Every time Vincent blushes and smiles at Re-l

I have this headcanon that Hakoda is the type of dad who will just casually call any boy/young man under the age of 25 “son”. It just seems like that would be a normal thing in the Water Tribe since they’re so family-oriented. 

So when Hakoda arrives at the Western Air Temple, Sokka is obviously accustomed to this little quirk, and Aang, Haru, Teo, and The Duke learn to roll with it pretty quickly. But Zuko. Oh, Zuko. 

Given his circumstances, I think it’d be pretty safe to say that Zuko would never have been casually called “son” in his life. It doesn’t seem like something Ozai would ever say (he barely refers to Zuko as “my son”, and that’s much more formal than using “son” as a pronoun), and the vast majority of people Zuko would have known in the Fire Nation would have been obligated to use his title. Iroh is really the only person I can think of who calls him something more affectionate, and he sticks with “Nephew” (I suppose I could count Azula calling him Zuzu or Dum-dum, but those clearly come with mocking undertones, so I’ll just ignore that).

So anyway. According to my headcanon, the first time Hakoda calls him “son” (“Mind giving me a hand with this, son?” or something equally innocuous), Zuko is so startled that he trips over his own feet and nearly faceplants. He turns the brightest shade of red and fumbles his way through whatever conversation follows, then gets the heck outta there because he’s incurably awkward and doesn’t have the faintest idea what to do with the fact that someone just called him “son”. And Hakoda notices the reaction (because seriously, how do you not notice the fact that the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation almost biffed it right in front of you?), but he continues calling all of the boys at the Air Temple “son”, because that’s just how he talks. And every time, without fail, it flusters the hell out of poor awkward Zuko. 

And… yeah. I was gonna say that I wanted more interactions between Zuko and Hakoda in the series, but let’s be real here. I wanted more interactions between Zuko and every other character. But today, I’m leaning toward Hakoda, so there you go.

Julia Curyło — Schrödinger’s Cat   (oil & acrylic on canvas, 2015)

Untitled, Zdislav Beksinski

stalker (1979) dir. andrei tarkovsky