#How Do I Know My Ex Wants Me Back

[muffinlance]

Wait, what’s going on with Embers???? That fic has been on my read later list since 2021, what’s happened with it???

Brief overview, then I'm likely never touching this topic again, because this is not a Drama Blog:

Context: Embers is a super old AtLA fic that was written during the early fandom days, read widely at the time, and was the origin of the widely-used fanon name of "Wani" for Zuko's ship (kind of by default that it was one of the first popular fics to give his ship a name, I think?), even though most fic writers don't seem to realize it's from there anymore.

"What's Going On": I used to include a link in all my stories to it, because I believe in crediting other writers for borrowed elements, and I was using "Wani" in all my fics. But BOY did I not want to be sending readers that way anymore, so I've adopted a new name for Zuko's ship, and removed all Embers links.

None of the criticisms about Embers itself are new; I'm assuming they date back to when the fic was being written, because this isn't an "it aged badly" thing, this is an "actually yeah this gets worse the longer you think about it and I shouldn't have ignored my bad feelings just because some of the worldbuilding was interesting" thing.

An Incomplete List of Why I Made the Change:

I don't actually like the story that much anymore, and don't want to rec it

I tried to re-read it recently to see if some things were as bad as I remembered and it turns out they were So Much Worse Oh Yikes. More specifically, the treatment of Katara and Aang and their respective cultures has... rather a lot going on. One example: The Fire Nation and Air Nomads are both given multiple backstory elements in an attempt to make the average Fire Nation soldier's participation in the genocide/war in large part the fault of the Avatar and the Air Nomads themselves, and also fully justified from the Fire Nation perspective. And I do mean fully. One of its core tenants is "People from the Fire Nation (and only people from the Fire Nation) who don't follow orders Literally Die, therefore murdering pacifists and babies and continuing the war (and their regularly scheduled war crimes) is the only thing it is physically possible for them to do". I cannot emphasize enough how literal that is.

Also the name "Wani" means "Alligator" and is... objectively a pretty lame name for Zuko's ship? Where's the personality, where's the deeper meaning, where's the resonance with Zuko's themes? @tuktukpodfics initially thought I was calling the ship "Wanyi", and that's what I've switched to, because it is Objectively So Much Better. In their words: “Wànyī (萬一): Literally ‘one in ten thousand,’ ‘perchance.’ Used grammatically in Chinese to mean ��what if’ or ‘just in case.’ I think a ship called ‘The Perchance’ is perfect for a boy clinging to false hope.”

TL:DR; I don't rec Embers anymore, because I don't actually like the story anymore, and there are things about it that get worse the more I think on them. I've removed links to it and renamed Zuko's ship to "Wanyi" ("The Perchance") because our boy deserves a ship name that reflects his character arc.

[mlobsters]

supernatural s1e16 shadow (w. eric kripke)

I want us to be together again.

be still my beating heart part 2 of ∞ || will he stay or will he go part 1 of ?

(aka the first time i had a full-tilt meltdown over this show)

[widowshill]

BURKE DEVLIN & ROGER COLLINS. — It isn't really amazing if you know what love is about. — Well, yes, I suppose I don't know anything about love. I guess that's why she married you ten years ago and not me. — I'll go one step further. I think you've gone beyond the point of even knowing what it is.

[lyfrassiredda]

introducing the unwilling captain of the Dynamos, former Inspector Second Class Lyfrassir Edda! 

The AU where lyfrassir tries to hunt the prison mechs down with their shiny new eldritch powers (and a gun) for ditching them while their system was vored by a crusty imperialist’s eldritch sugar mommy.

Unfortunately, they’re not the only survivor of a Near Mechs Encounter interested in finding the crew of the starship Aurora— not by a long shot.

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

today just will not let me rest huh. reasons are in the tags but i get very emotional just be warned

[starbuck]

i offhandedly mentioned having seen a movie from the 2000s to my friend and she was genuinely flabbergasted because she thought i “only watched old movies”

[radioroxx]

remembers my isat tattoo hcs from one million years ago

[cheekblush]

really starting to believe that psychic who claimed i’m cursed

[donaviolet]

Friendship is the most special thing in the world because no award could be give me bigger happiness than jumping around in my room and smiling because my pookie asked me if I wanted to match pfps

[lunarharp]

wip thing...

of my bg3 avatar hellebore. i also did some casual nude studies of my 3 characters which i'll put under a cut... rather unlike me after all. (so WARNING for abrupt non-sexual full Artistic nudity lol...,,,,) (< won't be making a habit of this)

they mean the world to me

[shameboree]

I've been following you for a long time, and Fallon has changed a lot in that time! Can I ask what prompted you to change her from having short red hair to hair much more like her sister (Assuming her sister hasn't been retconned?)?

this ask inspired CHAOS in our home as me n polkie are fucking floored someone remembers ancient defunct oc lore from like, pre-2015 ocs era????? defunct oc lore never posted on this blog, ever, which means u managed to find your way here somehow from [redacted&burned]??! and somehow neither of us recognize you?? chaos, and mystery

around 2015 i started making fallons hair more strawberry blonde, and I was playing with length off n on for longer before that. We had an au where ashley was her teacher and she accidentally called him dad in class, and in the next au we were like 'he should adopt her. he should find her as a baby, in a dumpster' because we are disrespectful. after that came teen dad ashley, and that's when fallon went fully blonde. over time we played w family dynamics, and nowadays we mostly use them as twins bc the dynamic is impeccable (sometimes they have a darcy and georgiana type gap and relationship, and sometimes ashley is just a couple years older and so bad at being an older brother he ritual sacrifices her to colin's fucked up eldritch cat god. normal sibling fare). fallon got pointier and freckled over time to match ashley, who is a pointy little rat bitch, bc i wanted a family resemblance💖protofallon (circa 2009-2014ish?) was recycled as a design for ellis, my 6ft nightmare twink, in probably 2016? fallons only sibling now is ashley, and addies an only child

many of my ocs personalities have either changed DRASTICALLY since that time OR ive just straight up dropped their asses, and thats primarily bc i was the main target of my bananas bonkers ex's unmanaged borderline obsession and she LOVED to use ocs to control me (very cute and normal behavior). if my ocs did something she didn't like then suddenly she'd be having a hysterical suicidal meltdown and id have to like hold her hand all night instead of sleep (which she only let me get 2-4hrs a night for actual years, so!!) while being told i was the crazy problem person , so like all my ocs had to be on their best caretaking behavior at all times. anyway the physical changes in fallon were the first manifestation of me getting away frm that control, which very first started happening in 2014, and fully took root when polks moved here to scare my evil ex away and thats why fallon now gets to be a mean little blonde girl instead of a docile perfect waifu💖

[kuromi-hoemie]

hhhh talking about my writing was fun but 30 tags is not enough.. yes i have 3 major influences but i have minor ones too.. it is a lovechild of my favorite things.. writing is so fun and i have no self control or a concept of pacing myself i will sit there for 16 hours and get hit with every status effect but by god does it all just flow out of me. I've always been a music person yes but i also used to write a lot into early adulthood until The Incident™

but i am ready 2 jump back into it. i think comics are a great middle ground between the two mediums so i don't get As into writing bc i kind of started going crazy last time 🫡 i can take a more structured approach to it that forces me to pace myself and think about it differently. i love art.... i love making things i love knowing how to do things i love knowing how to play things i love having so many creative outlets, even if i don't do a lot of them regularly lol. it is enriching 😳 and nice to know that it's always there to come back to when u want.

[sluttyten]

yall I want TDS3 tickets so badly 😭 but I don't know who to even go with and I'm not going by myself.... but I'm also seriously thinking I'm just gonna go ahead and try to get tickets on friday anyway

[faaun]

the forest looks like heaven today i woke up feeling the heaviest weight at the top of my heart

[donnyclaws]

I was gonan make a post apologizing for lack of regular art but I feel like jts already clear im sporadic and in and out of it bc chronic pain and circumstances. So for now I'm gonna hibernate, get my health steady again, deal with money issues, and art will happen when it happens.