#but also i remember when I first watched atla i started drafting out a fic that was basically

[hanaasbananas]

something noone really tells you about is how your first fandom never really leaves you. like, you haven't watched/read it or read any fic for it in ages but still...it lingers

it lingers in the back of your mind, peeking out occasionally to see what your new hyperfixation is and no matter what you do, no matter how much new media you consume, you will ALWAYS wonder what a crossover between the two would be like. you might even search one out, hoping someone else has had the same idea and actually put pen to paper but that is a rare occurrence indeed

anyway i can't stop thinking ab a doctor who/six of crows crossover and wonder what would happen if Kaz ever met the Doctor (which one? I couldn't say). he'd probably just nick the TARDIS tbh

[riceccakes]

Earth, Wind, and Coffee: Chapter One Analysis

helloooooooo :) welcome to my chapter analyses for my fic Earth, Wind, and Coffee. here, i’m just going to be breaking down my writing process, choices, and fun stuff, among other stuff as well. you can read this after you’ve finished the first chapter (i’ve excluded spoilers!) or you could read all 45k words and then come back to these one by one. either way, i’m v excited to be doing this so i hope you guys like it too. lets begin with chapter one, shall we :)

some fun stuff before we start!

every chapter title is modeled after the fic title!

you may have noticed that there are two center line dividers in the chapter(and every chapter after), meaning there are three sections to a chapter. going off of this, i thought it might be cool to title each chapter based on the sections, either of its main topic or my favorite part of it. so, chapter one’s first section is korrasami meeting (hence, Meetings), section two is where i introduced Artist!Korra, and i really love Artist!Korra so naturally i had to name the chapter about her (and the thing that brings korrasami closer, Sketches), and the third section is where their friendship is solidified (i think i achieved this by giving their numbers to each other, but i also just thought it was a cute scene, Phone Number Exchanges) and now we put it all together and get: Meetings (Earth), Sketches (Wind), and Phone Number Exchanges (and Coffee) (pretty cool right??? *wink wink*) the same formula is used to title every chapter afterwards. i usually suck at chapter titles but i thought this was a super cute thing to do and it ended up working fairly naturally :)

i started this fic on sept 23, 2020. chapter one didn’t get posted until oct 15, 2020

so basically, i sat with this first chapter for almost a month before posting (which actually was a good thing, i’ll tell you why later!) i really wanted this first chapter to stand out and be lowkey perfect, so i kept writing and rewriting and rewriting my rewrites. then you know, i’d start reading and then edit and then edit the edits; it’s a vicious cycle but one that i’m used to. i finally decided to post the fic when i read the first chapter through and thought “yep, this is it” 

i was inspired by the fic it’s such a gorgeous sight to see you in the middle of the night by softshocks

mostly for the idea of having a full-length fic in only three chapters. buuut, that was also one of the first korrasami fics i read after finishing lok on netflix and i remember thinking “damn, now THIS is how you do an au” character progression in the story is great and not once during the fic did i feel bored or in a lull. i really wanted to do the same with my fic and tried my best

now, lets get into the chapter itself.

sentence structure:

i used sentence structure to (hopefully) show that something is off with korra. we don’t know what yet, asami chalks it up to working through the night, but just like the summary states, there’s more going on here with our new favorite barista, it’s just a matter of what. even with this being in asami’s pov, i wanted to show a sort of disconnect between her and korra. let me show you an example

“Asami smiles warmly, excited to try the drink. She thanks Korra and watches as the girl nods lightly and walks back over to the counter. She begins cleaning the espresso machine. Asami takes a sip from the mug, lightly moaning from the taste. She feels Korra’s eyes peer up at her for a moment. Their eyes meet and Asami blushes, putting the mug and her head down. She opens the binder on the right side, pulling out the pen tucked into the inside cover. She thumbs through to the next clean page and begins squinting at her sloppy notes, rewriting them neatly once they’re deciphered.“

i’ve italicized sentences that, even while in asami’s pov, describe korra’s actions. in comparison to the sentences around it, the two italicized sentences are rather plain and simple. they’re very subject-predicate - “She (subject) begins cleaning the espresso machine (predicate)” you have your noun/subject and verb/predicate, give or take some words for proper english and action. asami’s sentences are more complex. colored in red is what i’ve donned as my classic form of writing, which basically takes two sentences - “She opens the binder on the right side. She pulls out the pen tucked into the inside cover.” and smushes them together by keeping the first sentence as is and taking away the subject of the second sentence and tacking on an -ing to its verb. i’m not sure how writing sentences like this started but i feel like i always come back to it because it gives sentences just that lil bit of edge. the sentences are not super simple but they’re also not super hard to understand. it’s a nice balance of simplicity and complexity, in my opinion.

now in bold is the combination of korra’s - “Their eyes meet and Asami blushes.” and asami’s - “Asami blushes, putting the mug and her head down” sentence forms. it’s a nice little indication that even with this disconnect from korra, these two girls are going to come together and make magic.

this play with sentence structure pretty much continues throughout the rest of the chapter, have fun finding them :))

next on my list is what i brought up earlier! i saved this lil first chapter in my back pocket for almost a month and you know what, it was a really good thing i did. for one thing, asami’s original “tormentor” we’ll call him, was going to be tahno. the same idea of this character being a soccer player was kept but i changed the character from tahno to iroh for a number of reasons:

1) iroh’s connections to the fire nation throne were a biiiig thing in me deciding to change him. 

i loved iroh ii in lok, i thought he was super cool, but we needed someone in this story to be an obstacle for asami to face. we already have her dad hiroshi, and some of you may be thinking “isn’t that already enough??” and for a while i thought so too, but we needed a vehicle to show how hiroshi is an obstacle asami is facing. and i decided to do that with iroh.

2) i really wanted said character to be a conceded jerk and who better than a well known heir to a nation’s throne? (it really went to his head)

tahno was really already a jerk and pretty ruthless character in lok, which is why he came to mind first. and i’d had him only be a soccer star but that was cause for explaining how he and hiroshi have connections. i was struggling for a bit of how to tie the two together but ultimately realized, “hey hiroshi is a business man, he’s bound to do business in the fire nation. and iroh is from the fire nation, he’s prince! he could be a key factor in pulling strings to get more business there” and so that is why i changed tahno to iroh

3) it doesn’t stop there though! at first, iroh was only son of the firelord and soccer star mvp. he was in asami’s stats class but that was it. i realized he needed a bigger role to have connections with hiroshi, which is why he’s now a business major too

this reason is why it’s great i waited!! had i been an eager beaver and posted whatever the first draft of the chapter was, i would’ve been facing some challenges later on, so thanks past me for giving future me some help! this was the perfect way for iroh to be a conceded dick who’s in asami’s life even tho she doesn’t want him to be. i added on the bit about him joining future industries in section two of the chapter and was suuuper glad i figured it out because it helped me envision the rest of the story.

honorable mentions:

korra was going to be wearing a tee shirt when korrasami met but i changed this 1) so asami could leave up ✨korra’s muscles✨ to her imagination and 2) because gloves are a regularly used trope that someone has something to hide. i couldn’t really find a way to give korra gloves but i thought the next best thing would be covering up, so now she wears a sweater.

i googled different types of coffee. The Avatar is a latte macchiato, it’s a play on an espresso macchiato. espresso is added to milk rather than milk to espresso and features more foam than hot milk. i used this one cause i’ve always enjoyed seeing foam art and thought making aang’s classic arrow in foam would be cool. Aang’s Special is a play on his favorite treat, egg tarts. this one is a vietnamese drink and is exactly as i describe in the fic.

earth, wind, and coffee is very much a pun. one so many different levels though: earth, wind, and fire, esteemed multi-genre singing group, known for songs like september and fantasy. earth, wind (air), and fire are elements that are bended in the atla universe and while this isn’t a bending au, it’s still pretty cool. and now earth, wind, and coffee, it’s a coffee shop au. i mean come on, so many layers, i love myself for creating it but hate myself for how much i love myself for creating it.

anything i would’ve wanted to change?

honestly, no. i think because i’d already did all of the changes before publishing, but also cause any time i read through the first chapter, i just feel satisfied. i achieved all of my goals in that first chapter about setting up what would happen and it’s also just a good read.

have any questions? let me know! wanna comment your favorite things from chapter one? do it !! interact with me !! i demand it.

thanks for reading, i really liked doing this :)) (even tho more than once my writing for this got deleted and it was big sad because i’d gotten a good portion done but whatever we’re still here)

[wavesmp3]

honestly it is satisfying to watch you write and publish for yourself i am glad you find it freeing because this is what hobbies/passions should feel like in my own opinon !! also love reading your tags because you are very precise with how you feel and it's nice to know what you're going through - both as a writer but also as an individual, your hindsight is enlightening !! (1/?)

wait I think tumblr ate the second ask 😭 but I believe I’m getting the gist of what you were saying, either way I’m gonna put it under a read more cause I have a feeling this is gonna get long

(3/?) like i had started something with some svt member, then i obv changed the character and wanted to write for someone else but i don't want to use celebrities as characters anymore because i do hate the rich and i need consistency and i don't want to promote shitty people like this. So i'm writing this cute piece that i think could come out really well but i have zero character lol. also i had almost finished the second chapter of living alike but well, i don't want to publish it either

(4/4) and NOW with atla i'm like "oooh... could it be....?" so i don't know. There is also a feeling like, I LOVE to spend hours and days thinking about writing, alone in my head, but I think I would like to write something with someone or exchange precise ideas and such. Anyway, atla's 3rd season is indeed the bomb, but in the 2nd, "appa's lost days" episode had me cried so much the ENTIRE episode i had to eventually take off my glasses because I couldn't see through them.

and since you liked "living alike", i think you might like "to eat flowers and not to be afraid" it was an answer to svtwritenight at first (im pretty sure you had left a comment about it!) and I turned it into a proper piece. it's post-apocalyptic and not dystopian but i think it has similar vibe (it's a woozi x read for now, i don't know what to do about it yet, and obv i understand if you're not interested!) and i'll stop the spamming for now ! (5/5 i guess!!)

yes i totally agree hobbies should feel like an escape and it should be freeing so it’s satisfying for me as well lol i’m finally at a place with writing where it does really feel like a joy and posting doesn’t make me feel any sort of way like it used to. 

and jbdjax me and my tags, at this point its weird if i dont leave a whole essay in the tags, but i find it almost funny that you think i sound precise when expressing my thoughts because i feel very much the opposite when im rambling in the tags and ah yes hindsight truly is the best

so here im assuming youre talking about svt and their scandals i guess if you could even call it that and that whole situation turning you off from writing for them, and yeaa i definitely relate to you there, when the whole situation went down i was in the middle of writing ‘the world is ours to remake’ and that’s what pushed me to reconvert the world to an original work, but it was really disappointing for a number of reason obviously but also because writing svt fanfic was my main outlet to write in general so once i decided to stop writing for them i had to find a new channel to write for, and i was in a similar predicament as you where i had a whole bunch of pieces/ideas for them sitting in my google docs collecting dust, so i actually posted them as half-finished fics basically and just the terrible writing that they are but it did feel good to rid myself of all those first drafts and ideas that i no longer had the motivation to return to. 

but its good to hear that you’re still writing in some way even if it sort of has no where to go! and yea if you’re interested atla fanfic might just be the way to go ehehe. and i get what you mean with sharing ideas, sometimes i feel almost lost in my wip in my head, for me it helps to write stuff down idk why but it does. and yes i remember that piece from svtwritenight, i think it was the first piece of yours i had read and oooh yes a full fledged piece sounds interesting!

as for atla,,, yes those episodes are so sad, for me irohs story in the tales of ba sing se are always what gets me when he sits down and sings that song for his son gahhhhh it makes me sad just thinking about it. 

[themomentofdavyprentiss]

gdamn I thought I was over zutara but then i see all these zutara posts from you on my dash and suddenly im 30K deep in a 107K zutara fic with no chance of sleep tonight...*sigh*

AHHHHHH OH MY GOSH THAT’S ME AS FUCK OKAY IM GOING TO TELL YOU A STORY BECAUSE I FEEL YOU SO MUCHOkay so I first watched ATLA as a kid. The first episode I watched was “Tales of Ba Sing Se” and I fell in love. I watched a couple other episodes out of order, but one weekend they had a marathon of all the previous episodes and that was when I ‘caught up’ and started watching with the show. I was seven or eight and loved it. I remember as a kid being disappointed that Zuko and Katara didn’t kiss but at that point I really liked Maiko (I still love Mai as a character today, don’t get me wrong) so I was okay. Fast forward to my freshman year of highschool, and 14 year old me decided to rewatch the show. Oh. Boy. The Zutara feelings POURED IN. I WAS OBSESSED. IT CONSUMED MY LIFE. At that point I didn’t read fanfiction but man I poured myself into every piece of meta and every fanwork I could. How could I not ship it? I was a 14 year old girl who saw so much of who she was and who she WANTED to be in Katara, and was already in love with Zuko from my eight year old mind. So that kept me occupied for a couple months. I eventually moved on to other fandoms and it slipped my mind. I always shipped it in the back of my mind, but I didn’t think about it that much. Then Tumblr attacked. So this past December, I was just minding my business scrolling through tumblr when someone I follow reblogged this photoset of a Pride and Prejudice AU for Zutara. I loved it and reblogged it. A couple days later, I saw a Zutara blog on my ‘recommended’ page. I had this moment of realization. I was like “Oh shit no.” I had gone three years without thinking about it. Without letting it consume me. But I just KNEW if I clicked on that blog there was no going back. I was about to dive headfirst into Zutara hell again. I have yet to recover. AND THE FANFICTION MY GOSH. I’VE BEEN READING ALL OF IT. A L L OF IT. I’VE SPENT WEEKENDS DOING NOTHING BUT READING EVERYTHING THAT SOUNDS VAGUELY INTERESTING. I’VE READ UTTER G A R B A G E. YOU DON’T KNOW PAIN UNTIL YOU READ ABOUT ZUKO IN SKINNY JEANS SERENADING KATARA WHILE A PART OF THE ATLA VERSION OF NSYNC (I’m not making this up. I actually read a fanfiction where before the coronation, Zuko ran into his old buddies from 'The Blue Spirits’ and they convinced him to go on stage with them. He was wearing skinny jeans because the Fire Nation was bringing them into style. I also read a particularly awful one which started out okay, and then I found that the stories Katara went 'Ghetto’ and talked 'ghetto’ when she was upset or really passionate about something. My god, the horror). I feel like I’ve been doing a much better job of containing it this time. While I’ve increased the amount of zutara (and atla in general) posts on my blog, I still have a semblance of a normal life. However I also have a masterpost of my favorite Zutara fics in my drafts right now that won’t stop growing. ALSO WHICH FIC ARE YOU READING? EITHER A) I’VE READ IT AND I DEFINITELY WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT OR B) I *HAVEN’T* READ IT AND WILL START TONIGHT BECAUSE YOU AREN’T IN THIS ALONE, BUDDY.