well, parts of it), but.. she gets it. 

when izumi is in her early teens, she goes to live with katara in the south pole for a while. she thinks it’s valuable that as the heir to the throne, she actually get to know her future political allies. and she’s only met katara a handful of times, because katara absolutely loathes going to the fire nation and flat-out refuses to do so except for occasions that require the use of the fire palace, and even then she first pleads with toph if the palace can’t at least first be moved? 

izumi has never been anywhere like the south pole before. katara takes her penguin sledding and izumi is lowkey scared because riding a penguin down a very steep hill doesn’t seem very safe, but she reminds herself that her dad warned her that katara is a *shudders* jock and she’s just going to have to get used to that for the next few weeks because katara simply does not understand the concept of being an indoor kid. 

katara also shows her how politics is done in the south pole, and it’s really very fascinating because she’s never seen a huge public forum in action before, and she can’t believe that katara actually listens to every single citizen, and even addresses them all by name. as much as she knows that her dad cares, he also cannot remember anyone’s fucking name for the life of him. she thinks she wants her reign as firelord to be a bit more like katara’s, and when she tells him this, zuko is so very proud of her. (sokka’s just like “oh boy.”) 

izumi is a lesbian, obviously (i mean, just look at her), and she has the five greatest mentors in the world. ty lee and suki teach her self-defense and how to say no to men. toph teaches her how to be confident and embrace her creativity, and she’s always there to give her sound, albeit harsh advice. mai is just plain awesome. and she and azula adore each other. though azula was also a precocious child, she used her talents to be coy, as opposed to plainspoken. she loves how direct izumi is, how she has no problem communicating her wants and needs, and calling people out on their bullshit. if azula says something she disagrees with, she engages her in a discussion about it, and azula finds that even though she’s talking to a child, she is genuinely intellectually stimulated. azula says to zuko one day “out of all the dumpsters in in all the alleys in all the world, she fell into yours...” and zuko’s like “is that a casablanca reference?” and azula’s like “no what the fuck is a casablanca” 

zuko hates the fire palace. he hates it slightly less every time sokka voices all his concerns with it: “it’s ostentatious, it’s gaudy, it’s too big, the furniture is tacky, that chandelier is a hazard,” etc. but sokka thinks the hidden passages are really cool, and zuko loves the garden and not one day goes by where he doesn’t feed the turtleducks, and they both agree that the best room in the palace by far is the library. it’s no wan shi tong, but it’s close. there’s a lot of resources they have due to a century’s worth of colonialism, but after asking permission from the southern water tribe, the earth kingdom, and aang, zuko returns the original manuscripts (he keeps the air nomad artifacts in his possession until aang founds air temple island, for safekeeping) but keeps copies. and eventually, their joint dissertation on king lear makes its way onto a shelf, too.