#even used Staff of the Avatar for a bit

[death-rebirth-senshi]

*realizes I should've started my strength/faith build as a prophet since I never used intelligence*

[cecilysobsessions]

DESTINY (m.) | zuko

↬ fem!reader, protector!reader & protected!zuko

↬ genre: fluff / smut

↬ one bed trope, reader & zuko are adults (i am not writing no minors), fake dating for like one second, suggestive language, mild swearing, awkward cannon zuko, submissive zuko, typos but pretend you didn’t see them

↬ word count: 6k

↬ summary: you are hired as fire lord zuko’s personal bodyguard. being the stubborn man he is, he doubts that you can protect him. you’re going to prove him wrong. 

↬ a/n: i was upset i couldn’t find any sub!zuko fics so i said screw it and wrote one myself.

m.list

Destiny is a funny thing. And, of course, Fire Lord Zuko knows all about it. After firmly believing for so long that his destiny was to kill the Avatar, the world threw him a curve ball and he ended up joining the Avatar’s team to defeat his own father.

So when his palace staff appoints you, an experienced assassin, as his personal bodyguard, he rolls his eyes at your stupid destiny that just so happened to intertwine with his. 

When he became the Fire Lord, Azula almost immediately tried to get rid of him so that she could steal the throne by hiring you to kill him. Of course, she would have done it herself if she weren’t thrown into an asylum after their Agni Kai. However, after one of his staff overheard the conversation between you and his sister, they offered you twice as much payment as Azula did, and you couldn’t refuse the offer. Besides, what was Azula going to do? At this point she had already been taken away.

Although it seems shallow and a low blow to betray Azula because of money, you had to do what you had to do to get by. Growing up an orphan on the streets wasn’t always so good on you financially. You discovered you had a talent for stealing things for money, and even though you weren’t proud of it, it was the only way to survive. After running into some gang members who had heard about your talent, you began to work for them. Eventually you went from stealing for money to killing for it. Although it was not the life you wanted, it was the life you lived. 

So how did you end up coming to the royal palace as Zuko’s personal bodyguard with questionable work experience and blood on your hands? Simply put, you were skilled. As one of the few fire benders known to use lighting, you were pretty good at it. Being able to both generate and redirect it impressed those around you, and word went around with some saying you were even better at it than Azula. 

•••

“A bodyguard? I’m not a child; I don’t need protection.” Zuko rolled his eyes, his voice echoing through the large meeting room. 

“Nobody said you were a child,” his advisor clarified, his voice filled with anxiety. Zuko always had a short temper. 

“I can protect myself just fine. Besides, what will people think if they see the new Fire Lord with a body guard stuck to my side all the time? They’ll think I can’t handle myself.” Zuko was offended that his staff thought he needed a personal bodyguard to be near him 24/7. Sure, he was young, but he is capable. He rolled back his shoulders in an attempt to calm himself as he tried to explain his thought process. He has never been good with words, and he was already losing his patience.

“No, the people will know that you are taking your job seriously. And besides, we found an excellent fire bender that is able to both generate and redirect lighting! She’s excellent, and—”

“You already hired one without asking me first?!” Zuko cut off his advisor abruptly, his loud and stern voice rising along with the wall of fire in the room. He was already fired up and upset at the thought of having a personal guard, but the fact that his staff had already hired one without telling him first set him off. 

“Please, think about this.” his advisor’s calm and collected voice soothed his rising anger a bit. “As your staff, we are dedicated to protecting you and making sure you are safe at all times. The girl is a strong and smart bender and might even be able to teach you some things. Please, give her a chance and reconsider.” his advisor lowered his head in obedience and hoped for an answer.

After a moment of silence, with the only sound being the low flames in the room, Zuko took a deep breath and spoke. “Fine, but let me test her first. If I am able to knock her down, she leaves and you’re not allowed to hire a new one.”

•••

“He wants to fight me? Zuko?” you let out a fake laugh filled with arrogance as you stared down at his advisor. 

“Fire Lord Zuko,” he corrected you. “And well, yes. He is against the idea of having a personal bodyguard and the only way he will accept it is if you are able to fight him and not be knocked down.” the man explained, gesturing to the training courtyard outside the hallway window in the palace.

You followed his eyes and focused in on the former prince in the courtyard, eyeing his grown out hair. While you understood that Zuko wanted to make sure you were as good as his advisor said you were, you found it ridiculous. As far as you knew, he was constantly being bested by his younger sister. Although you weren’t as good a bender as his sister, you knew for sure you were better than him.

“Alright,” you shrugged as you began to make your way to the courtyard, his advisor following your steps. “Whatever makes him feel better. Wanna bet I can knock him down in sixty seconds?” a smirk grew on your face. You were not cocky in your ability, but confident. If you were being honest, you could probably knock him down in thirty seconds.

“I’m sure you can, but I’m not betting with you on whether or not you can knock the Fire Lord down in a minute. That’s inappropriate!” his advisor shushed you.

•••

Although you had seen the man from afar, you never realized how short Zuko was. You were almost taller than him (not that it mattered, it just made you feel superior when you were taller than men). 

“Your royal majesty,” you sarcastically greeted, your deep and exaggerated bow earned you a scowl from the Fire Lord. You were unsure of why you had chosen your first words to Zuko to be sarcastic and cocky, but you knew you wanted to show that you were a capable bender and not some little girl who knew how to throw a fireball. 

“Your bending better not be as horrible as your attitude,” he stared into your eyes, unamused at what you thought would be taken as a joke. “Let’s get this over with. Try and knock me down, if you can, and I’ll reconsider having you protect me.” you might have imagined it, but it seemed like Zuko didn’t believe you could beat him. You smirked, excited to prove to the royal that he was wrong and you are in fact the better bender.

“Aw, you think I can’t knock you down. That’s cute.” you winked, distancing yourself from him and taking a fighting stance, readying yourself. “Well your majesty, I’m ready when you are. Take the first move too, I’ll let you have that.” 

Zuko clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Only because I want to get this over with,” he widened his feet and took a stance, his arm coming down to shoot fire at the ground, coming towards your feet. 

As he shot his first move, you took a deep breath, rolling your eyes to show him what you thought of his predictable and easy to avoid move. Avoiding it simply, you punched the air, sending red flames towards him. But what he didn’t know was what you were going to do next. Distracted by your punch of fire, you quickly generated lighting through your fingertips, taking a deep breath before you aggressively pointed your hand towards where he was standing, making sure to miss him on purpose. As quickly as you sent the first shot of fire, Zuko saw a large lighting strike heading his way. Too slow to react and try to redirect it, your strike burned the spot on the ground next to him, the blackened spot on the ground inches from where he stood. 

“How,” he started in disbelief. “How did you generate lighting so fast?” his eyes widened as he looked at you. Still in shock from how quickly you created lighting and nearly killed him, you moved quickly, running towards him and jumping in the air and sending multiple strikes of fire at him through your hands. Still focused on how you created lighting through your fingertips with such speed, he held his arms up to block you. His attempt was sloppy and weak, and you knocked him down to the ground and stood over him. 

Zuko grunted, sitting up quickly and looking through the bright rays of sun blocking his view of you. “No way,” his hand came up to shield his eyes from the sun rays. 

“How long did that take me? Definitely less than a minute, right, Mr. Advisor?” you hollered over at the staff who was standing off to the side. You crossed your arms and stared down at the royal man below you. 

“You lasted less than a minute in this fight and I barely tried. Hopefully you’re not like that in the bedroom, Fire Lord Zuko.” you smiled down at him crookedly, a laugh escaping your lips as you started to walk off. “I’ll see you when I officially begin tomorrow, sir.” you bowed once again exaggeratedly. You couldn’t help but beam, you already knew you were going to win, but you didn’t expect to feel this good. Zuko was a handsome and talented fire bender, so something about beating him at something he is good at made you smile.

•••

It has been three years since you began to work for Zuko and he has learned three things in those three years. 

One. You never refer to him using his title as you should be doing because you apparently hate all “royal blooded bitches” as you say. But if Zuko was being honest with himself, he was pretty sure it was just because you simply didn’t want to. The staff around you always shot you looks when you yelled out his first name to grab his attention, but you never cared. He admired that about you. You didn’t care what other people thought of you, something Zuko himself always struggled with. 

Two. You were an absolute thug. What did he expect? You’re an orphan with a criminal background and a couple bodies on your list of people you’ve killed. Past Zuko would’ve thought you were some low life peasant, but that’s not what he thought of you at all. With a questionable past himself, he knew not to judge you for your past actions and choices. After all, some of his own past choices were questionable.

Three. You wear your heart on your sleeve and have a massive crush on him. So naturally, you make it known. As someone who doesn’t have a lot of relationship experience, or experience with women in general, Zuko never knew how to respond to anything you ever said to him that was even the tiniest bit flirtatious. After the breakup with his ex Mai, he had told himself to focus on his people and to stay out of relationships. When you first made it known to him that you fancied him, he thought you were joking. 

“So, Zuko,” you had begun while escorting him to a meeting. “People are asking if you’re courting anyone. You’ll need a Queen soon.”

“I’m not interested in that right now,” he sternly told you. “And besides, nobody’s interested in me at the moment.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I am.”

Zuko shook his head, pushing away the past conversation that confused him because did you actually like him and were you just casually confessing your feelings out of nowhere? Or did you only say all that because you pitied him?

She flirts with every guy here, he told himself (not true, but telling himself that helped convince him that you did not in fact like him even though you did and expressed that on multiple occasions). There was just no way you could ever like someone like him. He was easily upset, always busy with his royal duties, and only had one eyebrow. Literally. The scar his father gave him convinced him that he wasn’t handsome or in any way attractive. Who would ever want to love someone with a scarred face? 

“Zuko,” you barged into his quarters, shutting the door behind you as you interrupted his inner thoughts. “Are you ready?” you stood there, feet firmly planted on the ground like you didn’t intend on going anywhere.

“Do you not know how to knock?” he stood and looked at you, gesturing to his small luggage sitting on his bed. “I’m ready.”

The two of you were going on a secret mission (actually it was just him and technically you were just coming along to protect him) to spy on an unknown enemy of Zuko’s, most likely someone who did not want him on the throne. He had wanted to do it himself, saying that he needed to get a good look at the person who wanted to dethrone him. 

“Just because I’m your bodyguard, that doesn’t mean I’m also your servant,” you eyed his belongings. “Carry your own shit.”

•••

You and Zuko quietly arrived near the location in a close forest of the unknown person who was apparently planning to rebel and dethrone Zuko. Tightening your hood, you created a small flame in your hand and searched around for any sign of danger. It was midnight and the two of you were planning to camp here for the night before resuming the mission in the morning to search for the unknown person. 

“Stay close to me,” you instructed in a whisper.

“I know that.”

“Then come closer to me, idiot.” you aggressively grabbed onto his sleeve, yanking him closer to you as you quietly stepped around the area of trees.

“Ow, can you please be gentle?!” he complained, attempting to pull away from your gorilla grip but failing.

“Zuko, shut the fuck up.” you warned.

“I don’t take orders from you.” 

“One more word and I’ll burn the shit out of you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Oh yeah? Then—” in the middle of your banter with the Fire Lord, you saw a flame heading towards the two of you. Reacting quickly, you pushed Zuko behind your back and pushed away the flame with your hands before throwing a punch and firebending towards the threat.

“Who’s there? One step and I’ll burn you,” you threatened, eyes frantically searching the dark for a sign of life. 

You felt Zuko behind you, chest pressed up against your back and heart rapidly beating against your body. He was nervous and scared and if you didn’t feel his panicked heartbeat, you wouldn’t know. You had to get out of there.

“Relax little girl, I only want what’s in that satchel.” you heard a gruff voice that came from a few feet in front of you. Zuko gripped the satchel around his body, debating if he wanted to just give it up to the intruder or help you fight him. 

“You want it? Come and get it,” Zuko taunted, standing in front of you and kicking a flame towards the mysterious man. 

“Zuko!” you warned. “Get behind me!”

“You might be my bodyguard, but I don’t always need your protection.” He spoke with determination in his voice as he stood firmly, his hands in the air and ready to firebend at any second. 

“Your bodyguard is a woman?” the mysterious man cackled, jumping out of the dark and attacking Zuko with fire. 

“Yeah, and what about it?” he shot back, easily defending himself against the wannabe thief. You stepped back, wanting to see how Zuko would protect himself. They began to fight close up, engaging in hand to hand combat, which you knew Zuko was good at. You had seen him at times training and were impressed. He easily overpowers the man, knocking him out with a swift kick and turns back to you, the unconscious man laying on the ground. 

“If that were me, I would’ve beat you.” you commented.

“I know,” he responded, searching the man for any weapons. After patting him down, he takes a knife from the man’s pockets. 

“That was hot,” you said, winking at him in the dark and hoping he’d see it. You grabbed the knife from him and started walking.

Apparently he didn’t see the wink. Wonder why. “Well yeah, fire is hot.” Zuko responded. 

You did a mental facepalm. “I know fire is hot, you dumbass. I was talking about you being able to defend yourself. That was hot.” you repeated. How many times would you have to hit on this guy for him to understand you liked him?

“Oh…” he trailed off, unable to form his confusion into words. Why would you find that hot?

You sensed he didn’t know what to say, so you spoke first. “Let’s go to a nearby village and hope that we can find a place to stay there. It’s too dangerous to be out in the woods.

•••

Luckily the two of you wandered into a village not too far from the forest, and were able to find an elderly couple kind enough to house the two of you for the night. 

“It’s so late, a young couple like the two of you shouldn’t be out and about at this hour.” the woman lectured after seeing the two of you walking down the street and hurrying you in her home.

Zuko wanted to correct the woman. “We’re not a cou—” 

“Thank you for your kind hospitality. We really appreciate it. We were a little lost on our way and are traveling.” you cut him off abruptly and offered a kind smile to the lady. You grabbed his arm, squeezing it aggressively as a warning to shut up.

After showing you to their guest room, Zuko lit the only candle in the room, the low lighting barely bouncing off his porcelain skin. 

“Why did you let her think that we’re a couple?” Zuko questioned, shutting the door behind him.

“Are you stupid? It’ll be suspicious if we tell her we’re just two people traveling together. It’s easier to just pretend we’re a couple so no one questions us.” you explained, but secretly you were happy the lady called you guys a couple.

You set your bag down by the door, taking in the small bedroom. There was an open window across from the door, the bright moonlight shining into the room. Other than a dresser and a chair, a small mat that was big enough to fit two people laid in the center of the room. Eyeing the singular mattress, the silence turned into an awkward moment of hesitation between the two of you. While Zuko probably felt awkward, you were happy. The thought of snuggling up to him claiming you’re cold as an excuse to be close to him crossed your mind. You were secretly excited.

“So I guess we have no choice but to sleep next to each other,” you started, trying to hide how happy you were feeling. 

“What? I’m not going to sleep next to you!” he complained.

“Then where are you sleeping?” you questioned, gesturing to the singular mat. “There’s only one.”

“I’m sleeping on that mat. You can sleep on the chair.” he motioned to the uncomfortable looking chair in the corner. 

“What?” there was no way you were going to let him take the mat for himself. “But I’m the woman! You should let me have it.” 

He was already pulling out his sleeping bag. “You’re my bodyguard, so sleep on the chair and protect me. A man needs his beauty sleep.”

“Beauty sleep my ass,” you were beginning to grow tired and cranky and laid on the mat next to him. “It’ll be easier to protect you if I’m physically closer to you, don’t you think?”

Zuko’s eyes widened, his eyebrow furrowing in annoyance. “Whatever. Just don’t touch me.” he sighed in defeat, turning his back against you and pulling his blanket up and laying on his side his scar is on.

Your eyes trace the lines of his back muscles that are showing through his thinly made shirt. His shoulders are broad, hair covering his nape. Combing his hair behind him, you get a whiff of his shampoo. You can’t help but stare, even though he isn’t facing you. And suddenly you feel nervous. Too nervous to say anything, too nervous to do anything, too nervous to even breathe. The room is filled with silence, the only faint noise being the single candle in the corner of the room burning. What if you’re breathing too loudly? What if he can hear it? What if he thinks you’re a loud breather? 

“No weird pickup line?” Zuko’s voice suddenly breaks the silence and your inner thoughts, his voice soft and low in a careful attempt to not wake the elderly couple.

Has his voice always been laced with such sultry and sexiness? Why was he suddenly making conversation? You thought he wanted to sleep, so why is he asking why you’re not flirting with him? Does he know you’re nervous? 

“I thought you wanted to sleep,” a lame excuse, but some part of it was true.

Zuko’s body shifts and he turns on to his other side to face you, laying on his arm as his golden eyes search for yours in the dark. When he finally looks at you, you unintentionally hold your breath. The way he is looking at you makes you nervous. His eyes are staring into yours as if he’s all yours and you’re all his. As if you two are lovers and are sharing an intimate moment of eye contact before a kiss.

“The mattress is a little uncomfortable.” he whispers, his voice small and soft. 

Was he already laying this close to you? 

A beat of silence passes between the two of you, and his eyes refuse to break contact with yours. “What a spoiled royal,” was the only thing you said, you were feeling a little awkward and unsure of what to say. Normally you felt confident flirting with him, but something about tonight made it feel different.

“Of course you’d say that,” he lets out a small chuckle at your comment, his eyes moving down your body as if he is checking you out. 

“You smell nice.” you say after a beat. You don’t know what came over you. Only that you thought it and wanted to say it.

“You’ve always been so straightforward,” he says and you’re not sure if he means that as an insult or compliment. “I admire that about you.”

Zuko admires you? You always thought he didn’t think much of you, but maybe you just thought that way because he never actually voiced his opinion of you.

“These last three years have been different,” he continued. “Good different. Ever since I took the throne I’ve been busy with my duties and haven’t had much time to relax. But spending time with you and getting to know you has been really… great.” Zuko has always been a little awkward, understandable since he often does not speak about his feelings. 

“That’s it?” you laugh at his awkwardness. “Just great?”

“I think you’re amazing. Getting to know you has been so fun for me. And I’m starting to feel really comfortable around you. You make me feel safe.” 

You make Zuko feel safe? Your heart swells at that compliment. “Well, I would hope so. I’m supposed to keep you safe, too.” you joke, and his eyes light up as he smiles. Or maybe it’s just the candle.

“I’m sorry I doubted your ability to protect me. You are a talented bender and an amazing bodyguard. But I want you to know, I will always be there to protect you, too.” he whispers, voice sweet like honey as he leans closer to you, his eyes moving down to your lips for just a moment before meeting your eyes again. 

Zuko is even closer to you now, his face lit up by the moonlight. His tongue peeks out and he licks his bottom lip for a second, wandering eyes flickering down to your lips once again. 

“You look beautiful in this light,” you comment, your eyes scanning his features. 

“Are you saying I don’t look beautiful in any other light?” he asks, a teasing smile plastered on his face. 

“Yeah, you only look this good when it’s almost completely dark and the only source of light is the moon.” he laughs at your response, a low chuckle escaping his lips. 

“Can you see my scar?” he asks, insecurity in his voice.

“Yes, and it looks good. Scars build character.” As someone who’s received scars from living out on the streets and constantly getting into fights to rob people, you have a couple scars yourself. Although they may be an imperfection on the skin, all your scars tell a story and are unique to you. 

Zuko wonders if you knew that he was feeling insecure about it. He has always been insecure about it since it’s a reminder of what his father did to him, and it’s never helped that he hears people always whispering about it in the palace.

“Do you have any scars?” he asks, unsure if the question is crossing a boundary.

“A couple.”

“Can I… Can I see them?” he anxiously asks you, his voice softer and more submissive. He is afraid you’re going to say no and afraid if you do that it will be awkward.

“Do you just want to see me naked, Zuko? You could’ve just asked.” you tease.

His eyes practically jump out of their sockets. His face flushes and his embarrassment travels down to his neck, red and and feeling even more awkward and nervous than before. 

“W-What? That’s not what I meant! I was just—I didn’t mean for it to come off like that! I was only asking that because I’m insecure about my scar and—” Zuko keeps speaking, faster than before and more panicked. You chuckle, amused by how he tries to back himself up. He continues to rant and stutter a bit before you hold up your hand to shush him.

“You know, Zuko, for someone who doesn’t say much, you’re saying an awful lot right now. And you’re not even saying much. You're just rambling on and on.” you lecture, raising an eyebrow to prove your point.

“I’m just a little nervous,” he confesses.

“Why’s that?”

“Because. I can't tell if you’re joking with me when you say the stuff you say.”

“What do I say?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t. What kind of stuff do I say to you?”

He sighs in frustration. He doesn’t want to say it. “Like, like when you called me hot… earlier.”

“You thought I was talking about the fire.” 

“Yes, and then you said that you weren’t.” he says all confused; all you’re doing is trying to get him to stop beating around the bush and be straightforward, but it’s too nerve wracking for him.

“Because I wasn’t.”

“Right,”

“Right.” you agree.

“So, then you said—you said you were talking about me.”

“I did say that.”

“Yeah…” he trails off, unable to form a sentence.

“What’s your point? What are you trying to get at?” you’re teasing him. You know exactly what he wants to ask. You know he wants to ask if you have feelings for him, but he’s too afraid you’ll say no and he’s afraid to make it awkward. 

Cute.

“I guess what I’m trying to ask is… if you, maybe, perhaps, possibly…”

“Like you?” you finish his question for him. Because if you don’t, he’ll take all night.

He stops himself from saying anything, face full of uncertainty and confusion. He stares at you, waiting—hoping that you will speak first. You have always led the conversations between the two of you, so now that he has to do it, he is lost and looking for help.

“What do you think?” you ask, turning the question on to him. You want to see what he will say. 

“I…” Zuko trails off once more. “I would hope so.” His voice is hushed, low and subtle. If you weren’t listening so closely and weren’t so close to him physically, you wouldn’t have heard him. Through his whispering, he sounds hopeful, almost as if he is asking—begging you to feel something for him.

“You would hope so?” you repeat and he nods in response. “And why is that?”

“Because… I think I would feel upset if you didn’t like me.” he confesses, taking a deep breath. He looks as if he is trying to control his breathing. Is he nervous? Turned on? Or does he just have trouble breathing?

You smirk. “Why would you feel upset, Zuko?”

A faint pout forms on his pretty lips. His eyes droop and he looks like he is about to complain. “Are you really going to make me say it?” 

You nod.

“I would feel upset because I like you. I like you more than just my bodyguard. I like you more than just a friend. I like you more than just a talented bender who can take my life with a single lightning bolt. I like you more than you can even imagine.” Zuko finally confesses, releasing a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in.

“You like me? More than you like your honor?” you joke; you don’t want him feeling so tense around you.

“Yes. A lot more.”

“Good,” is your only response before you lean in. His lips are warm and soft and inviting. You feel your loud heartbeat through your ears and it feels as if the entire world has paused just for the two of you to kiss. 

To him, your kiss is intoxicating yet sweet. Addicting, so addicting he wants more. Zuko has never felt aroused by a simple kiss until now. He tilts his head, hopeful to kiss more of you. He feels himself losing control, his thoughts are wandering yet he is still staying put, his hands to himself because even though he wants more, he doesn’t want to make the first move. You have always led the conversations, so he is hoping you will lead this kiss too. Trying to control his breathing through his nose, he can’t help but moan quietly into your mouth, heat reaching his cheeks in embarrassment. He feels you smirk against his lips, tilting your head to deepen the kiss. Your soft fingertips cup his cheek, gently caressing his scarred skin with a tender love he has never felt before. 

His hands hesitantly make their way to your waist, gently wrapping around your middle as he pulls you in closer to him. Zuko presses himself against you, desperate to feel more than just your lips against him. You feel his heart beating hard against your chest, the right grip on your waist firm. He quietly moans against you, slight whimpers being held back as he pushes himself into you, desperate for more. Desperate for something, anything.

“Ah,” he quietly whimpers, his hand grabbing at yours and holding it to his chest. You flex your hand slightly, taking the opportunity to feel his pecs. Someone has been working out. “Please,” he begins. He sounds so desperate; you’ve never heard him like this before, but you like it. “More, I want more. Please, do something.”

Zuko wraps his legs around yours, pushing his hips forward to meet yours, his body desperate for more affection and more friction. He is starting to slip, becoming more and more desperate each passing second. You can feel him through the thin material of his pants, dick hard and pressed up against your body. You take a deep breath in an attempt to calm yourself. Looking into Zuko’s eyes, you can see everything he is feeling in them. Aroused, in love, submissive, and breedable desperate. 

“Would you like to see my scars?” you ask, earning a gentle smile from him. 

“Only if you would like me to see.”

“I don’t mind.” you smile back, pulling away from him and lifting the blanket. Eyeing the wet spot on his crotch, Zuko quickly pulls part of the blanket onto his lap, embarrassed that you noticed.

“Sorry,” he says shyly.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” you grin, sitting up and lifting part of your shirt to expose your lower stomach. “See this?” you ask. Zuko sits up with you and leans in slightly to look at your lower stomach. He can’t tell if you have been stabbed or sliced, but whatever happened, the scar looks deep and painful. “Got it in an assisination mission.”

“It must’ve hurt,” he whispers, his fingertips reaching out towards it. He looks up at you, eyes asking for permission to touch your scar. When you nod, his fingers gently ghost over the imperfection, feeling it slowly.

“Well I killed him, so he was probably in more pain than I was.” you laugh, remembering the man you killed.

“Do you have any more?” His eyes are full of curiosity, eager to learn more about your past and about your body.

“I have one on my thigh,” you tell him.

Zuko eyes your pajama pants. “You don’t have to show me. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“Oh, so you don’t want me to take off my pants?” you joke. “I see how it is…” 

“No! Of course I would like to see. Please?” he smiles shyly, hoping you’ll say yes.

“Hmm, I don’t know… you don’t seem very desperate to see…” 

Zuko shakes his head in defeat, giving into you as he leans in. He kisses your cheek sweetly, his lips slowly moving down towards your neck. “Please,” he whispers. He leaves slow and sweet kisses, his hand coming up to your thigh to caress it. His large hand glides upwards on your thigh, nearing where you want it the most. “Please, show me…” his hand stops, gripping your thigh.

“Since you wanna see that bad, I suppose I could show you.” you begin to unlace your pants. 

“You just wanted to see me beg,” 

“Well, yes. And it was nice. I quite enjoyed it.” you laugh, kicking off your pants so you’re wearing nothing but your underwear and your top. Zuko looks, stares, admires your beauty. He looks down at the scar, smaller than the one on your stomach, but it still looks painful. 

“I got stabbed. Another assassination.”

“Did you end up killing them?” 

“Yeah, so no biggie.”

Zuko is quiet, unsure of what he should do. Should he let you talk about it, or should he ask about it? You’re quiet and he doesn’t know if that’s because you want something else, or if you don’t want to talk about it. Unsure, he leans down, his lips leaving a gentle kiss on your scar. At the same time, he eyes your underwear, a wet spot forming where he wants to kiss the most. He looks up, feeling himself grow hard again. 

“Even with your scars, you are still beautiful.” he whispers, leaning up to leave a kiss on your lips.

“I know that, Zuko. I never said I didn’t feel beautiful because of my scars.”

“Oh,” he feels so stupid. Why did he assume you felt ugly with all your scars? You were not like him. “Sorry.” 

“If you’re so sorry, make it up to me.” you smirk and lift your shirt up, exposing your breasts to him. 

His eyes begin to wander, trying to memorize the curve of your breasts and where your scar is on your stomach. Leaning down, he buries his face into your chest. He leaves a gentle kiss on one of your nipples, his hand coming up to massage the other. His entire hand wraps around your breast, squeezing and kneading as he opens his mouth around your nipple, sucking on the skin. He leaves wet kisses as his lips move down on your body, stopping to kiss your stomach scar. Laying you back down, he starts kissing your lower stomach as his fingertips tease the band of your underwear. Your hips jerk up, signaling to him that he needs to do something. Gently pulling your underwear down and off, he crawls between your legs, eager to please you. 

You spread your legs, exposing your wetness to his lips. He leans in, tongue carefully licking at you. You let a breath out, tugging on his locks to where you need him the most. He moans, almost more excited than you are and sucks on your clit. When you pull his hair, desperate for him to be tougher, he moans again, his hips grinding against the mattress in an attempt to relieve himself. Zuko pulls away for a second, sitting up in front of you. He pulls at his pants, impatiently yanking them down as he frees himself. His cock springs upwards, and he moans in relief.

“Can I touch myself?” he begs, his voice a whimper as he leans back down, face in between your legs again.

You nod and he leans back into you again, his tongue working at your clit again and sucking on it. One of his hands grips your thigh, slowly making its way to your entrance. His other hand strokes himself, his hips bucking into his own hand as his other hand begins to tease your entrance. You’re practically dripping, hips bucking up into his face as he pushes himself into you. Zuko’s fingers rub at your entrance, a mix of his saliva and your arousal allowing him to push a finger into you. He moans into you, his finger curving as he strokes himself faster. His hips desperately fuck into his hand as his lips desperately suck on to your clit. He moans, excited to please you as he also pleases himself. Feeling him moan and whimper against you and seeing him so desperate for his release he touches himself has you gripping his roots and pulling him into you. Your grip on him is strong and hurts, but arouses him more and his moans begin to grow louder.  

“Ngh, fuck,” he pants, his hand stroking his dick. “You taste so good.”

“You’re too loud, Zuko,” it’s late at night and the elderly couple housing the two of you might hear and that would be absolutely mortifying.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.” he moans again, pulling away to bite down on his lip. His hair has been messed up and there is a blush on his cheeks, his lips wet with your arousal and his saliva.

He leans down again, inserting a second finger and curling them, making you let out a loud moan. You cover your mouth with your other hand as the other one continues to grip his hair. He licks at you in desperation, eager and determined to make you orgasm. His long and thick fingers move in and out of you as he continues sucking at your clit, licking and tasting it as you move your hips towards him faster. 

“Ahh,” he whimpers again, moaning against you as you desperately buck your hips upwards, the vibrations of his moans and the sweet sound of his whimpers sending you over the edge. Your legs wrap around his neck and he continues to finger you, his own hips moving faster as he fucks himself. The moans you let out make him move faster, desperate to hear you as he pleasures himself. He shakes, thrusts staggered as he finishes off of your moans and your own orgasm. The only sounds in the room are your heavy breaths and Zuko’s kisses he leaves on your thigh and stomach again, making sure to kiss your scars as well.

“So…” he begins. “Do you like me? Or….”

“What?” you ask, out of breath.

“Well, you never said if you do or not.” he questions, sitting up and reaching for his bag to look for something to clean you up. 

“Oh my god,” you laugh, leaning in to kiss him. “I thought it was obvious.”

“It’s not.”

“You’re so clueless,” you smack his head playfully. “Yes, I do. I wasn’t lying the previous times I hinted at it.” 

“Good,” he breathes a sigh of relief before kissing you again.

•••

“I told you that you were too loud!” you nag Zuko, angrily shoving his shoulder as the two of of you walk down the road in the middle of the night after being kicked out of the elderly couple’s house.

“Me? You were the one who wouldn’t shut the fuck up!” he rubs his shoulder in an attempt to soothe it. You were much stronger than you looked.

“No stupid, that was you! You were louder than me and got us kicked out! See what you did!” you yelled.

“Oh, shut up! You liked it!” Zuko fires back, rolling his eyes.

••• a/n: bye i didn’t even mean to write smut it j happened 💀

m.list

[xjulixred45x]

Platonic! Korra Gang x Chef! Reader

This is the Request of @chantillymoon i hope You're doing good with your Cooking, i'm sure it's fantastic😋! I hope this give you a little motivation💞

Genre: Headcanons

Reader: neutral

Warnings: none, pure fluff

Korra

Korra probably met you in the events of book 1 (did you see the Gala where Mako went with Asami? one of those), you were in food service.

and since Korra was a bit moody and in a new city, you were friendly with her and they got along quite well. You tried to entertain her a little with your cooking (like the chefs in certain Asian places, if you're a firebending master or something like that, even better).

Thanks to this Korra was going to see you when she needed to talk and generally let loose a little. You guys became friends pretty quickly.

If you have your own place, Korra tries to promote you when she interacts with important people and the topic of Catering comes up.

She firmly believes that your food is much better than the holidays food honestly. especially those of Unalaq.

I have a feeling that in the water tribe, especially in the south, there is not a very complex gastronomy thanks to literally living at a pole.

It's a more personal hc, but I think Korra grew up eating mainly fish and its variables (maybe rice and vegetables)

Obviously, she ate more things in her training to be an avatar, but it's not like it was food as such to "eat" but rather those for nutrition purposes.

so when she becomes a friend of yours (cutie) and you give her VERY varied and VERY delicious food, she is delighted.

like “FINALLY something that is nutritious and TASTES GOOD!”

Besides, you cook a lot of variety, so Korra doesn't know where to choose. but she has a big appetite, so it's not unreasonable to think that you probably won't run out of leftovers with her.

If you're stressed about a particular recipe, she may try to help you by giving you a hand with things in the kitchen that she knows she can't screw up, like reading you the recipe book or handing you things, all while trying to joke with you to relax you and make you laugh.

If you want a definitive break, flour war! Whoever ends up completely white loses and Naga will have to clean it up!

Now, apart from improvised or high-survival food, Korra doesn't cook shit, she doesn't know how to handle herself very well, so seeing you be so fluent in that habit is something new for her. Of course, she was used to her parents cooking. but not at your level, so there's a lot of excitement on Korra's part about how you learned all this.

If you try to teach her, can she go either very badly or...decent? which cannot be said whether it is good or bad.

Since at first Korra may even, trying to make things easier (or imitate you, if you use your elemental control to cook) use her avatar skills in the kitchen, which since she has no experience ends very badly 😅 with muddy dough everywhere.

or even with BURNT water in some way??

but after a few attempts and several burnt bouls, Korra gets the hang of it and manages to start improving her cooking skills!

She can make simple meals now at least.

but she always prefers yours, you make them much more delicious, according to her.

Korra is not going to tolerate any destructive criticism of you, who does she have to hit?she's going to scare them with the fucking avatar state🤣😅

Sure, she can TOLERATE constructive criticism because it's not malicious, but she doesn't understand why people eat your products if they're not going to like it anyway?

do not understand.

In general, Korra encourages your vocation a lot and encourages you to try new things with her :3

Asami

Asami knows you because of Varrik, he needed as many staff as possible, including the kitchen, so he hired you as soon as he liked one of your meals without thinking about it.

Asami needed a break from all of Varrik's antics, so she went to the staff areas for a while (without realizing it) and you noticed her state.

So you talked to her while you prepared something simple for her to eat and get energy back.

It was kind of nice, since you didn't feel intimidated by her or what had happened with her father, a breath of fresh air, so you continued seeing each other after that (in a platonic way).

Asami is used to eat in High Quality and/or fancy places before this, and still doing it.

which most of the time is not bad, on the contrary, it usually produces rich and delicious food.

but there are also times when for some people (ahem VARRIKahem) it just needs to be prettier and tasteless to be considered "gourmet" and even if it's not high quality food, Asami sometimes misses the feeling of having a normal meal. .

That's when you come into her life, her bubbly friend, to make things way better.

Asami probably never had a home-cooked meal as such (no, it doesn't count if CHEFS make it for you Asami) so it was a new experience for her. In the good sense.

Instead of eating aesthetically impressive but disgusting food, with you I could eat things that were really modest but that TASTED GOOD.

If you are having problems like not finding someone to give you more advanced cooking classes, don't worry! Asami will give you a hand with her contacts and help you find a good tutor.

If you already have your own place, rest assured that Asami (and in general the entire Avatar team) will come to see you and buy you food often no matter what you sell.

Even if you have any financial problems with the place, Asami has your back and helps you as much as possible. You may even become a constant Catering associate for the company!

Asami also tries not to let her friendship with you affect you so directly, especially when scandals arise with her father.

He goes to you for advice when they go out to eat, your food gives him a certain feeling of peace after all, so when you both go out he can be with a cooler head.

It's a feeling of familiarity that she hasn't felt in a LONG time.

You can definitely see Asami especially liking food with meat or more complicated things, but then again, he also really likes it when you make really simple things, like pasta or pizza, for example.

She says that it is because "you do it with love" and it is partly true, that you put so much effort into the preparation makes it much more special and she appreciates it a lot.

but in general I think she doesn't usually give you negative comments.

I mean, if you happen to screw up some food and it tastes REALLY bad, you know it just by looking at her face, even so she will never give you a "bad" word so to speak, she use very sweet constructive criticism and still assure you that you did a good job.

and you can also guarantee that if there is a particular food that she likes, she will pay you to make a couple of reservations for her ;) she can't help it! She loves how you cook!

If someone tries to criticize you in a non-constructive way and is simply Bullying you, she will directly kick their ass and deal with the consequences then why would someone be mean to a little sun like you? It doesn't make sense to her.

In general, a friend who supports you financially, emotionally and psychologically is always willing to give you a hand in the kitchen.

That's right, don't let her cook☠️ she may hace good intentions but she'll burn everything.

Mako

OMFG he LOVES THE FOOD YOU MAKE FOR HIM.

Now, let's get a little sentimental.

Mako and Bolin growing up on the streets probably never really had much to eat, not to mention they probably didn't eat every day.

especially Mako, I imagine that he probably even gave what little they had to eat to Bolin.

It's a habit for him.

So when he meets you and you give him a taste of your food, for FREE, he thinks you're too good to be true.

but he appreciates it very much.

but seeing how much his opinion matters to you. warms his heart.

For the same reason you could feed him the most disgusting thing you could cook and he would eat it like a big child.

He will tell you the truth, but he doesn't leave a crumb.

For the same reason, I have two possible versions of how the two of you met and became close friends.

One, the one I like the most, is that probably when you were younger and trying to cook on your own, Mako and Bolin tried to steal your food, failing miserably.

But from then on you started leaving food scraps on your window for them to grab so they wouldn't die of hunger.

Thanks to this little by little they began to interact more and even began to help you to apply seriously in the kitchen!

and the other possibility is that he knew you thanks to Pro-control, being the one who will be in charge of the food at the events.

In this scenario at first he would be colder but eventually either because of Bolin or because of your adorable personality, you end up liking him.

other than that he can see that you can't swing a fly, and that you're REALLY passionate about your job, so he respects you a lot for that.

We all know that Mako is more of a tough guy or expresses that he cares through actions, so he shows that he cares by showing interest in your hobby and helping you as much as he can.

But when he already has a stable job and can give you a hand.

When something specific goes wrong, he tries to cheer you up in an unconventional way, such as telling you something about his work to distract you a little or even inviting you something to eat to de-stress.

Maybe even Mako himself has learned to cook from you, of course, he is not at the same level but when you are very stressed or tired he has your back.

and when you manage to do what you want, he sincerely congratulates you, he knows that you deserve it after all.

Similar to his other friends and Bolin, Mako is quite protective of you, especially if you can't control any elements.

It's like the dynamic of "Sunshine + Sunshine protector" basically.

It also tries to help you accept criticism well, which is necessary to improve after all.

Although of course, if there is someone who is telling you shit just because and without really wanting to help you, give them the names, they will not tolerate it.

In general, he is a friend who is a bit rude but who defends you, appreciates you and supports you in your tastes, hobbies and career. regardless of how You two met.

He knows that you are as good a person as you cook well, and you are a VERY good cook ;)

Bolin

Again, HE LOVES THE FOOD YOU MAKE FOR HIM.

Bolin, similarly to Mako, has two possibilities for how he met you.

one more painful than the other.

the first, in which he knew you for trying to steal something from your leftovers when he was little, in itself, living on the streets of a republic city is not nice.

but at least you took pity on him and started leaving him leftovers. which left him EXTRACTED because (according to him) YOU COOKED AMAZING. even if at that time you were just practicing.

Even if you try to tell him that he was probably just saying that because it was his first meal in god knows how long, he still thinks the same thing.

and the second way, unlike his brother, is that he simply found you working somewhere he likes.

Maybe even with his amorous nature, at first he had a crush on you, but over time he realized that it wasn't what he really felt.

In general he is your personal cheerleader.

No matter how many times you fail to make a particular meal, Bolin eats it like his life depends on it. unlike Mako, he doesn't have the heart to say anything even remotely critical of your food :,)

He's also the kind of friend who constantly gives you ideas for new recipes. some good, some not so good, and some quite extravagant.

ex: some dessert based on Pabu.

It breaks Bolin's heart to see you sad when you don't get a particular recipe, but he will immediately move on to a session of giving you compliments and reminding you how you made other recipes to motivate you.

I can definitely see him recommending you to the important people he hung out with when he worked with Varrik, both to do you a favor and to be able to see you in those moments when Mako couldn't pay attention to him.

Bolin's favorite food is definitely desserts. cakes, cupcakes, pies, candies, anything that is sugary.

and if you get to practice making animal food (like for Pabu) Bolin is OVER THE MOON.

I can see Bolin trying to learn cooking things with you, both to spend time together and to be more independent, to help Mako out.

Apart from that, he would have the opportunity to try more of your food :D but he makes a great effort to listen to your advice and follow the instructions you leave him.

The results are quite promising! along with Mako, he is the best cook of the group (hc personal).

Similarly to Asami, he seeks advice from you when he feels left out of the group and doesn't know what to do.

Normally you prepare something hot for him so he doesn't feel so bad. It would probably be his second favorite food of yours, hot soups. In general they remind him of you, a warm and comforting presence.

Bolin is more passive when it comes to criticism and when it is constructive he makes sure to remember it and even writes it down so as not to forget it and thus apply it in his own attempts.

but eventually you can better distinguish between constructive and destructive criticism.

and when someone like that shows up, no matter how strange it may seem, they usually just ignore it. He wants to believe that he is better than them after all...

...only to launch Pabu on the attack in defense of your honor. Although well, didn't you see it coming?

He is generally a very sweet friend, he does not distinguish in social class or how or how long the two of you have known each other. He is convinced that you have genuine talent for cooking.

and he is very willing to show you that you have that talent and support you through everything.

Conclusion: They all love your food but they love the person behind that food more and how you support them in difficult times :,)

Shares, reblogs, and comments are very welcome!

Thank you very much for this Request ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[discordiansamba]

still thinking about the brainwashing au sorry. i truly love putting my guy in situations. sometimes these situations are horrifying.

because. the gaang does have to tell iroh eventually. it goes over as well as you'd expect. at this point they've collectively visited the tea shop several times now, each time gathering more information about 'lee'. they learn he doesn't think he has an uncle, so iroh's likely been erased entirely from his memory too. the gaang naively assumes that lee's 'father' is just someone else who was brainwashed.

iroh goes to ba sing se himself.

alas, he is the fire lord now. he cannot exactly visit a tea shop in the middle ring by himself. it would draw undue attention towards zuko- it is not so impossible that opponents of iroh's might be able to figure out his identity, and use him as a hostage. in his current state, zuko is unlikely to put up much of a fight.

but iroh does have a trick up his sleeve. it's quite the familiar one. iroh arranges with king kuei to have a certain tea shop provide refreshments for a small gathering he is having with the avatar and his friends. the owner is honored to accept- and naturally, she brings lee. he is the best tea server she has ever had.

lee wears his best clothes, and accompanies the owner and a few other members of the staff to the earth palace. he is nervous all the while. being able to serve tea to the earth king's personal guests is a great honor- even if most of those personal guests seem to have begun using the tea shop as a hangout space.

he passes through the gates, and wonders at the feeling of deja-vu it brings. he quickly puts it from his mind and sets to work. the only thought in his mind is that he has to do the owner proud today. they are introduced to their guests, and zuko bows- low and respectful. the avatar and his friends always tell him that he doesn't need to do that, but he continues to do so anyways.

all the more so because the new fire lord is also here.

lee looks up at the man- and can't help but notice that he is staring at him. lee feels his hand twitch, and is grateful it is hidden underneath the sleeve of his robes. he collects himself and sets to serving tea, determined to be as unobtrusive as possible. a servant like himself should be invisible to those above him.

but the fire lord smiles, and asks him if he will not share a cup of tea with him. he would like to get to know the people of the great city of ba sing se. he does not get many chances to speak to people who are not nobility, you see. and if he is being honest, you remind him a bit of his nephew, young man.

oh. he... supposes he might understand the fire lord's interest, then. everyone knows that prince zuko went missing during the war. many think he's dead- likely killed by his sister. lee gathers himself and sits across from the fire lord- but not before giving him another deep, respectful bow.

"i am honored for this opportunity," he tells him, "-please. let me pour the tea."

he begins before the fire lord can stop him. he is not certain why he is so sure the man will, if given the chance. he pours them both a cup of ginseng- he knows it is the fire lord's favorite. he drinks from it with a considering look, and praises the tea maker responsible for the blend.

the fire lord asks if he likes tea.

lee blinks. there's that question again.

of course, he tells him. he does work in a tea shop, after all. he is especially fond of jasmine tea. it's always been his favorite.

[tubatwo]

sabotage - huening kai

summary: you and kai paint each other’s faces on live and he surprises you

pairing: gn reader x huening kai

genre: fluff; 1.1k words

requested by ohmahgods

“you sure you wanna do this? I won’t force you if you feel uncomfortable,” kai asks one more time, a gentle look in his eyes as he makes direct eye contact with you.

your relationship wasn’t new, but it hadn’t been that long since you two revealed yourselves to the public. while showing off some of his favorite plushies on live, he realized that he accidentally brought a teddy bear that you gave him. a teddy bear that just so happened to have both of your initials engraved on its feet. sure, kai could have come up with something but 1. he’d probably suck at lying and 2. he didn’t want to hide you anymore. so he acted impulsively.

‎

‎

you two had already had discussions about the topic and even talked to bighit staff about it. obviously, they weren’t on board at first but eventually gave you the green light. the only thing left was finding the perfect time to announce it. kai beat you to it, apologizing over and over for making the decision without you, but you were thankful anyway since you were a little shy.

and now here you were. the company phone propped up in front of you two and sets of paint scattered around the table.

“yes honey,” you grab his hands in yours as you return his eye contact, “I promise I want to do this with you. it’ll be fun!”

kai nods and turns toward the phone to press the big “GO LIVE” button. the next few seconds are a bit awkward since you have to wait for moas to start joining the live. soon enough, the chat is filled with shocked emojis and confusion.

WHAT

OH MY GOD??????

IS THAT HIS S/O

YOONGI MARRY ME

?????? who is that

DID HE GO LIVE BY ACCIDENT

“hi moa babies!” kai waves to the camera before taking your hand in his. “I hope you all don’t mind my super special guest!” you smile and wave before introducing yourself. “hi moas! i’m y/n, thank you for having me.”

y/n is so cute

is this a marriage announcement? keke

why can’t I look like them

THEY LOOK LIKE AN ANGEL

“some of you may remember my live where I showed some of my dolls and a very specific teddy bear… well this cutie over here gave him to me!” kai began, “I thought that it would be nice for the person I love to get to know the other people I love! so, we prepared fun things to do today while we talk to moa.” kai brings the paint into the camera frame.

“we’re gonna do some really cute face paints!” you explain while trying to get used to the speed of the comment section. kai chuckles before scrolling up to catch a specific comment. “baby look! moas think you look super pretty… oh, yes they are an angel… no this wasn’t by accident! wait a marriage announcement?!” his famous laugh echoing in the room, making you laugh as well.

after a while all of the paint bottles are open and you’ve both put on cute animal headbands to keep hair out of your faces. “moa! what should we paint on each other?” kai asks.

you should make kai look super cool!

draw a butterfly on y/n!

i cant wait to see the results

while the speed of the comments were making your head hurt, kai catches a specific one that almost makes an evil laugh slip out.

you should pretend to make y/n pretty but make it bad kekeke

“you want me to make kai look cool? hmm… what about like the movie avatar?” you ask the chat. kai lets out a playful gasp. “ah right, my baby is really good at drawing so i’ll look super cool!” his use of pet names makes you look over at him with wide eyes. he simply winks at you and tickles your chin.

W RIZZ

kai the rizzler

WHY CANT THAT BE ME

“okay, how about I paint you first and you do mine last?” you suggest. “okie!” kai agrees and you get started.

you alternate between focusing on kai’s face and responding to some of the comments. kai faces you and stares at you with love in his eyes as you softly brush strokes of paint onto his skin. the paint is cold on his cheeks, but you make them feel so, so warm. thankfully, the paint is covering his blush. he feels like he’s falling in love all over again, and he feels like the luckiest man in the world.

“you’re so beautiful, baby…” his whisper snaps you out of the trance you had while reading comments. your head whips around to see the lovesick expression on his face. at this point, it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t care about showing pda with you live, so you try to relax a bit.

“says you! moa, isn’t he like a greek god?” you ask the chat while carefully cradling his face in your hands, showing him off to the camera. he laughs a little before shaking his head. “I mean it, you’re so handsome, your face is already a masterpiece.” you notice kai getting shy before he tries to lean in to meet your lips. you back up quickly and softly put your hands on his shoulders. “okay woah! 1. we’re live and 2. y-you have wet paint all over you!” you stutter while kai laughs at your reaction.

so im gonna die lonely

TAKING A NAP ON A BRIDGE

eventually, you finish the avatar-style painting on kai’s face and he takes a look at himself through the live screen. “wah! baby, this is so cool!” he exclaims, “you’re so cool and talented, i’m jealous!” you smile softly and rub his arm as a thanks. you make sure to thank moa in the chat as well for all of the compliments. while reading comments, kai wants your attention back, so he uses two fingers to turn your face towards him. the action makes you blush and the chat goes crazy once again. “my turn.”

were third wheeling i guess

IN FRONT OF MY SALAD?????

it seemed like an eternity passes before kai finishes your painting. with the amount of time he was taking, you felt grateful that he was putting a serious effort into it. however, it was weird how his hand stayed firm on your cheek, blocking you from looking anywhere else but at him.

HES SABOTAGING

LMAO

IS HE DRAWING WARIO??

HES SO WRONG FOR THIS

“okay, one last finishing touch…” kai says. you sit and wait patiently for him to pick up another brush, but instead, you’re met with a quick peck on your lips and the following words, “i’m sorry…”

you tilt your head in confusion at kai’s dolphin laugh before looking at the screen.

“HUENING KAI!”

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 4, Wave 2, Poll 3

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and round here.

Korra-Avatar: The Legend of Korra

Qualifications:

Korra is not only bisexual, having dated both Asami Sato and Mako, but was and still is disabled by the end of the series. She doesn't magically get better from being poisoned, she's forced to relearn a lot of things: how to walk, how to do things for herself, and even how to fight properly. Her physical disabilities are mixed with extensive trauma and PTSD that prevents her from doing her job as the Avatar throughout Book 4: Balance.

Canonically bisexual, has PTSD, and spent a while partially paralyzed and using a wheelchair.

Bisexual badass who ended up going through about 5038309340 traumatizing events, one of which involved mercury poisoning that had her unable to walk for about a year and left her with lasting PTSD and depression (though again the depression is a little less clear wheras the PTSD was obviously intended to be read as such). There was also her shadow self, but it's unclear whether that was a form of psychosis or a literal spirit. In short, she's bi and has PTSD if you want to stick with the more long term, obviously canon bits.

Propaganda:

She's the Avatar, you gotta deal with it! But, seriously, Avatar Korra was the first onscreen LBGT+ character in the Avatar franchise alongside her girlfriend Asami Sato. While limited in what could be shown onscreen, the two were explictly portrayed as a couple in the 2016 Dark Horse comic "Legend of Korra: Turf Wars". Likewise, her disability never quite went away. She still struggled with trauma, PTSD, and learning how to do things for herself again for two to three years in the time between books 3 and 4 that were shown off in flashbacks during her solo episodes.

She's canonically bi and has PTSD, and disability was an incredibly important theme for her in her show's final season.

i dunno I think i covered all my bases in the qualifying bit but also its 3am and i dont feel like typing more

Anything Else?:

The creators of Korra, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, fought long and hard for their show, including taking a massive budget slash circa book 4 to avoid firing half their staff. Likewise, they took to Tumblr and other social media in 2014 to state firmly that Korra and Asami were both bisexual and in love. Here's a link: https://bryankonietzko.tumblr.com/post/105916338157/korrasami-is-canon-you-can-celebrate-it-embrace

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @foulfirerebel is the first submitter and also did the ‘anything else?’ section.

Lan Wangji-The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi

Qualifications:

Canonically gay, pretty heavily coded as autistic (esp in the show)

Additional qualifications by @lovewanxian : I would like to add that Lan Wangji also has extremely extensive scarring on his back from getting whipped 33 times and spent an extended amount of time bedridden because of it

Propaganda:

He's an absolute badass - in a series full of morally ambiguous or outright immoral characters, he's one of the only people around to consistently show he's reliable, honorable and strong. Some examples include Lan Wangji defending Wei Wuxian, his love interest and eventual husband, against his own clan and other clans because WWX went against their rules and tried to save innocent people, or LWJ raising WWX's adopted son for years and being a great father and mentor to him. While LWJ isn't *technically* canonically autistic, (not that this word would exist in the setting), he has flat affect, fixates on rules and his difficulty in understanding people's emotions is explicitly brought up and a minor plot point.

[aangarchy]

Do you have any Aang-Druk headcanons? I like to think that when Zuko’s dragon egg hatched, he called Aang in a panic because he has no clue how to raise a baby dragon 🙏🏻

ooooo i've never really thought about this before, but here's a list of some i came up with after reading this anon

The name druk came from Aang wanting to say the word dragon and doing his famous airbender sneeze in the midst of it: "dr-UKCHOO"

Zuko did in fact call Aang in a panic, bc up until the moment it hatched he had absolutely no idea the golden gemstone the sun warriors gifted him was a fucking dragon egg bc of course he wouldn't think of that why would he think the piece of gold they gave him is alive????

Zuko figured bc Aang lived 100 years ago, when there were still dragons, he has to know something about dragon hatching and taking care of a baby dragon. Aang arrives w a bunch of hay and things to take care of baby bison bc no, Zuko, he never met a dragon and he got frozen at age twelve of course he doesn't know what the fuck a dragon would eat

To teach Druk how to fly, Aang took the small dragon with him on a ride on Appa and held him in the air as long as his arms could carry him so he would get used to the flow of air around his wings

During his first few flights alone, Aang followed Druk on his glider to make sure he was alright whilst Zuko paced the halls of the palace like a worried mother (curlers in hair and all)

When Druk and Aang inevitably returned from their flights a bit too long after sunset Zuko ripped both of them a new one and grounded both the Avatar and his pet dragon. Other generals and world leaders are very confused as to how the firelord manages to treat the Avatar like a son, and the Avatar allowing it, but here we are

Izumi was born not long after Druk, so they have the same connection a child and the family dog would have. They play fetch w the femur of an ostrich horse bc nothing else is even remotely big enough for a teenage dragon to chase

Druk can absolutely 100% understand human speech, but pretends not to when Zuko tries to lecture him on not eating palace staff

Druk and Bosco get along swimmingly, and Bosco has attempted several times to climb Druk for a joyride but alas his bear paws don't allow him to grab onto anything and he topples off before they even make it off the ground

[signfromeywa]

AUNGIA TA EYWA (A SIGNS FROM EYWA)

Chapter 02: New ally Patra️

Description:

Anastasia Novak is a behavioural scientist tasked with socializing a captive Na'vi on behalf of the RDA. The longer she works with the Na'vi and the closer she gets to him, the more she has to rethink everything she thought she knew and redefine her morals and values. Can she just carry on like this, or will she follow her heart?

Content: Rating +18, Avatar fanfiction, human x Na'vi ship, Na'vi captured

Characters: Human OCs: Anastasia Novak, Steven Turner, Patra// Na'vi OCs: Ean'tu,

Word Count: 2954

⊹˚₊‧─────────────────────────────‧₊˚⊹

❗️English is not my native language! I apologize very much if it reads a bit bumpy here and there.

I'm a German author and this is the first time I've tried to translate a story I'm working on into English and upload it. I still hope you enjoy it.❗

The first thing Ana did when she made it out of the enclosure and back into the surveillance rooms was to approach Mr. Turner. 

"I need access to all of Sky's files," was the first thing she said as she burst into the room, taking her colleague completely by surprise. 

"Miss Novak, take it easy. Are you all right?" He took her by the shoulder and held her. 

"What? Oh yes, I'm fine. Nothing's happened."

"You were just attacked by a ten foot tall alien and electrocuted quite badly, no one is fine after that." He led her to a chair. "Have a seat first."

"I'm telling you, I'm fine. Nothing happened to me," Ana assured him, but sat down out of necessity. "I really need to look through the documents, and I'd also be interested to know what scientific institutions there are and what they're researching."

Mr. Turner seemed surprised by the question. "Why do you want to know?" 

"Do you know anything about it or not?"

"Well, only superficially, after all, you need authorization and a security clearance to obtain such information. The research reports are not available for everyone to see."

"Good, so let's start from the beginning." Ana placed the clipboard on her lap and activated her pen. "Are there any research facilities that deal with the life forms on these planets?" 

"I think I've heard that there might be." Mr. Turner didn't seem to like all the questions. 

"Na'vi too?" Ana wrote something down and then looked up at Turner.

"Yes, as far as I know... Miss Novak, what are you up to?" 

"Don't worry about it. As a behavioral scientist, it would give me a significant head start if my scientist colleagues would share their knowledge with me. Then I could speed things up and start socializing right away. Otherwise I'm starting from scratch." But she didn't tell Turner that there were behavioral traits about Sky that had made her suspicious. No one here seemed to think much of Sky, which she couldn't even blame them for after he had been so aggressive towards them. He had certainly tried to attack the staff many times. And he had just proved that he was dangerous.

"Well, if you say so..." He seemed a little more reassured. 

"Yes, do you have any contact details of professionals or a way to get this security clearance?" She was ready to take notes. 

"Phew... that's a difficult question. We tend to have direct contact with the boss and the security and maintenance company that looks after us. I think a former employee has moved to a research unit. I can write down her contact details. She's only a technician, but she might be able to tell you how to get in touch with the right people," Turner offered. 

Nodding, she handed him a pen and clipboard and he wrote down everything she needed. "Thank you."

"My goodness." He laughed a little dryly. "You're really stirring things up here." 

"That's what I'm known for." Ana laughed as well. "I'm a breath of fresh air."

Then she stood up. "Sky's documents are in the next room?" 

"Yes, I think everything that would be relevant to you is in the box. But it's not that much. The rest is more about the system and all the technical details. I don't think you'll be particularly interested in that," explained Turner. 

"Thank you very much. I'll take a look at the documents and use the desk. If I have any questions, I'll get back to you," Ana thanked him and then took the door to the next room, which housed the paperwork. There she went to one of the desks on which, as she had just discovered, were documents relating to Sky. She quickly found the box Turner had meant and took out the individual folders. They were surprisingly empty; Turner hadn't been lying. Not much had been documented about Sky. She quickly found the medical records. At the top were the most recent things, consisting of the latest routine examinations and vaccinations. Each of the examinations had probably been carried out under anaesthetic, because otherwise the doctor refused to treat the animal. He was too aggressive to justify any other form of treatment and unfortunately Ana could only agree.

She sat down at the desk and began to carefully inspect the documents. Everything was quite unspectacular, nothing special or of interest. But she got stuck on one folder. There were no more files in it, but the folder stood out. It wasn't from this institution. She couldn't say where it was from. However, she was disappointed when she picked up the first few pages. 

"Urgh... all blacked out..." she said quietly. What was that? None of the other documents were blacked out. Why this one? So she couldn't do anything with this folder. However, she photographed the coat of arms on the front of the folder. It certainly belonged to the institution from which the report was made. Then she put everything aside and turned her attention to the oldest folder from the institution. She picked up the pages and began to read. 

She could read in the report 'scratches all over the body' and 'completely emaciated and powerless'. That read terribly. Sky had been malnourished and injured when he had arrived here. He must hardly have been awake or had the strength to eat. What terrible descriptions it contained. Where did Sky actually come from? The way it read, he couldn't have been captured in the wild. Ana was pretty sure he wouldn't have been in such a bad state in the wild. She propped her face up with her hand. There was certainly much more to it than she could gather here. This past could have been to blame for Sky's lack of trust in humans. She was all the more glad that he was here now. In this facility, which at least took good care of him, and Ana was also here to look after him.

She leaned back in the office chair. Her thoughts wandered to Sky, to the enclosure. The image of his face appeared in front of her again. His watchful eyes that had looked into hers. The way he had taken her hand, almost human. No, she shook her head to get rid of the thoughts. It was the wrong approach and yet it moved her deeply. She needed clarity. That was why her mind was made up. She had to find out more about the Na'vis and about his past. Her cooperation with Sky depended on it. It was important to her that she was successful. Not just for herself or her boss. No. It was also important for Sky. He should no longer have to live in fear. The animal would certainly feel better if it was no longer afraid of people and could start to get used to its surroundings.

She closed the documents in front of her and neatly put everything back in the box. She took the drawing she had made in the enclosure of this strangely tied-up branch back with her for now. She could always file it away later. It was already late at night. She had only arrived late in the evening. But the time didn't seem to matter here. They worked in shifts around the clock to keep Sky under constant observation. 

Anastasia wrote her cell phone number on a small piece of paper and stuck it on the magnetic pinboard. Then she went into the surveillance room one last time, where her colleagues were sitting. 

Both men turned to look at her when she came in. 

"I'm getting off work now. I've put my number on the pinboard where you can reach me. If there's anything, please get in touch, ok?" she said.

"All right. The next crew bus should be right here," Turner pointed out, but Ana already knew that. The buses ran every two hours and took the teams and staff to their hostels. It wasn't unusual for many scientists or special forces to live on the bases, but Ana didn't. She lived in a hostel. She stayed in a hostel together with other civilian staff. 

"Yes, sleep well later. See you then." Ana waved goodbye and left the room, making her way out through the base. At the airlock outside, she was checked again and given a mask. Then she made her way out to the waiting team bus. As she boarded, she greeted the others briefly and sat down in an empty seat with her bag on her lap.

Shortly afterwards, the bus set off. Ana looked out of the window and was amazed by the landscape. it was so different from the earth, especially at night when everything glowed so mysteriously. She could never get enough of the sight. However, she was alone in this opinion. The soldiers on the bus with her paid no attention to the landscape and just seemed tired. Perhaps it would become normal for Ana, too, if she lived here for a while. She smiled. No, definitely not, she loved nature far too much for that. Even back on Earth, she had never had enough of it. Now, however, everything was ruined and the beauty had faded. Quite different from the moon, which was still alive. The flora was bursting with strength and life energy, it was a beautiful sight. All too soon the ride was over and she got out to go to the hostel. It wasn't a particularly large building and wasn't guarded by the military. It had everything you needed to survive.

She went in through the airlock and immediately took off her mask. She took it with her to her room, which was on the second floor. Her room was a single room and not particularly large. It had a bunk bed and a desk underneath. Opposite it on the wall was a built-in wardrobe and a mirror. She also had a small en-suite bathroom, which she was very grateful for. She also had a small adjoining bathroom, which she was very grateful for. At the head of the bed, at desk level, there was a narrow window through which she could see a little of Pandora and her beautiful nature. Otherwise, the room was made of concrete, walls and floors alike. Everything was gray and cold, just like on Earth.

Her suitcases with the private things she was allowed to bring were already in the room next to the wardrobe and a laptop that she had never seen before was on the desk with a document for the first registration. Ana took the painting out of her bag and then hung the bag with her jacket on the hook behind the door. She placed the painting on the desk and pulled back the chair to sit on it. First she would log in to her laptop and set her new password. As she did so, her eyes fell on the paper lying next to her. Mr. Turner had written the contact details of a former colleague on it. It wouldn't hurt to write to her, then she could answer her in peace until tomorrow.

She wrote a polite email asking for contact details or information about the research facilities. Once she had sent the message, Ana decided to take a quick shower and then go to bed. She had a lot of research to do tomorrow, so she needed to get a good night's sleep. Although she had spent almost three years in cryosleep, she felt completely exhausted and drained. Cryosleep was not without its challenges.

Without hesitating for long, she took a shower and, under the warm water, thought about how she could personalize her room a little. Where could she put things? Would a rug be a good idea? And would it be okay to have a couple of plants in the room? She already had one or two ideas of what she could do, which made her smile knowingly in the shower. 

When she got out of the shower, she grabbed a towel and walked out of the bathroom to her suitcases. There she picked out her sleeping clothes and put them on when a soft, unfamiliar beep made her sit up. She checked her laptop, which had received a new e-mail. Astonished and excited, she sat down in front of it and opened the email. 

"Good evening Miss Novak, I'd be happy to help you. Let's talk," the email said, with a link attached underneath.

This link looked like an invitation to a video call. Ana hastily got up and dug out her woollen jacket to put on and tied her wet hair into a bun. Then she accepted the invitation.

It took a moment to connect the call, then a window opened in front of her with a woman. She adjusted her red glasses on her nose, then smiled kindly. 

"Miss Novak?" she asked, apparently trying to recognize something. "This is Mrs. Patra. I need you to activate the camera."

Anastasia hurriedly looked where she could and found a small crossed-out camera symbol which she clicked. Now another video image appeared, showing herself next to Mrs. Patra. 

"Good evening. Sorry to bother you this late," Ana apologized.

Patra laughed. "No problem, I'm on the night shift and I'm still at work."

"Then thank you for taking the time."

"So you're working with Sky now? You'll have plenty of work to do. I'm sure you're new, I presume?" 

"Yes, that's right, arrived today. You changed jobs?" Ana asked. 

"Yes and no, I was removed and transferred. I actually work at a science base now. Delta Research Unit." She explained.

"What are you researching?" 

"I'm not researching anything." Patra laughed. "I'm one of the technicians. We make sure that the technology here purrs like a kitten and remains reliable. But the unit here is researching the flora." 

Ana became curious. "Do you know the units that are researching the fauna?"

"Well, there are many, all different specialties. Three of them are even under the strictest secrecy. I'm sure you want to know more about the Na'vi." She smiled. 

"You've got me figured out. As a behavioral scientist, it would help me a lot if I could access the research of these bases. Then I'd save myself a lot of own research and could start the socialization right away, you know?" 

Patra brushed a strand of black hair behind her ear. "Yes, I understand. I'm sure you want to establish contact. I can give you a contact, who I also approach when I need to make contact with the more secret research bases. However, you won't get any information that easily. At best, you could present your request and hope that it will be passed on to get a security classification. Once you've been checked, you'll also get approval for such documents." 

A lot of information, all of which Ana wrote down. "Yes, I see, thank you for the information. Can you email me the contact details?"

Once again, Patra had to smirk. "I can't possibly do that, that's why I called you, I'll give it to you verbally. Take notes." 

Which Ana did and wrote it down exactly. She then repeated what she had written to make sure she hadn't made a mistake. 

"You didn't get that information from me." Patra winked at Ana. 

"Yes, I understand, thank you all the more. I never thought it would be so difficult to get hold of useful research." 

"Why do you think there are so many rumors about Pandora and its flora and fauna? Not to mention what Earth is reporting. Those people at the top would prefer everyone to believe that the planet is uninhabited and dead. So that they can mine the raw materials in peace." She pushed her slipped glasses up on her nose again.

Ana had never thought about it like that before. Of course, the RDA was mainly here to mine the minerals. The research was just a necessary evil to make mining in the mines more efficient and to ensure the survival of the people. If there was nothing here, the company could do without all that and the moral questions about the destruction of an ecosystem. It caused Ana to think. 

"Now that you mention it... I don't know much about Pandora." 

"Exactly, that's what they want. Sometimes knowledge doesn't lead to knowledge, but to more awkward questions." 

Ana nodded. 

"All right, I wish you the best of luck getting your information and making progress with Sky. He's pretty wild, so take good care of yourself." Patra leaned back. "I'd almost say keep me in the loop, but I think that's going to be difficult."

Ana smiled at her counterpart. "You've helped me a lot, thank you very much. If you like, we can keep in touch as much as possible." 

Patra nodded. "Yes, that's a deal. I wish you a good night, see you soon." 

"Likewise." Ana hung up. 

The conversation with Patra had actually raised even more questions in her mind. She really had no idea what was going on on Pandora. She had just arrived from Earth and the only information she had was limited to what she needed to know in order to do her job properly. She probably had the lowest security clearance of all. Hopefully that would change soon so she could find out more about this beautiful moon.

Now completely tired, she closed the laptop. She undid her hair one last time and took off her cardigan before crawling into bed. It wasn't long for her to fall fast asleep.

Tag list: @twisteduniverse5 @yukilaaw @mooniequeen (If you want to get added, comment it under the post)

[rosemarydisaster]

It's been said before how Sokka kinda learns a lot of different combat styles from different regions. I just think it would be neat if after the war he set out to be the Non Bender Avatar.

At first Katara was a bit confused, but by now she's learned that her brother just has ideas sometimes. She's willing to see this through. Aang is of course super supportive even if he doesn't get it. And thus, the journey begins.

First, he finally finishes his father's fighting lessons. He's a master of the boomerang and a fearsome Southern Warrior...but that's not all. With Aang's help they visit the Northern Water tribe. While the Avatar deals with some diplomatic business, Sokka asks to train with their warriors. Now he's a master of both southern and northern water tribe fighting style.

Next is Kyoshi island. Suki is really happy to see him there and more than gladly agrees to continue his training. He's no longer a silly little boy with narrow minded ideas. He's a man of the world, and he puts the work to learn their techniques. By the end of his training he's gifted his own fans and new friends, the rest of the warriors impressed by his dedication and amused by his humor.

On the mainland he finds different teachers, and a variety of styles. From Lucha libre-esque to more martial arts focused. He also learns how to handle quite a few weapons, the Bo staff becomes one of his favorites for its versatility.

The fire kingdom is home to so many great fighters he almost gives up. Obviously a culture so focused on war would nurture a talent for violence. The first one is both the easiest and the hardest. Zuko is his friend, so he's easy to convince. Tragically he also has many obligations and little time. Sokka makes it work, training under the blue spirit when the Fire Lord has some free time and continuing his lessons with Piandao. Even better Ty-Lee and Mai both visit the palace frequently so they're next. Ty-Lee's is probably the hardest one yet, the acrobatics a little too much. But with enough practice he finally obtains the flexibility and balance to pull it off.

The last one is the most difficult one. Not only are the Air nomads ostensibly pacifists but, well, there's only one left. Aang is sure that there must have been some fighting style of his people. No culture is a monolith and although everyone he knew was a pacifist, there must have been someone out there kicking ass air nomad style. After some studying and many dead ends they realize that the calm and meditative Tai chi the monks did at the temple was originally a martial art. Mixed in with some air bending moves and promising to only use it defensively, Sokka becomes the first air nomad martial artist in a very long time. It brings him and Aang even closer, being able to share his culture with someone else. Feeling like maybe it's not gonna end with him or his line.

At the end of the journey Katara just smiles, joining her brother and boyfriend in their taichi demonstration for the earth Kingdom and Fire Nation delegates. You truly did it she thinks to herself the Non bender Avatar.

Just, Sokka learning every fighting style and becoming a menace who just so happens to be best friends with the most powerful non benders in the world.

[swiftsaltsweet]

Two Knives Chapter 6: Kyoshi- We Didn't Start the Fire

Characters: Rangi and Kyoshi (RoK characters tbh)

Pairing: Rangshi

Rating: M

Summary:

Things have been stressful for Kyoshi. First, she sang a poem and now the whole kitchen staff thinks it’s about Rangi, and is sure that there will be gossip. Then, Yun asks her to join him for the Fifth Nation treaty signing. Now Rangi’s acting strange. It’s becoming a bit much for Kyoshi’s small corner of the world.

(Canon Divergent AU- Kelsang wasn’t the one who heard the poem?….aka What if it took longer for them to realize Kyoshi was the Avatar?)

Other Sites: AO3 

A/N: I really like the song “We Didn’t Start the Fire”~! :3c

Slight spoilers for Legacy of Yangchen. The spoiler is a reference to a play in the novel. It’s very minor and not….really plot relevant. But I wanted to warn in case someone wants to go into Yangchen 100% spoiler free.

Hey, weird question. Y'all ever had an idea and thought 'lol this is fun/funny' then you got to it and like....now you're unsure but hey you're here now and it's everyone's problem? No reason, just asking for a friend hahah >x> *sprints away to the end notes*

And slight trigger warning for possible slight/mild homophobia. I left it up to interpretation tbh. 

_____

“Your mother’s gotten really fixated on hot squats recently,” Kyoshi mused as she held the firebender close. Her head rested on top of Rangi’s, carefully avoiding the pins on her head. The only sharp object on the girl at the moment. 

The spiked armor laying on the floor of the carriage. Thanks to the carriage, the two girls could be as close as they wanted without anyone bothering them.

Not like they had much of a choice to spread out in the carriage with all the cargo they had packed in there. But they would use whatever excuse they could use.

Kyoshi and Rangi were well on their way back from Hongcun Village, a village north of Qinchao Village. Iit was known for being a hot spot trading post as well specializing in weaponry dealing and repairs. They had to ride with another passenger to Hongcun, but on the way back they had the whole ride to themselves and they were making the most of it.

Rangi hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She never cared that much about hot squats before, she was more of a horse stance fanatic.”

Kyoshi had seen Yun have to do horse stance a few times, but today it seemed like it was hot squat hell for him. Yun hadn’t had a chance to see them off, all thanks to Hei-Ran wanting to begin his training before the sun even came up. 

Kyoshi shuddered, thankful she never had to do either training exercise in her entire life, and was hopeful she never would.

Rangi suddenly laughed. “What’s got you all shaken up?”

“Just thinking about the nightmare of horse stance,” Kyoshi mumbled. It was a popular form for earthbenders, she used to see the villagers perform competitions for who could hold it the longest. It looked like hell.

Rangi detangled herself from Kyoshi, and readjusted in the seat so her head was laying on Kyoshi’s lap. “It’s not the worst thing ever.” Then she thought about it for a moment. “Ok, it’s up there.”

Kyoshi started to run her fingers through Rangi’s hair. “If it’s only ‘up there,’ then what’s the worst thing ever?” she chuckled.

Rangi looked at Kyoshi then turned her head and looked away, deeply troubled. She seemed to have taken Kyoshi’s question a little too seriously.

“Sorry, that's…..not something I want to think about.”

Kyoshi bit her lip, she had a distinct feeling of what might’ve been the source of Rangi’s uneasiness. The words came out before she could stop them. “Is this about Yun asking me to join as a companion?”

She cursed herself in her mind, she wanted to enjoy the day with Rangi, not upset her!

But instead of making her more upset, Rangi's tense face softened a bit, to Kyoshi's surprise. “In a way.”

“I won't do it if you don't want me to!” It had been what she wanted to say to Yun back when he first made the proposition. 

Rangi blinked, and then finally looked back at Kyoshi. Her eyes glistened with a far away look in her eye. Rangi wrapped her arms around Kyoshi’s waist, and buried her face into Kyoshi’s belly. 

Kyoshi did her best to hug Rangi back, considering the awkward angle. “I just want you-no, us to be happy. So, if you don’t want me to become a companion, I won’t do it.”

Kyoshi didn’t really need the glory of Avatar companionship. She was just happy in the section of the world she carved out for herself. If she had to wait for Rangi and Yun to come back every so often so that Rangi felt at ease, then it would be an easy trade.

They stayed like that, Rangi grabbing Kyoshi like her life depended on it. Kyoshi rubbing soothing circles into Rangi’s back.

Rangi let out a sound of air, it almost sounded like a laugh. “I’m not sure.”

Kyoshi blinked. “Huh?”

Rangi let go of Kyoshi and sat back up, she took one of Kyoshi’s hands and started tracing the lines of her palm. “I’m not sure….. if you should take him up on his offer.”

Kyoshi felt her eyes start to spin, the contradiction coming from Rangi overloading her brain. “I-I thought you were livid at the idea….” She distinctly remembered the firebender shaking with anger when it was first brought up.

“I was, but then he raised a good point.” Rangi took a breath. “It might be good for you to learn how to defend yourself. I’d rather you didn’t have to learn because you were becoming a companion, but….” She sighed.

Kyoshi’s eyes stopped spinning, the contradiction was unraveled and solved.

She turned to Rangi and gave her a lopsided smile and jokingly said, “But I have you to protect me.”

She expected Rangi to roll her eyes and push her, maybe even make a disgusted noise like she did when Kyoshi said something similar after the jar incident. But instead Rangi shook her head with a saddened expression as she looked at the ground. “But what if I’m not there to protect you?”

Kyoshi moved her hand so Rangi wasn’t playing with it anymore, but to hold it instead. “What do you mean?”

Rangi sighed. “Well, what if I go on the mission with Yun, and someone attacks his home? What if you got hurt because of that?”

Kyoshi squeezed Rangi’s hand and laughed. “That wouldn’t happen.”

“But how can you know that?” Rangi looked at her with a worried expression.

Kyoshi didn’t. “So you want me to join you on your adventures so that won’t happen?”

Rangi shook her head. “No, that's……more terrifying. The Avatar has to confront some of the worst people and situations imaginable, I don’t want you near that.”

Kyoshi sighed. “So you just want me to learn how to defend myself?” She could do that, within reason. But she wondered how it would fit into her schedule. Kyoshi had a feeling more sleep would be sacrificed.

“If that isn’t too much trouble……”

“Are you going to train me?”

Rangi raised an eyebrow. “I’m not an earthbender, Kyoshi.”

Kyoshi shook her head. “No I-.... I don’t think earthbending is in the cards for me. But maybe some hand to hand? To start off? Then I’ll look into what I can do about my earthbending.”

Rangi tilted her head and closed her eyes in thought for a moment, then opened them. “I suppose that could work. But what is it with you and earthbending? You always avoid it.”

Kyoshi sighed. She avoided the topic for the past two years, it was about time she explained herself. At least of all her secrets and issues, this one wasn’t that hard to talk about.

“I can’t really……bend….well.”

Rangi snorted. “I figured as much when you refused to stop the jar from falling!” She gave Kyoshi a playful shove. “I’ll have you know, your little stunt almost gave me a heart attack. You really know how to make a girl fall for you.”

Kyoshi stared at Rangi surprised, Rangi’s joke sailing right over her head. “Wait, you’ve liked me since back then?!”

Rangi's face fell in horror. “Kyoshi!”

A grin grew across Kyoshi’s face. “Just kidding!” She pulled Rangi into a hug before the firebender could get back at her. Kyoshi had pieced together that Rangi had liked her as far back as that. She just wasn’t sure exactly when the firebender had fallen for her. 

The jar…. Come to think of it, that was the same day I sang that poem. 

“I can’t bend small objects,” Kyoshi continued as Rangi struggled against the snuggle. “I can only, uh, ‘go big’?”

Rangi stopped struggling and looked at Kyoshi. “Isn’t that a little backwards?”

Kyoshi nodded.

Rangi thought about it for a moment. “No, I don’t think that’s the best way to describe it. You just need to learn control. Sure, that level of control needed might not be common, but everyone needs to learn control regardless. You just…. need it more than others!”

Kyoshi never thought about it like that, she just thought she was a lost cause. Leave it to her super talented bender girlfriend to make it easier to digest.

Kyoshi hugged Rangi harder as the firebender cuddled in closer. “That being said,” Rangi started, “I feel like you exercise a bit too much control in some aspects of your life.”

Rangi pressed her hand to Kyoshi’s chest, and proceeded to trail it down the length of Kyoshi’s body, searching for the opening in Kyoshi’s robes. When she did find it, she planted a warm kiss on Kyoshi's jaw as her fingers raked soft skin. Rangi’s fingers were warm on Kyoshi’s bare skin.

Kyoshi groaned at the sensation. She lowered her body down the length of the seat so Rangi could climb on top of her. She needed more of the firebender's contact on her. “Trust me, I don’t want to exercise any control when it comes to this.”

“And yet you do,” Rangi hummed, her lips making her way to Kyoshi’s neck.

Kyoshi responded by grabbing Rangi by the hips and grinded hard against the firebender. Rangi let out a moan into the crook of Kyoshi’s neck, causing them both to press in harder against each other for more friction. 

“It’s not me, it’s the people who keep interrupting us,” Kyoshi forced out in low gasps.

Rangi snaked her free hand to Kyoshi’s hair and gave it a tug, making Kyoshi expose more of her neck’s pulse point. “Well it’s a good thing we’re alone now, with a lot of time until we arrive back at Yokoya.”

Kyoshi squirmed delightfully when Rangi’s lips made contact, warmth radiated through Kyoshi’s body with each pulsing beat. She was going to enjoy every moment of this bumpy carriage ride. She was just thankful that the road had smoothed out for the last few minutes. It was so smooth, it was like they weren’t even moving at all!

Wait…..

“Rangi, stop,” Kyoshi forced out the words she would never want to say. She had a bad feeling.

Rangi did as she commanded, but she gave her a disapproving look.

“Are we still moving?” Kyoshi asked.

Before Rangi could answer or question, there was a knock at the door and the driver’s voice could be heard. “Misses? I’m sorry but we need to st-”

The look of fury that Kyoshi saw flash across Rangi’s face could’ve melted a volcano. Like a flash of lightning, Rangi quickly straightened her clothes, grabbed her armor, donned it, and ripped the door open before the driver could finish his sentence.

“WHY?!” 

The driver flinched, not expecting such a reaction. Kyoshi would’ve felt bad for him if he didn’t just interrupt a possibly life changing moment for Kyoshi…. And if she wasn’t so preoccupied with staying out of his line of sight and readjusting her clothes to look presentable again. 

“T-the, uh, the spokes-I mean the wheel? It’s busted we need to replace it-”

“Again?! This is the second time! Just replace it and don’t bother us!”

“Second? Oh, that was a different carriage! I-I mean! It will be! It’ll just take a few hours to get the part. In the meantime, we’ll be in Qinchao Village while we wait-”

Rangi slammed the door shut. Took a few breaths. Then turned to Kyoshi with the saddest deer puppy eyes Kyoshi had ever seen.

“I think the universe hates us.”

Kyoshi laughed, in a sense relieved to see Rangi was just as frustrated as she was. She finished straightening up and took Rangi’s hand. She gently rubbed the top of it with her thumb. “Let’s try to not make the driver hate us too.”

_____________________________

Qinchao Village was a strange place. Most residents belonged to the Chin Clan, which made most people feel like outsiders as they walked through the same-faced streets. They had strange holidays not celebrated anywhere else in the Earth Kingdom, and made it known their loyalties lied with the village over the Earth Kingdom as a whole. Only their wealth allowed most to overlook its strangeness.

Kyoshi had only been there once before, with the other maids on a day off. While Master Jianzhu had told them to be careful, nothing bad had happened and they got home safely. However, Kyoshi couldn’t help but shake a strange feeling of dread she had the entire time she was there.

And the same feeling started to overcome her as she and Rangi crossed the threshold into the village. She looped her arm around Rangi’s, and pulled her close as she did.

“Everything alright?” Rangi asked. 

Kyoshi sighed and whispered. “Master Jianzhu warned us this place can be a bit…..interesting. I just can’t shake the feeling that these guys are just waiting for an opportunity to burn me alive.”

Rangi snorted. “I’d like to see them try.” Right, Rangi would probably redirect the flames back at the village if they tried to burn either of them. Still didn’t mean they shouldn’t be careful.

The dread subsided a bit upon seeing how relaxed Rangi was, but it still hung deep within her being. It most likely wouldn’t leave until the girls left the village. 

The two decided to wander the village. Enjoying various wares at the bazaar. Enjoying tea at a nice teahouse. They even watched a small puppet show of an old story called ‘The Lost Slipper’ that was in the central square. The group of children let out an uproarious cheer when the hero was revived at the end and the evil minister had to dedicate his life and fortune to repent.

Rangi took Kyoshi’s hand as they left the crowd, heading back to the carriage to see if it was ready yet. “You know, legends say that Yangchen herself changed the ending to that play.”

“Really?” 

“Yup, apparently she hated the original ending, so she boo’d it.”

Kyoshi giggled. “Hard to imagine an Avatar such as herself doing such a thing.” Kyoshi tried to imagine the perfect, holy Avatar booing a puppet play and throwing a tomato at the stage.

Rangi laughed back. “I know, right?”

“So what was the original ending?”

Rangi pursed her lips. “I think the hero dies? So the hero’s life is traded so the evil minister can be taught a lesson? I don’t remember, the original ending is only survived by word of mouth nowadays, but it’s not very popular anymore.”

Kyoshi grimaced. “I can see why, doesn’t seem like a pleasant ending. Not a fair trade.”

Rangi nodded in agreement. 

They kept walking hand in hand, ignoring the stares they got. Kyoshi wondered if it was because she was holding hands with Rangi, an act that didn’t seem out of the ordinary for two girls to do. Or if it was because they were obvious outsiders in the village. 

As they rounded a nearby corner, something collided with Kyoshi's side. Kyoshi’s stumbed a bit as someone was knocked to the ground. “Gah!”

“Hey! Watch where you're going!” Rangi yelled at the person who ran into Kyoshi.

Kyoshi looked down and saw a square-faced boy with a sullen expression.

“Rangi, it's ok,” Kyoshi pulled Rangi behind her, still not letting go of her hand. Kyoshi then held out her other hand to the boy. “I'm sorry about that. Please be careful, you could hurt yourself.”

Kyoshi tried giving him the kindest, softest expression she could muster. Regardless of how kind her face may look, people tended to assume she was overly aggressive just based on her height alone. She tried to overcompensate to not scare the boy.

The boy looked at Kyoshi's hand that was extended, then at the one that was still being held by Rangi. From where he sat, the boy took his wooden sword and slammed it into Kyoshi’s shin. Kyoshi let out a high pitch noise. She released Rangi's hand as she clutched at her shin and bounced on one leg.

“Quick, Chin! Let’s get out of here!” one of the other boys called after the one with the sword.

The boy named Chin scrambled to his feet as he ran off, yelling about how he’d conquered a giant. She had a feeling her stature wasn’t the cause of his outburst, but that he was just spoiled brat.

As he ran away, a part of Kyoshi couldn’t help but think his name was stupid. Did those kids just call him Chin, when they’re also part of the Chin clan? Or was Chin his first name? So his name was Chin Chin? The strangeness of it all was about to give Kyoshi a headache. 

“Hey! Get back here!” Rangi yelled at the boy, but Kyoshi grabbed her by the shoulder. Partially to keep Rangi from making a scene, but mostly for Kyoshi to keep her balance.

“Rangi, it’s fine. Don’t leave me here alone,” Kyoshi said pitifully. 

Rangi sighed, annoyed, and helped hobble Kyoshi over to a nearby bench. “You know this is just reinforcing why I’m afraid to leave you alone. First Earth Kingdom peasants can out bend you. Now random eleven year olds with wooden swords are ready to take you out!”

Kyoshi grinned. “Oh no! Looks like I’m just going to need to be glued to you at the hip at this rate.”

“I bet you’d enjoy that,” Rangi smirked at her. “Wait here, I’m going to get some ice.” Kyoshi gave her a pitiful look in response. “Really, it’ll only be a second, I’m going right through this door.”

Kyoshi sat on the bench, trying to block out the pain of the welt forming on her leg. She looked around, and had a distinct feeling villagers of the village were staring at her. Among groups, from their stalls, and even through their windows. So many eyes, hidden in various crevices. And they felt like they were multiplying.

We should get out of here…..soon. Kyoshi thought. She didn’t have scopophobia, but most people started to develop some anxiety similar to that the longer they stayed in the village. 

When Rangi came back into view, Kyoshi’s worries didn’t ease as much as she thought they would upon seeing the firebender. If anything, she got more anxious. Afraid of what they could do to Rangi.

Rangi held some ice wrapped in cloth. Without being prompted, Kyoshi began to roll up her pant leg, a nasty bruise started to form, it hurt as badly as it looked. Rangi knelt down and gently pressed the ice to Kyoshi’s leg.

“Tch, that brat, why I-”

“Rangi, it’s fine,” Kyoshi tried to soothe. It really wasn’t but…. she really didn’t want either of them to get into a fight with a child. Especially if it got back to Jianzhu and Hei-Ran.

Rangi moved the ice around, trying to find the best angle that would cover most of the wound. “I have half a mind to drop him into the ocean……”

“Rangi…..” Kyoshi bemoaned. “Dropping people into the ocean is bad.”

Rangi gave Kyoshi a deadpanned look. “Not for me.”

Kyoshi needed to come up with something to distract Rangi. Lest her girlfriend spent the nights delivering sweet justice to annoying children as the local boogeyman. 

Kyoshi looked down at the injury on her leg and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Rangi asked.

Kyoshi took her injured leg and tapped Rangi lightly with it. “Hey look, we match,” Kyoshi laughed.

“This isn't something I want to match,” Rangi pouted. 

Kyoshi ignored her. “It’s the same leg and even the same spot. The only difference is that you’re the one on your knees this time.” Kyoshi couldn’t help but smirk a bit at her little innuendo at the end, waiting for Rangi’s reaction.

Rangi bit her lip, as if biting back a smile. “Ok, I’ll admit, I do like seeing you on your knees.”

“Is it because it makes you feel taller?” Kyoshi couldn’t help but joke. Rangi lost her fight and smiled, then she smacked Kyoshi’s good knee.

“Though, I do wish we were in your room doing this. I kind of like this new angle of you.” Rangi tilted her head to accentuate her point. Kyoshi watched as the angle moved the dark tressels of her hair to the side, and revealed her smooth, pale neck. Almost like she was offering it to Kyoshi.

“Oh?” Kyoshi inquired. Pleased to see where this conversation was going.

“It makes me want to try something,” Rangi batted her eyelashes at Kyoshi. She placed one hand on Kyoshi’s knee, to onlookers it looked like it was an act to steady herself as she remained squatted down. But she let her thumb wander farther in to graz Kyoshi’s inner thigh.l

Kyoshi’s face blazed a glowing red as she stood up suddenly, ignoring the pain in her leg. She was excited to find out what it was. “Will the carriage do?”

Rangi’s smile grew. “It’s a little cramped but maybe we can make do? I’m sure we can find something else to do if it’s not possible.” 

Kyoshi grabbed Rangi’s hand, and the two hurried back to the carriage. The pain in Kyoshi’s leg quickly became an afterthought.

_____________________

“Kyoshi, your hands are…. so…. warm!” Rangi moaned into the crown of Kyoshi’s head as she gripped Kyoshi’s hair tightly, pushing the maid’s head harder into her chest. Kyoshi was thankful the firebender removed her armor again, it was a lot more pleasant for her to have face shoved into Rangi’s soft chest rather than a metal plate.

Unfortunately for the two of them, the carriage was too packed to try what Rangi wanted to do. But Kyoshi had found she was able to continue where she left off from the night prior. Which was a good trade all things considered.

And that’s how they got into this new position. Rangi straddling Kyoshi’s lap, and Kyoshi’s hand down Rangi’s waistband. Trying to keep the firebender anchored was about as much of a struggle as keeping her quiet.

The carriage hit a bump, which caused fingers and other body parts to slam into new spots, and shift a little harder than the rhythm was previously established. Rangi let out another moan, this one much too loud.

Kyoshi made a mental note of where her fingers were, so she could try to recreate that again at a later time.

“Rangi,” Kyoshi pulled her face away just enough so words could be heard and formed. “You…. need to be…more…quiet…. Or the driver might stop us…..again!”

She felt Rangi’s chin bob up and down, but Kyoshi had a feeling she wasn’t really listening. Kyoshi should probably change tactics before they had another close call. 

If the small sane part of Kyoshi was keeping track of time correctly, and she probably wasn’t, they were about an hour away from Yokoya. Which meant…..they had an hour to look presentable again. Which meant….they should stop. 

With a forlorn sigh and great difficulty, Kyoshi removed her hand from Rangi’s pants.

“Don’t stop!” Rangi whined, and Kyoshi almost complied. She felt Rangi pull away and lift Kyoshi’s face up to look at her. “Please, don’t stop.” As she spoke, a small puff of steam escaped her lips.

Kyoshi gazed at Rangi revantly. Rangi’s eyes were soft and melting like liquid honey, her hair was loose and coming undone, and her face had a light sheen from sweat and steam that she had been creating. She looked like a mess, and Kyoshi loved it. 

“You’re a mess,” she smiled, breathless. 

“Only because you made me like this,” Rangi whispered back. 

Kyoshi forgot what she was supposed to not do, and leaned up to kiss Rangi. Rangi met her halfway with a steamy, open mouth kiss. It felt like they were exchanging the steam between them. Exchanging their heat. If Kyoshi had the ability to think at that moment, she would’ve wondered how she could be matching a firebender’s warmth like that. 

The kiss broke when the carriage hit another rough bump, sending Rangi almost flying. Kyoshi snagged her around the waist and kept her anchored with one hand, and used her other hand to stop one of the stacked packages from falling on them with the other. And then had to repeat the process when the carriage hit another bump.

“He could make the ride a little smoother,” Rangi grumbled as she shifted off of Kyoshi.

Kyoshi laughed as they began fixing themselves up. She leaned over and drew the window curtain back and opened the window to let the heat escape. 

“Maybe we should open the door too? Just a crack?” Rangi proposed as she tied one of the knots on her armor in place. Then she started fanning herself.

Kyoshi did as she asked. “What? Can’t take the heat? Then why do you generate so much?” Kyoshi laughed.

Rangi blushed. “I-I don’t know, I’ve never emitted this much before. Not even when I was angry.” 

So Rangi was like this because Kyoshi had that effect on her? Well that was some of the best news Kyoshi had heard in the past month.

Kyoshi finished propping the door open. Just as she opened her mouth to tease Rangi some more, she felt her body fly back from the sudden jolt in the carriage as it started barreling down the road. 

Kyoshi threw herself over Rangi as packages started to fall, the door to the carriage flinging open and closed until it finally stayed closed from a stray package falling in front of it. 

The vehicle felt like it was out of control, or maybe something worse.

“What’s going on?!” Rangi bellowed to the driver. Kyoshi hoped the man was still at the helm

“D-daofe!” He screeched.

Kyoshi felt Rangi throw them to the ground, or really on top of the sprawled out packages. There was a twump on the seat they were just sitting on, and Kyoshi looked up to see an arrow poking through the seat. 

“Kyoshi, whatever you do, do not leave this cart!” Rangi whispered in Kyoshi’s ear. Then she twisted around, threw her leg forward, and kicked the carriage door back open before jumping out before Kyoshi processed what was going on.

Before Kyoshi could decide if she wanted to follow Rangi’s order or not, the carriage took a hard turn and flew her to the other side away from the door. She caught a long box that landed on her stomach. The carriage kept moving side to side, flinging Kyoshi all around, until the feeling of weightlessness hit her. 

She and the packages started to float and then gravity kicked in. The cart and everything inside slammed to the ground, Kyoshi becoming sandwiched between the cart and multiple packages and crates. 

Kyoshi felt the carriage wobble left and right. It wasn’t going to remain upturned for long. When the carriage started to tip towards the door, she threw herself out of it, taking some of the packages with her. 

Kyoshi hit the ground with a hard thump, the long package that she caught earlier falling out of her arms next to her. Not long after she hit the ground she heard a crash. Kyoshi looked up and saw the carriage a splintered mess against a boulder and a tree. 

Kyoshi tried to sit up and found herself extremely dizzy. She felt something warm running down her neck and put a hand to her head. It was wet. 

Not good. She thought as she pulled her hand away and saw the red on her hand.

The sound of a tree branch snapping caught Kyoshi’s attention. Her head whipped around to a treeline, hoping to see Rangi. Instead, a tall tattooed man brandishing a bagua dao sword stepped out from between the bushes. 

The daofei grinned wildly when his eyes fell on Kyoshi. Dread shot through Kyoshi, not because a daofei was approaching her, but because she saw him wipe blood off of his sword. 

Where’s Rangi?! She screamed in her head, trying to strain her ears for the familiar blast of fire being combusted through the air. But all she could really hear was the ringing in her head. 

“Well look what we have here,” the daofei snickered as he approached Kyoshi. Kyoshi was able to get into a sitting position, but she was in no shape to stand just yet. 

The man raised his sword above his head. “I’m going to have fun with you.”

Kyoshi quickly grabbed the long box that was near her, and held it above her head with both hands. The sword came down and the box stopped it with a metal clang!

“What?!” the daofei yelled. And then he proceeded to let off a series of swings at Kyoshi. Kyoshi tried her best to block each one, fairly easy since the barrage came down at similar angles. As if he was just playing with her, wanting to tire her out. But each hit was met with another metal clang, and the blade never slashed through whatever was blocking the sword. 

The man stopped, breathing heavily but with a smile still on his face. Kyoshi felt her grip on the package slipping and realized he’d decimated the box completely. She tried to regain her grip on the box, but cut her hand on the object inside, causing the box to drop on her lap.

She looked down, and saw Tagaka’s iconic green jian sword. Kyoshi’s eyes widened as she realized this must’ve been what Jianzhu made Rangi drop off the day prior. He wanted it to be looked over by the expert smithies from Hongcun. 

Kyoshi began to pick the sword up by its hilt as she crawled away. She was going to need more space if she was going to have a chance of standing up to fight back.

The man let her crawl away while laughing, it was obvious he didn’t see Kyoshi as a threat. She stood up and held the sword out in front of her.

The daofei’s laughter grew more boisterous as he saw her ready the sword, and slowly started walking towards her. “Aw, that’s cute. You think you can fight back?”

He quickly rushed her and swung his sword at hers. She barely had to move to block the oncoming attacks, he was hitting her sword on purpose. After a few hits, Kyoshi understood why. The vibrations of the metal hitting each other were too foreign and numbing for her as it radiated through her arms. She wasn’t going to be able to hold the sword for much longer.

“You’re holding out longer than that firebender!” the daofei jeered gleefully at Kyoshi.

Kyoshi felt a surge of fury rise through her at the mention of Rangi. She slammed her foot down to anchor herself, and pushed with the sword. “What did you do to Rangi?!”

To the man’s surprise, he started to be pushed back, but only a little. While Kyoshi had height on him, he had more muscle than her.

The daofei’s smirk became strained. “Oh the firegirl? Don’t worry, you’ll see her soon. We’re all going to have a lot of fun-argh!”

Kyoshi’s eyes felt like the sun glared right into her eyes, and a surge of strength hit her as at that instant. She threw her whole weight and strength against the man and flung him back.

She went to pursue the man, to follow up her attack, but when she put her other foot forward, her leg buckled. It was the leg she’d injured earlier. 

She caught herself by stabbing the ground with Tagaka’s sword. Her legs bent into a deep stance as her arms gripped the sword for support.

The daofei picked himself back up, but instead of readying his sword, he dropped into a stance himself. “I like a girl with a little fight in her!” He thrusted his arm forward and a large boulder soared through the air at Kyoshi.

Kyoshi felt the sun’s blinding light hit her eyes again, and the surge of strength hit her once more. She took one hand off the sword’s hilt, and thrusted a palm outward. She felt a push as she made contact with her natural element, stopping the boulder midair. 

“Geh?! What?!” the daofei yelled, unable to budge the earth she now controlled.

Kyoshi clenched her hand into a fist, and with the last of her strength, twisted her torso and the rest of her body downward, her fist colliding with the ground below her.

The boulder slammed into the ground with ease, and soon sank into the pit that was created by a fissure that appeared in the ground. A fissure that started at Kyoshi’s fist, and branched outward as the earth shook. 

The daofei screamed in terror, and scrambled to get out of the way of the growing hole. She watched through blurred vision as the man ran off into the forest. Kyoshi wanted to find Rangi or go after the man, but she felt her body slowly sinking to the side. Exhausted. 

As her vision started to waver further, she saw fur Water Tribe boots walk into the corner of her vision.

“Don’t worry, kid,” a gentle, deep voice with a thick accent spoke to her. “Everything’s going to be just fine. Rest.”

Kyoshi lost consciousness just as she was hit with intense déjà vu.

_________

A familiar brown ceiling came into view as Kyoshi opened her eyes. Déjà vu.

She felt warm, warmer than usual. Déjà vu. 

But it wasn’t the air, this time it felt like it came from the weight of something on top of her. Multiple blankets. Not déjà vu. 

She turned her head to find someone familiar sitting there. Déjà vu. 

But it wasn’t Rangi this time. Not déjà vu. 

“Kyoshi!” Kelsang cried as she turned to him. He looked like he’d aged since she last saw him. Strange….. He looked better this morning.

“W-he-” Kyoshi’s voice cracked. Dried out. Déjà vu. But she pushed through. “Where’s Rangi?”

Kelsang took a glass from nearby and helped Kyoshi drink it. Déjà vu. “She’s fine, she’s resting in her room. I’ve ordered her and Yun to stay out of here until you’ve recovered.”

Kyoshi felt her being lightened a bit, knowing Rangi was alright. Then her morale sank when she realized she couldn’t see the girl just yet. 

“I’m awake now, so can I see-”

Kelsang shook his head. “No, Kyoshi. We need the healer to look you over first.”

“Why? I feel fine!” That was a lie, she felt tired. Very tired. She was fighting a war against sleep and was losing. Stupid body, stay awake. You just woke up!

“Kyoshi, you’ve been asleep for three days!” Déjà vu.

Hasn’t this happened before? What’s going on?

“Kyoshi, what happened?” Kelsang asked. He placed his hand over hers in a soothing fashion. 

Kyoshi’s mouth started to speak before her murky mind caught up to her. “Our carriage was attacked by daofei? Rangi and I got separated. I was in a crash…. Then a daofei caught up to me, and we fought. I think I used a sword to defend myself at some point? And then we fought with earthbending. And I….I guess I used up too much energy?” 

Kelsang pursed his lips and nodded. “Do you know who made that fissure?”

Fissure? Kyoshi wracked her brain, but nothing came up. “The two of us? I’m not sure. A lot was happening really fast.” 

Kelsang nodded and smiled, then he stroked the top of her head. The sensation made her relax, but that relaxation made her slip more into sleepiness.

“I’m just glad you’re safe.”

Safe. Right, she couldn’t sleep until she saw Rangi. She needed to see with her own eyes that she was safe too. “Kelsang, please, I need to see Rangi.”

Kelsang’s smile grew a little sadder. “Kyoshi, I think even if I ran to get her right now, you’d fall back asleep before she’d arrive.”

Kyoshi shook her head, the energy it took made her eyes feel heavier. “No, I’ll stay awake. Please, go get her….”

“She’s busy at the moment, Kyoshi.”

Busy? But I thought you said she was in her room resting. Kyoshi could feel the world dizzying around her. “Bus-but….you said she was-” she slurred

“Shhhh,” Kelsang hushed. He pulled one of the blankets back over Kyoshi’s shoulders. “She’ll still be here when you wake up. Just rest for now, dear.”

The panic in Kyoshi’s being was taken alongside her consciousness, as sleep hooked its claws into both of them, and sunk them down to the dark abyss.

_______________

The people who were there when Kyoshi woke up were Auntie Mui, a Water Tribe woman, and, once again, Kelsang.

According to Kelsang, Kyoshi and Rangi were lucky that one of their visitors to the mansion had happened to be a healer. That was the reason Kyoshi didn’t have any major wounds when she woke up. He consoled her that Rangi had also gotten her own treatment as well.

The Water Tribe woman stated she couldn’t find anything wrong with Kyoshi, only that her chi had been diminished to a dangerous state the other day. Which is why she was unconscious for almost four days straight. 

So Kyoshi really had just exhausted herself. Considering she wasn’t a fighter, that alone explained itself.

Kyoshi spent the rest of the day in the infirmary, attempting to grill Kelsang and Auntie Mui about what had been going on while she was asleep.

The two remained tightlipped regarding most things. And they still wouldn’t let Rangi nor Yun come in and visit her. 

The only thing she got out of them was that because of the attack, they’d found out there were daofei skulking about the area much closer to home than Jianzhu was comfortable with. So he was out leading a charge to find their hideout.

Yun was training with Hei-Ran, or he was talking to the Water Tribe ambassadors that had come to visit for tips on waterbending. Kyoshi could only assume Rangi was either with Yun, or still in her room.

But now, Kyoshi had to sit in the infirmary, while she watched Kelsang and Auntie Mui play pai sho. 

“Did I do something wrong?” Kyoshi asked the two elders in front of her. She couldn’t help but feel like she was on house arrest. This entire thing felt like a punishment.

“Goodness! No! Why would you think that?” Auntie Mui comforted her.

Kyoshi’s brow furrowed. If Kyoshi wasn’t the one being punished then….. “Then, did Rangi do something wrong?”

The two went silent and looked at each other. Kyoshi could feel each individual hair on her skin prickle. A foreboding sneaking up on her. One that had been in the room with her for a good while, but she was only now fully realizing its presence. 

“No,” Kelsang said, resolved in his declaration. “No she didn’t, Kyoshi.”

 Kyoshi’s heart began to speed out of control. Something didn’t feel right in that statement. Something had been off in the estate for a while, and she just didn’t understand it yet. She still didn’t understand it. “Then, do other people think Rangi did something wrong?” 

Kelsang’s face faltered. “Well-”

“Why? What happened?!” Kyoshi made a move to jump out of the bed, but Kelsang put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back in.

“She let the daofei go,” he sighed.

Kyoshi blinked, confused. “Why?” Rangi hated daofei about as much as Kyoshi did, it didn’t make sense she would let any of them slip by her. 

“To save you. She went to get help because she wanted to save you,” he said warmly, but there was some sadness in his eyes. “She chose to save a companion rather than exact revenge, or to save some meaningless cargo.”

“Not meaningless to some, unfortunately,” Auntie Mui grumbled. Auntie Mui slammed a tile down onto the pai sho board. “She saved two lives, but-” She didn’t finish her sentence, just let out a stream of grumbles as she massaged her temple. 

Kyoshi’s eyes widened. Two? “The driver’s ok?” 

Kelsang nodded with a warm smile. Kyoshi breathed a sigh of relief, then a wave of remorse flooded her. She had forgotten all about the man. 

Kyoshi’s hands curled into fists over her blanket. “I don’t understand, why is she in trouble?” Saving a comrade, or just anyone’s life in general, shouldn’t that be rewarded? Not punished?

Kelsang sighed. “She was assigned to protect the cargo first, and hunt down enemies second. Anything else was supposed to be ranked last in her duty.”

Kyoshi’s jaw flexed. She was angry. Angry at what Rangi’s duty entailed for that mission. And angry at herself, because she had caused issues for Rangi……

If only Kyoshi knew how to fight, then today might’ve gone differently. It most certainly was a wake up call for her. 

Kelsang put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “She’ll be fine. Just a little reprimand. If it makes you feel better, I’ll throw all this weight around just to make sure she gets off easy!” Kelsang stood up and swung his body side to side, making a show to grab at his stomach. 

Kyoshi and Auntie Mui laughed at his antics. And Kyoshi let the gnawing sensation subside. At least, until later.

_______________________________

That night, once everyone was asleep, Auntie Mui and Kelsang helped Kyoshi back to her room. Auntie Mui made a show to tuck her into bed, and told her if she needed anything to just knock on her door. 

Kyoshi went along with it, and pretended to fall asleep. She waited until they left, and she heard their footsteps disappear down the hall.

When she knew the coast was clear, her eyes flew open, and she hurried to get ready. If Rangi couldn’t come to her, then she was going to Rangi! She was going to try her own hand at sneaking to Rangi’s room.

Kyoshi flung her door open, and almost screamed as she almost barreled into someone in front of her.

Rangi took a step back in shock, her hand was raised to knock on the door. The same hand flew to Rangi’s heart as she gasped, “You scared me-”

Before Rangi could finish her sentence, Kyoshi grabbed the firebender by the tunic, and comically yanked her into the bedroom; right into a crushing hug. 

Kyoshi felt Rangi’s arms flail about for a moment as she buried her face into Rangi’s soft hair. Then once Rangi regained some of her footing, she returned the hug just as fiercely. She wrapped her arms around Kyoshi and clutched at her back.

“I’ve missed you…..” Kyoshi whispered.

Rangi’s response was just one sharp intake of breath, then her body shook. Kyoshi hugged her tighter until the tremors subsided.

“Kyoshi….” Rangi began, breathless. “I keep messing things up…..”

Kyoshi shook her head. “No, you haven't.” Maybe there was more than what Kyoshi knew what was going on, but she would fight anyone who made Rangi feel like she did anything wrong.

Rangi hiccuped out a sob. “No, I mean it, I-”

Before Rangi could finish her sentence, Kyoshi dipped her head down and silenced Rangi with her lips. It was wet, and definitely the coldest kiss the two had shared yet. But it didn’t diminish any of the comfort that it gave. 

Rangi returned the kiss as delicately as Kyoshi had given it, but then gently pushed Kyoshi away when she started sobbing into her lips. 

“You haven’t messed anything up,” Kyoshi reassured her. 

Rangi brought her forearm to her face, and tried rubbing the tears away. Her sobs were broken up with bubbles of laughter in between breaths, “I’m such a mess.”

“I don’t mind. I kind of like it,” she chuckled.

Another hiccup. “You deserve better.”

Kyoshi frowned, not that Rangi could see it. Kyoshi wasn’t sure if she even deserved Rangi. A ray of sunshine that did nothing but provide warmth and light for her. Better? How could anything be better than Rangi herself? 

“I don’t think there’s anything better, cause you’re the best!” Kyoshi said enthusiastically, trying to cheer Rangi up. 

Rangi let out a scoff so poignant, Kyoshi could visualize an eyeroll. “‘The best,’ what kind of best can’t even protect her own girlfriend?”

Kyoshi took one of Rangi’s hands and held it. “You can say the same about me,” Kyoshi laughed. “I was trying to make my way to you and I ended up snoozing on the forest floor.”

“You wouldn't have had to try to get to me if I wasn’t such a-” Rangi stopped herself. Kyoshi had a feeling Rangi was going to call herself a ‘failure,’ and that alone twisted Kyoshi’s heart into a knot. “Mess. If I wasn’t such a mess.”

Kyoshi raised an eyebrow. “You keep calling yourself that, why?”

“You don’t like messes,” Rangi mumbled. “You’re such a clean freak….”

“A clean freak?” Kyoshi asked with amusement.

“I like that about you. Your tidiness. It’s nice. Very orderly.” Kyoshi could hear a pout in her voice.

“Well, this clean freak still wants this mess,” Kyoshi giggled and kissed the palm of Rangi’s hand. “I still want you.”

Rangi finally pulled her face away from her arm and looked at Kyoshi. Kyoshi’s breath hitched. The tears had stopped but it left behind a sheen that made her face glow. The flush from crying painted her face with a pretty shade of pink, and it accentuated the darkness of her eyelashes. It was so unfair, having a girlfriend who was such a pretty crier. 

But behind the tear stained pretty face, laid eyes that were still unsure and full of fear. Kyoshi wanted to incinerate that fear off the face of the planet.

She placed Rangi’s hand over her chest so she could feel her steady heartbeat. To let Rangi know what she was about to say was the complete and whole truth. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re a mess. I wouldn’t care if you went and messed up the entire world. I love you, Rangi.”

Maybe she was jumping the gun on what this new feeling was. But Kyoshi knew deep in her being, what she felt for Rangi was love. It was new. It was reckless. It was foolish. It was raw. But it was true.

Kyoshi watched as the fear and anxiety left Rangi’s eyes like dust in the wind. Then she watched as her face melted into unbridled joy. And then watched as that same face disappeared into Kyoshi’s chest as Rangi wrapped her arms around Kyoshi in a tight embrace.

“Oh, Kyoshi!”

Kyoshi laughed as she hugged Rangi back, she felt almost like air itself. “Hey, I just poured my heart out, don’t leave me hang-”

Rangi pulled away and leaned her face upwards as she caressed Kyoshi’s cheek. Then she pulled Kyoshi’s face down into a deliberate, slow kiss. A smoldering warmth slowly but surely spread out from where their lips met to the rest of their being.

“I love you, Kyoshi,” Rangi whispered into Kyoshi’s lips when she pulled away for some air.

The smolder turned into a spark and quickly became a wildfire. Kyoshi quickly used the opportunity to deepen the kiss, spurred on even more with the way Rangi tangled her fingers into Kyoshi’s hair. The temperature in the room started to rise rapidly, and with it, each kiss felt like a hot brand. 

Kyoshi pushed Rangi up against the door, letting their bodies mold into one another. Kyoshi felt Rangi’s hands fumbling with the front of Kyoshi’s nemaki. Kyoshi took a step back, with one hand she helped Rangi with the obi, and the other found its way to the door’s lock. She didn’t want anyone interrupting them tonight.

______________________________

Kyoshi laid in her bed a changed person. She was certain of it. She remembered how the other maids talked and gossiped about how sex, love and intimacy could do such a thing. And now Kyoshi was certain……….

Kyoshi was certain this isn’t what they had in mind.

“Kyoshi…..” Rangi’s voice whispered, a bit frantic. 

Kyoshi couldn’t move. She forgot how to move. She was feeling too many things at the moment, good and bad, euphoria and dread. So she just continued to stare at the ceiling, horrified. She could feel something gnawing at the corners of her mind, a realization she didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Kyoshi!” Rangi harshly whispered, a bit louder, as she shook Kyoshi. Kyoshi laid there, limply, still afraid to move.

“Kyoshi, look at me,” Rangi pleaded, gently placing a hand on Kyoshi’s cheek and forcing Kyoshi to look away from the scandal that laid above them on her ceiling. “What-”

“Rangi, please tell me that was you,” Kyoshi whispered. 

Rangi’s face relaxed, relieved to see Kyoshi wasn’t broken and could talk. Then she closed her eyes and sighed, a little exasperated. “Kyoshi, my face was down there.”

Kyoshi groaned. “Well….could it be some kind of…..special firebending technique?”

Rangi scoffed. “Like what?”

“I-I don’t know! Maybe you did something and firebended through me?”

“From down there?”

“Y-yes?”

“I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure whatever you’re thinking would’ve resulted in burnt innards.”

“But it doesn’t make sense! Y-you’re the only firebender here! Why is my ceiling scorched?!” Kyoshi cried, a little too loudly. Eyes flitted to her ceiling where a new black circle resided directly above Kyoshi’s head.

Rangi cupped Kyoshi’s cheek with her hand, and rubbed soothing circles with her thumb. “Shh, I know it doesn’t make sense…..” she trailed off. Possibly trying to figure out how to make sense of what happened herself. Apparently, she couldn’t come up with anything.

They laid there like that for a while. Kyoshi, too scared to move. Rangi, rubbing soothing motions along Kyoshi’s cheek. Finally, after gathering her thoughts, Rangi found the courage to speak again. “Kyoshi…..you…. You firebent!”

Kyoshi didn’t say anything. Kyoshi thought the thing she had to worry about coming out of her mouth most were moans, not fire! This wasn’t in any of ‘The Talks’ she had with Auntie Mui or the other maids!

“But….how?” 

Rangi inhaled. “Do you…. Do you know if one of your parents were firebenders?”

Kyoshi shook her head. “No, my father was an Earthbender, and my mother was an Airbender. I’m pretty sure there’s no firebending lineage in my family.”

Rangi looked at Kyoshi, shocked. “Wait, airbender?”

Shoot. Kyoshi had slipped up. This was a wound Kyoshi didn't like to acknowledge, nor was she in the mindset to open up about it yet. Especially not right now.

“Why haven’t you ever mentioned this before?”

Kyoshi looked away, ashamed. A secret Kyoshi didn't want to share. One she was comfortable taking to the grave.

Something in Kyoshi’s expression must’ve discouraged Rangi from pressing further. “Nevermind, we can discuss that later. First we need to figure out this whole firebending fiasco.”

Rangi rolled onto her back, her arm snaked its way under Kyoshi’s neck, and urged Kyoshi to cuddle into her. Kyoshi complied, nuzzling into Rangi’s neck. 

Rangi stared up at the ceiling, as if the scorch mark that she coaxed out of Kyoshi moments earlier would be able to tell her the answers. After a few moments, Rangi gasped. “Spirits above! Forget firebending. How is it you can both earth and firebend?!”

Kyoshi grew stiff. The nagging feeling that had been gnawing at her, had finally clamped its jaws down fully. 

“I….I don’t know!” Kyoshi forced out. 

No one in history had been able to bend more than one element…..except for one person. 

“Kyoshi I think you’re-”

“Don’t say it,” Kyosh nuzzled harder into Rangi. She could feel herself leaving the ground, and needed her girlfriend to be her rock.

“But then that means…..” Rangi didn’t finish the sentence, but there was a seriousness in her voice. Kyoshi could feel Rangi’s body tense as she gripped Kyoshi tighter. More secure. Then she rubbed small soothing circles into her back, as if she could feel Kyoshi’s anxiety rippling out of her. 

A lot of time passed before Rangi spoke up again.

“Come on, let’s get dressed,” Rangi said as she rolled out from under Kyoshi, and off of her bed.

Kyoshi stared at her bug eyed. “W-what? Where are we going?”

Rangi placed a hand on her chin, thoughtfully. “We’re going to…..do a little experiment.”

End Arc 1: The Poem 

Interlude: Rangi’s Side 

_____

A/N: Me, writing the phrase "firebending fiasco”: hey that kinda sounds like “fire sage fiasco”.......this was unintentional but I'm not gonna change it.

Y’know, it HAS been bothering me with the whole Chin thing…..esp after reading RoK. I always thought Chin was his first name, but then there’s the whole “Chin Clan”....so is it a Mario Mario type deal? Or do we not know his first name? I have so many questions u_u

………….. Oh that’s NOT what everyone wants to talk about? “Salty, was that a …fire orgasm? WHy?????” Eyyyyyyy gotta keep you on your toes! >:3c Bet you weren’t expecting this plot development/twist! jaksdfj Fiiiiiine. I thought it’d be funny. (ﾉ≧ڡ≦) (no come back I have a lot of legit serious reasons TT0TT/ but first…..)

Listen, everyone always uses “fire coming out of the mouth” for orgasms in the spicy Rangshi fics, so I decided to play it for a little dramady…… cause I have the humor of a high schooler I guess. TT0TT (in my defense, whenever I see it I tend to cackle cause I can’t really take it seriously dsiljfaklj *sobs* not to discourage from people from doing it, I get the intent and roll with it….but I also think it’s kiiiiiiinda funny)

“So why was this T before M?” Cause alluding to sex is “T” I believe, but then I needed to like…….build up to that moment….. And building up can easily cross it over into M territory (even if I didn’t feel like I was getting that graphic….at first…. u_u). Amazing how I could forget I should do such a thing! :’D Tbh the build up moments weren’t fully conceptualized until I was in the middle of writing so ummmmm yeah. 8U Oops. orz

I mean, I guess I could’ve just jumped to that scene after a “after a few weeks passed” but….that didn’t seem like it was good narrative build up….but I already committed to the twist, which mean slowly building up to that part TT0TT Which meant....~spice~ (I'm not used to writing spice TT0TT)

OK OK BUT FOR REAL FOR REAL! Other than it being kind of a humorous/unique/surprising way of finding out your the Avatar, and integrating it deeply with the Rangshi love story (which is the main focus of this fic, even more so than the other ones I’ve written imo). It was also one of the few ways I could see a reveal happening between the two without other witnesses around. So while I did all that, it was in service to the plot/characters for a reason.

*inhales*.......Ok time to see how much of a mess Rangi’s side is! ─=≡Σ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[greenhorn-art]

An Incomplete Account of That Guy, Ye Xiu by TheDefenestrator

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Words: 2,009

Chen Guo was not the first person to meet an adult “Ye Xiu”—he wasn’t that unused to pulling out his ID.

Collection: All-Stars: The King's Avatar Zine

ABOUT THE BOOK

FORMAT: Letter quarto (trimmed), flatback casebinding, french link stitch, no tapes

FONTS: Times New Roman, Permanent Marker [via Google Fonts], KaiTi

IMAGES:

MATERIALS: 24lb Xerox Bold Digital paper (8.5"x11"), 80pt binder's board (~2mm), 30/3 size waxed linen thread, 1.9mm cording, purple cardstock, Iris bookcloth: Grey Purple, DecoArt Crafter's Acrylic paint: Yellow Gold, 20lb printer paper, paste wax

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher, Bookbinder-JS

.

Snapshots of people meeting Ye Xiu, only to later learn he is Ye Qiu. A fun little fic! This fic is pretty much the theme of my latest three binds.

On July 2, 2024 I opened my AO3 bookmarks, looking for a short fic to bind. By July 7 I had a set of three completed books with the same premise.

[First, Second, Third]

I went with a black-and-white theme for the typeset, based off of the symbols for the scene breaks. Primarily set in Times New Roman for continuity between the three books. Permanent Marker was added into the mix because I wanted something more bold to go with the scene breaks. Chinese characters are in KaiTi, my go-to Simplified Chinese font.

Each scene break is an icon related to the preceding scene. The symbols are special characters in the font Segoe UI Symbol. Each one is unique (mostly because I really wanted to use the mahjong tiles).

💤 [zzz]: YX slumped almost sleeping in an internet café

🖧 [Three Networked Computers]: the crowd of playing games in an internet café

🚬 [a lit cigarette]: YX buying cigarettes

📸 [camera with flash]: All the photographer's photos YX 'photobombs'

🀫 [the back of a mahjong title]: the games YX plays with the auntie

[2 avatar icons, larger one in front, smaller one behind and to the right]: Employees backstage wondering about YX's presence there all these years

💼 [briefcase]: The office job the shop owners think YX has

✈ [airplane]: The flight YX's on where he gives a harried mother's son a game to play

💻 [laptop]: At the start of a competition a staff member meets YX | YQ

[gamepad video game controller]: The boy from the plane YX gave his handspeed testing game to

🏃 [running person]: The store owners who refer to YX as "that nice running boy"

📷 [camera]: The photographers and editors who bemoan the fact that they've been editing out their god this whole time

[avatar with a blocked status symbol] - "he doesn't even work here"

🀨 [Mahjong Autumn tile]: the mahjong tile is face-up now that YX's identity as YQ has been revealed. I was considering using 🀈 the Two of Characters tile because the character on it is 萬 (SC:万 wàn) meaning 10 000 which is a myriad, and the 2 for YX's double identities. ('Myriad Manifestations Umbrella' is a bit of a misnomer: a myriad constitutes ten thousand, while the 千 in 千机伞 is one thousand).

🗣 [silhouette of head shouting]: "Guys check this out!" everyone in the internet café is excited that their local expert is God Ye

🏪 [Convenience Store]: the cashier who sells cigarettes

[mouse and keyboard]: the internet café manager

I added a black box (slightly askew) to the title and headings for a slightly more graphic, black & white design to go with the symbols.

For the bookcloth I went with a desaturated purple because it gives me vaguely inconclusive/unknown/mysterious/incomplete vibes. The endpapers are a matching (if more saturated) purple, following the bookcloth-endpaper coordination within this set of books.

After cleaning up the edges of the textblock by trimming them, I painted the edges, and made the endbands. Because the books are all so thin I was able to reuse some of the bookcloth trimmed off the corners of the case. (The rest of the offcuts go into a bag. I hoard my scrap cloth, thread, and decorative paper to add swatches in my bookbinding catalogue).

I printed out a variety of labels: different sizes, different dimensions, plain text, title page. I chose a 1.5" square formatted like the title pages, waxed the paper, then positioned it slightly above centre.

[woodlaflababab]

Thinking about Aang and The Awakening and just, the tragedy of his behavior in that episode. Like, when I watch it I just think back to season one, The Storm where, yeah, at first when he was just having nightmares he didn't want to talk about but he still eventually opened up and actually talked through his pain. That willingness is just completely gone by the Awakening.

He learns he's been in a coma for two weeks and grew hair, and then immediately accepts the distraction as Hakoda comes up and even asks after Katara. No mention again of the coma even though learning about it clearly horrified him a little bit (and of course it would, after also falling into basically a coma for 100 years and waking up to everyone he knew dead).

He has a literal flashback and just comments on Katara's healing. Apon having a second one, to which he remembers literally dying for a little bit, he turns around and makes it about Katara's healing again, supporting her when she tries to downplay what she did.

And the look of sheer horror on his face when Sokka says the world thinks he's dead, which just brings back the same problems he had during The Storm, undoing any progress he made in the self-forgiveness thing. He has a minor freak out but then focuses on the fact that they won't allow him to fight the other ship. (They won't allow him the distraction, the ability to use his job as the avatar to run from internal problems.)

And then the scene that really gets me, his talk with Katara. Here he actually does talk about it, he admits verbally the thoughts that are torturing him, but in direct contrast to The Storm, every attempt from Katara to console him is rejected, to the point where he literally asks her to just leave. Katara, the one he's always been the most open with, the one that tries to help the most, and he turns her away.

The end, where he admits defeat, all he does is acquiesce to Sokka's plan, you know, the thing that horrified him the most out of everything he learned. He burns the staff and says it's to hide his identity (as though they don't have a giant fucking bison and could just leave the staff with Appa) and sometimes I can't help but read that scene as self-punishment. He feels he's failed the world, and to attone for that, he needs to hide his identity, to essentially sacrifice it, so he burns the staff.

This episode hurts so much. My only boon is that the next episode is The Headband where he gets to be happy and careless for a bit.

[bracketsoffear]

The One Who Wanders And Waits/The Wanderer (Space Boy) "The Magnificent Bastard behind an Ancient Conspiracy to ensure humanity someday reaches the Monolith. It's intentions are unknown due to its Blue-and-Orange Morality, but it has used it's emotion-manipulating powers to slowly brainwash the entire staff of the FCP so they'll be easy to manipulate so it can achieve it's goals. When he was a child, Oliver encountered The Wanderer, who drove Oliver to a five-year-long existential crisis over the vastness and emptiness of space. He made Oliver see the world in terms of “The Nothing in between the stars […] a vast Nothing. An emptiness.” Oliver thinks that most people willingly ignore the “Nothing” because they’re frightened by it, but he can no longer ignore that “The universe is almost entirely made up of Nothing. Even the atoms in our bodies consist primarily of empty space. We are all just bits of matter, floating in the void.” This post explains it better."

Joy Wang/Jobu Tupaki (Everything Everywhere All At Once) "Jobu is able to comprehend the entire scale of humanity in every corner of the multiverse, and it's all… Meaningless. You see when you put literally everything on a bagel when you're bored one day - every report card, every breed of dog, every ad on Craigslist, every grain of salt or seed - it collapses in on itself and you realize… We are all so small and insignificant that nothing we do matters. And when nothing matters, all of the pain and guilt you feel at your life going nowhere just goes away. It's sucked into a bagel.

A cult is formed around this bagel - all the other people that Jobu has shown the truth to - but what she really wants is her mother to understand how empty she really feels."

[rhyselinn]

In Defense of Toby Fox’s Halloween Hack

Twitter is all in a tizzy about the Halloween Hack as of late. The apparent reason for this is because the Halloween Hack uses a word commonly used as a homophobic slur, not taking into account that the hack was created in 2008 (when the internet was a different place) and that 2008 was 14+ years ago (and people are known to grow and change over this time). There appears to be some amount of discussion over whether Toby Fox should be “cancelled” for this.

I’ve seen a fair bit of banter from both sides on this, but what I haven’t seen people on the internet talk about is the CONTEXT of the game in which this word is used. And while I don’t spend a lot of time talking about HH due to Toby’s stated embarrassment when people draw attention to it, if the internet’s gonna go dig up old drama for some reason, then by golly, I’m going to go dig up my old love for this game.

So if you want to come take a wild ride through some internet history and literary analysis, then go buckle your seatbelt and click the Readmore.

(content warning: discussion of homophobic slurs)

A quick bit about me: I am an adult on the internet, and I fall into the original Halloween Hack (hereafter abbreviated as HH)’s target demographic: teenagers who existed on Starmen.net, an Earthbound fan website, in 2008. I am also a current admin for Starmen.net, which puts me in a good position to comment on the history and culture of the site as a whole, and how that ties into the reception of HH.

Starmen.net has a long and rich tradition of events called Funfests, in which the site staff run a combination art/writing/music/etc contest for the site members, usually coalescing around a theme such as “Earthbound”, or sometimes “Winter” or “Halloween”. These events offer prizes such as forum avatar/rank privileges, and historically they sometimes even offered physical prizes. The 2008 Halloween funfest had an entire website made for it, which you can view here. Toby Fox submitted HH to this 2008 Halloween Funfest under the internet handle Radiation.

This is the context of HH: a passion project made by a teenager for a fan website full of other teenagers/twenty-somethings. If you go to a high school science fair, you could rightfully lambast every project for being undeserving of a Nobel Prize, but that’s not why we host high school science fairs OR Starmen.net Funfests. These events are an opportunity for teens to show what they are capable of and receive commendation from both their peers and a panel of judges selected specifically for this age demographic and venue.

For perspective, here’s what one of the hosts of the 2008 Funfest had to say about HH:

“Radiation nearly outclassed himself with this effort of skill labour and love. What a lot of fun. Despite getting repeatedly killed in the sewers this was one thoroughly enjoyabe hack. I Think I’ll go and play it again!”

HH won an award in the 2008 funfest-- a #1 in the “Most Effort” category. For some perspective, few people on Starmen.net go to the lengths of creating an entire game for a Funfest (and HH has a playtime of roughly 5-6 hours!). Of those who do, most of the resulting games are consistent with the output you would expect from a teenage userbase, since it’s not fair to expect teenagers to produce professional-quality work. That said, I can say with confidence that HH is a standout in the areas of both effort and quality.

Another thing that needs to be said of HH is that it is not a standalone game made in today’s modern game engines-- it is a hack of a preexisting game. Earthbound's codebase is notoriously complicated, and a lot of the tools that modern Earthbound hackers use to make their jobs easier (eg Coilsnake, Ebmused) didn’t exist in 2008. Toby had to do a lot of manual coding grunt-work to make HH, up to and including manually typing hexadecimal values into his computer in order to compose Megalovania. (Source: Toby wrote a really in-depth post about the process he used to make HH way back when, which I’m referring to here, but it’s unfortunately been deleted since then.)

I can imagine a hypothetical objection at this point: “ok but high effort homophobia is still homophobia”. In this post, I am also going to argue that Toby’s usage of this word can be considered artistic merit when taken in context, but you’ll have to bear with me for a bit while I explain that context. I’ll also talk about some of the cool and neat things this game does along the way because I think they’re worth talking about.

HH is, at its core, a derivative fan work of the video game Earthbound. And while I love Earthbound deeply, I also recognize that it’s a cult classic that not everyone has played. So while I encourage people to play the game I love deeply, I’ll also sum up a few relevant plot beats here so folks can understand the source material HH draws from:

--Ness, a thirteen year-old boy, meets a creature named Buzz Buzz from ten years in the future who tells him that an alien named Giygas has destroyed the world (direct quote: “All is devastation”). As such, Ness and his friends must save the world.

--One of Ness’s friends is a shy boy named Jeff with a penchant for shooting bottle rockets at enemies

--Jeff’s dad is an odd character named Dr. Andonuts. Dr. Andonuts is a reclusive scientist who lives in a snowy region called Winters who sent his son off to boarding school at a very young age. Andonuts’s lab includes no other signs of life, certainly not any indications of a wife/Jeff’s mother. Andonuts ends his conversation with Jeff by saying “Let’s get together in another ten years or so.”

--Towards the end of the game, Dr. Andonuts uses a device he created called a Phase Distorter to send Ness and his friends to the venue for the final battle. This is very clearly telegraphed as a one-way trip, as the kids’ brains are described in text as needing to be transplanted into robots to get there, but the kids go along with it anyway because the world is at stake.

--The kids go on to fight the final boss in a spectacle that words can’t do justice to here. All I’ll say is that after a long-fought battle, in the grace of an unexplained Deus Ex Machina, the souls of the four kids are impossibly returned to their bodies so they can enjoy their happy ending.

These are all canonical events that happen in the base game of Earthbound. Earthbound’s sequel, Mother 3, was released in 2006, two years prior to HH, although the English fan translation wasn’t released until around the time of the 2008 funfest, interestingly enough. Mother 3 does develop Dr. Andonuts’s canonical character somewhat, but I won’t discuss it in further detail here other than to say it mostly re-emphasizes his odd, solitary nature and his overly cavalier attitude towards his science experiments.

It’s also worth noting that in an oddball game like Earthbound, there are a lot of weird and funny idiosyncrasies to theorize on. There are pencil-shaped statues that block your way, which need to be removed with a device called a “pencil eraser.” Ness and his friends fight robots, aliens, and Krakens, but they also fight handbag-wielding ladies and walking mushrooms. Dr. Andonuts’s character oddities, while strange, fit nicely into the evenly distributed mesh of oddities that comprise Earthbound’s world.

Derivative works, particularly fan works, exist in conversation with the source material. They answer questions posed by the source, interpolate details left out of the original, and otherwise build on the world of the original in a collaborative way. This conversation sometimes happens in a one-on-one manner, between fan and original creator, but it also happens in conjunction with the fan community as a whole. When a theory takes traction, it will begin to appear in more and more fan works, growing in popularity and notoriety until it is “accepted” as the most common interpretation of canon’s strange idiosyncrasies. Newer or more fringe theories are less likely to be taken as a “default” interpretation, but they are more likely to be taken as “fresh” or “interesting” until/unless they, too, begin to gain traction.

HH exists in a few conversations: one with the source material, one with the fan community of Starmen.net (and the broader Earthbound community as a whole, although there was much more overlap between the two back in 2008), and one with Starmen.net’s Funfest culture. In order for HH to be well received by the Funfest judges, it would need to be aware of the community sensibilities as well as push the boundaries of the fan conversation with Earthbound as a whole-- a careful balancing act of being both interesting but also recognizable.

So, the fundamental fan question that HH tries to answer is “why is Dr. Andonuts LIKE THAT?”

This is an absolutely fair question, and Toby was certainly not the first to ask it, although his answer in the form of HH is one of the most high profile now.

HH is set in the world of Earthbound a few months after the final boss fight in autumn, but one where Ness and his friends did not magically return after their one-way trip to the final boss. Word has it that Dr. Andonuts has turned evil and must be defeated. On its surface, this is standard fare for a throwaway plot for a Funfest submission, but the magic of HH is that it does not treat this premise as a throwaway plot. It sets out to earnestly discuss why this happened by delving into Andonuts’s psyche.

Coming back to the idea of derivative works existing in conversation with the source material and interpolating unexplained details: Earthbound does not explain why Dr. Andonuts lives in solitude, nor does it give any hint as to the identity of Jeff’s mother. It also gives no indication as to why Andonuts didn’t seem to have bonded well with his son other than the handwavey explanation that Andonuts is just “like that”. HH initially poses the question of “why did Andonuts turn evil”, but leaves the reader to puzzle that out while battling monsters in Earthbound’s RPG engine.

At first, Toby offers a partial explanation: in HH, Dr. Andonuts is portrayed as feeling immense guilt at having sent his son into what he perceived as a death trap.  (quote from the game: “The world is dead, and I’ve become senile with guilt and rage.” He also says stuff like “what’s the point in living without them”.) As such, he turned evil and created zombies to storm the world of Winters, causing a surge in refugees and desperate survivors. This is why the main character was sent to kill him.

(image transcription: a picture of a menu with the text “What do you do!?” followed with a single option: “Kill him”)

But in order to see the depth of this explanation, the true answer to the question “why is Dr. Andonuts LIKE THIS”, the player must hit “B” to cancel out of a menu at the correct moment, something Earthbound players tend to learn by habit from closing the equipment menu so many times, but never used as a plot-relevant mechanic in the base game. HH takes this subconscious muscle memory and turns it into a mechanic gating off half the game if you don’t “spare” the enemy, a precursor to the “spare” mechanic that would debut seven years later in Undertale.

When the player does this, they enter Dr. Andonuts’s “Magicant,” a dream-construct representing his inner psyche, with his hopes and dreams and fears all laid bare. The main character is tasked with finding Dr. Andonuts’s lost Courage. In the base game, Ness enters his own Magicant, so this feels familiar to a veteran player, but it also gives Toby the chance to more closely examine Dr. Andonuts’s character than he otherwise might be able to do.

Over the course of the rest of the game in Dr. Andonuts’s Magicant, the player continues to control the main character, a bounty hunter named Varik, but the NPCs in the game often mistakenly treat Varik as Andonuts. The dialogue we see from these NPCs reflects memories from Andonuts’s own life. We see a lot more characters try to make connections with Dr. Andonuts (”hey don’t you want to play baseball instead of doing math?”), but these are apparently rebuffed througout Andonuts’s life. One NPC guarding the entrance to the path leading to this lost Courage advises “Be careful. Be yourself.” We see memories of Dr. Andonuts’s presumed wife/Jeff’s mom, who is an OC Toby created for this work to answer the questions posed by canon.

Varik is tasked with fighting three “demons” behind three doors, where each demon is said to be stronger than the next. Since this segment takes place inside Andonuts’s mind, these are unsubtly implied to be Andonuts’s inner demons. The second and third doors represent Andonuts’s relationship with his son and his guilt over getting people killed; the first door is relevant to this post, so I’ll talk about it in more detail. 

Inside the first door, Varik sees Andonuts’s memories of something called “Remember Me,” who despite being faced in a battle, is friendly and affectionate and causes no damage apart from being “hard to think about.” This enemy has a stock overworld sprite of a male NPC from the base game.

(image transcript: a smiling purple sprite in an Earthbound-style battle. The text box says “The Remember Me? was a little hard to think about again”)

At the end of this map, we see a cutscene in which it’s implied that Dr. Andonuts felt disconnected from his wife, perceiving her as an incessant insect. She says things like “Lately, you’ve been acting kind of... disinterested in me. Is there something wrong with me?” She asks if Dr. Andonuts has been hiding something from her, which triggers the following battle:

(image description: an Earthbound-esque battle against three enemies, each a sprite depicting a closeup of a man’s muscular body: a bicep, a chest, and a swimsuit-clothed groin area)

All three of these enemies are named NO. The music that plays in the background is deliberately unsettling, and their battle moves consist mostly of “flexing in a masculine way”, “slapping their buddies in a masculine fashion”, and “being hard to think about again”. After three turns, these enemies deliver a series of un-dodgeable moves that kill the player before it’s possible to defeat them, ending the game. The only way to proceed in the game is to select the Flee option in the menu.

To summarize the themes being presented here, Dr. Andonuts is gay and repressed his homosexuality to try to preserve his relationship with his wife due to his lack of courage. From a game design and literary merit standpoint, this NO battle is actually a really poignant way of portraying Andonuts’s mindset and all of the fears that kept him in the closet, portraying men’s bodies as an enemy that he must fight, or in failing to do so, must run from. Remember that Earthbound takes place in 199X-- none of the 1990′s were known for being especially tolerant of gay men, nor was 2008 when Toby made this hack; 2008 was the same year that California passed a bill intended to ban gay marriage. In another since-deleted web page, Toby said that one of his motivations for creating HH was “the lack of non-stereotypical, major homosexual characters in media”. With that in mind, this is a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of the pains of repressing one’s sexuality, especially from a teenager.

Toby also portrays some complexity in Andonuts’s relationship with his son Jeff, making the case that Andonuts helped Jeff in his fight against Giygas as a way of living vicariously through him to feel like less of a monster. From this standpoint, it’s easy to see that Andonuts’s abrasive language might be a defense mechanism for his own self esteem issues, calling others monsters to deflect from the fact he sees HIMSELF as a monster.

(image transcription: a screenshot of the main character fighting Andonuts from the end of the game. The text in the textbox from Andonuts says “you idiots. look at your decaying, frostbitten bodies”)

(and just as a side note, I think the reminiscence of this dialogue to Flowey’s dialogue in Undertale is funny and interesting)

Dr. Andonuts says the following: "If I can't live with myself, why should anybody else? Ergo, nobody will live. Then, everybody will understand all the pain I went through. When everyone understands me... They'll cherish me so." This isn’t the expression of a healthy mind, but it is a portrayal of someone who’s experiencing some serious pain. I’d also argue that it’s a nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of a character who is clearly in a crisis.

Another Andonuts quote: “you’re going to kill me, because that’s what a hero does. he has to kill that monster, right? even in this form, i am shaking with fear. i don’t want to die. leave me alone”

The second-to-last fight in the game is against an enemy called Id. In Freudian psychology, the Id is the representation of one’s most base desires, in contrast to the Superego who restrains a person from operating on these desires. The game up until this point does a good job at portraying Dr. Andonuts’s Superego-centric repression strategies, so getting to see his underlying base desires directly is a novel development. The enemy Id consistently reiterates a desire to be left alone and for the main character to not kill it. At the end, it apologizes for not being much of a fight. Only then does Varik fight Dr. Andonuts proper, and without the Id, all that’s left is the Superego-fueled repression, labeled in-game as “hatred”.

Andonuts’s villain monologue starts as such: “I know what this feeling is. It’s hatred for the person who came so far just to destroy an old man. My mind is gone. All that is left is pure hatred.

YOU SEE THIS BURNING, BLOODY UNIVERSE. YOU SEE THIS ULTIMATE, UNLIMITED POWER? Varik. I HAVE FUCKING HAD IT WITH YOUR SHIT. you little fuckers are going to have your bodies ripped in half. i’ll shove your asses so far down your throats that when you crap, you’ll sing fucking beethoven.”

This monologue is the precursor to the infamous line:

(image transcript: a screenshot from the final battle, in which Andonuts says the words “tl;dr: eat shit, faggots”)

As established earlier, this is a line uttered by a gay character who is in a tremendous amount of pain, which would make it an act of slur reclamation. We could argue about whether Toby Fox is in a position to justify this usage, but I refuse to have that conversation because I don’t think real life queer people should have to out themselves in order to justify the art they make. Whether Toby Fox is actually queer or not is, I would argue, immaterial to the story he’s trying to tell here, which is nuanced in a way that a homophobe would be unlikely to write.

We can also have the conversation of whether this word choice is a good decision or not-- and there are, I would argue, a lot of parts of this game that a storyteller with more experience and maturity would have handled better. There are some parts that come across heavy-handed and needlessly edgy, and there are parts that could have been handled with more grace. We can discuss whether “bury our gays” stories were stale by 2008, or whether stories of queer pain had fallen out of vogue for stories of queer joy. But again, this is a work made by a 16-year old, and being needlessly critical of a fangame made by a teenager for a community of predominantly teenagers feels needlessly meanspirited. Just because the game has been unforeseeably thrust into the public light like this doesn’t mean we need to eviscerate it from a 2023 lens. It’s not fair to Toby Fox, neither the original 16-year old creator nor the adult celebrity today.

So I’m not going to do that. What I am going to say is that a queer reading of this work would indicate that this word usage may very well have been a decision made with artistic intent, and a death-of-the-author reading of this work might indicate that this word has artistic merit anyways. If a gay character sees gayness as bad and uses a slur associated with gayness to demean his opponent, that does fundamentally say something about this character, and in this case it reinforces the existing themes that Toby had put in place. I wouldn’t recommend people in 2023 take this approach in storytelling lightly, but I can see and appreciate the spirit in which the game and this word choice appear to have been made.

In the end, Varik does defeat Dr. Andonuts and kill him.

(image transcript: Varik standing above the machine containing Dr. Andonuts’s dead body, not depicted onscreen. The text box reads “You feel a little like this situation could have been avoided.”)

This is one of the last text boxes of the game, and I think it’s a good ending note for this work-- saying that queer lives do NOT need to go this way, that we do not need to bury our gays, that this genuine pain that Dr. Andonuts experienced is not an inevitability.

In conclusion, I do love Halloween Hack for what it is, imperfections and all. It was very clearly a labor of love made by a very earnest and well-meaning teen, and a lot of the things that would later go on to make Undertale so popular are present in their nascent forms here. HH has some genuinely interesting things to say about Earthbound, from both a plot and a character standpoint, and it’s clearly a good-faith attempt at grappling with queer and psychological subject matter. If people on the internet were to engage sincerely with it rather than judging it (and its creator) based on one out-of-context screenshot, I think they might find a diamond-in-the-rough that still manages to be an absolute gem of a fangame.

[wifelinkmtg]

Yeah alright let’s talk Tarkir

Getting this out of the way: I do not care about Alesha, so if you were coming here ready to hear anything about the first-ever transgender girl out of Magic*, sorry to disappoint.

Actually, yeah, I’m gonna talk about this for a little bit. I understand Alesha means a lot to some people, and I’m not saying they’re wrong to feel that way. I’m sure there are people who had to fight to make Alesha openly & canonically trans, and I’m not saying that this was meaningless, wasted effort. It’s nice to be able to point to someone and say, see, there’s a place for people like me here. I was excited about it at the time and I wasn’t even into Magic back then.

But like c’mon, y’all, she’s not really a character, right? She gets one story, the thrust of which is, “this character is trans, and that’s basically fine.” Alesha exists to be part of the banner image of the internal WotC LGBT employees’ monthly newsletter. She exists to be the discord avatar for every third trans girl into Magic. She exists so a massive corporation can point to her as evidence that they care in some nebulous way about trans people, and she costs slightly less than paying someone to, say, actually moderate the hate speech comments on their vids of Autumn Burchett’s pro tour games.

All of which is to say, they don’t actually care. You know this. Individual staff, writers, artists - sure, but they’re not the ones who make the final decisions. And you and I deserve better from our stories, and we’re never going to get that from fucking Hasbro, right?

So here’s my pitch: seek out actual queer stories, and I’m not talking about contemporary YA shit with a marketing budget. For readers of this specific blog I’d recommend looking up “Attack Helicopter” by Isabel Fall (you should still be able to find it online). Stories where the texture and structure of thought are queer and trans are revelatory. You don’t need to beg for crumbs from a megacorp’s table.

ANYWAY, COMMA,

welcome to Tarkir! There used to not be dragons here, but now there are. In either timeline, everyone is locked in a brutal, unending struggle of clan-against-clan, so thanks, Sarkhan? Yeah, no, I hear you, it’s definitely different now. Yeah, and better. Yeah, because of the...yeah, because there’s dragons now, right. No, you did great, buddy. You really, uh, made a difference.

JESUS, IS HE CRYING? GET ME OUT OF HERE PLEASE

Monastery Swiftspear (art by Steve Argyle)

I’ve come to think of the current era of MtG art (let’s arbitrarily say from Kaladesh block to the present) as the “Magali Villeneuve era”, and if I’m being totally honest, I kind of hate it. Everything is technically competent, clearly lit, and immaculately detailed. Everyone has amazing cheekbones. It is so, so boring. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad artist! Sometimes, as with Kaldheim, she is very nearly the only person in a set making good art. I’ve featured her work on here many, many times.

What I am saying is that her work always has this, like, objectivity to it that feels detached and even alienating, like we’re looking at these characters through a powerful telescope. There’s no stylization, and dare I say no style.

The reason I bring her up in a set in which I will not be reviewing her work (sorry, Narset fans), is that Steve Argyle makes for an interesting comparison. They are to my untrained eye very similar artists: the sharp linework, the combination of dynamics and detachment. The major difference is that Steve’s art is substantially hornier and substantially male-gazier.

And goddammit, at least that’s something.

I HAVE THIS OPINION BECAUSE I’M A BAD FEMINIST. AND I DESERVE TO BE PUNISHED ABOUT IT

Unyielding Krumar (art by Viktor Titov)

I’m not sure why Viktor made this orc look like a ripped lizard man. None of the other orcs in this block look like this. Maybe he thought “krumar” was a species of lizard folk, when in point of fact a krumar is, checks notes, an orphan of the Mardu raised by the Abzan who killed their parents in a twist of worldbuilding regrettably reminiscent of a strategy used in real-world genocides. Whoops!

Anyway, big arms. Lizard person. Sorry about your family.

WIZARDS STAY CLASSY I GUESS

Ire Shaman (art by Jack Wang)

Yeah, see, extremely not a lizard.

We’re not going to talk about armor practicality because that is very much beside the point, but we were all thinking it, and I want to acknowledge that before moving onto saying nice things about what all the leather bands are doing for her arms, and what this lamellar bustier is doing for her tits.

YEAH I KNOW WHAT LAMELLAR IS. PRETTY HOT, RIGHT

Den Protector (art by Viktor Titov)

I am not immune to mothers, nor women in furs, and I’m especially not immune to women with big two-handed weapons (in either sense, I suppose.) I really like the sense of motion in this picture, and the dynamic thrust of the landscape behind her, and... hm. Is her right-hand grip reversed from what it should be? Dammit, that’s going to bother me.

I LIKE MY WOMEN TO HAVE BETTER GRIP TECHNIQUE IS ALL I’M SAYING

Wandering Champion (art by Willian Murai)

I am trying really, really hard not to date myself by a reference to a shitty 20-year-old flash animation. Anyway! she has flexibility, power, and isn’t afraid of a little viscera now and again. All excellent qualities.

I AM HONESTLY EXERCISING IMMENSE SELF-RESTRAINT HERE

Sultai Flayer (art by Izzy)

Sorry, do you not want a forty-foot androgyne snake person to remove your skin with tender, agonizing slowness? Are you lost?

WHY DON’T YOU MARRY YOUR SKIN IF YOU’RE SO GODDAMN ATTACHED TO IT. PUSSY.

Highspire Mantis (art by Igor Kieryluk)

I did the mantis bit in my Battle for Zendikar post, but I thought I’d actually dig into what the appeal is here: raptorial forelimbs. The inescapable, serrated hold of something that could slice you open as easy as thinking, but hasn’t yet. The smoothness of chitin, hard without being inflexible. The many strange articulations. And then either you make out or it eats your head, and it is not up to you which.

WHEN WILL WIZARDS GIVE US THE MANTIS-FUCKER REPRESENTATION WE DESERVE. ROSEWATER’S SILENCE ON THIS ISSUE IS DEAFENING.

Alright, that’s Tarkir down! Who knows what’s next? Probably a very cranky explanation of what fiction is and why it’s okay to like fictional bad guys (it’s because they’re not real.) At first I thought that was going to be a more interesting topic, but the more I think about it the more it seems like it’s...really not. I can have fun with it, though! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see y’all next time.

---------

*the first-ever transgender girl out of Magic/had to settle on a name/and the top three contenders after weeks of debate/were Alesha/and Shensu/and the Kolaghan Bomber

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 2, Poll 12

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Korra-Avatar: The Legend of Korra

Qualifications:

Korra is not only bisexual, having dated both Asami Sato and Mako, but was and still is disabled by the end of the series. She doesn't magically get better from being poisoned, she's forced to relearn a lot of things: how to walk, how to do things for herself, and even how to fight properly. Her physical disabilities are mixed with extensive trauma and PTSD that prevents her from doing her job as the Avatar throughout Book 4: Balance.

Canonically bisexual, has PTSD, and spent a while partially paralyzed and using a wheelchair.

Bisexual badass who ended up going through about 5038309340 traumatizing events, one of which involved mercury poisoning that had her unable to walk for about a year and left her with lasting PTSD and depression (though again the depression is a little less clear wheras the PTSD was obviously intended to be read as such). There was also her shadow self, but it's unclear whether that was a form of psychosis or a literal spirit. In short, she's bi and has PTSD if you want to stick with the more long term, obviously canon bits.

Propaganda:

She's the Avatar, you gotta deal with it! But, seriously, Avatar Korra was the first onscreen LBGT+ character in the Avatar franchise alongside her girlfriend Asami Sato. While limited in what could be shown onscreen, the two were explictly portrayed as a couple in the 2016 Dark Horse comic "Legend of Korra: Turf Wars". Likewise, her disability never quite went away. She still struggled with trauma, PTSD, and learning how to do things for herself again for two to three years in the time between books 3 and 4 that were shown off in flashbacks during her solo episodes.

She's canonically bi and has PTSD, and disability was an incredibly important theme for her in her show's final season.

i dunno I think i covered all my bases in the qualifying bit but also its 3am and i dont feel like typing more

Anything Else?:

The creators of Korra, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, fought long and hard for their show, including taking a massive budget slash circa book 4 to avoid firing half their staff. Likewise, they took to Tumblr and other social media in 2014 to state firmly that Korra and Asami were both bisexual and in love. Here's a link: https://bryankonietzko.tumblr.com/post/105916338157/korrasami-is-canon-you-can-celebrate-it-embrace

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @foulfirerebel is the first submitter, they also did the anything else section.

Will Kenrith-Magic: The Gathering

Qualifications:

Canon bisexual and lost a limb

Propaganda:

In his debut novel, Will and his twin sister Rowan discuss a boy he had a crush on. During the fight for Arcavios, he lost the lower half of his right leg. He summoned a prosthetic using his ice magic, but he has to consciously keep it formed.