#man i must have been really starved for content during quarantine because like what was i thinking how did i like this trash??? 😭 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

julies-butterflies · 3 years

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I must admit, sometimes I do feel like a ye olden solider, sending letters to my beloved across the waves during wartime. Oh my dearest Lydia, I hope the kudos and comments crops have been plentiful this season. Your last letter left me weeping. Why must you put poor Reginald through such pain?

(I gotta admit, I still can't believe that I'm talking to you. I've been looking up to your work for so long...it just feels a bit surreal, even now! Glad you like hearing my ramblings! And that you liked my vampire prompt! Did not realize you'd write back when I sent that in. Look at us now, huh?)

(Speaking of prompts, I sent those jukebox and willex ones too. And I loved them both so so much, I shall scream about them more when it is not 2 am because I need sleep)

(Oh and the update of If I Was You!!! Amazing, Stellar, Incredible, Reggie, Carrie, Julie shenanigans is my new favorite thing, DID YOU JUST DOUBLE THE CHAPTER COUNT, and I'm like 90% sure Trevor is in deep trouble with a certain angry jazz ghost. Seriously loving it)

I actually do not remember what it was like to send in 1/5 asks, because I did not get a Tumblr until very reccently! I've always been a nerdy person, but Jatp is my first time being really in a fandom. You gotta do something new in quarantine, right?

Ah yes. Luke and Emily. To me, it just seems obvious that there's so much love between them. Even with all the pain. You get it. You put it down so eloquently.

As for what kind of stories I like to read...it seriously depends on my mood.

I like niche aus, passion projects. Stories where you can just feel the author's love for the world they're inventing. But I tend to lean towards cannonverse. I like ghost stories, it's what drew me to this show in the first place. And I love exploring that concept. (Being forever gone, and always the same...it's just fascinating to me)

Platonic goodness is just WONDERFUL for this show. I will read anything with cuddles. I am touched starved and these kiddos are too, and I will cry about them puppy piling every damn day. Plus there's just some much POTENTIAL for future friendships! I love ones where Flynn and Carrie get to interact with the boys as well. And 90s content, from before and after the orpheum, just hits hard.

I really wasn't expecting to get invested in the couples on this show, but something about them is moving to me. So I do love to read about them. Watching two queer kids who lived during incredibly important areas of queer history find love together after death really hit hard for me, and there's just something so bittersweet about a girl and ghost deciding to love each other for the little time they're given.

I love family dynamics too. Anything with Ray and his seven disaster children, the band and Trevor.... I think Julie and Emily is one of my favorite dynamics to explore. A girl who lost her mother and a mother who lost her son, both grieving but with one able to speak to the dead...it's just very powerful to me.

(And of course, Luke and Emily, but I figured you already knew that)

Mostly...I like seeing the messy stuff. The unexpected consequences, the baggage. I want to see the messy emotions, the grief and anger, the jealously, the disorientation. I look for those glass shards, that might be too sharp to ever be addressed on the show. Not even the big, monumental plot lines just... the harder pieces of life, the little moments that don't fit neatly into a nine episode arc.

I just want to see them live you know? Love, laughter and loss all mixed together.

(One of my all time favorite tropes is "found family gets broken apart by trauma, only to find each other again and come back stronger than ever." I feel like this explains a lot of my taste in fiction)

Thank you for the writing advice. Your words were very motivating. I am trying to begin! I got up the nerve to start working on a little piece. Who knows if it will go anywhere. But it's been nice, to finally put some words on the page.

The POTC au is so freaking good man. The character dynamics are just on FIRE. Everything is broken and messy and the relationships genuinely tug at my heartstrings. It's such a fascinating story. Highly recommend, even with the cliff hangers.

OH HOW COULD I FORGET PAWPRINTER? Man oh man I love all her work. The wheelies art and steals universe is freaking amazing, not an avacado had me in tears (of laughter, till things got surprisingly sad). And All that Remains...slow burn Willex perfection. Jedi Alex and Pilot Willie have my HEART.

I don't think I've read firefall and weneedglitter (or if I have, I'm just not connecting the names to their pieces. I don't always remember author names. it's a problem). I will go look for them though! Cannot wait!

For more recs, I recently binge read We Found Wonderland. I was not mentally prepared for the sheer amount of feelings that gave me. Highly recommend, if you ever want an emotional rollercoaster with an incredibly satisfying end.

Going on to more serious subjects...I'm sorry your family doesn't see your grief for what it is: honest. Better to feel everything quietly, than make it an easily understadnable performance. Fake grief is so easy to spot.

I think of that scene from "Forever," when Buffy breaks down and tells Dawn that she has to keep busy, because if she stops, it means Joyce is really gone. There's a lot of truth there.

On a tangent here but.. there was a very long period in my life when I was told the ways I expressed my emotions were "incorrect". And I found that sometimes, no matter how you show your emotions, you'll always be criticized. Numbness can be called disinterest, but sobbing can be called attention-seeking too. Too big, too small: that jury was impossible to please This may not apply in your situation but...it's okay to feel however you can. It's the only think you can do, really.

As I've said before, Grief is such an odd trickster.

Don't you ever get tired of missing people... This past year, I've been so weary of grief. Sometimes it can be so sharp, but it's that dull ache. That ball and chain, no longer cutting through your skin, but rubbing it raw, weighing you down.

And people don't like to talk about that part, because it's long and tiresome, but oh, is it there. I find it hard to talk about my grief, because sometimes there's just so much of it. I could drown in it, and that fear keeps me from looking to close. To incorrectly quote Jane Austin: "If I missed you a little less, I might be able to talk about it more."

(Sometimes it's faceable. But sometimes you just can't bear it. And that's okay.)

But what you wrote in that eulogy...the love is there. It's in every word you write. I cried reading that section. I feel honored once again to see some of your jagged pieces. You're sharing your heart, and there's just so much love.

In the wise words of an author I know, "Love is like the snow Reggie. It never goes away."

And don't worry, I'm always with you.

Sending Love,

-LydiaStan7845 (aka Vampire Anon)

So...that Reggie and Nicky prompt

my god

my GOD

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

I think it's safe to say congrats, you've officially destroyed me! I was not prepared for that at ALL. I should know better by now I guess.

I can't get over that even though they all take place in very different universe, all your stories just feel so connected! The way this talked about those headphones, which you mentioned in the first chapter of Kill Your Heroes...it's just so cool. All the characterization and backstory is just so well thought out, and it genuinely blows my mind.

I didn't think I could love Nicky Peters more. I was wrong. The way you write about him...even though you never go into exactly what happened to him after Reggie's death, you can just feel how much it's shapped him as a person. And the trauma around his father, and how he fears becoming like that, was just so beautifully written. He's just so lovable and flawed and trying so damn hard and you made my heart ache for him. Again.

You always take these genuinely crazy situations and...you just make them feel so real. I love you explore the strains such a revelation would put on Nicky's own life, it just makes everything so compellingly messy. It seriously feel like I was watching a real-life account of a family trying to deal with such a massive complication.

That porch scene had me in tears both times I read it. Reggie's just always a big brother, even though Nicky is more than twice his age now. My heart was shattered, and then you slowly mended it, piece by piece. And for absolutely no reason at all, you wouldn't happen to have a reference for the porch, would you?

Just wow. Hope you're doing well. Sending love and applause

-Vampire Anon

i’m not even gonna reply, but i want these documented... on my blog... for posterity. ( for any curious onlookers, i’m dating this anon now!! )

#vampire anon my beloved

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 7 years

Text

Uliuli Iwi (Part 7)

5 years ago.

The village is growing sleepy and calm. From her window, Azula watches it all. People finish final rounds of whatever games they play in the streets. She hears laughter and cheerful hollers as one team wins one of the games. Glasses click together in one last toast. Slowly, one by one, people begin snuffing their torches and waving their guests off—completely unaware that some of them probably wouldn’t be lit ever again.

She wants to, but she can’t join them. Once upon a time, she had spent time with total strangers, crashing parties that she hadn’t even realized she was invited to. But that is over. She is infected.

And it won’t be long until everyone else was too.

Day in and day out she watches as less people take to the streets. It was subtle at first—Yoon-Ri stopped attending letting her boys race their pet turtleducks with the other kids. Rouvir stopped hosting his weekend parties. Eventually she stops staring. But even without looking, she senses that it had gotten worse—she could no longer hear any form of festivity. The town sinks into a state of decay and ominous quiet. She is no longer lonely in being alone.

Once welcoming neighbors who had always left their doors ajar now have them locked tight and bored up. These people, she realizes, still have their heath and fear losing it. But Azula knows the truth, she knows that the virus will find out how to slip through the cracks in the wall and sprout through the loose floorboards.

Somehow, she blames herself for bringing the virus here. Though she couldn’t have known. Minrohc was a good man but, in retrospect, a really stupid one too. She had met him at one of the parties during her first month in town, a year prior. A few parties later they were together. Their romance was as fast and fleeting as Azula’s lightning. Passionate and powerful but over in a dramatic flash.

But not before she could have his baby.

Being what the town was, the child’s birth (and her overall pregnancy) was widely celebrated. The town would take any excuse to drink and party, and Azula—with Minrohc’s help—had offered them one. Though Azula was rather disappointed in herself for being with child so young, the town’s people had no judgement to pass. She was convinced that teen pregnancy was remotely common among a group with such loose rules and such strong energy. At least she was in her twenties. At least Minrohc put a ring on her finger during the third month of her pregnancy—they were to marry a month before the baby’s birth. But she still hadn’t been exactly prepared either.

Even so, their marriage went flawlessly. She and Minrohc, were the only two that hadn’t drank that night—Azula because she had been so heavy with child, and Minrohc because he didn’t want her to be the only one left out of that aspect of the night. She can still recall the loving touch of his left hand on her belly, and his right cupping her cheek, holding it steady so he could bring his lips to hers. She loved him truly, and with a heart she hadn’t realized she had until it was right in front of her.

The baby, Tamzu, finally revealed herself on the hottest August evening. She and Minrohc slipped away from the party early that night, to put the babe to sleep and spend some time alone. She recalls Minrohc unpinning her hair and letting it fall over her shoulders. She recalls leaning into him and him sliding his hands down her sides to her hips. She recalled letting the night go from there and feeling his loving lips on her forehead. The whole time, he was whispering, “I love you” in a foreign, ancient tongue.

He was a fool.

He was a fool because he knew but he continued.

And she was a fool as well for not realizing.

Minrohc had picked up the virus from somewhere deep in the jungle and had carried it for months as inconspicuously as her pregnancy had been showingly. He mentioned it not even once. The disease was a slow burner and didn’t even make a spectacle of itself until Tamzu was of two months in age. And when it did the virus was violent and merciless with fits of coughing, bleeding, and vomiting. “You cough until you feel your throat open.” Minrohc had said. “After that you start coughing up blood and you know that it has.” That was one of the things that had drawn her to him; his ability to skip the bullshit and say things as they were. But this time she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to know how much pain he was in. She didn’t want to know what was going to happen to her—not when she couldn’t do anything about it anyways.

She thought about it constantly. About how many people she had shared drinks or food with since having sex with Minrohc that night. About how many people she had unknowingly killed. Minrohc died a few days after the town’s new year’s celebration and she was quarantined quickly afterwards, alongside a few people known to have been in contact with her. Surprisingly they showed no resentment, wishing her luck and recovered health. With Minroch the town was split down the middle; some mourned his loss and other scoffed, saying that he had it coming for deceiving everyone (including his wife). All of them offered her sympathies anyhow.

Azula now realizes with dread, that the virus must be evolving. For it now claims people much quicker. Hansu’s boy contracted the virus only a week ago and she already sees his body being cremated. She on the other hand still coughs up blood as the virus rots her away.

She takes Tamzu into her arms and weeps. Weeps for the loss of Minrohc—that asshole—and for what she had done to what was once such a lively town. She weeps for her own dying body and for the infant she holds.

No doubt, the child is sick too. Either Tamzu starved to death, unable to care for herself, or Azula risks infecting her while feeding her. Neither option pleasures Azula, but at least one way would allow her to love the child, however briefly.

She can’t gauge how much time has passed, but it has been a while she knows. There is a knock on her door. Somehow, she pulls herself up and stumbles her way over to the door, weak and clumsy with fatigue. She pries the door open and stares—it has been so long since she’d talked to another human being, that she can’t seem to remember how to do it.

“Most of us are sick.” Says the man. With his sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, she almost can’t recognize Rouvir. “We figured that we should tell you that you might as well,” he makes a wheezed snickering sound, “join the living.”

She has apricate his ability to maintain humor, however morbid it may be. With Tamzu held closely to her chest, she follows him outside.

“We haven’t had a town gathering in a while, but Chief Ling-Huo suggested a meeting with some healers from the Water Tribe.”

Azula attends but between the throbbing in her head and the itching in her throat combined with the way the sun assaults her eyes she can’t focus on the mages nor her concerned neighbors that try to offer her words of comfort. Their words only pain her throbbing head. Rouvir rubs her back in small circles, trying to ease her suffering. He only steps back when she motions for him to do so, so that she can hand him Tamzu and double over in another coughing fit. By the end of it there is a considerably sized puddle of blood where she had just been hunched over. The tops of her hands are splashed with droplets. She takes Tamzu back and pretends like it hadn’t happened. The town’s folk and, especially, the healers are content to do the same.

She can’t help but notice that the healers avoid her with a purpose and only tend to those who look the least sickly. She can’t blame them. She knows that, a few years back, she’d be scowling in disgust at people like her and calling for their erasure before they could infect the capital.

She hears Tamzu make a gurgling baby noise and musters up a smile. She holds that smile until she realizes that the gurgle isn’t the product of baby-speak. She can only watch as her baby drowns from within, the virus has filled her lungs.

Azula doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting there. She is deeply bothered, but somehow can’t find the will to cry. She is numb and most people brush passed her, not having the words to say. She notices that even Rouvir has gone. Hansu casts Azula a forlorn look of understanding, but that’s the only attention that was paid to her. Azula realizes now that they probably are angry with her for bringing this upon them and had only invited her out of courtesy and/or because of the fond memories they had made with her. The ones that they can’t seem to let go of even now.

She falls to the sand and curls herself into a ball with Tamzu pressed against her chest. She feels blood as it trickles out of her mouth. But it’s alright, she’s ready for the virus to take her. She doesn’t move until a few town’s people lift her off of the sand and take her home. She doesn’t leave the spot they set her down on, until she is ready to leave the village.

For the days she had watched out the widow, she noticed the town transforming before her eyes. People started coming out again. Rouvir, with his gaunt face and unruly beard began hosting parties again. The teens began drinking until they fell over again. Hansu and her remaining children began hosting kuei ball tournaments, again, with the friends they had left and some new kids they were forced to meet. The food smelled heavenly and the chatter upbeat. That’s how she knew the village was done for.

Azula had counted six days of parties before now. Tonight’s party is the wildest yet. It is in full swing. And cruelly enough, she feels well enough to get up and join them. So, she does. As the party finally beings to wind down, she gets up and goes outside. But she does it in secret, speaking to no one, knowing that there is no point. She’s lucky she didn’t, unbeknownst to her at the time, the sickness had left her—slightly ravaged—but left no less. If she had stayed, it would have riddled her body again.

In one final breath, the dying village tossed fireworks into the air. In the light of those firey bursts, Azula headed north.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Zuko #Kiyi #Fanfiction

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