#I should have done it with my inn fic tbh but I spent too long editing it I just wanted it published so I could do more

[dargorian]

Not me having watched S7 putting my second Rayllum AU one-shot/minific on hold for a moment as I plan out a post 7x09 sandwich fic.

Inspiration's hitting so hard right now, like jfc I also want to draw so much too

If anyone is interested, my one-shot/minific is on the sealegs, with thoughts of potential consequences coming to light after what they did in my inn fic.

The inn fic had sandwiches. The sealegs fic may also have sandwiches because it's like she almost died but he's also injured and is he sure he should be doing this in that state. This post 7x09 fic meanwhile is 100% sandwiches AND has a title already. I'm also losing control of it. Send help.

(The Lavender Inn is what my first AU fic is called on AO3. Don't have a title yet for my sealegs fic but I should when I've done more)

[cupidshootstokill]

the fire lord and the bloodbender

hey, first fic ever that i’m posting to tumblr! this for a cute lil activity we did on the zutara gc, it was based on the prompt ‘bloodbending’. tbh this is more of a first draft than the complete fic, but still, hope u guys enjoy!

Rated: T

Pairing: Zuko/Katara

Word count: 2.5k

Katara's earliest memory was cages. Trapped behind cold steel bars, shackled to the ground where the elephant rats gnawed at her bare feet. She kicked them away during the day, but she was powerless at night, waking up to little red bites where they broke through her skin. They were as hungry as she was, after all.

But one night, under a full moon, that changed. She was released from her cage, encased within the arms of a woman, a prisoner like her. Together they fled from the prison. And for Katara, a new life had began as an innkeeper's granddaughter in a quaint Fire Nation village.

Hama told her that she wasn't really her grandmother. Kanna had been her dearest friend before the Fire Nation had snatched them away and locked them up in their cold steel cages, full of elephant rats that gnawed at your skin. She told  Katara to never forget her true identity, a waterbender from the South Pole, one of its last.

But Katara didn't know what that meant, she knew nothing of snow or her mother's embrace. She accepted Granny's words without question. Granny, who fed her and clothed her in pretty skirts. Granny, who braided her hair and sent her to the village school. Granny, who taught her to waterbend and to play with puppets. Granny, who taught her so many terrible and wonderful things.

Katara knew what Granny did to the villagers, she knew who was behind the disappearances, the unnatural stirring of limbs, the uncanny movements like puppets on a string. She had seen it first hand, under a full moon. But she kept quiet, Granny had never hurt her. And even if she had felt sorry for the girl in her class whose father had vanished without a trace, she knew better than to speak of it.

Several summers had passed. Katara spent most of her time in school, or playing other children in the village square. Granny forbade her from working at the inn, a child like her should play, work was for women. So she played, chasing the village children, and hiding in and out of shadows. Like this, she could almost forget what Granny did to their fathers and mothers and older sisters and brothers.

One day, she was not longer a child, waking up with blood between her legs. There was a dull ache in her tummy, but she hadn't been cut anywhere. She wondered if she was sick, if this was an illness she could heal. Wordlessly, she cleaned herself up, removing what blood she could with her bending, and gingerly she brought one hand to her stomach, feeling for the chi inside of her.

Even when the ache went away, she continued to bleed. It grew heavier and messier as it soiled her clean white sheets, and she cried in frustration. She had no choice but to tell Granny, there's no way she could go to school in the state she was in.

Granny congratulated her, at last she was a woman. Katara no longer attended school, she stayed at home. She no longer played in the village square, she worked at the inn. She no longer learned how to heal and control the waves, she learned how control people and made them dance like puppets.

Every full moon, she would paint her face, conceal her identity in a wide brimmed head and hide behind a veil. It was no longer Granny snatching away the villages, locking them up as elephant rats gnawed at their bare feet, it was her.

Even still, she could never possess Granny's cruelness, as she twisted their limb back until they broke, as she lashed they skin with water whips until it tore, as she froze their fingers and toes until they fell off.

For Katara saw not the Fire Nation soldiers that stole her from her family, from her people and culture. She saw the grocer and the butcher's son, the merchant and her teacher at the village school. She couldn't free because then where would they be? Granny and her, locked up in another cage, sentenced to death by whatever means the Fire Lord could think of.

But Katara wasn't cruel, she told herself as much as she healed the captives, their bones snapping back to place, their skin sewed back together under her cooling touch. She expected punishment, but Hama only praised her before inflicting another round of torture. And the cycle repeated indefinitely, as the moon waxed and waned.

A boy arrived at the inn. He called himself Lee, and Katara winced at the sight of his burnt eye. If he noticed, he didn't take offence, asking about where one might find work. That's when Granny stepped in.

"Us women could do with strong young man around, if you chop me a pile of firewood, I will let you stay here for free."

Katara urged the boy to leave, to run far away from here, but the words never left her mouth. She watched, silent, as Granny led the boy up the stairs to his room. That night, the moon was a waxing gibbous.

He was an easy target, one that no one would miss, the lone boy with a scar that none of the villagers knew.

She snuck into his room on his second night, the full moon casting a shadow on his high brow, like a blindfold over his eyes. His limbs contorted and his eyes snapped open, luminescent gold. He cursed in a futile struggle as Katara marched the boy into the woods, and into the cave.

All the while, he hissed and screamed at her, struggling against her pull with a ferocity than no victim before had possessed. Granny chained him up and he thrashed like a rabid dog, even bending fire from his mouth.

"What an insolent creature you are. Livelier than the rest of your brethren." She looked around at the villagers, hanging limply from their chains, dejected souls.

"Although, I suppose this makes things a lot of more interesting." Granny turned towards Katara, a knowing look in her beady old eyes. "My dear, won't you come closer?"

She could feel a gaze as cold as steel and as brilliant as gold on her as she stepped forward. "Katara, I know you are a gentle soul, and I've tolerated your healing until now. It's is time you learnt that justice made be delivered upon wrongdoers."

Granny stepped away from the boy, and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her closer. "And who better to practice on but a firebender." With one emaciated wrinkled finger, she tilted up Katara's chin. She no longer any choice but to stare into the boy's eyes, wide with fear, and the scorched skin. This was a boy, not much older than her, who cruelty at already been inflicted upon by his own people. And Hama would have her torture and kill him.

She scarcely knows this boy, but she knows her guardian. Hama, a woman so wounded by war and twisted by her own suffering, that she would at nothing to bring it upon others. Until now, Katara had played a part in it, something that had filled her with shame every night of the full moon. But this cannot go on.

Drawing water, she froze the boy's shackles, slicing through them in a powerful blow to free him from the wall. She could feel a tugging on her veins, but fought back with her own influence. The boy, however, had no control, throwing  clumsy volleys of fire at Katara, which she deflected.

"Young lady, you are making a grave mistake," Hama said. "To think that one of my own, the child that I raised by hand, would turn against me. And all for a pathetic firebender!" She now dragged the forward, his limbs limp as she shook his body for emphasis.

"But unlike you, cruel girl, I will show mercy." The boy rose, now levitating under the influence of Hama's bending. "I will teach you how to kill painlessly, I will stop his heart."

Katara's body reacted before she could think, reaching out to bend her master. Immediately she felt resistance, but the thought of the boy dead, his lifeless body going colder and colder, spurred her on. With all her might, she pushed against Hama's bending. Her master arm's fell back, and the flopped onto the ground with a heavy thud.

Hama fought against her grip, her bony, old frame trembling in exertion. "You wretched girl, using my own powers against me! For this you will suffer, you will suffer indeed!"

Beside her, the boy was up on his feet, in a wide stance she had seen firebenders take before. His index and middle finger were pointed as the rest were tucked into a fist, and he began to draw circles, in and out. A brilliant pale blue light followed him, and Katara watched mesmerised until she realised.

It was lightning. The boy had created lightning, and he aimed it directly to Hama's withered heart.

Katara still held her master firm as the lightning coursed through her body, burning her from the inside out. She kept on holding on, feeling the old woman's lifeforce fade away. At last, she let go.

Granny was dead.

The realisation hit her hard, and Katara crumpled onto the ground as if someone had cut off her strings. She cried, choked up and struggling to breathe at the thought of what she had done. Someone put an arm around her, it was cautious yet warmth and she melted in the boy's side. The boy that hadn't left her as soon as he was free, the boy that had stayed to fight beside her, the boy with the scar and the most captivating golden eyes.

They soon realised they couldn't stay in the village. If they were to free the villagers themselves, any one of them could turn them in. So they returned to the inn and packed their bags. Before the crack of dawn, Katara left a map and keys to free the villagers in the square. It wouldn't be at least until sunrise until somebody would find it, and by then they'll be long gone.

Katara and the boy, Lee, spent the follow years travelling between Fire Nation towns, never staying too long in the fear of getting caught. They would pretend to be young lovers that had eloped together, after Katara's father had disapproved of their union and branded Lee with a scar. Many pitied the young couple, and offered them a bed to sleep on and food to eat. It wasn't much, but Katara and Lee vowed to help out wherever they could. They were both hardworkers, and never complained no matter how gruelling the work their host had set out for them.

They would also help at night. The Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady were famed heroes throughout the Fire Nation, ridding towns of vagrants and tyrannical oligarchs and healing the sick. Even still, Katara always had the feeling she was repenting for a great sin. The death of Hama haunted her dreams, and Lee had often woken her up, trying to shake off the fear that plagued her.

It happened when they were staying at a Fire Sages' sanctuary. By now they were in their early twenties, having spent the rest of their teenage years together. Time blurred the line between fact and fiction, and no longer did they have to lie about being lovers. To Katara, Lee remained a mystery, she had no idea what brought him to her village in the first place, no idea why he ran instead of settling down, no idea why he had that terrible scar. But if there was one thing she did know, it was that she trusted him and loved him with her whole heart.

And it would seem that Lee felt the same way.

Their stay at the sanctuary concluded with a small ceremony in the temple nearby. With Agni as their witness, they were now husband and wife.

Despite their marriage, Katara had learned nothing new about her husband's past. Lee continued to be elusive, dodging her questions and giving vague answers when he couldn't. She believed things would forever stay that way, and focused on envisioning a future with him instead, wondering how exactly they could raise a family on run.

They were in Harbour City, Lee was working for a merchant. After some serious talks, they had made plans to move to one of the Fire Nation colonies, hopefully there, they will be able to settle down and start a family. They were hoping that one of the merchant ships would allow them safe passage.

But instead, it was decreed that Fire Nation had lost the war. The Avatar had defeated Fire Lord Ozai and the Crown Princess, now imprisoned in the Capital City. The new Fire Lord had yet to be officially crowned, Ozai's brother, General Iroh was acting as regent until the true heir to the throne, Prince Zuko, was found.

The news ignited a profound change in Lee, her taciturn husband grew anxious in a manner that was deeply unfamiliar to Katara. At his insistence, they changed their course towards Caldera City. Katara supposed that, with the war over, the colonies would be long gone anyway.

This is journey was unlike their travels before, there was no idle zapping back and forth between coastal towns. There was constant movement, only resting for the night. They were driven by the strange spark of vigour that burned within Lee, and within a week's time, they had reached their destination, the Royal Palace.

However, it was not just them that had journeyed to the palace following the general's announcement. Lee was one man in a sea of faces, claiming to be the lost prince. Katara could only hope he was telling the truth.

Every morning, it is said that the great palace gates open, and General Iroh would step out followed by his procession of heavily armed guards. Every morning, it is said that the general's eyes scan the crowd for his beloved nephew. Every morning, it is said that he returns to the palace without the soon to be Fire Lord, his face crestfallen.

On that very morning, Lee stood among the crowd of would be princes, and Katara beside him. People waved for the general's attention, others called him "Uncle" with false familiarity, but Lee just stood there, waiting. When the general's eyes fell on Lee's face, Katara saw a pang of recognition. She gasped audibly, as General Iroh summoned his soldiers to his side. After exchanging a few words with the general, they marched over to where Katara and her husband stood.

The man she had married was none other than Fire Lord Zuko.

and it ends kind of mysteriously, but i’m sure you guys can imagine a happily ever after. like I said before, this is rlly the first draft. for the challenge, i kinda played around with a different fairytale/greek mythology inspired style of writing. and tbh I don’t know how much i like it? I still want to rewrite this one day and posted it properly to my ao3 account (i’ll reblog this post w new version when i do). anyway, thanks for reading and thanks for @randomfriends and @fandoms-are-part-of-me for doing the challenge with me, check them out guys!

[onewhodiedyoung]

@rhymaes, not wanting to write papers must be contagious :,) (no, actually they’re just awful) (also, ‘edge of your teeth’ is art and I’m a fan)

fandoms: oh boy, there’s like a million but let’s say that recently Les Miserables (because I love being miserable ha and am reading the book in French and calling it ‘studying’) It (planning to reread the book before I see the movies though but still reading fic), All For the Game (because I’ve just reread the books for the 5th time and ascdfsc), Percy Jackson (because apparently writing about the son of Hades’ emo phase is all I need to be happy) Harry Potter (because Harry Potter is a constant thing in my head whether I want to or not, like one time I literally explained a whole dramatic friendship evolution to my dad by saying ‘I thought they were a Hufflepuff but actually, they’re a Slytherin’ but I’m only in the fandom for the fandom cause like the source material is...... well) Hannibal (rewatching for the third time with my younger brother cause he said he wouldn’t be scared of all the organs and is so far keeping his word, oh corrupting youth... will I go to hell?) and A Series of Unfortunate Events (kind of, not really talking about it online but I would die for this show). I guess Drrr! too but I’m taking a break

tropes: okay, I love love love hate to love more than anything but there might be a trope I love the most of them all, only I don’t know if you can call it a trope and it’s a very specific thing. It’s this carefree sarcastic character that is slowly releaved to have depths BUT hear me out I don’t mean the cliche bad boy sob story ohhh someone hurt me and now I wear a leather jacket and flirt with people and stare attractively out the window, I mean this more specific scenario when someone kind of doesn’t care because they once cared too much and it’s why I am so obsessed with Les Mis because it’s so Grantaire. Like give me a story about an overexcited child-genius who grows up sad and barely passes the year and gets drunk and I’m just a puddle. I don’t know what about it speaks to me so much but it’s my absolute favorite. Also, found family, always. And not romantic, but hate to friendship is awesome, too. and all those cop/criminal aus, I need them ok

(I severely dislike soulmate aus and only read them sometimes when I just can’t stay away because of the writing style)

number of fics: only 21 but the quarantine makes the number grow fast... I have like a million ideas for 20 different fandoms, I swear (even though I should be working on the novels and short stories instead)

fic I’ve spent the most time on: uhhh to be honest it’s hard to tell because I just sit down and write something until it’s done. Usually when I post something I started it the very same day or the day before. It’s probably simply the longer the fic, the more time? ALTHOUGH I’ve been writing this super dramatic Warsaw/Cracow post-war story that is set in this au about city personifications and loosely from Les Mis and I’ve literally already been trying to write it for a month, maybe because the subject matter is so dark, I don’t know, I just really want to get it right

shortest fic: apparently, at 1621 words, “blood spot”, which is a Drarry fic about Harry using unethical spells and trying to care lol (it honestly worries me how much I romanticize the whole sectumsempra thing, it needs to stop) https://archiveofourown.org/works/21794572

longest fic: from completed ones, The Gift of Hands (https://archiveofourown.org/works/21042392/chapters/50051546) but I’m posting an OHSHC fic that’s already longer than that, an original work (so not technically a fanfic but shsh it’s my fanfic of Franz Marc as an artist ok) that’s already longer as well (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463895/chapters/56249917), and a hp epistolary fic that will be. From one shots, The Catalogue of Bones (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20627441)

most comments/kudos/bookmarks: The Gift of Hands (I’m still shooked that people liked this story so much considering Izaya wasn’t present for like half of it lol)

total word count: 187,719 ....... it absolutely terrifies me that this is from less than a year...... I had uni and work and all my wip novels how did this happen what have I been neglecting to write Drarry after Drarry? someone kill me please

favorite fic: is it cheating to mention 3? Cause I can’t pick. So there’s ‘The Catalogue of Bones’ which is overwritten and which I’m scared to open in case after all these months I’ll see right away that it’s shit but I loved writing it and I like the rhythm of it (which probably doesn’t exist) and just like it. Then there’s ‘And Who Can Say if There Are no Frogs on the Moon’ (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631638) which is maybe the sweetest thing I’ve ever written and Hermione/Luna which is a ship I would die for. Aaand ‘the boy who listened to bones’ (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614144) because I just love Nico and love writing Nico and, for some reason, love writing war-trauma

fic I want to rewrite/expand: rewrite? almost all of them but I won’t, because hopefully sometime from now I will reread them in the order of posting and maybe, maybe see progress? Expand.... hmmm.... I don’t really want to expand anything, tbh. When I want to add something I actually always just make it a new separate fic (this sounds like I’m perfectly satisfied with everything I posted but trust me, I’m not... like the Moaning Myrtle/Neville fanfic is all good intentions and eternal cringe)

share a bit of a wip: oh boy......... all I have is like two sentences of a never finished Gilmore Girls fic about Lorelei drinking wine and wanting an inn and a piece of a Drarry story that I temporarily dropped because I liked the concept and decided to use it for a whole novel about lesbians and Paganini instead oops. I really just write one shots the day I post them and I’m not posting a one shot today so... But I guess here’s Drarry with Draco remembering Harry speaking up for him and Narcissa during the trials:

He looked confident, Harry, and he wore grief like something freshly-washed and pressed. He kept his chin up, and his glasses weren’t held together by tape. He was immaculate, even his hair somehow combed into a semblance of tidiness, and Draco imagined it must have taken hours to get it to behave, couldn’t imagine why Harry would bother. By then people would oh and ah whenever he entered the room, no matter the tea stains, no matter the stubble, no matter the falling-apart sneakers, and then this: crispness like Harry was a dollar bill straight out of print, even though he wouldn’t lose anything otherwise, anyway, even though people would love him, unconditional.

It wouldn’t occur to him for months that Harry might have made himself presentable for their sake, that he might have put all the thoughts of countless deaths inside his pocket for a little while to make sure that people would listen as he explained that Narcissa was a mother, and not a bad person, as if the two were mutually exclusive.

He said, after clearing his throat, and to the whole room, his voice echoing, we’re not all good. He said, after a significant pause, and they’re not all bad.

Draco hated him for how he was ‘them’ and he felt c and r and u and c again and i and then o align on his tongue, letters he would voice or swallow, it could go either way.

Once, he crucio-ed himself, writhing in the ground and begging something for forgiveness through the pain, some old gods who must have raised their eyebrows as they watched, or maybe they didn’t bother watching at all.

No wand for a year was the verdict, and Draco didn’t mind because he didn’t want the wand.

What he wanted was the piano.

I have pieces of aftg and Stranger Things fics in my head but not written down yet. Wow this was unnecessarily long and rambly, I’m sorry :,) Not tagging anyone because my brain is scrambled and I can’t think but if you’re writing fic and this looks fun then I’d love to read yours! <3