Controversy

To all Sokkla-bashers, with lots of LXV3

"I don't believe it."

Azula looked up from the book she was reading. "Don't believe what?"

"This! I mean, look at this!"

The princess arched a brow.

"It's-it's an outrage! A scandal!"

"Hm...let me guess, the fandom again?"

"Yes! I mean, don't they EVER give up?" Sokka exclaimed. "They've gone and done it, AGAIN!"

Azula rolled her eyes. "What is it now?"

"Don't say it to me in that tone of voice," Sokka threw her a glare. "It's those darn Sokkla shippers, they're at it, even harder than before!"

"Did you just expect them to die or something?"

"Yes! Didn't they watch the finale? Didn't they watch any part of season three? They were supposed to writhe in agony at every turn as proof after proof was presented to their faces as to exactly WHY we'll never, ever, EVER get together!"

"And what happened?" Azula decided to humor him.

"Post-war fanfics! Tons of them! Here, take a look for yourself!"

Azula took the proferred sheet of paper and scanned the list. She let out a whistle. "Looks like you underestimated them, but don't panic, a lot of these are for-" she squinted at the page "-a Sokkla one hundred challenge? Hm..sounds interesting."

"INTERESTING?" Sokka shrieked. "Do you have ANY idea what this is going to do to my relationships?"

"It's just a small minority of the fandom that likes to imagine us together. They're not much of a threat."

"But take a look at these plotlines! At the atrocities they like to call fanfics! Just listen to this!" Sokka cleared his throat as he held the paper printed from the website in front of him. "Ahem. 'Azula betrays Ozai and joins the gaang to teach Aang firebending. What she doesn't count on is falling in love with a certain Water Tribe peasant.'" Sokka paused, eyes narrowing at the page. "Why is it always peasant? Why not 'idea guy' or 'mystery man', why peasant?"

"Mystery Man?" Azula snickered. "And that plot sounds like a Zutara fanfic gone horribly wrong."

"That's not even the half of it! Listen to this one! 'The gaang is traveling in the forest when they chance upon a sick princess. Deciding to take her with them, Sokka's in charge of taking care of her until she recovers. Sozula'." Sokka frowned. "'Sozula'?"

"Rudimentary form of Sokkla before it evolved. It also included names like Sokula and Sokkula with two k's and I think Sola," Azula responded.

"Oh, thanks. Anyway, do you see the fallacies of this plot? As if I know ANYTHING about healing, that's Katara's department! Look at what they do to stick us together! And don't get me started on the clichés! I mean, people acutally read this stuff and like it?"

"I don't see why you're getting so high-strung up about it. I mean, they're such a small minority of the fandom, most people would never even think of putting us together romantically."

"But they still exist! And look at these post-finale fanfics they've got going! Here's one where I have an arranged marriage with you!"

"Oh, those were there before the series ended. They're quite a popular setup, Zutara is full of it," Azula remarked. "Besides, Fire Nation doesn't do arranged marriages anymore. We marry whomever we want."

"That's not the point! These so-called writers are still doing it! And wait, there's more! Here's one where I act as your therapist! And here's another where I'm escorting you to the mental home, and here's another where we're actually married and have kids!"

Both of them stopped and shuddered.

"I mean, can't they see that I'm clearly in love with Suki? Huh? I mean, how many times did we kiss on screen? I took practically every opportunity! Didn't they see how we-"

"Tried having underage sex without protection?"

"-yeah! We even tried having-" Sokka stopped. Azula laughed.

"I hate you so much." He muttered.

"Isn't that also a fanfic cliché?" She mused.

"Whatever."

"Well, I still think you're getting all worked up over nothing. Hardly anyone reads or reviews these stories, and most people don't like them. And I doubt your paint-wearing girl will care since she didn't seem to have a problem with you still being hungover your first girlfriend."

"That's not the point! It's just mind-boggling! I mean, there's an overwhelming amount of reasons why we should never, ever, EVER, in a million, trillion years, EVER get together! I can list thirty of them right now! I mean, it's not like we even HAD any interaction."

"I don't know," Azula looked thoughtful. "There was Day of Black Sun."

"But that wasn't ROMANTIC! That was me trying very hard not to kill you!"

Azula narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure about that? Cause it looked more like me making a fool of you."

Sokka gave a nervous laugh as he raised his hands. "Uh, yeah, right, right." He coughed. "Anyway since then, we've had zero interaction! I mean, you interacted with KATARA more than you interacted with me! It's like...it's like some sort of...of..."

"Spell?" Azula supplied.

"No, more like disease!"

Azula rolled her eyes. She was getting tired of this. "Look, if it bothers you so much, why don't you just write them a letter listing every single one of your reasons as to why it would never work out?" She didn't bother to add that it really wouldn't stop them.

Sokka's eyes lit up. "That's brilliant! Okay, let's see..." he took a nearby sheet of paper, and began to form a list. "Alright, first, your crazy." He looked up. "No offense."

"None taken."

"Okay, you're also evil, you tried to kill me, I'm with SUKI DANGIT! I don't want to go out with some psycho killer, you're not my type, I love Suki, the 'opposites attract' crap doesn't work on us, you're socially awkward, you're a sadist-"

Azula listened to his list with a growing frown. She put her book down as he continued.

"-you're not a nice person, I'm a nice guy, you don't have a conscience, you're pure evil, we would always argue, contrary to popular belief the sex wouldn't be that great, you're a crazy pyromaniac who would shoot me with lightning every day, I don't want to die young-"

Azula crossed her arms. If she didn't know any better, his list about why they wouldn't work out sounded more like a list bashing her.

"-you're widely regarded as a devil in human form, SUKI is my soulmate, SUKI is like an angel and I love her, if we had kids they would not be cute or pretty or nice though the boys might have my charm-"

Now it was starting to sound chauvinistic.

"-I hate the Fire Nation, Zuko as my brother-in-law is NOT a good idea, I don't want to go insane, I'm too young to die, and...anything else?" He glanced towards Azula, who was looking pretty ticked. "Oh! Yeah, and you have repressed emotions-mommy issues that I'm too young to deal with, not like I would want to," Sokka happily added it to the list before perceiving a crackling sound. He looked up.

"Uh...Azula, what're you doing?"

Azula looked dangerously mad. "Sokka," she said in a ridiculously saccharine voice, "you have five minutes to run for your life, before I do as my therapist instructed me about not repressing my emotions and taking them out on the thing that's aggravating me, namely you."

Sokka's mouth fell open in horror. "But-Wha-Why-"

"Four."

"But I-what'd I do?"

"Three and a half."

Sokka looked fearfully towards the doorway, before bolting out of it as fast as he could. Azula waited a few moments before deciding that really, five minutes and five seconds weren't so different after all. Before that though, she picked up the list he had been composing and took a look at it again.

"Contrary to popular belief, the sex wouldn't be that great, huh? I guess we'll have to find out."

And so, on that day, Sokka (and the fandom) learnt that, even though it may be hard to understand why Sokklans love their ship so much, and even though it may be difficult for them to comprehend the beauty of the Sokkla ship, they came to realize that, really, you don't start up with people who's OTP is a lightning bender and a mad genius, because in the end, you just suffer. Horribly.

And yes, the sex WAS that good.

END.