#avatar/Hadestown crossover

[dont-leafmealone]

Summary: the elements are thrown out of balance, and the spirits are angry.

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Rating: General audiences

Category: Gen

Characters: Tui, La, and other spirits who remain nameless.

Content Warnings: discussion/depiction of war, genocide, colonization

After the first massacre on the Air Temples, smoke hung in the Air, still and thick and heavy. The Winds did not blow it away, too overcome with grief at the great loss — spirits don't often get attached to mortals, but the Air Nomads had a special affinity for things otherworldly than their own, and the Winds have never been shy about showing favor. 

In the following times, as the remaining Airbenders were lured in with false promises of fellow survivors, the Winds' grief turned to anger. Their chosen children had been hunted, slaughtered — senseless cruelty, in the name of greed, of power hoarded like a dragon's treasure.

The Winds were angry. And so came the storms. So came the gales. So came ruin to those who would dare harm the innocent. So came the wrath of Air.

~

After the first raid on the Southern Water Tribe, the tides stilled out of time with their cycle. Tui and La's mortal bodies may have resided in the North, but all those who lived by the Push and Pull of the Moon and the Ocean dwelt in their domain. As the North closed their gates and swore to remain impartial — Impartial, in a war that shattered the very balance of the world! — the Moon and the Ocean wept for their lost children in the South, torn from their homes and bound without the Push and Pull that defined them; wept, and then raged.

The Moon and the Ocean were angry. And so came crashing waves. So came the monsoons. So came ruin to those who would upset the balance of life. So came the wrath of Water.

~

When heavy, steel boots touched their shores, the spirits of the Earth trembled. The Mountains, already witness to the murders of the children of the Air by the might of Fire, whispered a warning, and watched in horror as the Forests were razed and sturdy settlements scorched to ash. The children of the Earth fought defiantly, but year by tiring year, they were beaten back and subdued, forced far from their elements, digging coal to power the machines that drove their own destruction. The spirits of the Earth saw all of this. From the injustice grew fury.

The Earth was angry. And so came the quaking of the ground, the sandstorms. So came dry, rocky ground, too hard and unfit for growing. So came the landslides. So came the ruin of those who would beat and break a people's spirit. So came the wrath of Earth. 

~

The children of the Sun, of the Volcanoes and Dragons, wrought harm and ruin upon the world. The spirits of Fire all watched as their gift was turned against the innocent, was used to enact unspeakable harm. The Dragons were the first to intervene; and just like that, all but two of the Dragons, hidden away in secret over their last clutch of eggs, were hunted in the name of glory. At this — this final injustice — the sun had enough. Her children had to learn.

The Sun was angry. And so came blazing heatwaves. So came crops scorched as seedlings. So came riverbeds run dry. So came ruin to those who would corrupt the sacred and pure. So came the wrath of Fire.

~

And what of the Avatar? What of Balance? Balance — a naïve notion of the past, to some, gone as a pebble under waves. Balance cannot remain when greed and cruelty and war reign, when whole Nations are decimated. 

Balance lay encased in ice, and guarded her sleeping vessel, and waited for the moment he would wake. 

[quarantineddreamer]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @fulcrumstardust and @astromechs 💕

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

14 (will be 15 on the 23rd!)

2.  What's your total AO3 word count?

223,989 (lol over half of that is ONE FIC)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've written for Rogue One and Andor (so, star wars) as well as Avatar the Last Airbender

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Element of Change (837)

Of Lanterns and Turtleducks (189)

Synchronous Scars (164)

Stars May Collide (92)

I'll Save You (90)

(ty zk fandom <3 and aww look at scars go that makes me so happy)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I try to as often as possible, but sometimes I get overwhelmed thinking how to reply because they just mean SO MUCH and internally I'm just like me? my fic?? really???? ahhhhhhh you have no idea ilysm so much for this thankyouthankyouthankyou

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm. I've written a lot of angst. But I'm gonna go with Ulaf because well...the canon itself is sad and I feel like it somehow got sadder with what I wrote.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

A Winter's Night on Yavin 4 gives me the warm and fuzzies and makes me smile

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have, yeah

9. Do you write smut. If so, what kind?

I have only written smut once and it was for As a Shadow lmao. I'll probably be trying it again in the near future for a different fic.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I've written AUs but not crossovers. In the ATLA fandom I started an Aladdin!AU for ZK and a Hadestown!AU for Taang

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I fucking hope not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope (but I'd be open to it!)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Yes! Once! (Hi, Brit w/the hadestown!au <3)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Rebelcaptain. I can't get enough of these two. The brainrot is real.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

No. I'm ridiculously stubborn. I'm finishing them.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Uhhhhhhh idk depicting emotion maybe?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I overthink. Constantly. It is crippling, it is awful/painful, and I hate it so much.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I haven't done it! It makes me very nervous (see answer to previous question).

19. First Fandom you wrote for?

Lol I outed myself on this earlier in the week and I don't feel like doing it again

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

uhhhhhhh I'm feeling proud of Umbra Memoriae at the moment so let's go with that

Tagging (no pressure): @frostbitepandaaaaa @jack-whiskey-daniels @gaygingersnaps @youhavereachedtheendofpie @andorology and @dilf-din

[reflection-s-of-stars]

Free as a honeybee

This isn't Toph Beifong's first time running away. At nine years old, Toph is a spirited young girl who knows her way around the block. She likes sneaking out the back door at night, she likes hearing people ask if they've heard anything when she walked by. And she adores the feeling of the wind in her hair when she dashes through fields and forests and abandoned streets.

But this street isn't abandoned, not by a long, long shot. Toph knows it when she's rudely awakened by somebody's bare foot nudging at her arm.

Everybody's dancing, she can feel it. But it's far from what her parents would call beautiful. People are stamping their feet, laughing, screaming with joy, singing little snatches of the melody someone's playing on a lyre. It's chaos, pure, drunken chaos. But there's not an unhappy one among them, Toph knows that. And she aches for the sweet, unbridled freedom that she hears and feels and smells among everyone in this square.

"You new in town, young lady?"

Toph hears a swishing skirt and smells what she's pretty sure is wine. It's a lady, for sure, talking to her. She growls like a tiger when she talks, not at all like the soft-spoken ladies in her mother's social circles. Toph grins.

"You could say that."

"And I can see you're an earthbender."

"How can you tell?"

"We have looks about us."

Toph has a million questions, buzzing around like flies in her brain. Who is this woman? Why is she so open about being an earthbender, when she's exactly the kind of person that people don't like? That her father would hate?

Then again, Toph's father wouldn't exactly like what she's doing right now either.

"What's your name?"

“Toph.”

“Toph...”

She thinks for a moment. “Just Toph, thanks. Yours?”

"Persephone.”

The name sounds similar to that of Toph’s mom. Persephone, Poppy. Both names of the growing earth, yet one seems to have a lot more substance than the other.

"So you're an earthbender."

"Yes, you could say that. I do more with plants than most, though."

More questions, humming, buzzing, asking themselves. "What do you mean, plants? I thought earthbenders could only move, well, earth."

"Aren't plants a type of earth?"

"I suppose so, but I didn't know you could bend them. How do you do it?"

"Do you want me to show you?"

There's no harm, she guesses. "Sure."

Hours later, Toph and Persephone are kneeling over a small patch of earth, trying, trying to make a seed sprout. Persephone's done it a million times with ease, but plants don't seem to be Toph's strong suit- the most she can get is an inch.

"Why don't we take a break, hon? I've got some lemons that I've been meaning to put to use, and you seem like the type to like lemonade."

Toph is the type to like lemonade, so they leave. Persephone is staying in a little apartment above a bar that's owned by a man named Mr. Hermes. Toph can tell by the way he walks that she can trust him, at least a little.

“So why do you do it?” She asks in Persephone’s sweet-smelling apartment.

“Do what, darling?”

Toph normally wouldn’t like being called darling, but somehow she doesn’t mind when Persephone does it.

“Plantbending, or whatever it’s called.”

She laughs. It sounds like leaves crinkling in the fall. “I guess I don’t know anymore. I’ve been doing it for... Oh, decades now, maybe even more. My mama taught me how.”

Decades? She seemed younger than that. And yet, somehow, Toph can so clearly imagine Persephone laughing with the long-dead air nomads. How old even is she? Spirits, why doesn’t Toph ask questions like this beforehand? How does she know she can trust this woman?

And yet, Persephone trusts her. Not only that, she respects her. That’s not something Toph is used to.

I could live on this, she thinks.

She goes on. “You would’ve liked my mama, I think. She always had good advice.”

“Like what?”

“Make the most of what you can get. Have as much fun as you can doing it, too.”

“That doesn’t sound like my mom at all.”

“What’s your mom like?”

“Cold, closed-minded, overprotective.” Toph doesn’t even notice the bitter words are jumping out of her mouth until she hears them. “She doesn’t know I’m an earthbender. She wouldn’t want to know a thing like that. In her mind, I’m just a helpless little girl, but I’m not. I’m not! You knew that, you haven’t even known me for a day! She only sees what she wants to- ah!”

The floors, under which are only air, have caught Toph off her balance, and she tumbles onto what she thinks is going to be hard, splintery wood. But instead, she feels soft fabric and warm arms. The tears Toph didn’t know were falling hit the floor instead.

“Shh, shh. I know exactly what you’re going through. Some people are never going to see you for who you are, that’s something we’ve got in common. But you’re a strong, capable young lady. You’re a force of nature, Toph, and if you don’t think anyone’s gonna recognize that anytime soon, you’re welcome to stick around.”

Toph is stunned. She’s never known anyone to be so... she’s not even sure what. Warm. Or motherly. More than Toph’s own mother.

“Thanks.”

“Now let’s try it with some moss.”

[grimm-the-tiger]

Making a masterpost for The Outsider Chronicles just in case. 

What is the Outsider Chronicles? 

The Outsider Chronicles is my special interest from hell fan comic, which currently only exists as a prose version because art is hard. The comic is a mega-crossover divided based on what storylines are following which character, which is probably why, when I do get around to making the comic version, I’m going to upload it to either Tumblr or AO3 with their (questionably) handy tagging systems so fans of one character can simply...read that character’s storyline. 

Yes, but what is the Outsider Chronicles about? 

Hoo boy. 

So there’s a solid fifty different characters in just the first volume alone (this thing has 10 planned volumes and is probably going to get more) and each one has their own storyline. It’s probably easier to describe the overall plot instead of each of the individual storylines, which will probably get their own posts later on. 

The comic begins with the basic fanfic crossover premise of “characters wake up in another universe” and then goes completely off the rails. The central cast consists of the Outsiders, a bunch of people who randomly showed up in the Supergirl universe one day and decided to team up because one of them, Jenny, promised to show them a way home if they’d help her rescue her father, the Doctor. The comic is being narrated by this snarky little shit named Aelitah, who knew the Outsiders at some point in time, long after their dissolution and apparent demise. We learn more about her as the story unfolds and how her story ties into the Outsiders’. 

What fandoms are featured in the Outsider Chronicles? 

The most important fandoms for just the first volume (i.e. the ones where the protagonists come from) are Doctor Who, Generator Rex, Hetalia, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the Alcatraz Vs series, Scandinavia and the World, Realicide, Alita Battle Angel, Lockwood & Co, the Pandava Quartet, Ben 10, Shazam!, anything by Rick Riordan, Danny Phantom, Daniel X, Hermitcraft, the Dream SMP, the Empires SMP, Hollow Knight, Stand Still Stay Silent, Voltron, Avatar: the Last Airbender, Fullmetal Alchemist, Septimus Heap, and Red Rising. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE FAMILIAR WITH ALL OF THESE WORKS. I cannot stress that enough. If you’re familiar with just ONE of them, you can follow that one work to the end of the series; assuming I did my job as a writer correctly, you should be able to parse enough information about whatever fandom interacts with your own the most to get through the story. 

The works the settings are from include the Supergirl tv show, the Fallen London ‘verse, the MCU, the SCP Foundation universe, a few previously mentioned works, and a few settings of my own creation. You also do not have to be familiar with these settings to read The Outsider Chronicles. 

There are also few fandoms not mentioned above that also appear. These include Little Nightmares, Centricide, Mianite, Sunless Skies (technically part of Fallen London but still), Bioshock 1 and Infinite, Hadestown, Dune, Attack on Titan, and other works that would probably get me cancelled on Twitter. 

Is there anything else we need to know? 

Yes. Because of this story’s size, it’s going to be a bit slow when it comes to updates. I’ll try to update whatever storyline I’m working on at the time at least once a week, but life gets in the way sometimes and I might not be able to progress this fast enough. 

There are also some content warnings for warfare, genocide, violence, sexual assault (not shown but fairly blatantly discussed), abuse, death, child abandonment, mental illness, suicide, and prejudice. There are probably others but I don’t know what other things might be triggering; let me know if you decide to read the comic and find some more, and I’ll update this list. 

This series also heavily features headcanons of mine! I’ll try to name them when I can, but just remember to take things with a grain of salt if you intend to read another work featured in The Outsider Chronicles. 

I think that’s about it. There’s some more posts about my comic if you want to read them below: 

Stupid parts of the lore 

Some art of random character designs 

[coldwind-shiningstars]

anyone wanna... help me Be Productive by picking a fic for me to work on? I have a few that are Actively In Progress and a few that are lingering but I still want to get done. just. If anyone wants to Pick One I would be grateful!

actively in progress:

chapter 3 of Sing It Again (TAZ Balance Hadestown AU -- Lup goes on an Epic Quest to save her brother from the underworld)

How to Decay Gracefully (Magia Record -- Momoko/Mitama have king-and-lionheart dynamics, erotically!)

chapter 3 of Flame Imperishable (TAZ Balance -- Angus and his family over Candlenights)

The Shapes A Bright Container Can Contain (MDZS -- casefic, also known as "fun and funky ghost murder mystery")

Very Slightly Sketched Out

Fifth User AU (BNHA -- Izuku gets OFA a hundred years or so earlier)

Jiang Cheng, Hive Avatar (mdzs/tma crossover -- to be completely consumed by what loves you)

[fourteenacross]

end of 2019

I've done this survey every year since like, 2006 and then missed it last year because I was on a social media break. Whoops! My shitty memory makes it fairly important as a way to track the passage of time, so I'm back on the horse this year.

What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before? I'm sure there's some specific thing, but nothing's coming to me immediately. Oh, I guess I started cross stitching? Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I'm not sure what my resolutions were for last year because I did not write them anywhere because I did not do this meme /o\ Next year: + Set up some kind of writing schedule + Finish my mg novel + Survive moving + Get a new job + Go on more dates

eta: Outside of these sort of concrete, 2do-list type goals, I set some more nebulous personal goals on Twitter: - See my local friends outside of the BFC more often - Do weird, dumb shit - Be nicer to myself - Fix my meds - Bake something fancy(Okay, that last one is kind of 2do-listy.) Did anyone close to you give birth? YES!! @caphairdadbeard had a baby and he's perfect and I love him and it kills me that he's so far away and I only get to see him a few times a year, even more so than it usually kills me having Sarah so far away. Did anyone close to you die? My former roommate's father. I did a lot of family stuff with her over the decade that we lived together and spent a lot of time with her parents and he was super loved and admired by his community. A real shitty loss all around. What countries did you visit? Just the US, but I visited Seattle and Mississippi for the first time! What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019? ~*~Financial security~*~ What dates from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? I'm so terrible with actual dates. May 9 was Max's birthday, so there's that? We did a lovely, successful live show on April 18. OH we went to Rent Live and had our wild weekend in LA on January 26. We watched a lot of wild movie musicals at Grace and Jesse's in July. I saw Blair Witch in the woods. I went down to the city to see Octet and Hadestown. Lisa moved in with me. Moby-Dick happened. Now I'm just listing events and not dates, but there you go. What was your biggest achievement of the year? God, do I even have one? I'm not dead, so that's probably something. Oh, I guess we had a really good WBS month where we were interviewed by Forbes.com, had one of our crossovers with IDEOTV, guest edited TBD, and had our live show. That was a really satisfying few weeks. What was your biggest failure? I'm haunted by this work thing I fucked up, even though everyone has told me it wasn't a big deal. I really crash and burned out for NaNo because SAD hit me way harder and faster this year than it has in the past. Did you suffer illness or injury? Lots of brain stuff, as per usual. A couple minor colds. My FAMILY on the other hand.... What was the best thing you bought? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Tickets to Octet, maybe. It was probably my favorite show of the year. The new chair/loveseat is also very good. Whose behavior merited celebration? Some of my friends. A lot of excellent activists. Sarah's baby (he's very good). Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Like, the whole government? Where did most of your money go? Grown-up type stuff (rent, utilities, groceries), cons, and travel. What did you get really, really, really excited about? LA, Octet, Max, DragonCon, Moby-Dick. Galentine's! What song will always remind you of 2019? Probably music from Octet? I don't like.....listen to the radio. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? Probably about the same? Maybe more stressed out by family stuff going on and money stuff. b) thinner or fatter? Same. Also, I hate this question. 2020 Kaitlyn, delete it plz. c) richer or poorer? About to be poorer. What do you wish you’d done more of? Writing. Sleeping. Going on dates. Hanging out with people. What do you wish you’d done less of? Being depressed. Being stressed. Did you fall in love in 2019? Nope. What was your favorite TV program? If we're talking "currently airing" and not "things I bingewatch that are very old," probably The Good Place--OH I almost forgot Good Omens was this year!!! Also that! And I started watching Schitt's Creek and watched all of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Oh, and I started watching some videos on the Bon Appetit YouTube channel, mostly Gourmet Makes and Making Perfect and Reverse Engineering. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Mostly just like...........people I don't actually know who are terrible humans. What was the best book you read? Coming soon to a podcast feed near you! What was your greatest musical discovery? Probably Octet? I don't think I listened to a lot of new music this year. OH WAIT, The Highwomen!!! What a good album!!! (Also in doing the theatre section I just remembered Six was this year too!) What did you want and get? Mostly material things--clothes, cons, travel, seeing people, tickets to things, etc. Impeachment. Got that. That was nice. What did you want and not get? Financial security. A new job. Emotional stability. A relationship. More sleep. What was your favorite film of this year? Captain Marvel, although Us, Charlie's Angels, and The Wind were very good too. What was your favorite theatrical event of the year? Probably Octet! The broadway version of Hadestown was kind of disappointing compared to the 2016 NYTW version and Moby-Dick is great fun, but still pretty rough in places. Octet is just.....very good.  Oh, or SIX, that was great too! Octet or Six. Oh, and, jesus, this year was a hundred years long, I totally forgot we saw Denee as Eliza this year!! She was very good!! And I got to see Daniel Breaker as Burr again and I fucking love him. What was your favorite podcast of the year? The Empty Bowl, a meditative podcast about cereal. It is so good for zoning out and being calm. TAZ has been killing it with the one-shots and the Amnesty arc, too, and this was the first year I listened to MBMBaM weekly and also I mainlined all of Sawbones after listening to half of it, then not listening to any for six months, then deciding to start from the beginning again. Unwell is a really good show that I recommend, and Mabel. The Magnus Archives killed it with season four, which was tailored to my exact narrative tastes. MFM and Criminal are perpetual faves. American Hysteria was super interesting to go through and Bear Brook and In the Dark both obviously had fucking fantastic years. Oh, and Who the Hell is Hamish? that was fun too. And I’ll stop now.

I.....listen to a lot of podcasts. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 34! On the day, I went out for dinner and drinks with some friends. That weekend, I bought a bunch of children's Captain Marvel birthday supplies and we played Jackbox games and ate cake! What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Any sort of fix to our current political mess. And/or financial stability. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019? The "Whimsical" section on eShakti. What kept you sane? Friends! Podcasts! Anti-depressants! Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Brie Larson and Starr Busby are the first that spring to mind. What political issue stirred you the most? It’s hard to pick just one when the whole country is on fire. Who did you miss? Pretty much everyone when they are not right next to me. Sarah Bay, a lot, but I feel weird singling one person out. [This is exactly what I wrote for the last four years, but I’m keeping it because it’s still true.] Who was the best new person you met? Did I meet new people this year? I know I internet-met a couple people, but I'm not sure if I in-person made any new friends? We hung out with this girl Jenn at con a bunch, she was pretty cool! edit: oh my god MAX I met MAX this year because he did not exist last year!!! Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019: Do not invite folks to sit on a panel unless you know they'll stick to the goddamn topic agreed on in advance. Quote a song that sums up your year: And no one grew into anything new / we just became the worse of what we were

(I think this is the third year in a row that Dave Malloy has been my lyric of the year.)

Anyway, that’s 2019 for me. I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go. The last half, in particular, was super rough. Hell, the last week was super rough--guess how many members of my family have been in the hospital in December! If you guessed “six” you would be correct!! (Everyone is more or less fine.) 

But, hey, it also brought me my tiny nephew and two Dave Malloy musicals, so it wasn’t all bad! 

I hope 2020 treats you all well, friends!