Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

Those are both good points, although the fics I skimmed did seem to feature Stepford Azula, who is sweet and just a little bit snarky sometimes, and needs Sokka's manly man-ness to rescue her from villains. Which just goes to show that early psychopharmaceuticals had some scaaaaaaaaaaaaary side effects.

Ah. I suspect part of the reason Sokka/Azula strikes me as a reasonable thing (not "Wow, awesome!", but "I don't see why not?"), is because I have not read those fic, and am picturing a relatively-in-character Azula (having made the "I am now reasonably mentally healthy and do not want to take over the world, destroy anyone's civilization, or start a war" changes it'd take to get me to ship her with any of the heroes, but not Stepford Azula. Actually, how is Stepford Azula even possible? Those words make no sense.)