#gen but also kinda

[bard-llama]

WiP Wednesday: Aangsty Soulmate AU

wafflehouse_agnikai commented on Once Upon a Dream with a deliciously aangsty idea that I had to do something with. It doesn't fit into that continuity at all (in fact, I nixed the dreamsharing part of the AU entirely), but here's a bit I started that was supposed to be about Aang post-Invasion of the North thinking he killed his soulmate. And that will still happen.... but my muse decided to start with Zuko's POV of everything first. Enjoy!

(tumblr formatting sucks ass, so sorry in advance)

It started at the South Pole. In the long scheme of things, the moment was hardly that notable – but in the short term, it changed everything.

Because as Zuko stood before the Southern Water Tribe village and faced the Avatar, a young boy with arrow tattoos stared back at him, eyes widening in a way that said Zuko was not the only one feeling this odd burning in his chest.

“No,” Zuko said, even as the Avatar started to grin.

“You’re my soulmate!” the boy said far too cheerfully.

“What!?”

“I am not!” Zuko insisted, attacking to show the truth of it.

The Avatar wielded off his attack and then agreed to go with him. For a moment, Zuko really thought he’d get to go home…

But of course things never went his way.

Watching the beast flying away with the Avatar and two other children on its back, Zuko felt a hollow clanging below his breastbone. He refused to acknowledge what that might mean.

––

It didn’t change anything. Except that when Zuko’s damaged ship floated into the Fire Nation dock, only to be greeted by a newly-promoted Commander Zhao, his crew whispered not just about the Avatar that he had found – but about what the Avatar had said.

Zhao laughed long and hard at that and Zuko scowled, fury twisting through him. It wasn’t true, but even if it was, Zhao’s reaction would make Zuko wish it wasn’t.

“Soulmates with the Fire Nation’s greatest enemy,” Zhao drawled. “What misfortune you have, Prince Zuko.”

“Fuck off,” Zuko snarled.

Zhao just laughed. “I’m sure your father will be pleased by this information,” he taunted, and Zuko tried to pretend it didn’t get under his skin.

It was a lie. He wasn’t anyone’s soulmate! How could he be?

Why would the spirits be so cruel as to tie another soul to his when he was nothing but a perpetual disappointment?

Zuko threw his everything into trying to capture the Avatar, who was absolutely not his soulmate. Capturing the Avatar was the only way he could ever go home – so he would. 

Nothing else mattered.

––

He tried to remind himself of that when he heard the whispers that Zhao had commandeered the Yuyan Archers and they’d managed to capture the Avatar. 

The way his stomach twisted and his chest ached were purely because Zhao was trying to steal his way home. Zuko had to believe that.

Even so, he couldn’t let Zhao get away with that. He needed the Avatar to be free… so he would free them. 

It didn’t mean anything. 

Neither did the way the Avatar saved him after he got knocked out by a Yuyan arrow. 

“Why can’t we be friends?” the Avatar asked softly. “You’re my soulmate.”

“No, I’m not!” Zuko snapped without thinking, shooting fire at the boy. 

Aang dodged easily, but the look on his face was sad as he darted away.

Zuko groaned, rubbing his bruised head.

––

Ultimately, it would’ve been fine if not for Zhao spotting his swords. 

“Well, well,” Zhao’s expression was gleeful. “Skilled with broadswords are you, Prince Zuko?”

“No,” Zuko said, a little too fast. “They’re decorative. Antiques.”

Zhao snorted, slashing one sword through the air. 

“What do you want, Zhao?” Zuko demanded, trying to change the subject.

Zhao’s grin told him that the new subject was not going to be better than the old one.

“I’m taking your crew,” Zhao announced with relish. “And,” he pulled out a scroll, snapping his wrist to unfurl it and hold it before Zuko.

Zuko couldn’t quite read it – but he could he his Father’s personal seal stamped onto the scroll, and suddenly his heart was in his throat.

“The Fire Lord has authorized the arrest of the Avatar’s soulmate,” Zhao said smugly. Then he snapped and footsoldiers came pouring into Zuko’s room to surround him.

Uncle tried to protest, but there wasn’t much that could be done against the Fire Lord’s personally endorsed orders. Zuko debated fighting for a long minute – but ultimately, there were too many of them for him to be able to get away without lethal force and he just… couldn’t. Not his people. Not even if they were following Zhao’s orders.

They didn’t have a choice. Just like he never had. The Fire Lord’s orders must be followed – whether they were to find a legend or to arrest the former Crown Prince.

So Zuko was hauled off in chains to the brig of Zhao’s flagship, which was apparently heading towards the North Pole to invade the stronghold that was sheltering the Avatar. Zuko seethed silently, trying to figure out what to do.

But ultimately, he couldn’t do anything.

––

It was fucking cold in the brig, and the guards got antsy over him using his breath of fire, even though he didn’t do anything except warm himself up. They, at least, were wearing cold weather gear. But Zuko had been arrested in his casual meditation robes and he certainly hadn’t been given any coats or anything and it was fucking cold.

He could tell when the invasion must’ve started, because the ship stopped moving, and there were loud sounds from above, though he couldn’t make out the details.

The guards shifted nervously and Zuko breathed another burst of warmth, shivering slightly. 

While he was sure the actual invasion was hectic, nothing particularly notable happened in the brig – at least, not until Zuko’s head suddenly went a little woozy. The guards also seemed discombobulated – and then someone above them screamed something about the Moon being dead, and Zuko had no idea what to think.

But it didn’t matter, because moments later, there was suddenly a great deal of activity as some force somehow sliced through the hull of the ship, right between Zuko and the guards.

He had just long enough to groan, “oh, fuck,” before the part of the ship he was on started tipping backwards. Acting more on instinct than logic, he sprinted to the edge of the broken ship – and jumped across the widening gap.

Miraculously, he landed in a roll on the other side of the ship, which appeared much more stable. The guards were frantic, panicking, but Zuko managed to shout loud enough to order everyone onto an evacuation boat before the whole ship collapsed on them.

The world was a rush of noise and lights and explosions and Zuko didn’t have the wherewithal to take it in – so he focused on what was happening directly around him, ordering the bodies he could see in the water hauled aboard. 

Polar waters killed fast, and there were some that were beyond saving – but Zuko refused to give up and he was burning through his chi fast using the breath of fire and trying to spread the heat he could produce as far as possible. Shivering soldiers huddled around him, some whimpering in pain, other crying or shaking with fear.

“Look!” someone shouted, and Zuko instinctively listened. “The Moon is back!”

“Thank Agni!” another cried, and they were echoed by everyone, even as the waves around their boat surged and pushed them away from the Northern Water Tribe.

Zuko’s eye wasn’t caught by the Moon, though he too felt relief. No, his eye was caught by the giant water fish monster – which had a small glowing person in its center.

There was only one possible person that could be, and Zuko didn’t know how Aang had gotten so powerful, but he cursed the Avatar for it.

Hundreds of men had been killed here in this battle. Dozens of ships were destroyed beyond repair, and there were some other evacuation boats amongst the fleet – but far too few for what had been lost.

Zuko buried his rage and fear and hurt under the need to focus on the moment. The fleet’s commander was gone, probably dead. Someone had to take charge, and Zuko didn’t really have the authority to do so, but no one else was doing it, so…

The captains of each ship surely knew that no one could force them to follow his orders – and yet, they followed them anyway. Zuko took charge of the invasion fleet’s retreat and even though he’d been banished and even arrested, as far as he could tell, every single soldier did what he told them to.

He didn’t know why, but it made things easier.

––

Captain Tazawa was the highest ranking member of the invasion fleet left, and honestly, he was relieved when the child prince took charge. He had no idea what had happened with the Moon or the horrifying creature that had lashed out at the fleet. It had looked like a giant koi fish made of water, and he’d heard more than a few people whispering about the Ocean Spirit taking revenge for their wife.

Because for a moment there, the Moon had been dead, they all knew it. He couldn’t explain how he knew it, but he did. Somehow, she had been restored and no one knew how, but that was nothing new. No one knew anything about what had happened. As far as they’d known, this was a standard invasion, a completely normal assignment. They had no idea how the Moon and the Ocean had ended up in play.

Captain Tazawa… suspected he could guess. He’d once spotted Admiral Zhao cackling gleefully about the spirits being mortal and while he hadn’t lended any credence to it at the time, now he was starting to think that maybe Zhao had done something incredibly stupid.

And the rest of the fleet were the ones to pay the price. Typical.

But while that price had been steep – it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and that was entirely due to the Prince. Despite the incredibleness of what had happened to them – the Ocean had attacked them! – Prince Zuko focused only on the practical. He helped keep the people they fished out of the water alive with heat and even when enough time had passed that there were none left alive, he still continued to order their retrieval. 

The ships were doubled up with at least two crewmen to a cabin, but Prince Zuko had managed to find somewhere for everyone to stay and he had the captains in the fleet doing a headcount, comparing the drowned soldiers’ dog tags to the crew rosters. There were a lot of people still missing, people who hadn’t been recovered – but on the whole, more people were alive than not and all of them were whispering about their prince, who had saved people’s lives with his dragon’s fire, who had helped everyone, not even paying attention to their rank. 

It wasn’t the first time Prince Zuko had stood in defense of his people, Captain Tazawa remembered. He’d been there that day almost three years ago when the Fire Lord had punished his son for defending his people. Or so the rumors said. Captain Tazawa had always doubted them, wanting to believe there was another reason for the Agni Kai – but now…

Fire Lord Ozai had declared his son a coward for refusing to fight, but it was very obvious through the course of their retreat that Prince Zuko was anything but cowardly. If anything, he could stand to be more cautious. But while the rest of them had panicked, he had stepped up to take charge – and Captain Tazawa respected that.

That was part of why he approached the Prince now. 

“Sir,” Captain Tazawa began.

“Ah, Captain,” Prince Zuko rubbed his face, clearly exhausted – and just as clearly not intending to stop working until he dropped. “Um. Do you need your bridge back?”

“No, sir,” Captain Tazawa said. Then he took a breath and said bluntly, “you need to sleep. Sir.”

Prince Zuko stared at him uncomprehendingly. “What?”

“It’s been three days, sir. You’ve done everything you can. You need rest.”

The prince continued to blink at him. 

“You arranged for beds for everyone else,” Captain Tazawa said, “but you haven’t slept yourself. Sir.”

[iizuumi]

drew this goober finally

[amaranthdahlia]

ofa users character line-up we r here 🤩🤩🌈 🙏

close-up !!

heres without the filter+backround

anddd heres xtra eye doodlez i did in the midst of drawing them haha

[the-dragon-girl-27]

been rereading Pokespe I forgot just how cool of a character Blue is

[kittanthalos]

#softies

[snuggles-and-struggles]

Self shippers...a questions for you. Did you like. Choose who you "liked" or was it more like a curse being placed upon you

And also who is your Main self shipping guy (<- gender neutral)

[creative-robot]

I know The Founders Cut, generally, is the edited scrubbed over version of genloss from Showfall in-universe (as well as a not-8-hour-long-three-stream-binge-night whenever we want to watch it again) but something that struck me as odd and I haven’t seen anyone mention yet, is this warning

It shows up right at the junction where the third act starts, where it appears the Hero is breaking free of Showfall thanks to Hetch. But here’s the thing, while a LOT less than the previous acts the audience still played a significant role in this act, even when really only given two audience interaction choices. Which makes me wonder, how real is this warning, and who is it for? Obviously the audience involved knows what happens past this point, but the audience is also implied to be an integral part of the Social Experiments, which is part of why things start to tweak out when the Founder removes them in the Founder Cut as the Generation Loss generation loses.

My first thought, was that obviously this is another bait and switch, a way to draw the audiences attention, seeing something that’s secret, something that’s not “meant for them”, which is a tactic I could see Showfall using in universe to keep people’s attention and add an air of mystery to their shows.

But

Showfall is doing all their experiments and these shows with a LOT of help from their censors to show it off, displaying a fun silly show that is definitely not uber fucked up and that is 100% just slime don’t worry about it, it’s kid friendly if it’s green! And I don’t think they’d want to bet all their cards on this one experiment doing well enough to their audience to not question the sudden shift in tone that follows this warning. Which makes me wonder.

They did their test, they did their experiment, and the evidence of this last act? I think it was a one time run, they don’t want anyone seeing this, it isn’t for the audience. Act three is specifically to both test and play with their Hero, Hetch’s new lines add a level to this, never once does he call the Hero by their name, just refers to Ranboo as their Role, and he’s not exactly. Nice? About literally any of Ranboos concerns, which wouldn’t really seem conductive to making an audience trust him, especially with his monologue at the end. Ranboo has escaped before, possibly right before act 1 started, they tightened the security on his mask to be unremovably part of them, Hetch doesn’t like the Hero but they’re a fan favorite so he can’t just get rid of them.

Act three is the cumulation of Ranboo being punished for things they don’t remember, for daring to break free from Showfalls control, this is Hetch taking the Hero and essentially majorly fucking and manipulating them to take his frustration out on a fan favorite they can’t otherwise get rid of or give a smaller role like Slimecicle. which is exemplified by the fact that we now know Charlie most likely was never able to actually able to fully snap out of the control, that even in act three in panic and confusion there was at least still a part of him being influenced by Showfall.

So the first two acts are the usual show, they have their posters, they have Squiggles to introduce them, they have goofs and silliness and only a couple slip ups that’re quickly dealt with, the usual rose tinted curtains. Act three?

Do not watch the following material

[poppy-metal]

jordan li needs a princess gf fr they are such a down horrendous simp how will they live if they can't carry your books for you, hold you on their lap, and kiss your hand like an adoring knight

[simwrlds]

a casual Wednesday ❀

[front-facing-pokemon]

[cinimuffin]

[zrllosyn-art]

I had, Kikoru brain rot. SO have her and also no. 15

(does it make any sense? no. but also. big sister kikoru 🥺)

[ethan-acfan]

Hc for eagle vision.

So we all know the theory that using eagle vision makes your eyes sort of shine gold, but I wanna take that a step further.

When Altair uses eagle vision (since he is still closely related to isu and all that), his eyes turn solid gold, including the whites of his eyes. Think the way the reader glows, but strictly your eyes. (Or when you use the flash to take a picture of a cat in a dark room and their eyes glow)

Now, by the time it's passed on to Desmond, it's been weakened, and many variants of it have made it evolve so it's not glowing as brightly, like there's still a shine but it's not full out bright light in your face. However... once he starts using it more and it gets stronger, his eyes start to glow brighter and brighter until they share the same inhuman glow that Altair had.

Many human flashlights and headlight jokes get made. But I also say this because imagine it's nighttime and you get cornered in the alley by a cloaked figure and all you see are these bright lights coming from where their eyes should be.

Needless to say, people start speculating that Altair is a god.

Now, I would also throw this onto Ezio, but I already have a headcanon where he doesn't have Eagle's vision, but a thing I call Eagle sense, where all of his senses get enhanced except for sight which he loses when he uses eagle sense (I know he canonically has EV but I enjoy making variants of ev too much, also I enjoy making desmond's ancestors similar but just different enough that it's noticeable, don't judge me)

[matchalovertrait]

While everyone hates to see Dulce moving so far away, they knew the day would eventually come. Noemí and Erick are immigrants themselves, so they understand that their little girl has to spread her wings. They support her unconditionally.

Note: It's been brought to my attention that I misspoke in a previous post and said that Noemí and Erick never left the country before. While that is technically true, they're not from Italy! Noemí is from Mexico and Erick is from the United States. They came to Italy and never stepped foot outside after that. Of course, they gotta visit Dulce tho, and vice-versa!

[freaky-flawless]

It is very interesting that G3 started out with more points of articulation than the average fashion doll, only to completely downgrade less than 2 years in.

At this point, I don't even understand the purpose of the budget dolls. They're not easy to come by, I've only ever found 1 in store, and it was $20. At that same time, the core dolls were $17 on Amazon lol. Even now the G3 doll's prices fluctuate like crazy in the US. Hell, I got Scaridise Island Drac for like $11, but that new budget Cleo is $15?? Hello??

I'm getting the vibe that it's more for Mattel's benefit than it is for consumers. It'll just cost them less money.

[geekcentre]

Time for the funtimes!

(click for better quality)