#'atlas this is STILL ooc' oh well

[kotaerukoto]

Between Avalon le Fae on NA and the first Ordeal Call on JP, my Nasubrain is going to be going strong this month (and next month)... Once I've calmed down on my gaming binge (Xenoblade replay) I'll be here to write, though!

#ooc ramblings. #damn and my tags got wiped too #oh well #am i going to have a fun time? hell yes! is Makoto going to? hell no! #still insane how Nasu and I mindlinked for LB6 #also the obligatory discord leaks for OC1 are funny #I can see Rani since it's looking like its gonna be an Atlas Institute-themed chapter but Kirschtaria? #i love my man Wodime so much but I don't think he's gonna be summonable

[m1ckeyb3rry]

── THE GLASS PRINCESS // ONE

Series Synopsis: You wake up in a strange room with no memories, broken glass at your bedside, and a prince named Zuko as your only chance at figuring out who you really are.

Chapter Synopsis: You meet Mai, Ty Lee, and Prince Zuko.

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Zuko x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 5.6k

Content Warnings: complicated relationships (strangers to friends to lovers to enemies to strangers to lovers to enemies to lovers), amnesia, alternate universe, lots of secrets and lying and mystery

A/N: this is my first ever attempt at writing for atla despite how long ago i watched it and how much i’ve written since then HAHAH. tbh i don’t expect much to come of it but oh well we’ll see how it goes!! also this is an alternate universe — the extent of which things have been changed will become more apparent as we go along. also apologies in advance if anyone is ooc, i haven’t watched atla in forever so idk if i’ll get it right!

There was a pile of glass on the nightstand when you woke up. It glimmered in the light, the fire refracting on the shards and forming tiny little rainbows on the wooden floor. Rusty streaks stained the faceted tips, though, and you winced as you tried to imagine how that quantity of blood could’ve made its way there.

“It’s yours,” a girl said. You startled, for you hadn’t noticed her presence, but it seemed like that had been her plan. She stood in the corner, her clothes a dull maroon, her hair glossy black and eyes a sharp, dark shade. Her lips were pressed into a thin line as she regarded you, but her face was otherwise smooth, betraying nothing.

“Mine?” you said, voice cracking from disuse. “What do you mean? The — the blood?”

“And the glass,” she affirmed. “In some sense, anyways. Some of the pieces, we had to pull out of you, and others were apparently just lying around where you were found. At least, that’s what Zuko said. I’m still not quite sure why he went and collected it all to bring back, though…”

You squinted at the glass, trying to find some familiarity in it, but there was none. You had no idea why you would be surrounded by it, nor why it would be embedded in you. The girl waited for a second, but when you did not speak, she scoffed.

“Sorry,” you said automatically.

“We’ve been waiting for you to wake up for so long,” she said, an accusatory note entering her voice. “Zuko refuses to say anything, and it’s not like we can bully the crown prince himself into telling us what happened, so you’ve been our only chance at figuring everything out.”

“Oh,” you said, a migraine building behind your forehead as you tried to go through the events that had led to your presence here, in this austere room, on this plush mattress. “I — I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” she repeated drearily. “Wow.”

“I’m sorry,” you said again. “I really don’t. I’m telling the truth.”

In fact, you were rapidly coming to the conclusion that you didn’t know anything. Your childhood, your family, your home…there was nothing. Where your memories ought to be was a bleak stretch like night, barely interrupted by flashes of blue. You reached for that blue, for that lovely shade like sapphire, but it was always just out of your grasp, something you could never quite touch no matter how much you wanted to.

“How about I tell you what I know, and we go from there?” she said. You nodded, though you were only half paying attention to her. The rest of you was fighting back a panic that threatened to twist your insides, a dread that was rotting through you, both sensations borne from the fear that you would never remember anything again.

“Prince Zuko was banished from the Fire Nation and told only to return once he found the Avatar,” she said. “He found him eventually, found him many times in fact, but he wasn’t able to capture him. It’s irrelevant, though — he did do something just as impossible. That is to say, he infiltrated Ba Sing Se.”

You thought that you were probably supposed to be awed by this, but considering you had zero idea what any of it meant, you just felt further confused. Still, you smiled at her, hoping she would keep talking until something or another made sense.

“Fire Lord Ozai couldn’t ignore the opportunity. He sent an army to the prince’s aid, and under his command, they managed to destroy the Earth Palace and depose the royal family. The Earth Kingdom’s in shambles, and all but the most secretive resistance efforts have vanished,” the girl, who had still not introduced herself, continued.

“I don’t see what this has to do with me,” you said, ducking your head.

“Neither do the rest of us,” she said. “That’s what you were supposed to know. For some reason, the fact is that upon returning from Ba Sing Se, the prince had your body in tow. You were wrapped in so many bandages we couldn’t tell what you were at first, and then we thought you must be closer to a corpse than anything, but he insisted you were alive, and that we had to heal you.”

“The prince himself did such a thing?” you said. Even you understood what the magnitude of that title meant, what kind of person a prince was bound to be. And if that was the case, if this mysterious Zuko really was the prince of an entire nation, then why would he have sullied his victory with care for the brutalized body of a random girl?

“He did,” the girl said. “It was the first thing he saw to. Not the reclamation of his crown, but that you were being treated with the best technologies the Fire Nation has to offer. Don’t you think it’s strange? Worthy of investigation? Don’t you agree that we should be curious about what significance you have?”

“Yes, um, naturally,” you said, taken aback by the rapid-fire line of questioning. Despite her initially bland facade, she was surprisingly intense, relentless, even, the stark contrast between the two personalities enough to make you curl inwards.

“Maybe he loves you,” she said, narrowing her eyes at you, inspecting you critically. “I suppose it’d certainly be an explanation, though it wouldn’t give us any clues about who you are or why he might love you in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t know,” you said, shifting in your seat uncomfortably. “I don’t even know my own name, let alone whether I was in love with someone.”

“Don’t even know your own name?” the girl said, raising her eyebrows. “You really are pathetic. I’m impressed.”

“I can’t remember anything specific about my life. I know general things, of course. The color of the sky. The way the moon looks. But the history of the world, my own existence…these are things I cannot recall,” you said.

She appraised you with the beginnings of something like sympathy flickering in her irises. Clenching her jaw and deciding upon something, she straightened her back and turned to the door.

“I should tell Zuko you’re awake,” she said. “That’s what he told us to do, the instant you regained consciousness. I’ve put it off long enough.”

“Wait!” you said. “What’s your name?”

She glanced at you over her shoulder. You blinked at her, willing her to understand — that before you could meet this prince, you had to know something. Even if it was only as small as this girl’s name, you wanted to have at least one thing in your head, a word or other such piece of knowledge that you could cling to, that you could form a barrier around your mind with.

“Mai,” she said. She did not elaborate before slamming the door shut behind her, but it was enough for you. There was this one constant now — you knew a girl, and her name was Mai.

As you waited for Mai to return with the prince, you busied yourself with inspecting the room you were quartered in. You had mistakenly called it austere due to the lack of decorations hung up, but now that you had the chance to look closely, you noticed that the wall itself was covered with intricate, swirling designs engraved by a firm, steady hand. The blanket that had been drawn up around your shoulders and was now puddled around your hips was made of silk and stuffed with feathers, and its quality was such that it all but shimmered. This was not the kind of room that just anybody stayed in; it was a room fit for someone of high rank. A lady. And a lady you were not, yet here you sat, in this room that made you feel entirely out of place.

Only a few minutes had passed before the door slammed open, but it was not Mai nor any sort of prince who entered. It was another girl, as bubbly and cheery as Mai had been cool and collected. She beamed when she saw you sitting up and looking around, bounding over to place her hands on your shoulders.

“Hi! Hi, hi, I’m so glad you’re awake!” she said. You tried to smile back at her, but the exuberance was so jarring that you could not do anything but brace yourself against it.

“Thank you,” you managed to say as she shook you. “Who are you?”

“Ty Lee!” she said. You noticed that she had a habit of ending every sentence with her voice ticking up in delight, like she was perpetually thrilled with the world. It was even more of a contrast to Mai than you had anticipated, and you felt your head spinning as you tried to keep up with the differences.

“Did I know you before?” you said. She cocked her head.

“Huh? No, I have no idea who you are, just like you have no idea who I am. You sure are pretty, though! Even prettier when you’re not all passed out,” she said, miming fainting before beaming at you expectantly. You tried to laugh, but it was an awkward sound, clearly unconvincing.

“The same to you,” you said. “Er. Obviously, aside from the part about passing out.”

“Obviously!” she said. “Now, just stay very still, okay?”

You froze in place immediately, wondering what she was going to do but trusting that it would not be anything harmful. Or, perhaps trusting wasn’t quite the right word for it — you just had no choice but to obey, because you had no other metric for what was correct. Whether Ty Lee wanted to help or harm you, you couldn’t know for sure, but either way she would do something, and since she was only the second person whose face you had seen, you had to let her do it.

She jabbed her pointer fingers into your neck, side, and wrists, all in a quick, precise succession. You waited for something to happen, but there was nothing, and when she raised her eyebrows at you, you could only furrow your own in a non-answer.

“Felt nothing?” she said. You nodded in the affirmative. “Interesting.”

“Was I supposed to?” you said.

“I dunno!” she said. “I guess we’ll see once the others get here.”

“What do the others have to do with it?” you said. At this, she winked and raised her fingers to her lips, as if you two were sharing some silly secret.

“If I tell you, then that’ll ruin things! We can discuss it later, but for now, you have to keep it to yourself, okay?” she said.

“Why?” you said. It wasn’t accusatory; you were genuinely curious.

“Let’s just say that certain parties would not be pleased if they found out what I was doing,” she said, giggling nervously and glancing at the door. “And those parties aren’t the kind you really want to offend, so please just keep your mouth shut!”

“Don’t want to offend? Who, like Prince Zuko?” you said.

Before Ty Lee could respond, there was a knock at the door. She scrambled away from you, so that she was standing in the same corner Mai had been in, looking demure and respectful. It was like she had never spoken to you in the first place, and when she had arranged herself suitably, she motioned towards the door.

“Me?” you said.

“Yes, you!” she said. “It’s your room, isn’t it?”

“I would hardly know,” you reminded her. She considered this before making a face in agreement.

“Right, there is that fact. Anyways, yes. This isn’t a hospital wing or anything, it’s your room, which means that when someone knocks, it’s up to you to tell them if they can come in or not,” she said.

“You didn’t knock,” you said. Ty Lee cleared her throat.

“Ah, well, I’m from a Fire Nation family! People of higher rank are allowed to do things like barging in on others,” she said. “I can’t tell you the amount of times Princess Azula has stormed into my room without warning.”

“I see,” you said, mostly because you didn’t know who Princess Azula was or why she merited mention. “This must be a servant or something, then, considering they’re knocking on even my door.”

“Probably,” Ty Lee said. There was another knock, louder this time, and you swore under your breath as you realized you had forgotten to answer them.

“Come in!” you said, folding your hands in your lap and looking over at the doorway, wondering who it could possibly be.

To your surprise, it was a boy. He was dressed in fine armor, his dark hair tied back in a regal topknot, his features angular and his eyes a sharp gold. His face was set in a frown, but when he saw you, you thought you picked up on the faintest trace of happiness. Almost immediately, though, it was quashed by a scowl, so that you could not be quite sure if you had actually seen it or if you had just been imagining things.

Behind him was Mai, looking as bored as she had earlier, though she seemed marginally more excited to see Ty Lee than she had been when you had woken up. You supposed they must’ve been friends or something.

“You should bow,” Mai said, directing the statement at you.

“No way!” the boy said immediately, waving his hands in dissent before you could even move. “I mean, ah, she doesn’t have to do that. It’s fine.”

“Woah! That’s crazy, Zuko, normally you’re all about honor and tradition and whatnot!” Ty Lee said. “It’s strange to hear something like that coming from you.”

So this was Prince Zuko, the boy who had, for some reason, saved your life. He was the only one who knew anything about your past. Your name, your identity, your origin…if you wanted to know any of these things, then your best chance at finding them stood before you, gazing at you with an inscrutable expression.

“Your royal highness,” you said, not bothering to get out of bed but dipping your head in what you hoped was a sign of respect anyways. He coughed awkwardly.

“Um. Yes,” he said.

“So,” Mai observed from the spot she had taken beside Ty Lee, “she’s awake now.”

“I see that,” Prince Zuko said. Mai rolled her eyes.

“Will you tell us who she is? Or why you insisted on saving her, maybe?” she said.

“Why don’t you ask her?” he said. “She’d know as well as I would. Maybe better.”

“I already tried,” Mai said. The prince’s scowl deepened, the corners of his mouth tugging further downwards at the offhand statement, his eyes flicking to you before returning to Mai.

“Of course you did,” he said. “And what did she say?”

“Nothing,” Mai said.

“She doesn’t remember anything,” Ty Lee said. “Not even her own name. You’re the only one left who can tell us anything about her.”

Something in Prince Zuko’s demeanor shifted at that moment. A despairing anger warred with resignation and defeat, but below the surface, some other emotion was hidden, kept locked tightly away, something that he was suppressing, so that no one could dare to even attempt to comprehend it.

“I see,” he said. “Is that the case?”

He was asking you. You did not look at him when you responded, focusing on the pile of glass still stacked on the nightstand.

“Yes,” you said. “Your royal highness. It’s the case.”

Prince Zuko considered this, and for a moment, there was an eerie silence in the room, as you all waited to hear what he would say. Who were you? Would he finally disclose it, or would you be further stranded in the darkness?

“Ursa,” he said finally.

“Your mother?” Mai said. He shook his head.

“No, not her. It’s — um, it’s her. Her name,” he said, jutting his chin in your direction.

“She has the same name as your mother,” Mai said flatly.

“Yes,” he said.

Ursa. That was your name. You didn’t feel some great reclamation of your identity upon hearing it; in fact, it meant nothing to you, except that at some point, people must have called you that.

“Is that why you saved her?” Ty Lee said. “Because she has the same name as your mother?”

“Yeah,” he muttered under his breath. “That’s exactly why.”

“Really? We thought you might’ve been in love with her or something,” Mai said. “I guess this is in character enough, though.”

“How’d you find someone with a Fire Nation name in Ba Sing Se, though?” Ty Lee said. Prince Zuko gave her an irritated look; she only gazed at him innocently until he sighed and looked away.

“She had been taken prisoner on the front lines and brought to Ba Sing Se to be, er…tortured. For — for Fire Nation secrets,” he said.

“Why would they think an ordinary girl would have Fire Nation secrets?” Mai said.

“It’s not like Fire Nation citizens are easy to kidnap!” he snapped. “She might not know any vital information about the nation, but it was probably better than nothing!”

“Well, sorry for asking,” Mai said, rolling her eyes at him once again. It seemed her fuse was particularly shorter when it came to him, not that it had ever appeared to be particularly long to begin with.

“Do you think they got anything out of her?” Ty Lee said, in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the subject and break the tension. Prince Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” he said.

“I guess not. Not now that Ba Sing Se is ours and the rest of the Earth Kingdom has all but fallen,” Ty Lee said.

“Right. Even if they found out anything from her, it didn’t help them in the end,” he said.

“What should we do with her?” Ty Lee said. “Poor girl, she doesn’t even know her lefts from her rights!”

“Uh, I do know that much…” you interjected. Ty Lee paid you no mind, continuing to speak to Prince Zuko like you weren’t there.

“She can’t live in the palace like this forever!” she said. “But she’s like a blind little child, alone in the world. Where can she even go?”

Prince Zuko looked at you, and then he exhaled heavily. You swallowed, waiting for his judgment, knowing that he now held your life in his hands, wondering what he would decide, wondering what fate was in store for you. For Ursa. Since you both were one and the same, after all.

“Send her to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. They’ll teach her what she needs to know to be a proper Fire Nation girl,” he said.

“She’s not a noblewoman, though,” Mai said.

“Do you think the headmistress will argue with me if I say I want her admitted?” Prince Zuko shot back, though there was a tinge of insecurity, a questioning undercurrent, like he really wasn’t sure if he would get away with it or not.

“Nope,” Ty Lee said. “But do you think she — Ursa — can handle it? I mean, we were there, right, Mai? You remember how it was.”

“It’s a tough environment,” Mai agreed. You could tell what she was thinking: what place did a girl who came to the palace covered in bandages and glass, in the arms of a once-banished prince, have in a royal academy? “She’ll be eaten alive there.”

“And what if someone challenges her to an Agni Kai?” Ty Lee said. “Do you think she could win that? Is she that good at bending?”

“She’s not a Firebender,” Prince Zuko said.

“Why was she on the front lines if she’s not even a Firebender?” Mai said before pausing. “Never mind. I don’t feel like listening to your dramatics when you explain. But, you know, she’ll struggle that much more without bending to protect her.”

Prince Zuko’s face settled into a pensive mask of thought before he lit up, brandishing his pointer finger as if he’d come up with the idea of the century. Mai did not look amused, though Ty Lee seemed fascinated by what he might say.

“Ty Lee! You ran away from school to join the circus, right?” he said. Ty Lee went from looking fascinated to nervous, but she nodded.

“Yes, but I’m back now, so I don’t know why you’re bringing that up,” she said.

“My sister doesn’t have any immediate need for you,” he said, eyes gleaming. “Maybe it’s time you finally finish your education for good.”

“You want me to go back to the Royal Fire Academy?” Ty Lee repeated. Prince Zuko nodded.

“Yes, that’s right. You can watch out for her,” he said, jabbing his pointer finger at you.

“What will Azula say?” Ty Lee said.

“It’ll be fine,�� Mai said. “If she needs you, you can just take a vacation from school or something. It’s better that you do this than laze around the palace.”

“I don’t want to be a burden,” you said quietly, speaking up of your own volition for the first time. “To anyone. I’m just grateful that you saved me, Prince Zuko. The rest of it is unnecessary. You don’t need to force the royal academy to accept me, and you don’t need to make Ty Lee come just to watch out for me. It’s enough that I’m alive. I can make my own life from here.”

“You don’t know anything. How can you expect to make a new life when you don’t even remember the one you’ve had until this point?” he said.

“I suppose there might be some benefit to Ursa going to school,” Mai added. “As long as she can survive the academy, it’ll be good for her. She can get caught up on everything she doesn’t remember, and it’ll be in an environment where her classmates are the children of the Fire Nation elite, so she can make further connections with people in high places.”

“Maybe she can find someone who has a brother she can date!” Ty Lee said, swooning.

“No!” Prince Zuko said. You all gave him strange looks; when he noticed, he turned a red as bright as his garb. “It wouldn’t be proper. You know, since you’ll be attending in my name and all; if you date anyone, it’ll reflect on me. So you can only date the people I approve of.”

“Alright. If that’s what you think is best,” you said. The last thing you wanted was to make things difficult for the boy who had, by all accounts, saved your life.

“I do,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Mai said from the corner. “You know, Ty Lee, this reminds me of when Azula took us to the zoo that one time.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess it does!” Ty Lee said, covering her mouth with her hand as she giggled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Prince Zuko said.

“Is there a zoo nearby?” you said. “I don’t remember ever going to one. I’d like to visit, if it’s possible.”

“I’ll take you!” Ty Lee said. “When we have a break from school and classes and all.”

“So you’ll go with her?” Prince Zuko said. Ty Lee huffed.

“I don’t really have much of a choice, do I? Besides, I’m sure Azula will be happy to hear I’m pursuing my education in my downtime instead of just doing nothing. And you know I’d do anything to make her happy!” she said before cartwheeling over to where you were still situated in your bed, throwing her arms around you affectionately. “We’re going to be classmates, Ursa!”

“I look forward to it,” you said genuinely. Ty Lee tapped you on the forehead.

“Me too!” she said.

“You are?” Mai said. “I don’t remember you ever liking the school, Ty Lee.”

“I don’t,” she said, abruptly wilting. “Everyone was so mean there. But my parents will probably be happy, and at least I’ll get to spend more time with Ursa! Maybe I’ll be the only one around when she regains her memories, and I’ll get to hear her story in her own words first.”

“For the sake of the prince’s mental wellbeing, let’s hope that’s not the case,” Mai said. Prince Zuko did not even respond, too busy inspecting the glass on your bedside to rise to the barb.

“Fine, then,” he said. “Make sure she’ll have everything she needs to attend the academy.”

“Which one of us was that pleasantly worded command directed towards?” Mai said.

“Whichever one of you has the time to do it, I guess,” he said. “This is the glass that came with her?”

“Yes. On the subject, why’d you go and collect so much of it? What a waste of time that must’ve been,” Mai said.

“I don’t know,” Prince Zuko said, sweeping the glass into the small bag lying on the ground by the nightstand. “I thought it might be important in healing her or something. I mean, you know, how could the healers understand what they were pulling out of her unless they saw it?”

Mai did not seem to believe him, but to your surprise, she did not question him further on the topic, only nodding. Maybe she respected him just a bit more than you had thought, though considering your original hypothesis had not exactly been favorable for the prince, this didn’t mean much.

“Where are you taking that?” she said instead, motioning towards the bag. “To dispose of it?”

“Yeah,” Prince Zuko said. “I’ll have it taken to the incinerator.”

You felt a twinge in your stomach. “Do you have to?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he said.

“That glass is my only link to who I was before. Even if it was a bad memory, at least that memory was mine,” you explained. “I — I know it’s strange, but I feel like if you destroy it, you’ll destroy me, in some sense.”

“Ursa…” Ty Lee said, helplessly sympathetic, grasping your hands in her own. “It’s just glass. It can’t tell you anything about yourself, besides the fact that you were hurt during the fall of Ba Sing Se.”

“Your royal highness,” you beseeched Prince Zuko, who shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably at the title. “I know you have already done so much for me, so it is in bad taste for me to ask you for another favor, but please do not send that glass to be burnt away. Please save it. At least until I remember why it was there in the first place.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “It’s waste material. Nothing good will come of you keeping it. Nothing at all will.”

“I just—” you began before breaking off. “Never mind. I’m sorry for asking.”

“Zuko, maybe you should just do it,” Mai said.

“Leave it, Mai,” Ty Lee said. “He’s made up his mind. Even we can’t change it once he’s like this.”

Both of them looked at him, but he only picked up the bag and tucked it under his arm.

“I’m leaving now,” he said. “Don’t come after me.”

The door slammed shut behind him, leaving you alone in the room with Mai and Ty Lee. Both of them seemed sorry, and actually, unlike what you had expected, Mai was the first to speak up.

“I’m sorry, Ursa,” she said. “He’s always been the temperamental sort.”

“It’s okay,” you said, still unused to being referred to as Ursa, even if it was the name you had supposedly bore for your entire life. “He and Ty Lee are right, after all. It’s just glass. Trash. What use could I really derive from something like that? If that’s all that’s left of my old life, then maybe I’m better off not remembering at all.”

“You don’t really believe that,” Mai said. “But if it makes you feel better, we won’t argue, right, Ty Lee?”

“Hm? No, we won’t,” Ty Lee said.

“What’s gotten you all distracted?” Mai said. Ty Lee shook her head.

“It’s nothing. By the way, can you help me pack for the academy? I’m worried I’ll forget something,” she said.

“That, or you want me to do it all for you,” Mai said.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that!” Ty Lee said.

“I’m just joking,” Mai said, but since her voice remained that same steady deadpan, it was hard to tell. “Yes, I’ll help you, and I’ll get things ready for Ursa, too. That way she can leave as soon as Zuko gets her admitted into the academy. Let’s be honest — the sooner she can get out of here, the better.”

“That’s true,” Ty Lee said, though when she noticed your downcast expression, she rushed to reassure you. “Don’t feel bad!”

“It’s not a problem. I understand; you’ve already wasted so much time and so many resources on taking care of me. It’s only logical that you’d want me gone,” you said.

“It’s not like that,” Mai said. “There’s just people in this palace that you’d be better off never meeting. It’ll be good if you can get out before you have that displeasure. That’s all.”

“I see,” you said. “Then thank you once again for doing your best to look out for me.”

“We’ll leave you alone for a bit,” she said. “I’m sure this has all been a lot to process, so it’ll be good for you to come to terms with it on your own time.”

“Bye, Ursa! See you soon!” Ty Lee said.

“Bye,” you said, though your farewell was lacking much of her cheer. Even if Mai was right, you didn’t really want to sit alone. You had nothing to think about or do in the solitude, so what good would you gain from it? But you could hardly beg them to stay, not when you did not know them and they did not know you, so you only watched as they left you sitting by yourself in silence.

It was only when the moon was high in the sky that your door creaked open once more. You were still awake — you had been having trouble getting to sleep, so you had tentatively begun to walk around your room, testing your legs, familiarizing yourself with the motions of walking once more. When you heard footsteps, though, you immediately grew still, hoping that the visitor would be someone you recognized and not someone with more nefarious intentions.

You had been expecting, or perhaps hoping, that it would be Mai or Ty Lee, but to your surprise, it was Prince Zuko. He was not wearing armor, and his hair was loose and messy around his face, but there was no doubt that it was him.

“How much do you really remember?” he said without formality or even a greeting. “Hey. Tell me the truth, at least.”

“What do you mean?” you said. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“I mean, have you really forgotten everything?” he said.

“Yes,” you said. “There’s nothing but a vast darkness whenever I try to look back at the time before I woke up here. I don’t remember a single thing about myself. I didn’t even know my name until you said it.”

He cocked his head at you, trying to discern if you were being truthful, and eventually he must’ve come to some conclusion, because he just buried his face in his hands.

“Okay,” he said.

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” you said.

“It depends on who you’re asking,” he said. “And if you’re telling the truth.”

“I am!” you said.

“I believe you,” he said.

“Well…” you said. “There is one thing. Sometimes, in between the darkness, I’ll see something blue. I don’t know what it might represent, but I know that it’s there. It’s the only other thing I can recall — that precise shade like jewel-paint.”

“That could be anything,” he said.

“Yes, I know that,” you said. “That’s why I wouldn’t have even mentioned it ordinarily. Maybe something important to me was that color, or maybe there was just a blue tapestry on the wall where I was injured. There’s no concrete explanation, but I wanted you to know the full truth.”

“So that’s it, then,” he said.

“I suppose it is. On another subject, do you really mean to have me attend the Royal Fire Academy for Girls?” you said.

“You’ve already been accepted,” he said. “You’ll go. It’ll be alright.”

“Mai and Ty Lee didn’t seem to think so,” you said.

“You’re stronger than both of them, by far,” he said. “If they survived, you will, too.”

“Yet I’m the one that was captured,” you reminded him. “I don’t see how that makes me the stronger between us.”

A ghost of a smile flashed over his face. “You may not believe it, but at least to me, you are.”

“Did you know me very well, then, to be saying that with such confidence?” you said. “Before you found me that day? Were — were we friends?”

You didn’t want to say anything else, for it seemed presumptuous, but friends was close enough to what you were really asking that you figured the prince would understand.

It seemed that he did, but he did not appreciate the implication, for his face closed off and his posture grew withdrawn. Turning away from you, he pursed his lips.

“No,” he said. “We weren’t anything. You didn’t know me, and I didn’t know you. I only saved you because — because you and my mother share a name. That’s all.”

“It’s strange,” you said. “That name doesn’t even feel like it’s my own. Is it the amnesia that causes such a phenomenon?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But you shouldn’t overthink it. Have fun at the Royal Fire Academy, Ursa. I’ll give you a messenger hawk; write to me frequently. And — and if you remember anything…”

“If I remember anything?” you prodded.

“Tell me first,” he said. “Not Ty Lee. Not anyone else. Me.”

#zuko x reader #zuko x y/n #zuko x you #zuko #avatar the last airbender #atla #reader insert #the glass princess #canon au #m1ckeyb3rry writes

[infinitethree]

VIO! MY FIRST EVER FAVOURITE HELLO!! I find your hatred for water very interesting, given that all life here needs it, so you must be very alien indeed!

I love your thought processes, by the way. You're spite is very entertaining! A very smart and calculating individual- I think you're only rivaled by one other mind I've seen!

Would you like to see an artistic rendition of yourself by your's truly? With artistic liberties of course- and you're tail isn't quite right, I misunderstood the description. I've already shared it, of course, but I'm quite interested in your reaction in particular!

Vio squints up into the air, earning a questioning noise from Aryll, who sits in his favorite overstuffed armchair in the alien’s living room.

“A…question, sort of,” he says, slowly.

Aryll perks up, tail flicking curiously. “Sort of? What do you mean, sort of?”

The alien grimaces, trying to figure out how to explain the message he got. “It’s…a fan letter? I think?”

His not-son immediately breaks into a cackle so intense that he seems to be struggling to breathe.

“Since– how do you have fans?!”

Vio rolls his eyes and throws a small pillow at him. “Thanks, menace.” “You’re spending too much time with Day,” Aryll accuses, still giggling.

Zinn, Aver, and Toma emerge from downstairs. Aver is yawning, Zinn teasing him, “You'd think you haven’t slept in days.”

“I've been fuckin’ busy! Trade shit, getting new fuckin’ manufacturing methods up, starting to figure out orders for the Christmas ball– list is fuckin’ endless,” Aver whines.

Zinn squints up at the ceiling in a manner nearly identical to how Vio looked just a few minutes ago.

Toma asks, “You got a question?” Zinn hums, nodding a few times.

“...So, I'm gonna take that as a joke,” the Tubbo slowly says. “And not as you being a dick.”

He looks over to Aryll and relays, “Wants to know why you decided to be a doctor.”

Aryll perks up, his tail flicking with interest. “Oh! Well, it’s because of not-Dad. I saw him help others, and more specifically help Toma with knowledge…and I decided I wanted to do that, too. And it was a big help, once people started coming back.”

Aver flops down on the couch, and Zinn follows suit. Toma sprawls over both of their laps, getting a little laugh from all of them.

Aver's expression falls at the message he gets.

He's heard about the partially redacted message that Atlas got. Just like his friend had described, this one has something very blatantly covered up.

Atlas’ was just a brief blip. This one, though? It sounds like the bulk of the message has been replaced by static.

It sounds a lot like a TV that's been left on but isn't displaying anything.

“Uncle Aver?” Toma reaches up and touches his shoulder, breaking him from his thoughts. He sounds worried.

He smiles, ruffling the patchy hair on the zombie piglin’s head. “S’ fine, big man; just a weird thing.” Louder, sort of directed to the ceiling, he says, “Dunno what you wanted to say, couldn't hear most of it. Try again?”

OOC::

Here's the full question, for reference:

#asked&answered #cocochaos #long post #doctorviolet #TailorAver #TubboPrime #RanbooPrime #Toma #I need to do better tags for them uhg

[lilbagdermole]

Man, I am so glad to have found your blog! Honestly, your complaints about Toph in the comics were true and full of gold. I totally agree, and those loser fakes known as Bryke(I'm not holding back, yo!) are so unkind to her character! X( I just...ugh!! I can go on a rant, but dang, I need to say that you're awesome for saying it like it is! :D And I'm also a Taang fan as well! Fistbump! XD

Oh, thank you so much!!

I absolutely adore your blog as well (please, I spent my afternoon going through your posts 🤫) and I'm so glad to know that someone enjoys my rants over the horrendous characterization in the ATLA comics.

I just wrote an entire post on the first part of 'The Rift' if you'd like to give it a look. I still can't believe that these comics are canon; in my honest opinion the only canon I accept is the show. The characters are so OOC in these comics that it makes fanfiction look like fine art...

And please, rant! I love talking about this with people and I'd be more than happy to here your thoughts!

AND YOU HAVE EXQUISITE TASTE!! TAANG SUPERIORITY!!

#lilbadgermoleask

[phtalogreenpoison]

I saw you reblogged the post about your followers getting to know you better. My question, is now that you have an AO3 do you have any fun fic ideas for the future (or head canons you want to expand on)?

Boy oh boy :)

Yes I do! So for MBS, I have

still one more Reynie analysis post on his different friendships, trust in people, a couple riddle of ages things, and mostly headcanons of queercoding

Reynie as Curtain’s prodigy, where he answered an ad to go to the Institute instead of seeing Mr. Benedict's puzzle ad and going from there as a kind of for want of a nail, but like he's significantly more fucked up because, ya know, hey

AU of that version where he got there by betraying his friends mid-mission and going down that path for what he believes is the best reason. This may be slightly OOC, but I think it would make a fascinating character study

Bipolar Number Two one shot, which I published already. I don't have much more on this, which is why I already posted it, but it is something close to my heart.

Grill dad milligan versus baker moocho on an at home date plus the rest of the society trickling in and tasting all of the food

My main moocho and milligan fic that I have already outlined on here, but I would probably post more as vignettes (because I am far more of a short-form writer), which would include – milligan and moocho being the best dads to kate (plus coparenting), kate trying to set up a date for them but everything goes wrong, milligan and grief as well as mental illness and how this has affected his life, house husband moocho being wholesome, milligan remembering being bi after the first book when he regains his memories, kate or reynie babysitting constance after the third book (but how they still treat her as an equal), reynie and sticky being cute and realizing they're bi, kate being genderqueer and her discovery of that

Other than that, I have a few fic ideas for Bungo Stray Dogs, which center on a sibling like character to Dazai, and then I also have the ATLA crossover that I detailed a while back with BTS and TXT. :))))

#mbs #ask! #thank you so much! #this was fun #and i like to share ideas #and if anyone gets ideas from this lmk!

[crazywolf828]

please go outside and cleanse your mind from writing weird ass porn. think about it. you badically write teenage cartoon porn on a basis. (rwby) you obviously have an obsession and need to stop thinking of these fictional characters bedding eachother. all these, 'kinks' and 'tropes' youre writing for is really harmful and honestly really offending. i truly truly hate all of what youve wrote. ive read a few, and unsurprisingly your interpretation of blake and yang are also ass. it makes me laugh so hard. im sorry. like, i dont think you realize how ooc you write them, and it annoys me because its not the hot shit you think it is. you need more substance in your stories. literally all you write is cock, balls and pussy. like, i feel like everytime i try reading what you've posted on ao3 i want to rip out my eyeballs and forget all of it. im being a hater right now but honesty is my best trait. your booty fics flood the bumbleby tag here on tumblr AND on ao3 jesus im sick of seeing your cornball ass name. go find something else to do, or maybe, just delete yourself from the internet and stop posting fics.

Oh wow it's been a hot second since I've gotten hate this long, fucking hilarious. So first off, they are adults. In the show by the time they get to Atlas, they are adults. I am not, and will not write nsfw of underaged characters. Second, yeah I know it's ooc for a lot of them but like also, how do you know? It's hard to write kinky shit for characters when you've never seen them in that situation and you don't know how kinky they are. As for the tags... I suppose I could ease up for kinktober, a fic every few days is rough I can see that, but also you can just block me on ao3 and Tumblr! Curate your experience instead of bitching about it! Or, I tag every fic on here with 'my fic' and 'don't mind me' so block both those tags too like? And like why do you keep reading them if you've already established you don't like them??? So wild.

EDIT: I'm also realizing you've probably only read my kinktober fics which, tbf are supposed to be kinky. Go read my packer fics, or my transmasc yang fic, or the body worship fics, or the multiple multichapter fics that have actual plot. Like hell, one has over 600 kudo's (which is still wild) so yeah I do have plenty of plot based fics, you just didn't look for them. Literally look at my pinned post if you want to see them. They're right there.

I mean, I did well enough that a person who hates the bees loved my angst band oneshot so clearly I'm doing decently enough.

Anyway "cornball ass name" and "delete yourself from the internet" are terrible insults, try better next time! :)

#one day yall will beat urbanite subhuman #my brand was smut now its cock balls and pussy😎 #fuck off dude curate your space #god this is hilarious #'delete yourself' they say #what a pathetic attempt to tell me to kill myself #its funny that you think thisll affect me #man youll hate tomorrow's prompt #you need more substance they say like bro fuck off #ive written enough multichapter aus #don't mind me #answered #ask #anon #also its funny i dont think ive literally ever mentioned balls in my fics now that i think about it #wold

[hol-whore]

here’s the other jolyne fic i’ve been working on since like.,,, early november/late october? it’s long. boy howdy is it long. but it’s soft! hopefully!

jolyne x fem s/o – delicate

You and Jolyne have a late night adventure.

what’s on the menu: 4.8k words, fluff AND smut that i like to call “sugar, spice, and everything nice!”, tender emotions, eating out (no-pun-intended), and a jolyne who loves to tease. because i’m gay.

“-and then, you wouldn’t believe it, she ACTUALLY ate it.”

“No joke?” “No joke.” Jolyne promises with a smirk, slurping down the last of her soda and setting the now empty cup down on the table gingerly. She leans back and drapes an arm over the back of the booth as best she can, turning her head to look out the window with a sigh and observing the dimly lit empty parking lot outside.

The tacky fast food joint you and your girlfriend were holed up in was never super busy, and 1 AM on a Friday morning was obviously no exception. Not that either of you had anything to complain about; being the only people in the small establishment just meant anything you talked about was between the two of you and whatever poor employee overheard your wild conversations.

You watch as she reaches her arms above her head to adjust one of her buns and brush a section of her bangs out of her face. The hem of her already short shirt rides up past her belly button, revealing faint abs and stopping just before the shelf of her chest, and the muscles in her strong arms flex as she tugs her hair into place. You stick your straw in your mouth in a desperate attempt to distract yourself from staring. 

It was futile, really — you knew that. The pink blush already dusting your cheeks was all Jolyne needed to even decide you’d been staring, and of course she took advantage of it immediately. A whisper of a grin crosses her features before she gives an exaggerated yawn and stretches both arms far above her, even leaning back in her booth slightly for emphasis, earning you an excellent view for just a moment.

“Aw, well,” she sighs, a low grunt forming in her throat once she brings her arms back down, “that wasn’t a totally shitty midnight snack, but we can’t stay here all night.” 

“Do we...need to go home now?” you ask softly as Jolyne slides out from her side of the booth and cocks an eyebrow. “I mean. Not really? But plush blankets sound better than pleather burger joint seats...” “No! I didn’t — I didn’t mean we stay here, I just meant… I’m not really ready to go back yet, is all.” 

There wasn’t anything wrong with home; frankly, you preferred being home far more than anywhere else around. And since home, lately, had been ‘Jolyne’s place while her dad was away for work’, well…it was safe to say home was more than ideal. 

There was just something about the liminal late-night-early-morning hours that soothed your heart. It felt like time stopped once the sun set, possibilities were suddenly endless, nothing stood between you and living a little. 

It was freedom --- freedom you relished in, and freedom you wanted to share with the love of your life.

Jolyne gives a short, breathy chuckle, taking your hand as you leave your booth before dropping a satin kiss on your cheek and fishing her keys out from her pants pocket with the other. “Fair enough. I’ve got somethin’ I wanna do, anyway,” she says fondly, then gives your hand a squeeze as the two of you head back to the car.

You have no idea what she has in mind. All your prodding and pleading is met with a quick smile and glance as your girlfriend works through the streets towards the edge of town, music turned up to a comfortable volume and the windows rolled down just so.

Knowing further questions are pointless, you shift your attention to watching lights outside roll by, muttering the words of whatever dorky pop song was playing on the static-ridden radio under your breath. Jolyne all too often catches herself looking past her shoulder to your spot on the passenger side, sometimes for maybe a bit too long. The way your hair whips back in the breeze of the open window and the way your eyes squint on occasion pulls on her heartstrings, a loving ache building up in her chest as she watches you by the light of passing street lamps. You were so, so dear to her, and you drove her crazy with the tiniest of gestures, intended or not.

She grins wide, turning her attention back to the road fully to turn onto a gravelly road only labeled “Orange Gardens Park” and reaches over to place her hand on your thigh. “Almost there, baby. Look familiar?” she says, her voice a song on the wind as she gives the swell of your leg a loving squeeze. 

It was familiar  —  this was the same park she dragged you out to the night she’d kissed you by something that seemed like an accident, the night she fessed up her love and you’d found yourselves closer with each other than ever. The sentiment makes your breath catch in your throat, and your mind fogs up with the memory as you follow her out of the car to find somewhere to settle.

———

“That is NOT Orion. Lookit — no belt.” “....whatever. It’s close enough. We’ll call him… Orion II.”

Jolyne snorts, rolling into to your side as the two of you lay in the grass on the blanket she kept in her car for picnics and random adventures like these. She drapes her arm over your abdomen and presses yet another kiss against your cheek, this time yawning in your ear and kissing the corner of your jaw. “You’re hilarious, baby. A real riot. One helluva comedian.” she muses sleepily, then nuzzles her face against the side of your neck. 

You feel your heart warm as you relish in the gentle comfort of feeling her breath against your skin, and the softness of her teasing voice. It was a different kind of teasing from the feisty jabs she usually directed towards others, this kind instead tinted with a quiet adoration. 

The warmth in your chest washes over the rest of your body as you shift your shoulder under Jolyne’s head and bring your arm around her back to run your hands through her hair, thankful she’d taken her usual buns out before laying down with you. You loved how cute they were on her, but you felt bad trying to maneuver your fingers through the taut strands between them. It never hurt her — you just figured it was uncomfortable. Jolyne leans into the gesture, sighing happily and gently brushing her thumb across your stomach a couple times. 

Shit. She really was something else.

The calm stillness of the night and the comfort of Jolyne next to you tempt you towards sleep, and the only thing that whisks it away is a whisper breaking the quiet between you.

“...you’re wonderful. Y’know that, right? Do I say it enough?” she murmurs, voice cracking slightly from trying to hold a low volume.

Jolyne wasn’t exactly known for being romantic or delicate, but you and anyone close to her knew she could be as sweet as she is tough and spontaneous. Loud grocery store trips with you had the same place in her heart as holding you in bed, heart raw with emotion merely over the bond you shared. Today just must’ve been one of those days.

“Only multiple times everyday,” you giggle, rolling on your side to face her better and pressing a kiss to her nose before she can stop you.

“Noooo, listen, you mean the world to me. Honestly. I...I dunno what I’d do without you, and I don’t like thinkin’ about it. You just get me, and you make me happy, a-and when I’m with you there’s this grip around my heart that makes me wanna do anything and everything for you.” She sounded almost shy; she did frequently express her love, but rarely ever in such a raw manner. “Oh, Jojo....” You think for a moment, trying to find words to match hers. “You’re so comforting to be around, and you’re always so enthusiastic and determined and I feel li-” You’re interrupted by the force of soft, waxy lips smushed against your own, the shock of it almost knocking the wind out of you. She tastes faintly of her cherry coke from earlier, and the scent of bubblegum lipstick and the jasmine perfume she steals from you clouds around her like a sweet mist. It’s messy at first, the grogginess of you both not exactly mixing well, but that doesn’t last long. 

There’s a pause, and Jolyne pulls away with a soft apology for the sudden gesture then props herself up on her elbow and rolls you off your side and onto your back for ease of access. 

She plants a light kiss to your forehead, then scoots in closer to the side of you of you gingerly, one arm sitting to the side of your head to hold herself up while the other cups your face. You lean into her hand and sigh happily, losing yourself to the romance of it all. 

Her laying over you like this always did something to you --- it was so incredibly tender and intimate, her soft gaze ever-adoring, both of you finding comfort and warmth in each other’s eyes. And simply by the gentle smile on her face, you could tell she was thinking something along the same lines. 

She leans in after a bit with renewed energy, the glaze over her eyes washing away as she breaks from her own romantic thoughts, and ruffles your hair as she kisses your lips. It starts as a handful of small smooches, but quickly melts into something more like a make out session.

“Mm, Jojo,” you mumble between sugary kisses, earning her attention, “where’s all this coming from? You were falling asleep mere moments ago.” She pulls away, and you faintly see her roll her eyes in the pale starlight before a more crooked grin spreads across her face, and the hand cupping your cheek moves down to rest on your stomach.

God, she was so cute. 

“Dunno. Guess you just tend to have that effect on me, babe. C’mere, I’m not done,” she whispers. Her voice is laced with sleepy romance as she brings your mouths together again, struggling through her wide smile.

Her teeth graze against your bottom lip in a gentle bite. The hand on your stomach eventually roams elsewhere, first dropping to trace underneath the waistband of your pants and pausing when you whine in response. Jolyne breaks away from your kiss, pride written plainly on her flushed face, hand drawing back up slightly. A brief, teasing laugh falls from her mouth at your reaction, and you suddenly feel very hot. 

“Whoops. How’d that happen?”

The question isn’t genuine, of course. She knew how to push your buttons, and she knew just when to push them. It turns out all of the love talk and minute gestures tonight had you feeling a stir somewhere deep inside yourself — and as far as you could guess, Jolyne was feeling it too. 

She looks towards her hand as she scruffs the faint tuft of hair beneath your belly button, humming with fond satisfaction and muttering a quiet “so cute” under her breath, and you watch with careful curiosity as she sits up. Jolyne shakes her arms out a bit, then turns and stretches her leg over you, situating herself on the lower part of your torso and locking you in a straddle. She rocks ever so slightly, aiming to get comfy, and heats up at the feeling of your raised knees pressing your thighs against her back. Ginger hands brush hair from your face, and Jolyne looks thoughtful as she stares down at you.

“Is this, uh. Is this alright? Comfy? W-We can go sit in the car instead, or just skip it altogether, it’s just,” she breathes, somewhat fragile, followed by a weak laugh punctuated by her hands holding yours yet again, “I can’t seem to keep my hands off tonight.”

You flush, and only muster a nod before Jolyne is upon you, a soft smile almost immediately gracing her features as she leans down to kiss your forehead and slides her hands up your sides, thumbs firmly pressing into the underside of your breasts, and you decide you don’t regret not wearing a bra before going out earlier. She gives them a gentle push, and you feel slick between your thighs when she pulls your shirt up to your shoulders. You groan ever so quietly, and Jolyne - bright eyes taking in every bit of you, loving your reactions - almost growls at the sound. 

She mostly delights herself in just admiring your body, at first. You feel rightfully exposed under her gaze, but in a way that you welcome warmly. She traces every contour of your body with her curious, fiery gaze, frequently coming to rest on your chest. The hunger in her eyes in undeniable and, damn, was it hot.

“Look at you, baby. I live for all this,” she praises after a beat, and her hand drags over your sternum and then slides a finger down the valley of your chest. You shudder at the sensation, your back arching in a small wave. She grins once again, then runs her hand back up your sides and across your collarbones, slow and tantalizing. “You’re just so gorgeous and sensitive… ooh, and I bet you’re dripping wet already, too, huh? Just from having my hands on you?”

Fuck, that got you. 

Your hand, resting lightly on her hip, tenses some and it does not go unnoticed. 

“Wh-What on earth makes you think you already have me that bothered,” you grumble, practically posing a statement instead of a question. In truth, you weren’t sure how to respond to her — but you could make a pretty good guess, considering how your time together had been going. She had you wrapped around her pretty fingers. “You’ve barely started. It’s been mostly sappy talk till now.”

Jolyne cocks her brow, then scoffs as lovingly as one can. “I know how you are, cutie. You make short work of yourself waaay before I can really touch you,” she stops for a moment, then something crosses her face before asking, smug and unrelenting, “Now, is that an invitation for me to investigate?” Her shoulder rolls slightly to reach back, threatening to search for your core somewhere beneath her. 

Without thinking, you shift a little under her and make a desperate grab for her hand to fill the now-chilly empty space on your chest again before she can make it very far. A dangerous smirk spreads over her face.

“Ooh, needy. So that’s how it is today, hmm?” she taunts, bringing her hand forward again and ghosting a thumb over your hardening nipples. She rubs a gentle circle over it a couple times, then finishes it off with a sturdy pinch, tugging somewhat. You gasp and buck hopelessly up into her, not finding pressure in the right spot, then you force your hand up to place it over hers as you wince. Jolyne laughs a little, touching your cheek fondly with her other hand. She intertwines her fingers with the hand holding yours for a moment, then lowers herself to your neck.

Jolyne presses a few kisses thereabout, kneading and groping your chest arrhythmically and chuckling when you whine and whimper, then ducks down to wrap color-smudged lips around one of your nipples and sucks gently. You feel her teeth graze the bud on occasion, and every now and then she’ll tease you with the tip of her tongue or push you closer with a soft yet definitive bite. Sometimes she draws away just to kiss or suck on the warm skin around your areola; never enough to seriously bruise, but not rarely leaving a mark. Whichever breast isn’t occupied by her mouth at the time receives the gentle brushing of her thumb over the blossomed bud. She has you hopelessly aroused, tender nipples almost aching from the attention, and you thread your fingers through her hair to get her attention. 

“Jojo, I want you t— “ Shit. She looks up at you with half-lidded, gorgeous eyes and terribly smeared lipstick, moving the attention away from your sore breast after a couple reassuring kisses to any marks she left, and it catches you completely off guard.

“Hmm? You want what, babe? Do I need to back o-”

“No! N-No, please don’t stop, it’s just. I want you to…y’know.”

“I do not, no. But I could probably guess,” Wryly, Jolyne kisses you and brushes her thumb over your lips. “Why don’t you tell me what you want, baby girl, just in case?”

You never had a way with words, and trying to figure out how to tell her to do such lewd things, to touch you more, to eat you out, to slide those beautiful long fingers in you and give you what you need proved to be…well. Difficult, to say the least.

“C-Can you…” Nope. “I need-” Also no. “...touch me?” Yikes.

Jolyne was never big on torturing you, or even being degrading — she loved you a bit too fondly to go that far — but suddenly, you just seemed to be asking for a fair taunting.

“I’m already touching you, sweetheart. C’mon, just tell me.”

You breathe deep, wanting to complain that she knows what you mean, as Jolyne encouragingly strokes your cheek, then grabs your breast and gives your nipple a pinch yet again. A huffy whine escapes your lips, your back arching again just so. Jolyne looks amused.

“I...want your hands on me. I-In me. And I want you to…taste me?”

She raises her eyebrows and smirks. “You want me to taste you?” she asks, pressing for details, “Why, that could mean anything.” With a smug look coating her face, she kisses your cheek. “You taste alright there-”

She was driving you crazy. “Jolyne! Just- just….e-eat me out, please?”

Jolyne looks far too delighted as she kisses your lips one last time and scoffs, a smile still gracing her features. “Pfft. Whore.” Then, thoughtfully, “That makes two of us though.”

You laugh at that, short and distracted. Part of you hated how turned on the whore comment made you; the other part knew that, given the situation, it didn't matter that much. Jolyne eases herself down, settling her hips between your knees after tugging your pants down and off your legs. She presses two fingers against you, feeling you through your underwear, then grins and bites her lip. “Oh my god, you’re adorable. I was right. So, so wet already, huh?”

Knowing her, she was twice as soaked as you were.

Jolyne tugs the fabric of your dampened underwear to the side. She swipes her finger up your entrance a couple times, loving the warmth and wetness of your folds. You were so ready for her, and she loved being the cause for all your pleasure. You feel her thigh and hip tremble slightly farther down your body. Clearly, she was enjoying herself. 

She slides that same finger in slowly, your sex taking her entirely too easily, and after a couple pumps she slips another in and presses her thumb to your clit. You can only gasp, hand darting to her head and gripping a fistful of her hair. Jolyne groans and looks up to your face. 

“Someone’s having fun,” she practically sings. Her fingers curl just so and search for that spot that absolutely wrecks you; and Jolyne knows damn well when she finds it. 

Your thighs tense and you can't stop the moan falling from your lips, followed only by a breathy whine. Her fingers working a bit rougher at the sound, Jolyne winces and pants somewhat. “That’s a good girl, yes please, baby doll,” she says dreamily. Her mind was getting ever so hazy, and she was hopelessly wet from watching you squirm and hearing every noise you made.

You feel her buck into nothing between your legs upon hearing another of your moans and the lewd, sloppy sounds of her fingers pumping through you, and she's shifting uncomfortably for a moment after. Through lidded eyes, you watch her pull her fingers out, suck on them briefly, then take a moment to bring her hand to her own region and grind against it briefly.

“God, if I had my strap,” she huffs, voice dripping with lust as she finally pulls your underwear down and off, then settles in once more with her head at your waist, “it would be Smashville for you, babe. One way ticket.”

You laugh through labored breaths and roll your eyes, then spread your legs and reach forward to touch her head. “Th-That's the lamest thing you’ve ever said,” you mutter. Her fine hands slide under you, rounding the space between your thighs and ass. She winks up at you and bumps her shoulders in a half shrug. “And yet, here you are, still seconds from doing the splits ‘cuz your legs are so wide.”

…She had a point.

Jolyne breathes deep, then presses a handful of slow, full kisses to your inner thighs, inching closer towards your entrance with each one but never quite getting close enough. Each kiss drives you closer to an invisible edge, and you squirm and gasp when she pauses right next to your slot to kiss even deeper before moving to the other thigh. It’s obvious Jolyne is smiling more and more as she goes along; your heart swells at the intimacy of it all.

Just as she inches close again, you groan loud and gasp her name, and your legs shift to make room for her face, expecting her to move on. A beat skips, and Jolyne suddenly makes a frustrated noise and presses her face into one of your thighs. It’s oddly endearing, but still startling and concerning, and you have to stop the giggle in your throat to check on her.

“J-Jojo, is everything-”

Another groan.

Then, a muffled something.

“...what?”

She tilts her head to look at you from your thigh, a smile spread from ear to ear. “You’re just so fucking cuuute! Shit dude, I dunno, I haven’t even gotten that far and I’m trying to focus on going down on you, but you keep being adorable and I can’t stop smiling! Cut it out!”

Of course that’s a problem.

“What? I didn't do-”

One of Jolyne’s hands slip out from under you, dramatically covering her mouth as she rolls to one side somewhat, her eyes squinting shut. She moans out loud through her hand, whiny and mocking. “‘Mm, Jolyne! Oh, ahh, no, Jojo, please!’”

“I do NOT sound like that.” you grumble, flushed face heating up further at her theatrics.

“You literally just did it, baby. Not to mention -- I am very acquainted with what you sound like.” She looks more proud of herself than she ever has before, then her face softens as she slips her hand back around your thigh and preps herself to enter again. “Ready, sweetheart?” she asks, patting your leg somewhat and kissing under your belly button.

You nod, aching to finally feel her tongue against you. Jolyne takes a breath, then presses a light kiss to your clit followed by a dart of her tongue. Electricity courses through you, but before you can process it further, she continues. Her tongue laps just against the outside of your folds, faint and gentle and teasing, and it has you shuddering and gripping the blanket laid out on the grass. 

One, two, three more light licks, the best kisses she can manage along the vertical, a brief kiss then suckle on your clit. When you jerk in her direction, she gives your clit just a couple more indulgent small, quick licks. Her hands grip your hips as she angles your pelvis up just enough and draws you closer to her. 

You feel your mind pass the hazy stage and go straight to absent as Jolyne finally dips her tongue in you, the shallow depth entirely too exciting. She grunts and moans, something that sounds like it got mixed with a snicker on the way out, and you move to grab her hair again. The work her tongue is doing has you feeling like you're on another planet. 

Each incoherent shape made with the flicks of her tongue, each break for a long, slow lick, each time her nose bumps your clit-- they drive you mad. Anytime you moan than a whisper or call her name you feel Jolyne fight a smile. She hits a particularly good stroke and you cry out louder than you anticipate, and when she sends vibrations through you with the snicker she lets out by accident you feel twice as wet as you did before. 

Somewhere in you, a familiar string is tightening. You gather the strength to give Jolyne’s head an encouraging rub then clutch her hair again. “H-Hey, Sir Laughs-A-Lot, I’m close-” you manage, your breath heavy. Jolyne hums a response, then pulls herself slightly closer to get in deep. You throw your head back and your thighs clench and you do your best to not squeeze them together and smother Jolyne between your legs as you come hard. Jolyne gives a couple slow, long licks to help you ride your climax out before planting one last small kiss against your folds and pulling herself away from your sex.

Lust and exhaustion lid her darkened eyes, your arousal coating her entire chin. She gives you a wet kiss, then wipes her face with the corner of the blanket and collapses on top of you with her head on your chest. You were both exhausted in the best way possible, and the feeling of Jolyne’s fingers gingerly rubbing your collarbone as she sighs dreamily makes you feel like you could fall asleep right in this park. 

“You did so well, Jojo. Thanks,” you whisper against her hair. You feel her cheek push against your chest in a smile. “Thank you,” Jolyne mutters back, “for the meal. Everything was delicious, chef.” 

Oh god. “If you ever talk about my pussy like it's a five star restaurant meal again, we’re gonna have a problem.”

“Damn, you’re right. We don't have nearly enough money for a wedding anytime soon....” she mumbles, sighing.

You roll your eyes. As much as you hated to admit it, it was really funny; you were just entirely too tired to appreciate it.

The sky above shows a different scene than you remember seeing before your….adventures. Clouds had meandered along their horizons, trudging along like ships at sea. The moon had traveled quite a bit, partially hidden by a dusky cloud, and tree frogs croak and croon from somewhere distant. 

“We should probably get home,” you whisper, dragging your hand across her back and kissing her head. 

Jolyne heaves a dramatic sigh and kisses your collarbone. “Yeah, I guess…I had a great time tonight, baby. Thanks for letting me drag ya out here. We should come back for a picnic or some shit another time when it's light out.” She pauses, and you feel something sly change in her before she even speaks. “We could set up somewhere kinda set apart, have our lunch...mmm, and if it was too hot out we could lose some clothes-” 

Your mind falters imagining it, Jolyne’s sweating, toned body pulling her shirt off to reveal nothing more than a bra and lots of muscle, faux innocence in her eyes when she taunts you with “what’s wrong, baby girl?”, the way her hands would rest on your body after urging you to lose your clothes as well, the inevitable contact between the two of you -- 

“...and you would suck on these pretty tits to keep your mouth shut, and if we got caught…I mean. I’ve been arrested before. It’s not that bad. Might even be worth it.” She winks up at you as if everything she just said wasn't vile and vulgar as all hell. The horrified-yet-intrigued look on your face makes Jolyne smirk, and she pats your stomach twice before sitting up and helping you with your clothes. You gather the blanket in your arms and walk back to the car, a weird sense of calm washing over you both. Jolyne turns the key and grabs your hand, pressing a light kiss against it before putting the car into drive and starting the ride back home.

You knew you would both crash as soon as you got into bed, and in the morning you’d be too tired to do much of anything. Jolyne’s father wasn't due home for a couple of days; you’d have the house to yourselves with no concerns. You wanted to shower with her in the morning, you think, then cuddle up in comfy clothes and sit in each other's arms and Jolyne would come up with some silly game to play or turn on a cheesy horror movie. But for now, all you had was the hum of the engine, the static-ridden radio, and Jolyne’s hand in yours, and you didn't want anything more.

#'atlas this is messy' BIG oh well #jolyne cujoh #jolyne x reader #jjba #jjba fanfic #my writing #not sfw #hmmmm i like this one but nerves #'atlas this is STILL ooc' oh well #i've reread this so many times for clarity and errors askjfhbsjk

[fourtune]

me thinking they were going to reference clover’s death at all in the trailer: 🤡

#( ooc ) #( tbd ) #if you look hard enough #there's probably what's a dead body covered by a sheet #in the one clip #but man #idk what i was thinking #my boy was queerbaited and then killed #oh well #still excited #i'm too old to be so fucking critical about the content i like #it's fine #penny looked ba #girl time in atlas #yang mom and the boys #good good #v8 spoilers

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Creation”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Oh man, oh man, oh man. I think I'll need to steer clear of the general RWBY tags this week, simply because I know the sort of responses I'll see to this episode. From smug celebration at Ironwood's downfall, to bad takes about what makes us human, this episode is a petri dish of sensitive material handled insensitively.

Let’s unpack it, shall we? 

We open on an action that feels like a summery of the last three volumes: a grimm attacks an airship from the front, no doubt killing its pilot, while the other grimm conveniently ignore our heroes, no masking in sight. The group looks a little sad at the destruction around them, but ultimately ignore it because they have bigger, heroic things to do. I could write a whole, additional essay on how the huntsmen code — to protect the people — has been warped and abandoned by our protagonists in their effort to do what they think is right. It's a tale that might have been compelling if only RT knew they were writing it.

We get a shot of Atlas drones unloading the bomb before one is taken out, presumably by Qrow and Robyn. Segueing to Ironwood and the Ace Ops, they're waiting for Penny to arrive, the former carrying a massive gun presumably capable of capturing her. Despite the horror we saw on their faces last episode at the realization that Ironwood would kill Marrow for speaking up, it seems that now the Ace Ops are entirely in agreement with these measures. A week ago the implication was that they fell back in line out of fear, but now Harriet talks passionately about "putting down" the group if they were stupid enough to accompany Penny. "The General gave his terms." Vine sighs at this, but doesn't actively disagree. He's just "retracing the steps that led us here."

So, congratulations on introducing four new characters, not bothering to develop any of them, killing one off while ignoring Qrow's hand in that, and having the other three become all, "Yeah! Mass murder is a perfect solution!" off screen. Marrow is the only one with something resembling development and, as covered in these recaps, that's been pretty badly executed too.

Ironwood sends them to deal with Robyn and Qrow after Winter reappears to "assist" him. That gets quotation marks because most viewers at this point have realized that she's who our two birbs spotted in the elevator. Winter isn't on Ironwood's side anymore, she's just skillfully clearing the field for the final attack. Indeed, we get a moment where she hesitantly brings up the bomb and Ironwood responds that he hopes she's not going to try and talk him out of it. No. Winter doesn't think that's possible. This was her final attempt at peace.

One of the reasons why I think I'll stick to my own blog for a while is because the fandom has a tendency to paint broad personality traits as evil when applied to some characters, yet simultaneously heroic when applied to others, when really it's about how that those traits are used. What I mean is, I've seen a lot of Ironwood critical posts that emphasize how stubborn he is. He thinks he's right and he won't back down. He wont listen to others. He's going through with this plan and if anyone tries to stop him? That's their mistake. Totally evil, right? Except, this is the exact same behavior Ruby displays, particularly in Volumes 6 and 7. She was stubborn about stealing from Argus and continuing the fight to the point where it endangered her and her teammates, to say nothing of the rest of the city. She refused to listen to Qrow, or Ironwood, or the Ace Ops, loudly announcing that she was right about, well, everything. If they didn't agree with her, the options were to leave the group entirely, or fight her. The actual difference here is that the writers have taken Ironwood to an extreme, one that's incredibly easy to understand as bad because it is bad: bombing Mantle has no defense. Ruby pulls the exact same nonsense, it's just not to that same extreme and her actions are followed by scenes that are meant to make us forgive her: a sad look because she didn't mean to get a city attacked by a leviathan grimm, a cry on the staircase because she didn't mean to risk the lives of an entire kingdom... even though she did. Ironwood is the bad guy because he's been written to take specific, OOC actions like shooting unarmed kids. He's not the bad guy because when other characters go, "Don't do this" his response is, "I have to." Because that's been Ruby's motto ever since she "had" to use the Lamp to rip Ozpin’s life story away. RWBY introduced those extreme actions of shooting the youngest in the group (for no reason) and threatening to bomb a city (for no reason) or shooting a councilman (for no reason) because when you remove those you've got a man who looks exactly like our hero. Ironwood's arc has been peppered with these confusing, unpersuasive actions because if you just keep the story as him stubbornly keeping to a plan he thinks will save the world, you're left with the reminder that all Ruby has done lately is stubbornly keep to plans she thinks will save the world. This moment with Winter just highlights how ill thought out Ironwood's descent has been because he does everything Ruby does... with a few, tacked on, “and randomly shoots people!” moments to ensure we understand that he’s definitely evil. No comparison to our heroes here, folks! 

Ironwood is a bad guy now. That’s certain, but he was made that way so the story never had to grapple with the question of what that means for Ruby if we really start condemning things like lying, secrets, stubbornness, or endangering others for the greater good. Well then damn, if we strip away the hypocrisy then she might not be a good person after all. Or the people she’s simplistically labeled as bad might not be the devils Ruby claims they are. 

But that’s a level of nuance RWBY would rather pretend doesn’t exist. 

All of which is highlighted by Ironwood’s reaction to "Penny." He sighs and sags over the gun, immediately putting it aside. With his hand on her shoulder, Ironwood tells her she's "done the right thing." Precisely the same way Ruby would lower Crescent Rose and give someone a smile when they decided to fall in line with her.

Which, of course, is the moment when Emerald reveals herself, dispelling the Penny illusion and revealing Team JNPR The Second behind her. She gives a quip about it feeling "weird" to do the right thing before disappearing.

From there the action picks up fast. I really enjoyed this battle simply from a choreography and energy standpoint. It gets the blood pumping, Ironwood's hand-to-hand is spectacular — especially that moment against Ren — and the group actually displays teamwork for the first time in what feels like forever, all of them needed to land a hit on Ironwood. As always, out of the context of the rest of the show it feels and looks great. My primary issue is that we get this fantastic fight against Ironwood. Not Salem, not Cinder, not Watts (like last volume when Ironwood was still a hero), not even Emerald as a means of transitioning from murderous villain to the group's best bud. No, what's arguably the best action sequence in the volume thus far goes to beating up the guy they betrayed from the start. There's no catharsis for me here, only frustration as we watch Ironwood stand in shock as Winter powers up Nora — who's fine now, I guess — and she slams her hammer into his face. 

It never should have come to this and when a good character is done so dirty, their downfall doesn't evoke the emotions the writers are looking for. Watching Ironwood fall doesn't generate feelings of victory, or even tragedy at a course of events others were powerless to stop. It's just frustration at watching years worth of bad writing, sprinkled with fantastic ideas that never go anywhere.

Oscar gets a few hits in, Ironwood snatches his cane, and just as he's about to throw a punch, Winter arrives with the most dramatic sword slash I've ever seen.

Ironwood's aura breaks and he falls, unconscious. We cut to an image of a droid's head separated from its body, one of Robyn's arrows through its skull. That doesn't have meaning or anything.

I suppose I should be grateful they didn't rip Ironwood's arm away during the fight, or outright kill him, though I'm still expecting him to die before the end of the volume.

Hmm. Wouldn't that be something? If after Salem's arrival, freezing cold, a Hound attack, grimm soup, a giant whale, a massive army, and a hack ending in self-destruction, the one character who actually dies is Ironwood. 

It's looking more and more likely.

Honestly, beyond all the obvious, what's so frustrating about this fight is that characters are only now using their impressive abilities to their fullest. Emerald creates an entire fantasy of what's happening and then straight up disappears, but she only does a half-assed version of that when fighting against Penny. (And really, she put more effort into helping the heroes she just joined over Cinder, the woman she's been obsessed with since the start?) Marrow refuses to use "Stay" against a group they wanted to peacefully arrest because that's just too horrible an act, I guess, but he'll do it on his own teammates the second Qrow and Robyn don’t want to fight.  

This is what I mean when I say the rules of the world bend to assist the protagonists in absurd ways. It's not nearly as egregious as Amity suddenly being up and running, but the fact that characters become substantially more powerful while fighting for the protagonists than they do against them is still a significant problem.

So Ironwood is down and out. As much as I hated watching that and didn't necessarily want more, am I the only one who felt like it was... a bit lackluster? I mean, the action was great, yes, but relatively short. There was no dialogue, such as another delve into the moral questions that led to this fight in the first place. There certainly wasn’t any hesitance against fighting a former ally. (Again, we’re meant to believe that the Ace Ops won because they just couldn’t bear to fight the group seriously, but every former ally here is capable of wailing on Ironwood without a single pause or pained look?) Ironwood just skillfully blocks for a while, is blindsided by Winter's betrayal, and then falls unconscious. Given that we learn he and Jacques will be evacuated after the rest of the kingdom, it's possible he'll escape somehow and we'll get a fight 2.0, but if not that feels like a rather tame end to the guy forced into the antagonist seat. Plus, what was the point of having Qrow frothing at the mouth to kill him this whole volume? I never wanted that to happen, I'm glad it hasn't, but I'm nevertheless left to ask why we bothered with that eleven episode side plot if we were going to erase it with one sentence from Robyn about Qrow being better than this. If that's all it took, let them work through Qrow's irrational anger while sitting around in a cell.

Winter tells the group to move onto "phase two" which is when we're treated to a flashback. We return to the ending of the last episode, with Ruby realizing that opening the vault is an option. Jaune, all smiles, goes, "We never considered using what's inside!"

This is what I mean about no consequences! This is what I mean about it all being a meaningless circle that ends with undeserved praise for the group! We started this horror show with Ironwood going, "We don't have a plan to protect the people, so I'm going to take what people we do have to safety" and the group going, "We don't have a plan either, but we're going to stop you implementing your plan because it's not perfect, risking a kingdom's worth of lives in the process." Now, the group has used two plans, one of which two characters knew about at the start and another they could have devised with the information they had. Oscar and Ozpin's, "We have an all powerful magical blast in our cane" and the group's "What if we used the Staff for something other than raising Atlas?" are both things that could have come up in the office debate. These were both always on the table! Instead, Ruby grew furious over the mere thought of cutting their losses, betrayed Ironwood again, attacked his people, denounced him to the world, and then two days later goes, "Oh wait! We could do something now that we could have easily done before if we hadn't made a needless enemy!" 

Everyone realizes how much worse they made things, right? Turning against Ironwood, bringing everyone left in Mantle directly under Atlas, sitting around while an army was devoured, drawing it out until Penny was hacked... all of it would have been avoided if the group had thought and discussed things for a few minutes, not jumping straight to violently resisting what Ironwood came up with first. "We never considered..." Ruby says. Yeah, you didn't, except that's not something to smile about. The group made the situation a thousand times worse with their reaction when they could have just magically evacuated the kingdom from the start. “Maybe we could use it to save Penny and get everyone in Atlas and Mantle back to safety." Nothing has changed! They had this ability the whole time! Nothing about the last twelve episodes led them here, they just randomly thought of it after RT had padded the volume with needless drama. Considering that they're heading to Vacuo now, we could have just made this the finale of Volume 7 instead: big fight with Ironwood, revelation, get everyone  evacuated while Salem attacks, leave her behind, then Volume 8 begins in Vacuo with the group knowing Salem is out there looking for them. This entire volume has been pointless. What did they accomplish?

Oscar got kidnapped and beat up, Nora was scarred, Ruby and Yang realized horrible things about Summer, and the whole world is panicking about a witch. Good things are... Ren and Ruby unlocked some semblance stuff? Weiss loves her brother again after he proved himself useful to her? Great work, team.

So this one moment makes everything they've done up to this point useless and, of course, once thought up the plan goes off without a hitch. Note that the summary of this episode says, "It's risky, dangerous, and nearly impossible — but it's the only plan they've got." Nearly impossible? That's a whole lot of talk for a plan that was implemented perfectly.

There is, admittedly, one snag, but one that is likewise made meaningless just seconds later. We'll get to that.

We see Winter call Weiss who also smiles at hearing from her sister. Obviously interactions like the group's with Emerald are the bigger concern, but it's still an issue that no one reacts as they should to people reappearing in their lives. Rather, RWBY continually confuses audience knowledge with character knowledge. We know Winter is on their side now, but Weiss hasn't a clue. Last she saw, she and Winter were agreeing to head down different paths. She has no reason to think her sister isn't loyal to Ironwood, so why isn't the group treating this call with suspicion? What if it's Ironwood trying to mess with them through a presumably safe party? I swear to god, with any consistency in the story this group would be dead ten times over because their decisions are so stupid. Oscar decides to believe in the guy currently beating him to a pulp, the group decides to trust a villain over a flawed ally, and now they see Ironwood’s second calling and are like, “Great, big sister Winter is checking in!” There’s a difference between a hopeful story filled with second chances and characters whose reliance on the narrative bending to assist them makes them come across as insanely naive. 

None of which even touches on characters forgetting that other characters are presumably dead. Ironwood shot Oscar off the edge of Atlas, but doesn't react to learning he was kidnapped, or when he shows up to the fight. Thanks to Marrow's comment, Winter thinks YJOR have perished in the whale, but also has no reaction to them appearing to help with this plan. Absolutely nothing is followed up on.

We then get a flashback within the flashback (fun) of Winter — shock — not arresting Marrow. It's precisely as I assumed, with Marrow angrily asking why she hit him and Winter responding with, “Because you were about to get killed if I didn’t do something!” As I said last recap, I feel like I should let the marginalized groups lead this discussion, but I do want to add that no matter how well intentioned — or strategic, as I mentioned last time — the imagery itself is still harmful. No matter the context, we were still left with white woman Winter putting her knee on black man Marrow's back to arrest him, and it’s an image that everyone in the U.S. should be familiar with the horror of. Far more of a problem than the (presumed) ignorance of this scene is, I think, the choice to make Winter entirely unrepentant. I think some of this discomfort could have been alleviated if RT had written Winter as apologetic, contrite that it came to that and asking Marrow to understand that she only did it as a means of assisting him. Asking his forgiveness. Instead, we get this

So what, the only emotion we have room for is gratitude that Winter beat him up? Yikes.

As a lighter side note, I find the animation here unintentionally hilarious. Winter's assistive device makes her shoulders look too high, making this gesture more, "Woman exaggeratedly pouts about not getting ice cream for dinner" and less, "Woman sternly closes off during a disagreement about saving lives and betraying their general." Gotta find our humor where we can, right?

What's intentional, but far less funny, is the needless animation to show us that, yes, Marrow is peering at Winter calling Weiss. Oh, the shenanigans. 

The elevator opens where Qrow and Robyn spot them. "Speaking of help," Winter says, as if she has any reason to believe Qrow didn't kill Clover. He and Robyn lower their weapons a bit, as if they have any reason to believe Winter and Marrow aren't still loyal to Ironwood. Would it really be so hard to have Winter immediately throw up her hands in the face of their almost-attack, blurting that she's not their enemy and needs their help, please listen? Again, RWBY can't remember which characters know what, let alone what their motivations and reactions should be.

We then enter the third part of the flashback where everyone piles into the Schnee dining room and discusses doing the things they could have done from the start. I'm metaphorically banging my head against that table. In RWBY's favor though, we also get a long shot of Jaune continuing to boost Penny’s aura.

Though it's only one of many issues, just the other day I asked, "Hey, why has Jaune always needed to hold onto the person he's assisting, but now suddenly he can touch Penny once and the boost remains?" It still doesn't explain why he was letting go before/why him needing to boost her continuously didn't put a hard time limit on their plan — not that Mantle's hour limit meant a thing — but at least they're showing more of that here.

Oscar notes that Atlas has enough gravity dust that it won't fall immediately when they use the Relic, but they will have to move fast to ensure no one is underneath. Yeah, like all the civilians you put there. He also cautions that the Staff isn't a "magic wand" that they can just wave to make all their problems go away... even though that's precisely what they're going to do. Ozpin gets some lines that aren't apologies or followed by attacks — hallelujah! — about how the Staff's spirit is a "character" and requires that you be able to precisely explain anything you want him to make. Blueprints, examples, a firm knowledge of how this will be accomplished — all of it is required to actually get what you're after. That's a cool limitation. It's just too bad we didn't know about it episodes ago, forcing our heroes to find ways to meet those requirements. Instead, they already have everything ready to go the moment they learn about it: Penny has her own schematics and Whitley apparently has knowledge of the entire kingdom after sending some ships out. Normally I'd go, "Really?" but I'm still just struck by how much good he's done compared to everyone else in this room. Your show is seriously broken when the side character the writers didn't even want the audience to like until a few episodes ago is more active, mature, and sensible than the heroes.

From there we see the group implementing the plan. They fly up through the hole Oscar left, straight to the vault. Penny opens it without any trouble and Ruby uses her speed to grab the Relic and stop time, halting her self-termination. I do like that combination of skill and their knowledge of how this magic works. That felt like a smart move. What's interesting though is that the Relic appears to stop time in the entire kingdom. We see people in Mantle and Atlas slowing to a halt too. I assume no one remembers that happening after time restarts, otherwise people would be freaked out by suddenly being frozen in place.

Wouldn't that have been cool though? The group often takes a while to use the Relics, either deciding what they need, or watching Jinn's information, so what if you had a population that blinks and suddenly, from their perspective, half an hour has passed? How long might Ozpin have sat on his knees after Jinn told him he wasn't able to defeat Salem? How long was that space frozen? We could have had a world built around rumors and fairy tales. Not the random stories Ozpin brings up to make a point and that we never hear about again, but tiny details that foreshadow these revelations. A Beacon where the kids tell each other spooky stories of people suddenly losing time, once a whole day. The wives, sisters, daughters, and nieces who disappear, or wake up one day with horrifying, unnatural powers. We see magic influence the world around it, but we've seen very little of the world reacting to that influence. The one time I can think of is Blake reading a book about "a man with two souls," the fiction clearly inspired by knowledge of Ozpin. And indeed, it felt great to recognize that as a significant detail and then be proven right years later as the lore was revealed. We could have gotten so much more of that if RWBY was better planned out.

I'm getting off track though. As time stops we see a series of images: Ironwood being led to a cell with Jacques, Penny succumbing to her hack, Team JNPR The Second preparing to contact the kingdom about what's going on. Then everyone is distracted by the giant, blue, buff Ambrosius who comes out of the Staff.

...there's a lot of innuendo in that last statement lol. At least RWBY is committed to the crazy design they chose? I was never particularly comfortable with the image of characters gaping up at a giant, naked woman in chains, so it's nice to balance that a bit with an equally giant, naked dude in chains.

From here things get confusing. In all honesty, I'm not sure if this is another moment where RWBY is trying to pass off a retcon as the group being brilliant, or if I, as an individual, simply didn't follow the logic. I won't bother to rehash the slow, meandering way that Ruby reveals their plan — that certainly didn't help with the clarity. Not in an episode where we didn’t even know these rules ahead of time — but it boils down to this:

The moment they have Ambrosius create something new Atlas will start to fall. Two of his creations can't exist at the same time.

He needs clear instructions about what he's making in order to create it.

The group has brought him Penny's schematics so that he understands how she's built.

They want, specifically, "a new version of her... using her exact robot parts."  

They can't just create an exact duplicate of Penny because that would carry the virus with it.

They can't create an exact duplicate without the virus because that Penny would cease to exist as soon as they used Ambrosius to make an evacuation plan instead.

So they essentially want Ambrosius to create a new Penny by removing all the robot parts from the Penny that currently exists, carrying the virus with them, and leaving only the human parts of Penny behind: her aura/soul. Then, the purely robot version is destroyed when Ambrosius creates something new.

Except... this new Penny, this human Penny, still needed a human body. That's what Ambrosius created and that's the snag I don't understand. They want a version of Penny that's just her aura, just her soul, but that soul still needs something to be housed in. Ambrosius himself notes that. At first I thought the group would just have some wisp-like version of Penny they'd have to find a new body for — perhaps leading to a new one for Ozpin too — but she's just... given a human body when he takes the technology away, something she absolutely didn't have before. That is Ambrosius' creation. That is what should have disappeared along with the removed parts of Penny, leaving only her soul — what Ambrosius didn't touch — behind. Instead, the plot oh so conveniently has Penny get a new body for free and it's untouched as they move onto the next task.

Ruby drops a casual line about Ambrosius not being able to kill, or destroy, or something, which I think is meant to be the justification here. The rule (which, again, we JUST learned) about not killing anyone supersedes the rule of two creations not allowed to exist, allowing Penny to stick around. But even if that’s true, it’s a load of bull. What, does the magic think no one in an entire city might die if the floating mechanism is removed and it plummets to the ground? Ambrosius didn’t say, “Sorry, can’t stop floating Atlas because thousands of people are still here and they’ll die if I create something new,” but we’re supposed to believe the group skated by on, “Sorry, can’t destroy the last creation like everything else because there’s a single person still using that body and she’ll die if I create something new”? 

Seriously, did I miss something? Or is this another, "Amity is ready because the group needs it" situation? The rule of creations ceasing to exist is bent because the group needs to have their friend around. Ambrosius is certainly enthusiastically complimentary, saying how "smart" the group is and that they've "done their homework," but I'm not so sure. It feels like a moment where the show is (once again) insistent that the group is far more talented and brilliant than their actions actually imply. It's only the rules of the world twisting and turning that allows for their success. To say nothing of how the episode dropped all these rules on the viewer in a ten minute info dump, ensuring we didn’t have any time to think about them before the deed was done. 

It doesn't add up for me and honestly, even putting that aside? I hate this. I absolutely despise it. Look, if it turns out this really does make sense then props to the group for coming up with that plan. Our snag aside, the rest is a legitimately well thought out wish. I don't have a problem with the execution so much as the message. I've been saying since Volume 7 that RWBY has done Penny a disservice in terms of her "real girl" narrative. Whereas before we had a firm message that you don't need "squishy guts" to be human, to be real, Volume 8 continued to carry us further and further into the idea that it is necessary. That Penny's body is entirely inhuman, something to hate, but at least her soul is human and good. That's what the virus arc taught us: your terrible, technological body might be betraying you, but hold onto the parts of you that are really human. I hated that too, but I never thought RWBY would go this far. They made Penny fully human and went, “THIS is the version that always should have existed.”

And this isn't just me reading into the implications. It's right there in the text. Blake says that they're looking for “Penny, the girl who’s always been there underneath." Meaning, underneath the metal. The girl exists trapped in the robot body. Yang holds up her arm and says that the metal is only "extra," it's not really who you are. 

That gets into two perspectives on disability that RWBY just doesn't have the nuance for: what's an integral and celebratory part of one person's existence can be seen as something separate and discomforting to another. Though there are many people with disabilities who would happily cure themselves with a magic Staff if given the chance, there are just as many who say no, this is a part of my identity. I don't want to change, I just want the world to accommodate my existence. However, RWBY takes a hard stance here, saying that any metal in your body is intrinsically bad. We didn’t use to have this take, but now the show has embraced it. Blake says the real Penny is trapped in there. Yang's words implies that she'd get rid of this "extra" bit of her if possible. Mercury with his metal legs is the enemy. Ironwood with half his metal body is the enemy. Whereas once difference was truly accepted, now it's shunned and fixed whenever possible. Those who can't be fixed, like Yang, must simply deal with the lot they've been dealt, reassuring themselves that the metal isn't really them. But Penny? Penny they can fix.

So they do and the very first thing Penny does is hug Ruby, exclaiming, “Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside? Wow. More!” and proceeds to hug all the others. 

What's the underlying message there? Penny didn't understand hugs before this moment. She never experienced the "warmth" of them while an android, despite the fact that here warmth is entirely metaphorical and has nothing to do with a literally cold body. RWBY really went and said that the "real girl” android was never actually real at all — not as real as she could be — because it's only when she's given "squishy guts" that she understands the true happiness of a hug.

Wow.

I mean seriously, wow. 

Never-mind that, you know, we've seen that happiness and warmth since she was first introduced.

RWBY is really rewriting all the core themes introduced in Volumes 1-3 and it sucks. The show is absolutely the worse for it.

To say nothing of all the other disservices to Penny's character here. There's all this buildup about whether she'll still be the same Penny once the wish is complete, but of course she is. We wouldn't want to have Penny struggle when she becomes something other than what she's always been, would we? After all, it took Yang an entire volume to work through the shock of a metal arm, but taking away a metal body for a human one is in no way traumatic. Having a normal, human body is intrinsically a good thing! Of course Penny accepts it with nothing but smiles. Becoming human is celebratory, but becoming more machine is a horror.

She gets to watch her body self-destruct, glitching out and collapsing in front of her. But again, nothing to unpack there that can't be covered with a hand over her mouth.

There's no discussion of whether Penny still has the Maiden powers, or whether a wish like that would mess with the transfer in any way. How did the group know this action wouldn't register as a clear-cut death, forcing the power out of her and into someone new? Obviously they couldn’t know, but no one even thought to bring it up? 

And the entire time they're formulating their evacuation plan, there's no talk of whether these portals will appear before everyone currently alive in the kingdom. I mean, if they do then Ironwood and Jacques can just waltz through and escape into Vacuo. If they don’t, then Maria and Pietro don't necessarily have a way out. We still don't know if they're stuck floating in Amity, or if Amity crashed, or if they made their way back to Mantle or Atlas. More importantly, the characters don't know. I have no problem with RWBY keeping that a surprise until the finale, but I absolutely take issue with Pietro's daughter walking through a portal, seemingly not to care whether her father is going to make it out too.

It's been the same with Qrow and his nieces' relationships. The show is good at insisting that these families love each other because they hug and smile while on screen together, but when shit is actually going down, none of them care about pesky things like disappearances, arrests, or “The last time I saw you, you were with an old woman on a damaged station after a villain attack, potentially stranded in deadly cold if life support failed.” 

So yeah, this entire arc with Penny has been a disaster. From throwing away her framing subplot, to giving her a virus that did absolutely nothing, to giving her the Maiden powers which she's also done nothing with, to erasing her android status for a “She's really human now” message, Penny has been done dirty by the show these last two volumes. Not nearly to the extent Ironwood has, but still. At this point I wish they'd just kept her dead dead. Why do I want her back when that resurrection produces no reaction, her conflicts lead nowhere, and one of the core things that made Penny Penny has now been magically erased?

I've been saying for weeks that killing Penny off and keeping Penny around each had serious downsides attached, yet I never expected RWBY to do BOTH.

Also, I'm warding off any, "But Pinocchio was made into a real boy too" defenses. RWBY is not Pinocchio. Penny is not Pinocchio. I thought the allusion was going to be the Pinocchio inspired girl heading into the whale, not the show forcing the exact plotline  —  down to a blue, magical creature — onto a character whose entire journey has been about accepting herself as an android. Congratulations, RT. You just obliterated years of work.

Again, if you'd like an example of how to do this far better:

As Penny's character falls apart, Atlas shakes, alerting Jaune and the other that a new wish has been granted. Jaune pecks at the screen and realizes "That did, uh, something…?” but doesn’t realize that there's a giant, red "LIVE" up in the corner.

Jaune tries to warn the entire kingdom about their plan, but what he actually says is

“Atlas is falling, but — !”

And then the communications cut out. 

Watts, perhaps?

Our heroes are really good at saying things that make large populaces panic, huh? This is the one (1) snag in their "impossible" plan, but as said above, it doesn't amount to anything. We get a shot of Nora, horrified at the thought of kingdom-wide communications being down, but literally seconds later Team RWBY has made portals appear that everyone can walk through. So... why do we care about communications? More importantly, why does the show try to make us care? So much time is spent getting the viewer invested in problems that never come to mean anything. 

Including the problem of Salem herself.

Because the group successfully creates that evacuation plan. This is it. Everyone is leaving while Salem still reforms. 

Yang asks if they can use the vaults themselves as a single point for everyone to go to and Ambrosius agrees. So everyone is going to pile into the Vacuo vault that can only be opened by an unknown Maiden? They're going to put an entire kingdom's worth of people, including their enemies, into the vault where the Relic of Destruction is? Yeah, that's great. Prior to this — like if this had been the plan at the end of Volume 7 — I would have 100% agreed that these risks are better than death by Salem/grimm/cold. Now though, Oscar as axed Salem for an unknown length of time, the cold is having no impact on the civilians outside, and the grimm only attack background military personnel that supposedly no one cares about. They couldn't have spent another few minutes (especially with time stopped!) to figure out a means of getting to Vacuo that doesn't involve revealing and providing access to the location of a super secret vault? To say nothing of what they're going to do if Salem wakes up and snags one of those portals for herself. Two kingdoms for the price of one!

But that's what they're going with. Weiss gives Ambrosius a schematic of the kingdom, I guess, and he makes branching pathways appear with numerous portals for everyone to step through. They'll enter through one and, when they exit another, will be in Vacuo. Easy peasy, right? Especially since Ambrosius doesn't seem to have any limitations about how often his power is used. Is it three creations every 100 years like Jinn? We're not told, at least not to my recollection. However, I was expecting there to be a waiting period, that they'd fix Penny, go to evacuate the kingdom, and learn that sorry, I can't make another creation just yet. It feels like the sort of shit move these beings would pull — "Don't cry to me when it's not what you wanted" —  it would have been another commentary on the group's insistence on putting friends over the people's safety (like demanding the Ace Ops not bomb the whale because of Oscar), and crucially, would have kept the action in Atlas. Isn't that what this volume is? The battle for and potential destruction of the Kingdom of Atlas? We have two episodes left and, unless something unexpected happens, we're moving that action to Vacuo. Why? 

Meanwhile, Penny's corpse is just chilling in the background 😬

While all this is going on, Winter reassures Jacques that he and Ironwood will be evacuated too, though she makes it clear saving him was Weiss' idea. It checks out, considering Weiss is the one who turned her father's arrest into a joke last volume. Winter still takes his abuse seriously.

The group prepares to leave with a celebratory, "We did it!" from Weiss. I'm still banging my head against that dining room table. Before they can pass through the portal though, Ambrosius leaves them with one, dire warning: "Do not fall." 

In any other story a line like that is a neon sign announcing to the audience that someone will absolutely fall, and maybe they will, but RWBY has dodged consequences so often I wouldn't be surprised if this was merely another way to string us along. Remember all the hype surrounding Salem? The cold combined with her army and magic? How she was going to decimate Atlas and leave our group broken in a Fall 2.0?

I mean, we still have two episodes left. Forty minutes of content. Salem might still decimate them, especially since something has to happen in the finale. But god, it's a problem that we've come this far without a payoff. Salem randomly decided not to attack anyone, was stopped by a weapon added in solely for this purpose, and now the whole kingdom is being evacuated with a plan the group could have used at the start. This volume really is meaningless. 

“We go to vacuo and hope we’ve thought of everything” they say as the camera zooms in on Cinder's smiling face. For the second week in a row.

Bingo time!

Winter betrayed Ironwood, the group used the Staff of Creation, and I'm axing Maria on behalf of Pietro. You can't have the guy's daughter become human — after he was killing himself to give her his aura?? — and magically walk to Vacuo, not knowing if he's even survived since she last saw him, and expect me to think he hasn't been forgotten. Same with Maria. Has the group mentioned her since Amity cut out, notably for reasons they couldn’t explain? Of course not. Did they care to find out what happened? Of course not. I have no doubt they'll both re-appear in the next two episodes, Pietro crying over how perfect his girl is now and Maria congratulating the group on their actions, but we're still marking it.

This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever created, I hope you all are enjoying it :D

Another week, another couple feet added to the hole we’re digging. I know I keep saying I have no idea what's going to happen next... but I have no idea what's going to happen next. A Vacuo ending was not in the cards, not outside of them miraculously showing up in ships. Maybe they have been on their way to Atlas (somehow...) and will arrive precisely when everyone has left! Anything is possible at this point.

See you next Saturday, everyone. Hold on until then lol. 💜

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #rwby recaps #rwby creation

[layzhe-06]

I refuse to acknowledge any atla comic that wasn't illustrated by Peter Wartman.

Because at least those comics have an interesting story. The Promise was so ooc on Aang's part bcs he aGREED TO KILL ZUKO??? And Zuko literally sending tROOPS, TROOPS WHEN THE WAR WOUNDS WERE STILL FRESH GOD DAMN IT-- The Search treated Azula like shit instead of actually letting her heal bcs uh, bryke hate women? North and South is fine ig except for MaLiNa (ew), I also don't rlly vibe with The Rift because... Well... To put it short, the way Lao treated Toph after all those years was so shitty jfc. Oh and the taang arguments pained me physically bcs they're my 2nd otp... And the way nO ONE CARED WHEN TOPH LITERALLY FAINTED AFTER HOLDING THE MINE UP FOR WHO KNOWS HOW LONG DKXKDKDKC--

Anyway, as for Imbalance, it's immaculate and amazing and like, the characters aren't that ooc anymore thank god. Oh and tophling, and the many many sukka and sUKI MOMENTS IN THE FIC WE LOVE THAT, Kataang shipping everyone lmfao and them acting like aCTUAL FRIENDS- The Pirate's Silver gave us Jiang, aka the coolest pirate I've ever seen, and then Katara's cool waterbending moments and her proving to her friends that she ISN'T crococat soft. Aang, Sokka, and Toph being an iconic trio (and my fave trio hush), i just-- wOop. Then there's Toph's Metalbending Academy, aGAIN MORE SUKI AND WE GET TO SEE HER FANGIRL SIDE YAY-- and the unlikely but absolutely valid friendship between Toph and Chong, idk the fact that they were just vibing with each other made me laugh lmfao, and Toph getting frustrated when ppl thought she was gonna bring the underground ring down as if she literally didn't do that too years ago, aND TOPH BEING COMPASSIONATE TOWARD SUN SMSKEKDKEKDK EVERYONE SAY HOORAY FOR SOFT TOPH! And we get more of the og lily-livers trio (penga, ho tun, and the dark one)! Them being appreciative of their sifu just warmed my heart.

#toph #toph beifong #aang #atla #katara #sokka #suki #zuko #azula #ty lee #mai #anti atla comics #rb if you agree #only fruity ppl will understand #imbalance is one of the only comics i can stand #bECAUSE IT'S FUKIN IMMACULATE

[tuiyla]

Hi, I was on Twitter the other day and noticed a trend where people are sharing their cancelable hot takes on the Legend of Korra and Atla. The one I notice the most is that making Aang a "bad" parent was a poor choice for his character.. What do you think of the writer's choice to make aang favor Tenzin over his other kids? Do You think it was OCC? Just would love to hear all your thoughts

Oh Anon, twitter and hot takes? You deserve better than that 😂 I steer clear of Avatar hot takes in general.

The writing choice to have the cloudbabies have sour memories of Aang and the implications of his parenting has been controversial since the day Civil Wars aired. I do think people ignore a lot of the nuances when discussing it, which is not surprising from twitter hot takes.

One of the things to keep in mind is that we hear the three kids, now adults bicker among themselves. It's not a flashback, it's just their emotional truth of what Aang was like as a father. I think we should be at least a little skeptical about all of them here. Tenzin has rose-coloured glasses on but Kya and Bumi are also likely to have leftover resentment they never properly dealt with and that casts a shadow on good memories. They all bring their own baggage into it. Tenzin can't see their perspective, Bumi always felt like he was a disappointment by not having been born a bender, and Kya might have felt detached from her father's culture as a waterbender. And it's not that any of them are wrong for feeling this way; it's their emotional truth. And there's a degree of actual truth to all sides, I'm sure.

But I wouldn't immediately write Aang off as a bad dad because of it who only cared about one kid. It's a complex situation where an enormous weight was put on first Aang's then Tenzin's shoulders. They were also a very unique family, a blend of water and air unlike the world has seen in hundreds of years. And also, ya know, Aang being the Avatar and Katara the most powerful and influential waterbender in the world. That's not an excuse for bad parenting, but I don't think we should take it at face value that Aang was just plain bad and that's it. His kids felt neglected enough to be bitter about it well into their 40s and 50s so obviously it wasn't perfect. But it was an unfortunate consequence of the difficult situation they were in.

So I don't think it's OOC because I also don't think it's as bad as people say, because they often fail to consider the nuances of the situation. They also fail to consider that Aang lived a full life post-ATLA, so how we knew him as 12 year-old isn't exactly ground to say anything he did was OOC. At the end of the day, he was still remembered as a kind man who tried his best and left behind a beautiful family. It shattered a lot of illusions about the Gaang's perfect post-war life, but I feel like a lot of people just shit on LoK's writing choices because it's not a plain happily ever after, rather a complicated world where you can only try to make the best of your situation.

That said, I was also bummed when the episode first aired. If nothing else, you cannot convince me that Aang straight-up ignored two out of three of his kids and Katara never said anything. She'd never stand by that. But like I say, I don't think it was that back and white and both he and Katara could have tried their best and still inevitably caused their kids to hold resentments. Life is messy; LoK doesn't shy away from that, and honestly neither did ATLA. But the kids we knew in ATLA grew up to be adults and parents and their mistakes reflect in their kids. And a lot of people don't like seeing that. It's not a "cancelable" hot take to say though lol, like I think most people dislike how this was handled. But I also think most people overlook the nuances and the ultimate conclusion of Civil Wars, which is a more optimistic note.

Thanks for turning to me about this Anon haha, I know I don't talk much about Avatar these days but honestly thinking about it is a breath of fresh air.

#anon #avatar asks #on the one hand i love talking about avatar because it's the greatest thing to ever exist #on the other the fandom got exhausting post covid sooo #but hey if we keep it contained and have chill discussions here i'm cool with that #tenzin #lok #avatar #aang #cloudbabies #kya ii #bumi ii

[caeloservare]

I posted 2293 times in 2021

746 posts created (33%)

1547 posts reblogged (67%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2.1 posts.

I added 2321 tags in 2021

#ic::ironwood - 1005 posts

#xd - 382 posts

#ooc - 256 posts

#littleblackqrow - 220 posts

#crack - 95 posts

#;u; - 90 posts

#courtclover - 81 posts

#xdd - 69 posts

#lmao - 63 posts

#askgame - 60 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#okay if she tries to steal he'll grab her by collar like a kitten and she's gonna get a long and boring lecture about discipline and food

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

@littleblackqrow oh yes talk coffee to him more~

“Mhm...” He can’t really say no to a coffee offer, but he also can’t get his mind wrapped around it at the moment. He likes the idea, but not how fast it was blurted out. It feels too far off from how cheeky Qrow usually is.

“It’s fine, just a fresh cup will be enough. Are you alright?” He lets go as he’s not sure if the embrace is helping anything and so it becomes incrisingly awkward. Especially in their definitely-not-dating weird and complicated relationship. “You don’t look well.”

23 notes • Posted 2021-07-28 21:17:11 GMT

#4

Grandpa?

“I’m not that old, Ruby...”

His back might be stiff today just from sleeping, but he’s not old enough to be called a grandpa! He’s not even 50 yet!

... Grandpa?!

24 notes • Posted 2021-05-28 13:26:41 GMT

#3

@qrowofmisfortune 

In all honesty, James didn’t even notice it was already morning. He barely noticed that it was late, when it was. He had a pot of coffee and still a fat pile of reports to go through. He realises that maybe staying in common kitchen (hot coffee supply at hand!) wasn’t best idea, when with a bit of surprise he sees Qrow enter the facility. Oops.

He just stares, not exactly ashamed of himself, but aware that he’s far from his best shape after pulling yet another all-nighter at the papers.

“Coffee?” He offers with a tired smile, lifting the pot.

28 notes • Posted 2021-05-24 17:34:17 GMT

#2

@littleblackqrow  some almost plotted stuff

Void. That’s all that there is, an empty void. If he focused, he could vaguely recall Winter by his side, supporting his weight on the way. Connect the facts, recognize what hard light walls around ment. But he didn’t focus, nor he didn’t want to. Time wasn’t real and he kind of wished nothing was real. He’s not sure where his way with reality started parting, but coming back hit him like falling of the city. His entire life work was falling apart. And there was no one to blame more than himself.

Sweet gods, what have I done.

Time have passed and he wasn’t even sure how much of it he spent awake. How long was it and since when. It didn’t matter anymore. There was some voice or maybe voices, but he wasn’t paying attention. They didn’t matter either.

He’s not sure why footsteps caught his attention enough to look. Not sure why he made effort to sit up, as of course it covered everything in darkness for a second. Not sure why this familiar presence makes something tiny like an atom stir inside, something both nothing alike and strangely close to hope.

He doesn’t offer any greeting, just sits there staring, tormented and resigned, but at last very much here and now.

29 notes • Posted 2021-03-14 18:53:07 GMT

#1

He’s so done with the murder, he’s going to take on more paperwork and send you all invoices for few thousand lien to pay for destroying Atlas property or at least make up for it in community service.

Drones aren’t this cheap to make, you know-

@littleblackqrow​ @birdcfpassage​ @flightofaqrow​

32 notes • Posted 2021-01-18 17:17:24 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#LMAOO #I don't think I can remove the links #but AJDFKSHFKDSHFKDHSFVKDF #if that isn't a proof most of my blog is various lvls of shits and giggles #bit early for it but I was curios #:P

[redafi]

I suddenly and desperately want a time-travel fix-it where aang’s kids get to meet him as a kid. How would this fix anything? I dont know but I need it.

(overshare ab why i couldn’t watch korra as a kid, im sorry but it is about aang’s kids… in my defense (if thats an issue) i was younger than 12.)

(Anyways:)

oh wait edit: i absolutely do not hate legend of korra, i do not disapprove of the show or think that its characterization of aang is completely ooc, i just couldn’t watch it.

so yeah, honestly i couldn’t watch korra when i was younger (dont know if i could now). And im sure its a great show! lbgtq+ rep for the win too! But idk…

i could never really sit properly through korra after finding out how aang treated his kids? It still bothers me to this day because, well, i grew up on a mixture of avatar and fairy tail.

In like… an inside out au of our world (wow thats a bit of an odd sentence) the first few episodes of ATLA—along with the painted lady episode, zuko making tea once for the gaang (is that even canon?), and Iroh as a character in general—they would absolutely be core memories.

And people of course change as they get older!

But the idea of one of my favorite characters growing up, treating their kids like that when it seemed so out of character based on the character i knew and loved…it threw me off so much. Its not as if I can’t see it happening on any level at all either! The loss of his culture was huge for aang and it makes sense that he’d focus a bit on an airbending child…. But ignoring his other children? To that level? Little me, first watching Korra, was like “wait what the heck, i thought aang would be a great parent, and where in the world is katara, why didnt sokka stop this”

now that i’m older i know that i was definitely projecting onto both one of the children and had been projecting onto aang’s general: “you say im going to do great things or whatever… but i dont really want to i just want to do what i love and have fun doing it? because im a smol?” for years.

but little me just saw a character who was similar to me become my parents but on an extreme level… and little me couldn’t stand it lol so i never watched korra

#ATLA #im sorry i just couldnt handle it lol #I missed out on korra and asami #Which i feel sad about because kid me couldve really used that #But kid me was also very picky about shows

[infinitethree]

OOC::

Continuation of the previous post; links for the character image stuff.

Noodley's art blog is here!

Noodley's doodles of Day have him with feather ears, which is a rad design choice! I'd have made it canon if it wasn't already a Significant Character Thing that he has earrings.

They also gave Innit this really cool little muzzle/nose deal, which is 100% how it picture it now. At least, when it's not looking like Daz to fuck with him.

-Piccrews + Art

-Just Roleswap (unique stuff at the top)

-Just Art

Gonna do images & explanation under the cut!

Out of context Welcome to the Inn/Creepypasta doodles! (Dream doesn't have horns or a tail, that's just a trait Noodley used with their Dreams a lot and added out of habit.)

This is somehow a Daz branch that's arguably tied for having the most functional groups. I'm still not quite sure how that happened.

Fun fact; i named the groupchat with myself, Noodley, and Trias "Innit Apologists". Because we are.

Also, they did art of themselves and Trias in Observer form;

And now...all the piccrews.

One thing I tried to do with sets/groups was to have a unifying background element.

Like so:

Not-Family; solid squares. I made the trio looking in those directions on purpose! They're hatching a scheme.

Council; black & white frames (bonus Aleph and Khons "oh Daz is being insane again" shared Look & bonus acting/fake!Daz)

Was-Taken fam; white diamonds

There's so many random one-offs of Day because I tend to use him as the barometer for if any given maker is viable. He's got a pretty simple casual look, but with enough special elements (wings, earrings, necklace) that it lets me get a good idea of what I can do with any given piccrew.

Vio, Aryll, Khons, and Aleph are the REALLY hard ones to make. Vio is just Weird, ditto for Aryll (plus I have a very strong mental image of him), and Aleph & Khons both have pretty distinctive non-human traits.

It's hard to pick a favorite group, but I really REALLY love this Was-Taken fam set because of how expressive it is;

Day: "that's not going to end how you think it will" / "what the actual fuck are you doing" Theo: being a pest towards his loved ones, with bonus Fates!

Dee: "I will make you regret that." Orph: being annoying towards his twin, specifically Atlas: being annoyed by his twin, specifically

Perce: Humblebragging about his accomplishments. If Theo gets to use "I've fought in wars while blind and won" thing as often as he does, then Perce gets to talk up having won in manhunts against said brother + their other siblings.

Lee: sunshine boi!!

How have I hit image limit again?? Huh. Oh well, I guess I don't really have room to explain anything else! Surely there's nothing TOO out of left field I didn't talk about, right? :3c

#cocochaos #long post #FridgeOfFanworks #and surely nothing left that ties in to a question that was recently sent in #almost alarmingly so in fact

[hello-yue-here]

1) what's your favourite element and why

2) momo or appa

3) what got you into avatar (additionally: what made you keep watching it)

4) fav part of canon / canon info you will always ignore every single day

5) which adult do you think would vibe best with the gaang, not in a parental way, but like in a friends way

sincerely, bread bestie (p.s. you don't have to answer all of these lol i just wanted to give you options)

1) i think water because it can do so much. it can heal. it can turn to ice. it can be a weapon. it can be a cool party trick. it can do so much?? its so versitile just like water and i think that they way they modeled the bending is more than just ‘oh katara has water powers’ like the creators put a lot of thought into ALL kinds of bending but i think water is the most prominent examples of that because it rlly shows how flexible the element is through the many uses of bending. so yeah. water.

2) appa. i have two appa plushies in my room that two diffeeenr friends got me for mt bday without consulting one another and it was amzing. i love appe. momo is still wonderful but. appa my beloved

3) when the atla renaissance began, i saw it EVERYWHERE on my tiktok fyp even tho i had never shown any interest in any tiktoks ab it before. eventually i was like yk what this actually seems kinda good may as well give it a shot. and it was AMAZING. so i started looking on my insta explore page for fanarts and looking up funfacts and eventually that turned into coming on tumblr and ive been here ever since! ive also rewatched the show over twenty times since it returned to netflix. whoops.

4) canon things i love:

grumpy grouchy sarcastic sokka

yuekka

maiko

kataang

toph listening to the earth before making her moves

the way sokka earned mark of the wise

p much everything suki does

the final agni kai. ik theres a lot of arguing between zutara shippers and basically everyone else ab zuko taking the lighting bolt for katara and zuko taking the kightning bolt for anyone. look he DID take that bolt for katara specifically and he WOULD take a bolt for anyone in the gaang. these facts can and should coexist. removing all shipping arguments ab this scene tho: i love it so much because its one of the most defining moments that shows just how far zuko has come as a chatacter. like that is the epitome of the depiction if his growth for me.

aang and his marble trick

aang being more than just a goofy kid. hes so wise. hes so strong. hes been through so fuckin much and hes STILL THAT POSITIVE. hes so strong and i love him.

canon things i ignore

ik this is the comics but basically the entire way they handled azulas arc in the comics. i havent even read them but ive seen so many posts ab azula in the comics that it has made me not want to read them. i am a firm believer in azula redemption arc. i think if given the right circumstances and the right chances and help to improve that she could become a good person. she is capable of changing and i think that the fact that she stayed a villain in the comics is just ugh not the good good

yues death. nope shes alive.

jets death. nope hes alive.

aang being a bad father in lok. wtf. thats so out of character for him. its so ooc its ridiculous.

cop toph. so ooc. she is a RULE BREAKER. why would she willingly ENFORCE THEM. like no. toph rejoined the earthbending tournament circuit and helped invent probending. thats the new canon

5) okay

in the show adult?: bato. like still has some sort of parental vibes but also: hes bato. hes chill. i firmly believe that bato is a sarcastic bastard who is a ‘bad influence on the children’ please. zuko taught them all those curse words, bato didnt. (although he didnt stop it)

okay but a real life adult? my history teacher or geometry teacher. they were my BESTIES in school. and i related to zuko sokka toph and suki a lil too much so obviosuly these irl ppl would be their friends lmao

#oops i answered all of them oh well #send me atla asks

[seyaryminamoto]

I feel like i'm gonna regret asking this but what is hiby

Oh. Ohohoho, oh. I recently answered this to someone else (not on this blog), I suppose there are so many newcomers in this fandom lately that HIBY has become slightly less known than it used to be.

HIBY stands for How I Became Yours, the most polemic and catastrophic fancomic in the history of the Avatar franchise. If you thought any of the official comics were problematic in any sense, woah boy, they’re goddamn flawless masterpieces compared to this thing.

Every possible angle of HIBY is problematic. Spot-on accusations of tracing were the main reason why Deviantart took down Jackie Diaz’s profile and comic from their platform. I heard Nickelodeon also got involved legally, not 100% sure on that front, but if true, they cracked down on her because she attempted to profit off this clunky mess of an inconsistent story by claiming it was somehow an official sequel to ATLA. To clarify, this last thing is something I was told, I can’t find actual sources to confirm it… so maybe I heard an exaggerated account of the tale of HIBY and it never went that far. Nevertheless, this comic didn’t need to escalate into a legal problem to be absolutely abhorrent.

In regards of art, HIBY somehow keeps discarding the asian-inspired setting seen throughout ATLA and instead favors showing the characters in European castles and outfits that don’t fit anywhere within ATLA’s world at all:

Katara is basically wearing a red version of Belle’s dress from Beauty and the Beast, if I’m not mistaken. The architecture of the place they’re at is so European it’s baffling (if I’m not mistaken, this is supposed to be Toph’s family’s house :’D). Also, it’s blatantly obvious that the background is a photograph, so she could’ve just as easily looked for photos of asian locations instead, but she picked european architecture because yes. Yet more blows against the possible artistic merits someone could offer this comic (if there’s any).

Now, though, the BIGGEST problem in HIBY is, of course, the story:

To recap: ATLA ends with Aang and Katara kissing at Ba Sing Se. Whatever problems someone may have with their relationship, or Mai and Zuko’s, or Sokka and Suki’s, it’s unquestionable that those three ships were canon by the end of the show.

Jackie Diaz’s SEQUEL COMIC doesn’t acknowledge this finale: somehow, Aang is in love with Toph but they’re not together despite there’s literally NOTHING in their way, since Aang and Katara weren’t together at all, according to Diaz. And Katara? Oh, she’s pining endlessly over Zuko, who somehow married Mai…

… Despite wanting Katara too.

… Despite he literally knocked up Katara back when the war was ending, which resulted in a miscarriage because of Mai’s wicked schemes~~!!

Can someone please explain to me in what world does it make sense for Zuko, FIRE LORD ZUKO, to be in a relationship with someone he doesn’t want, when the person he does want is RIGHT THERE, AVAILABLE, when there’s no real political consequences to ANYTHING that happens in this comic? You could say “oh no the Fire Nation people wouldn’t accept a Water Tribe woman…” … but then Zuko ends up with Katara anyways and the only problem is that Mai wants to kill them for that :’) so… no excuse works.

Basically there’s no real plot, the whole thing boils down to “I want these ships to happen and I need them to face hardships even if they don’t make sense”. The main hardship is that Mai doesn’t want her HUSBAND to carry out an affair with Katara. Zuko’s response to Mai’s obvious and reasonable complaint about their illicit relationship is to TURN VIOLENT WITH HER. And he’s the good guy :’)

Mai has a non-existent older brother Sho, who looks like a BLEACH character with Ozai’s hairstyle, and together they will try to kill Katara because, welp, someone has to give them trouble, I guess. In all fairness, the only character with a relatively logical flow of thought in this damn trainwreck is Mai. I mean, “my piece of shit husband married me for political clout, got his mistress pregnant, I didn’t want the kid to be a problem for me so I induced a miscarriage in Katara by poisoning her, probs just wanted Katara dead altogether but whatever, I only got the kid. Then Zuko threw me away despite I’m his legal wife and I’m really pissed about it so I want Katara dead” is the smartest writing in this entire comic. And no, that’s not a compliment, it’s still stupid as fuck but that’s how much more stupid everything else is. 

So, the happy couples are, like I said, Zuko and Katara, who get together despite Zuko is married to Mai, Aang and Toph, who somehow weren’t together despite there’s nothing in the way, AAAND… 

… Sokka and fake!Azula. Because I refuse to acknowledge that thing as the Princess we all love and adore.

Frankly, I consider it a miracle that HIBY didn’t destroy our ship completely when it was posted online, seeing as it was amongst the most talked-about fanmade content in Avatar’s fandom at the time. If people no longer associate Sokkla with HIBY immediately, we’ve definitely done a good job saving our poor ship’s face and showing it’s got a fuckton of potential compared to the shitfest that comic portrayed.

Why is Sokkla so problematic in HIBY? Because of fake!Azula, of course. Why is she fake!Azula? Because she’s got plot-convenient amnesia! Turns out that, for some reason, Azula forgot all the events from ATLA (let’s be real, so did Jackie Diaz so it’s not just her) and she shows up in this comic as a completely different character, so much that, upon hearing about the TERRIBLE THINGS SHE DID AND WAS, her reaction is…:

Fascinating, am I right? :’D She’s nice, sweet, shy and as good as brain-dead. And as she’s so sweet and cute now, somehow that becomes absolutely appealing for Sokka. And he falls for her, she falls for him, they bang dramatically, and so on and so forth…

Eventually Azula sacrifices herself in the final battle when Mai and her brother try to kill everyone and oh no! Sokka’s love interest dies again! Such a shocker, however, that Sokka goes to the Spirit World to save her, and unlike Iroh he succeeds… but what does Azula look like post-Spirit World shenanigans?

… Yeah, okay, fake!Azula calling anyone her “little angels” is just proof of how IC she is, if you had any doubts still.

But isn’t it FUNNY. Isn’t it HILARIOUS. That Azula not only undergoes an atom-deep brainwipe that turns her into a flat non-character, but that after dying she’s revived with WHITE HAIR, dressed in blue clothes and whatnot…?

My interpretation, and honestly, I don’t know if there’s any other possible interpretation… Jackie Diaz wanted Sokka to be with Yue :’) She fucking wrecked Azula’s character to turn her into a fake!Azula, who would eventually turn into fake!Yue after being resurrected because oh that’s just perfect to close off Sokka’s storyline, isn’t it? Only, he’s not with Yue nor with Azula because it’s neither of them. Just as it isn’t really Sokka either, or Katara, or Zuko or Aang or Toph.

Now, revisiting this trainwreck, there is a throwaway line where Ty Lee, in her (I think) only appearance in the story tells Katara that Suki and Sokka broke up. So um, Suki does exist, officially, in this comic, and she did date Sokka but it ended, and she’s back in Kyoshi Island with her team. 

Which elicits the question… why the fuck is she Mai’s maid?

I assure you, if you decide to delve deeper into this mess, you’ll absolutely find a lot more things to laugh about, to be outraged about, and to facepalm about while you wonder how on earth would someone, ANYONE, create something like this and not die of cringe looking at the finished product. It’s baffling to me.

At any rate, if you’d like to torture your own eyeballs reading this comic for yourself, there’s a Tumblr blog that gathered HIBY perfectly neatly for all curious eyes eager to torture themselves with this OOC fest. If you want more details than I care to remember about this catastrophic mess of a story, there’s always the TV Tropes page, which I think illustrates everything rather well. 

So… that’s HIBY. While I don’t think it should be sentenced to oblivion (we had best never forget the lowest lows the fandom has reached, else someone might be tempted to outdo them), this particular fanwork is quite the trainwreck in just about every regard. I really don’t think there’s anything worth salvaging in it. So, if you wanna read the whole thing (I’d be surprised if you would xD), knock yourself out in the blog link I posted up there. Otherwise, have a nice day if you still can after reading my answer to your ask :’D

#anon #hiby #granted by the time I arrived here #this shitshow had already been done and gone for a while #so I had to ask too #but I saw more signs of it than I suspect most people do these days #which is honestly... a wonder #I'm happy for it #let the fandom be cleansed of the dark stain that is this garbage comic