#she would hate whoever was in harrow's body but she would especially hate them if they were harrow's bullshit dead girlfriend

[frontlinebicepsoftheninth]

gideon knew nona was alecto from the start right??? was part of her shock after the kiss seeing her own eyes in harrow’s face???? gideon was standing right there when mercy said “Your child... Alecto’s eyes” so she knows all that like she HAD to have figured out nona immediately. ALSO did harrow not realize alecto had gideon’s eyes in the epilogue??? or during the sixth months where she was in hell or wherever did she piece together what she was already starting to subconsciously realize (according to tazmuir - i forget which interview though) re: the AUs hinting at gideon’s parentage because do you really think a harrow who was unaware that gideon is the daughter of god would not absolutely freeze up and/or faint at THE BODY IN THE TOMB having GIDEON’S eyes????

[callunavulgari]

Yuletide Letter | 2020 edition

Dear Yuletide author,

Hi there! First, I’d like to apologize for the fact that parts of this is almost entirely copy/pasted from last year’s yuletide letter. I’m aware you probably had no idea, but I’m gonna feel weird about it unless I say something. Secondly, thanks so much for telling me a story! My most sincere wish is that you have fun writing this. I trust that I’ll love whatever you come up with. :) 

Fandoms:

The Locked Tomb trilogy, Wolf 359, Rolling in the Deep, Stormlight Archive, Spirited Away, Modao Zushi.

Over all, I’m pretty sure I’ll be pretty happy with whatever you decide to throw at me. I’m not particularly picky, and enjoy a variety of ratings, themes, and genres. I have a list of over 2000 bookmarks on Ao3, which I would like to say might help you find the things that I like, but odds are you’d just get stuck in it.

General flavors on things: I really love atmospheric settings, stories that you can really feel. A great example of this is A Cornstalk Fiddle. Or wild peaches. I enjoy alternate universes in almost every variation, from soulmates to daemons to canon divergence (I really like canon divergence). I’m super fond of slow burns, though it’ll be hard to convey that in a yuletide fic unless you’re REALLY inspired and/or bored and decide to make it 20k+. 

Other things I like:

sun/moon trope

enemies to lovers

poly

YEARNING

AUs that are almost entirely canon except one of the characters is secretly some kind of creature (vampire, demon, selkie, etc)

magical realism

post-canon fic

found families

I do tend to prefer a fic to have some kind of ship to it, but that’s definitely not required. I am fully on board with explicit fics, but do ask that if there is smut, it’s not just smut. I like how introducing sex to a story changes various character dynamics, and I really, really like the sexually/emotionally charged lead up, but when it really comes down to it, I’m reading the story for the characters.

Dislikes:

Non-con 

Dubious consent is usually okay, but varies based on the circumstances and the pairing. My anon box will be on for the duration of the holiday season, so if you feel the urge, just ask me.

Most hard kinks. Again, it varies, and you can ask me, but I’m not particularly interested in any hard smut for the above fandoms.

Mpreg and/or omegaverse

And then more specific info on the fandoms below the cut because this is already long.

The Locked Tomb trilogy

This series has basically wedged itself right up under my ribcage and made itself at home. I’m okay with a variety of the characters in the tag set, but I mostly would love to see a story centering around either Harrow and Gideon or Augustine, John, and Mercymorn. I am super, super weak for enemies to lovers AND all things yearning and tragic it’s really no surprise I seized onto both of these. I would love a fic exploring the relationship between the above three (the more pining and tragic, the better). But like, that fic would also probably delve into some dubious consent, which again. Is fine to a point. But I mean? Two characters who are torn between loving the third and hating him (and at least slightly torn between two different feelings with each other? Poetic cinema.

If you go the Harrow & Gideon route, I’m actually kind of interested in the idea of an AU that still keeps the necromancy? I mean, necromancers in space is a great concept and I LOVE it, but I also love the idea of necromancers who work in a flower shop! Or a morgue! Or who have a shitty kiosk job at the mall and keeps raising rabid undead squirrels and setting them loose in the food court for fun.

Wolf 359

This podcast. Haunts me. It has basically ruined me for all other podcasts. I adore all of the characters, so you can feel free to write about whoever you want. Favorites are Eiffel, Jacobi, and Hera, so if you throw something at me that has the three of them interacting I could probably die happy. I’m good with gen fic, but I’m also a fan of Jacobi/Kepler, Eiffel/Jacobi, Hera/Eiffel, and would honestly probably fully embrace any other ship you could possibly throw at me.

I like the idea of Hera getting a body after the series. I like the idea of Eiffel finding himself again. I like the idea of Jacobi finding a new family (cough, Hera and Eiffel). I like the idea of Jacobi and Hera becoming best buds. I like the idea of Jacobi working through his grief over Maxwell and Kepler. I like the idea of Hera learning how to be herself in a big wide world that isn’t entirely on her side. I like the idea of every single member of the crew who touches back down on earth learning how to be people afterwards. I like the idea of Minkowski and Lovelace getting closer, especially if Minkowski’s husband is a part of that dynamic.

I just really like found family and people holding each other up when the going gets tough, and this podcast has that in spades. Also? Have you listened to Zero Hours? Because if you want to introduce some of that dynamic I would be forever in love.

Rolling in the Deep 

I honestly wasn’t sure whether to include this one in my list of wants or not, but ultimately decided on it because I think that anything you wrote for it I would be happy about. I’ve left the character section blank because I’d be okay with whoever you wrote about. This is one of those books where I don’t have many shippy feelings, but love the concept. Though, if you want to write about the mermaid they brought back with them and ANY of the characters, I would be particularly cool with that. 

I just really liked this book a lot, so yeah. Anything. Bonus points for post canon. Bonus bonus points for mermaids.

Stormlight Archive

Kaladin/Shallan/Adolin. I know Sanderson said that thing about how Adolin and Shallan would be down for it, but Kaladin would balk and just - listen to me: forget all that. My default reaction to love triangles is usually to happily ship them in a poly setting and these three are no exception. 

You want to write me an AU? Sure! Throw it at me! Canon and/or canon-divergence? Even better! Daemons? Yes, please. 

Alternatively, if you’re not really crazy about poly, I would be okay with something exploring the relationship between Shallan and Jasnah. I really adore Jasnah’s character and wish we had more of her headspace. 

Spirited Away

Spirited Away is my ultimate comfort movie. It is my go-to when I’m sad or sick or upset, and let’s be real here. It’s been a particularly upsetting year. And I would really love post-canon content with either Chihiru, Haku, or both. 

I would love fic where they find each other again. Where they keep finding each other. Where Chihiru walks from her new house down through the forest and just, stares at the entrance for a while. Where Chihiru is haunted by that place through the years, where she both yearns for it and marvels at how like a dream it felt. Where it’s changed her fundamentally, like walking into the fae realm. Where she meets spirits in strange places and speaks to them, only to realize no one else can see them. A fic where Chihiru is twelve, and then fifteen, and then twenty-three, and then even older, and is still just so taken by that place she disappeared to when she was a child and the people she found there.

Above I mentioned wild peaches as an example of a story that I really like, which is a fic of Sarah in the aftermath of the Labyrinth. That is almost precisely the feeling I’ve been craving from a Spirited Away fic, basically since I first watched the movie.

Modao Zushi

I’m weak for Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. That is basically all it comes down to. The yearning. The rivals (kind of?) to friends to enemies to friends to lovers concept in this had me really messed up, let me tell you. I am particularly weak for Wei Wuxian as the Yiling Patriarch. That could tread close to the dubious consent line if you want it to, or it could not. Don’t worry about it. As long as it’s not non-con, I will happily accept whatever you have to offer.

I am also pretty okay with basically any AU for this. Not really picky. I will say though that I am particularly enamored with the idea of a dancer and/or composer/musician AU for this one. I’ve written about it twice and it still hasn’t scratched the itch. I just really want them to dance with each other. 

[zutaradreams]

Hopeless: Katara 1

She needed to change her name again when they arrived in the next village, wherever the next village was. It seemed like the desert was the only way to get where she needed to go, but she was regretting it now, under the beating sun, without any food, with barely any drinking water. Certainly, she was doing better on this trip than she had the first time she’d trudged through these sands.

At least her baby could eat. The little boy in her arms suckled hungrily, filling his belly, but it wouldn’t take much more exhaustion before her body stopped making his milk in an effort to preserve itself. She knew enough about how these things went, had learned enough from the other young mothers in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se.

“Are you done, my love?” she asked her boy tenderly, stroking the dark strands of his hair, thankful that they provided his head with some protection from the sun.

The baby cooed, and she smiled, securing him back to her chest with strips of fabric from the bed sheets of his cradle. He would sleep soon, now that his belly was full, lulled by the constant rhythm of his mother’s footsteps.

His weight seemed to increase as she walked.

“Just a little further,” she kept telling herself. “Just a little further.”

Against her shoulder, another weight settled heavily. Her bag dug painfully into the skin of her shoulder, but it was the letter tucked away inside that hurt the most. She was compelled to stop, take the letter out, and read it to herself again, but it wouldn’t do her any good. It wouldn’t change the characters on the page. It wouldn’t change how confused she was by everything.

“Just a little further to Chameleon Bay. That’s where we’re headed, little one. You’ll meet your grandfather there. He’s a chief. I never got to tell you that when we were back in Ba Sing Se, but now that we’re all alone, it can’t do any harm.”

What would her father think when he saw her again? Nothing good, she mused. What would she say? How would she explain her time in the Earth Kingdom?

Her baby didn’t sleep well that night. He’d wake suddenly in her arms, wailing angrily into the sands. She understood. She was angry too. Angry with herself, angry with the world, angry with him . She wondered where he was right now, if he’d even made it out alive. That was a harrowing thought. Her son could be fatherless, and she wouldn’t even know.

The next day, she reached the abandoned town of Tu Zin, only it was not as abandoned as she’d originally heard. Some had moved back as more of the Earth Kingdom fell, eager for a miracle. A miracle wasn’t meant for this small town, she realized, when she learned the mines were still dry.

“How far from here to Chameleon Bay?” she asked a girl about her age, hard at work helping her family stabilize a rotting building.

“Chameleon Bay’s closed off,” she said. “There’s a Fire Nation patrol there now. What do you want over there anyway?”

An idea occurred to her then. “Oh, his father’s in the navy,” she decided, patting her son’s cheek lovingly. “He said I could stay there. Sometimes they let families of the patrolmen stay with them.”

The girl narrowed her eyes. Just act confident. There’s no reason for them to know you’re lying .

“You don’t look Fire Nation.”

“I’m not.”

“But your boy is? Most girls I know who have Fire Nation bastards aren’t eager to see the fathers again...unless you sympathize with the Fire Nation.”

“No!” she exclaimed. “I don’t. I hate his father, but I’m desperate. He gives me money to take care of the baby. Please, just tell me how far to Chameleon Bay.”

She’d learned how to lie over the last two years.

The girl’s left eyebrow quirked. “A noble Fire Nation soldier,” she said mockingly, “ nobly giving you money to raise his spawn.” Then she spit at the dirt beside her feet. “What’s your name?”

Katara . “Kai.” She thought that sounded like a good Earth Kingdom name.

“Is his father one of the ones who’s gonna occupy Ba Sing Se?”

“I’ll ask someone else!” she shouted hotly. She didn't want to deal with the girl's taunting anymore much to the girl's amusement.

“Follow the mountains north. If you camp at night, you’ll reach the bay by tomorrow. Then you and your soldier can dance on the Avatar’s grave.”

Katara was two seconds away from water whipping this girl all the way to Ba Sing Se before she froze. “What about the Avatar?”

The girl laughed darkly. “What, you haven’t heard the news? Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation killed him in the crystal catacombs of Ba Sing Se. That’s the kind of prince your soldier serves.”

“No,” she whispered helplessly.

“Yes. Now follow the mountains north.”

Katara’s throat constricted. Aang . She really thought she had the chance to see him again. She was so close. And if what the girl said was true, if Aang had really met his end at the hands of Zuko...she hugged her baby tighter. She didn’t know what to think.

“What, no thank you?”

“Thanks,” she grunted out.

“Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your noble soldier.”

Katara could have cried from the ridicule if she dwelled on it. She could have cried from everything. Sometimes she wanted to scream to the heavens and wear her life story painted on her forehead so she wouldn’t have to endure the mockery of anyone again. No one knew what she’d suffered.  

Instead she swallowed down her anger and focused on the mission that she allowed herself to stray from for two whole years. Just the thought of it made her cheeks burn in shame. For two years, she had allowed herself to lose hope, but with the clothes on her back, the baby in her arms, and the longing in her heart, the sense of purpose she’d lost had been renewed.

She was going to find her father. She was going to find her brother. She was going to find out what happened to the Avatar. She was going to help whoever was left to defeat the Fire Nation, and then maybe after everything, she could find him again, but she pushed that thought from her mind as quickly as it came.

“So my name is Kai now, until we get to Chameleon Bay,” she whispered to her son around the fire. It occurred to her then that her son had never heard the real names of his parents spoken. “My real name is Katara,” she said to him. It felt significant for her to say, but her baby’s expression didn’t change. She sighed. The name Katara meant nothing to him.

She set the boy on his belly on the sand. He kicked his feet in it and laughed, excited by it all while she worked to find food. She fished some crabs out of the marshes nearby and scrounged the inside of the shells for meat. She wished she had the tools to start a fire; she hated to eat it raw. Water she’d procured from the little town, far away from the hateful girl she’d met.

“Your name doesn’t have to change. You can still be my little Rei.”

He babbled when she said his name, drool dribbling down his chin from the new teeth cutting through the gums. They didn’t seem to bother him too much.

She worried about the information the girl had given her, that Chameleon Bay was a Fire Nation patrol now. What if she was heading right into a trap? What if her father was long gone? In her dark moments when she wondered if fighting was really worth it anymore, she wondered about what her life might be like in a Fire Nation prison. Maybe she wouldn't be treated cruelly. Maybe her boy would be taken care of, especially given his father. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Then she shook her head and ran her fingers fretfully through her knotted hair. Of course it would .

Morning came, and she wrapped Rei back to her chest. Just when she thought her feet wouldn’t be able to take another step, she saw the line of Fire Nation ships docked near the coast. She could barely make out the figures dressed in red from her vantage point on the cliffs, but she saw them walking along the decks.

Go to Chameleon Bay , he’d advised her in the letter. Your father will be there . Her father may have been at one point, but Katara didn’t think he was there anymore. She saw nothing to convince her that Water Tribe warriors had ever been camped here.

“ No ,” she cried. This had been her last hope. She had nowhere else to go, no other leads to follow, no means to return home, nothing.  

Then her eyes drifted to one of the soldiers on the deck closest to the cliffs. She saw him toss a boomerang into the sea, watching for the telling curve of the weapon. When it returned, it struck the soldier right in the helmet, and he stumbled backwards.

“Sokka!”

She took off running immediately as quickly and as carefully as she could. She reached the shore and ran straight into the cool water of the bay. As soon as she stepped in, she gave herself away as a waterbender, twisting her wrists to form waves that would propel her to the ship. Hopefully she hadn’t misjudged everything.

The soldier was still rubbing a sore spot on his head when she reached the bow, but his build was unmistakable. The voice was unmistakable. He removed the helmet from his head, and she gasped. It really was her brother.

“Katara?” he asked. “How hard did I hit my head?”

Boarding the ship, she threw herself into her brother’s arms, conscious of the baby between them.

“Sokka, it’s really you.” Tears sprang to her eyes.

“It’s really me ? Katara, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I thought you were gone.”

“I’m right here.”

His arms tightened around her. Rei fussed, and the two siblings pulled away from each other.

“Who’s this?” Sokka asked.

So it begins , thought Katara. She had a million questions to ask her brother, about Aang, about Dad, about why Sokka was in a Fire Nation uniform aboard a Fire Nation ship, about what had happened in their long two years apart, but first she had to think about what to say. Perhaps she should start with a truth instead of the deceptions she knew would have to come later.

“This is Rei, my son.”

“Your what?”

“He’s my son, Sokka. Your nephew. It’s been a long time.”

“Where’s the father?”

“Gone,” Katara said in a manner she hoped was off putting.

Sokka got the gist. “Come on, let’s go see Dad. Maybe you can take a look at Aang too if you still have any healing ability.”

Her heart raced. “Aang’s here? Someone told me Prince Zuko killed him.”

“That’s what everyone’s saying, and it’s good for us because now no one’s expecting an attack from the Avatar. Zuko’s crazy sister shot him with lightning. He’s alive, but he’s been in a coma ever since. He needs to wake up.”

Katara was elated, despite it all. She really thought that her friend had been killed. “Can I see him first?”

“Don’t you want to see Dad first?”

She didn’t want to face her father. She wanted to see someone who wouldn’t bombard her with questions. She wanted Aang, her best friend, even if it would crush her to see him so weak. She tried to prepare herself, but it didn’t work. Her heart still broke when she saw him crumpled in Fire Nation silks.

“He needs to wake up,” Sokka reiterated.

“He needs his bandages changed. The ones on his back are filthy. He’ll never heal like this.”

“I’ll make sure new ones are brought to you.” He was about to leave the room before he took in her appearance. “Do you need anything? How about some food? Does he need anything?” he asked, gesturing to Rei.

“We’re fine.”

“You look thin, Katara. Too thin. And tired. Maybe you should sleep before you exert yourself.”

“I know my limits!” she snapped at him, instantly regretting it. “Sorry. It’s been a—''

“A long day, I know. I’m so happy you’re back. I never thought I'd see you again. What happened back in the Foggy Swamp? How did we get separated? Aang and I looked for you nonstop for days.”

She shrugged. “I still don’t understand it.”

“And where did you go?”

“Mostly Ba Sing Se.”

“No way! We were in Ba Sing Se too!”

“No way!”

“Yeah, we were!”

“Oh, wow. Small world.”

Of course she knew they had been in Ba Sing Se. Some days she thought about sneaking into the upper levels of the city to reunite with them, but she had never acted on it. In Ba Sing Se, she was Tara. She loved being Tara in Ba Sing Se. There was no war in Ba Sing Se.