#and an enormous shoutout to ben zukostransboyfriend for enduring me typing out this hc for a solid 2.5 hours the other night

[lotussokka]

so i had a thought: you know tropes of the closet romance novelist and of the virgin erotica novelist? now make it zuko, but keep it in the canon universe

WARNING: discussion of sexual content (18+ please), mentions of alcohol, mention of a minor (17) reading sexual content, and overtones you may find acephobic. this starts 5–6yrs post-canon.

if you are under 18 and you have opened this to read it anyway, that’s no longer my responsibility as i have warned you, but please do not interact with this post either way (please dont like, rb, or reply)

part 2 • part 3 • part 4

so firelord zuko — who has never had sex — secretly writes dirty scrolls under a pseudonym and somehow they become famous

maybe bc he just hasnt had the opportunity or bc he’s busy and it hasn’t been a priority. maybe he’s Waiting for the Right Person™, he doesnt feel ready, or he’s worried about the power imbalance from being the firelord. maybe he’s on the ace spectrum... whichever you vibe with the most works bc it really doesn’t matter. sex isn’t essential and virginity is a bullshit construct but it is pivotal to this narrative so if that’s a problem for you, this isn’t the post for you

it starts with an erotically charged poem appreciating the male form that he anonymously submits to a new caldera city literary society

zuko thought he was writing artsy commentary about how people’s bodies have been misused as tools of war and how we’re reverting back to our natural form but its REALLY horny instead of wise

@zukostransboyfriend said, as i’m sure many of you are thinking: and sokka, known lover of poetry,

but NO youre all getting ahead of me. there are more steps!

so he writes another one since the first one was such a hit — still not realizing he’s essentially writing softcore porn

he doesnt think anything of it bc its not Sex™ and he’s seen a few dirty scrolls and they were crude and always heterosexual and his appreciation of watching the guards spar is purely out of his joy of seeing their strength and agility not being used for war anymore and for no other reason

the poems get fairly popular in the city and uncle iroh comes to visit and zuko is like “uncle i think your proverbs have finally sunk in! ive been writing these poems about healing from the war and i want to know what you’d think!”

uncle iroh starts reading one and its a bit flowery in its language but not unpleasantly so and then zuko starts talking about Hands and he looks up at zuko trying to figure out if he knows

ZUKO DOES NOT KNOW

AND HE ISNT ABLE TO LOOK HIS UNCLE IN THE EYE FOR DAYS

BC WTF

now that he knows, he stops writing them but then it becomes a big thing in the caldera bc the Dragon of the Caldera has stopped writing

its like the theft of the mona lisa, now that its gone everyone is interested and speculating about the identity of the dragon of the caldera

and thats when it starts spreading to neighboring villages and islands and then out of the fire nation (but zuko doesnt know this until much later)

mai knows it’s him, not bc hes told her but bc she knows him and she knows that poem 6 was specifically about the soldier-turned-guard that recently requested to start working as a gardener bc 1.) the specificity of the concept and 2.) “come on zuko youre so obvious. you were just about drooling when he brought in that wheelbarrow of mulch”

zukostransboyfriend added: If he’s sexy enough pushing around some mulch then he deserves a poem or two

(the gardener is very sexy and zuko wrote multiple lines comparing him to the strength of the earth but the gentleness of an orchid with so many flower metaphors that definitely sound like theyre about sex but it was just zuko doing a really bad impression of his uncle)

he does some Gay Panic about it to her bc mlm/wlw solidarity ✊✊ and some angsting about how hes Tainted by associating with such a vile perverse art

and mai is like “you’re so fucking dramatic its just sex”

zuko is Not appeased by that reply so she sits up, looks him in the eye, and says, "look. sex isnt the perverse, scary thing you think it is. your father is just weird, and controlling, and probably fear-mongered you about ‘purity of the royal bloodline’ and ‘being soiled by the touch of men’ (#trans zuko lyfe 5ever) or whatever, but that’s not how it really is. you know that, right?”

and finally after a few nights of stewing and pacing his chambers about it, he decides to try to write another poem

and its Bad

bc he was thinking about the detached impersonal graphic porn scrolls he stumbled upon during his banishment and thinking thats what sex is when he wrote it

but he submits it anyway and theres scandal bc

does the Dragon have a copycat? (the literary group confirms that the new poem was written in the same hand as the others.)

has the Dragon lost their muse?

or worse, have they started seeing some and theyve been focusing their passion on him?

and zuko angsts about the fact that it’s so bad and gets drunk with mai and toph (she showed up to visit and somehow immediately found out. he has no idea how considering she cant read. and he doesnt want to think about his Little Sister reading his dirty poetry even if she is almost 18 now)

zukostransboyfriend added: toph who cannot read: im a literary critic now

mai is like “so what if it’s bad? it’s not like you wanted to write good porn” 

zuko is very much not satisfied with that answer

but then toph imparts toph-ly wisdom and tells him “if you wrote good poems when you were talking about the Beauty Of Healing From The War or whatever, then just write more thinking about that”

it takes a while for him to finally get the courage to write another one.... weirdly enough this one is about aang. zuko is uncomfortable about the fact that what he wrote about his friend and the beauty of the four elements is probably highly erotic but also its the first draft that was good enough to get the okay from ty lee (who has become his unofficial editor via mai) so he submits it

and the city Loves it

and then zuko gets on a roll bc he’s figured out how to intentionally write what people read as good porn by writing some sentimental emotional-release to deal with his stressful job

meanwhile the poems are being circulated around the world and being compiled into small pamphlets and then into larger books (won shi tong sighs as his knowledge seekers bring him yet another of the firelord’s dirty poetry books to put in the burnt out fire nation wing

part 2 • part 3 • part 4