#this here is just the tip of the iceberg

[neilarmstrongssmile]

Ok, I need to talk about it. The Five x Lila thing is uncomfortable and kinda gross to me. But mabye I'm not seeing the vision/my discomfort is not the reason it's a bad idea necesarilly. So... here are some reasons besides that on why it's just a bad idea:

1. Why give Five a love story at all? He had a love story, has had it the whole show - love for his family. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve romantic love (with an actual human), but knowing it's the last season and knowing they have only 6 eposodes mabye don't? Introducing the romance in the second to last episode? And developing it through a montague? It's not enough time

2. What's the purpose of the subway station to the story? The only characters on it are Five and Lila (later also Lila's family + Claire), they don't accomplish anything with it, don't find anything useful, don't learn anything new. It's an excuse to have them get lost there, so that they could fall in love. IT'S THE LAST SEASON! Don't waste a cool location like that! Why didn't other characters get there? Why didn't they get Bennifer there and put Ben on one train and Jennifer on another while they think of another permanent safe solution? Use the subway station for actual plot or get rid of it - and that way we don't have the out-of-character falling in love crap

3. Ok, thay are lost, it's been years, they are loosing hope, they are clinging to the only other real thing. There's no guilt? No talk of Diego, Lila's children? There's no false start? They just kiss, remark it's not weird and live idyllicly together? I don't need depressing scenes of them crying for their family and hating themselves for being together, but what we got was not a relationship created by necessity but a normal falling in love story as if Lila isn't MARRIED CURRENTLY to Five's BROTHER! There should be some weirdness, some discussion of what exactly their relationship is, what would happen if they managed to come back. It's inconsistent (with previous characterisation but that's another thing) - are they genuinly in love, or using each other? Is Lila trully happy and in love, or pretending, while being desperate to come back to reality with Diego and her kids? They seem really in love, but after Five finally (5 months!?!?? WTF that's gross) shows Lila the notebook and she leaves she makes it seem as if she's choosing Diego and her marriage. But then she cannot answer 'Do you love him?', gives Five longing glances, is holding his hand... I know that she could be confused and unsure but it doesn't seem as if she doesn't know, it seems like she acts in the way for all the scenes to be dramatic even if it contradicts what happened previously.

4. So they manage to go back, Lila doesn't immedietly confess to Diego, and when the truth comes out Five is mad? He is in the wrong! He went after his brother's wife, he should be apologetic, he should feel weird to be in Diego's home, not combative. Yeah, your love life is complicated and not everything is roses after your return but it's on you YOU WENT AFTER A MARRIED WOMAN! WITH KIDS! And you're mad at her husband for being mad at you? No, he should be ashamed. And ok, get mad later, say that you were finally happy, and now it's gone, scream it at Lila or Diego, but not from the get go. That makes him seem like such a scumbag .

5. You wanted Five to have a romance. In my opinion unnecessary, but do you. You wanted it to be with Lila. In my opinion very weird choice, but sure. Why have Lila and Diego married? We have a 6 year time skip. They could have been just co-parenting and no longer together (and never married). Why make a subplot where Diego thinks Lila is cheating on him (as a joke) to then make it a reality? Why not have Diego and Lila have this season to grow close as friends and co-parent as a unit after years of conflict and have Diego be supportive of this weird incestuous relationship? (TUA unfortunately is no stranger to that, and UA already has weird and complicated relationships all around) instead of falling apart in such a fashion? IT'S THE LAST SEASON at the very least have all our main characters go out without conflict with each other. Five's lat words to Diego were 'I'm gonna kill you'.

It seems they made this whole thing as messy as possible, but then didn't dive deep into the mess to have some actual drama, didn't adress the mess, didn't vindicate any of those characters. And if you're just creating mess and don't engage with it, and it's THE LAST SEASON mabye you should've just left it alone - Lila and Diego together and happy, and Five doing everything to be with his family, safe. I'm dissapointed.

[wistfulwatcher]

The Girls on the Bus | 1.04 Two Americas

[act-more-like-a-dog-sirius]

Y’all better get ready for this fic cause dayum is it fucked up as hell

📝 you KNOW what i want

📝Share a snippet of an unposted WIP, with or without context.

Remus’ front door suddenly swings open. James and Sirius both stop talking at the sound and turn to look at him. A gentle wind makes the leaves scatter on his porch, swirling around Remus’ bare feet. He’s still in the same clothes he'd worn at Sirius’ flat today – the sight of them makes Sirius’ heart stutter and skip a beat in his chest. 

“I thought I recognized all that shouting,” Remus says, with a slight, sardonic smile on his face. “What brings the two of you here so late at night?”

James raises his wand and strides toward him, nostrils flaring. “Sirius told me everything. How could you do that to him?”

“Do what to him?” Remus asks smugly, still smiling. His gaze travels onto Sirius, and he winks. “Fuck him senseless on the sofa?”

James lets out a roar of rage, and a bright blast from his wand sends Remus flying backwards into the house. He lands with a grunt on the floor, but scrambles to his feet immediately, no longer grinning but looking at James with a strange, almost malicious glaze behind his eyes. 

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t do that,” Remus says, with a touch of menace coating his words. “Now put your wand away and talk to me like a grownup. What’s the problem here? You’re upset I touched your boyfriend, is that it?”

“Look!” James snarls, gripping Sirius hard by the arm and shoving him forward at Remus. “Look at what you did to him!”

“He liked it,” Remus shrugs, glancing briefly at the spiral of bruises around Sirius’ neck. His eyes slide onto Sirius’ mouth, and he gives him a self-satisfied smirk. “Didn’t you, Padfoot?”

Sirius’ skin catches fire, and the memory of Remus watching as he made Sirius take his clothes off burns like a rash all over him. He can’t speak, can hardly breathe. It’s like a part of him has been shifted back to that moment, laying completely exposed and vulnerable in front of Remus – how Remus’ eyes had gleamed with indelicate delight as they followed Sirius’ every movement, like those of a predator focused on its prey.

“Don’t you talk to him like that!” James takes a threatening step forward, cheeks flushed with cold fury.  In contrast to Remus’ quiet, mocking attitude, he's like a firecracker, emitting loud and bright scarlet sparks into the night. “He told me the things you said to him – how could you? He’s your friend! How could you hurt him like that?”

[gristlegrinder]

part of what makes IBS so fascinating to me is its position both within the world of Tyria and the story it was trying to tell, and the larger metatextual circumstances surrounding its development. because, like, The Icebrood Saga is a story that's, IMO, largely about placing individual actions in complex systems of power, and what happens when those systems begin to unravel.

-> Can you help us deal with Bangar? Aurene: He's a part of a larger web. Strands connecting to strands. Cut one out and nothing changes, not really. Aurene: It's hard to explain. But seeing how those strands connect... Taking one life won't solve your problems. (x)

so, like, you have Ryland, who talks about "playing his cards right" but has really been dealt a bad hand from the start and can only keep playing bad cards - the one decent play he gets in Turnabout to try and get out of the game gets interrupted by an arrogant bastard killing Cinder, and it's downhill from there. it's not necessarily that it was always going to end the way it did with him, but you're fighting an uphill battle against his upbringing, against his relationship with Bangar, against all cultural context. he insists that Jormag didn't coerce him into anything, and that's true; he ends up as Jormag's champion because, at least from Ryland's perspective, there's really no other option by the time he has the bow in his paws.

likewise, you have Braham, wrestling with being the norn of prophecy, slowly (slower if Champions didn't have to be rushed out of the door, I imagine) coming to terms with what exactly that means. he knows from the beginning that either Jormag dies, or he dies. he knows this, and knows that it's always going to end one way or the other. the prophecy unfurls, and Jormag awakens, and it becomes more and more obvious how it's supposed to go. He bonds with Primordus, because there's really no other option by the time Jormag is threatening to freeze the world ten times over to ice their brother out of existence. and sure, it might still destroy him even if Jormag doesn't kill him, but he doesn't get the luxury of thinking about that.

and then you have the Commander, who should be in control of the narrative, because in-universe they're the Commander and out-of-universe they're the player character, but there are multiple points where that agency is taken away from you - Smodur bombs the bunker and interrupts your negotiation, Ryland puts a bullet through Smodur's skull. you're always going to try and save the farm, but not every problem has an easy solution. the Legions are built on centuries of war and violence and hypervigilance against external threats; Bangar is not an isolated bad actor but a product of that system, and the gears of the war machine churn on both sides of Drizzlewood. you (and Aurene) are largely an audience to the family tragedy - tragedies, plural, both the relationships between Rytlock/Crecia/Ryland and Jormag/Primordus - as they break down.

"The Balance" isn't sustainable in its current state, but there isn't really a good alternative at this point. you can't back down when you're three dragons in (we tried that after Mordremoth, and Balthazar wouldn't have it and Kralkatorrik couldn't stomach it), and Jormag and Primordus (mostly Jormag) are threatening to escalate as the encroaching void eats away at them both. there's this real sense that they just have to make the best of a bad situation, and hope that the damage is minimal. the universe itself is on a cresting wave and it's about to crash, heading into End of Dragons.

so you have all of that, and it's also the chapter of GW2 where the developers are hit with major studio-disrupting internal problems and a fucking global lockdown. your story gets interrupted, there's not much you can do about it, but you have to keep going and make the best of it, even when the fate of arenanet itself seems uncertain.

what happens in the aftermath, after the dragonstorm clears?

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

ways journalists have really described alex turner and miles kane:

"Wearing matching outfits, gazing into each other's eyes, talking about their instant connection… Alex and Miles' claims that they wrote the Shadow Puppets' album about 'a girl' weren't fooling anyone. Quite simply Alex and Miles are hopelessly, madly, enviably in love with each other. Please lads, just be true to yourselves, embrace your feelings, and have a massive snog - we can't bear the tension any more."    - NME

“If there’s one sexual dynamic at work tonight at the Usher Hall, it’s homoeroticism. The Last Brokeback Mountaineers are a camp pair of strutting cocks, to be sure.”  - The Wee Review

"Speaking to them together feels like interrupting a conversation that's been going on since 2005." - NME

“Looking over at his manspreading counterpart, Kane gleefully points at Turner’s exposed bulge. Not wanting to be rude, I look away.” - SPIN

“Watching them finish each others’ sentences, agonise over their answers to how well they know each other and embrace when it’s time to leave... well, you’d need a heart made of Hoosiers CDs not to find it incredibly sickly sweet.” - NME

“Alex Turner and Miles Kane turn towards each other with fond looks when we suggest they’re best friends. Like doodle in each other’s notebooks BFF status. After spending 15 minutes with them though, we’re pretty convinced they’re going to grow old together in matching tracksuits.” - Sidewalk Hustle

“Miles Kane looks like he’s gagging for a great big man-hug (and maybe more...) off his buddy. These two have spent overly long admiring themselves and each other.” -  The Wee Review

“As soon as I decide to just get started without Kane, Turner accidentally Facetimes him from his pocket, and the two erupt into a fit of giggles, our conversation veering off course for the third time in as many minutes.” - Consequence

“While Turner stares on the ground during his answers, Kane watches him like a lovestruck teenager from the side.” - Musikexpress

“Say this for Lennon and McCartney, or Plant and Page: they never had their own romantic rock ‘n’ roll portmanteau. But “Milex”—Miles Kane and Alex Turner, for the uninitiated—have just that enviable kind of bromance. The two even moved to Los Angeles in tandem a few years ago. No wonder multiple “Milex” pages have cropped up on Tumblr, breathlessly re-posting the duo’s every embrace and droll quip; there is fan fiction, too, the kind that would make a coal miner blush.” - Interview Magazine

'"Alex Turner is like a princess in need of his prince Miles's assistance to get down from a tower." - Dutch Review

"You'd be forgiven for barely noticing anything beyond the front of the stage, though. Like a pair of teenagers egging each other on, Turner and Kane are the most infatuated frontmen since the Pete Doherty and Carl Barat." - Hot Press

"If Miles Kane had a 'hard on' for being a front-man before The Last Shadow Puppets, he's grabbed the opportunity Turner's patronage presented him with both hands. So to speak." - Q Magazine

"The feeling is contagious too, as though we're looking in on star-crossed lovers finally reunited." - Hot Press

[komsomolka]

GIGGLING AND KICKING MY LEGS. bet grrm didn't like that whole rhaenyra's maid alicent bullshit either🤭

[ferahntics]

@startistdoodles​ and I have been occupied, to say the least, and created our Magnum Opus that is Quidia 😂❤ (Quiver Knight and Sidia Knight)

This started off as a joke and a ‘haha if they were a couple they’d be cranky all the time’ and it just kind of. Torpedoed itself off the coast into a full-blown in-depth ship with development and we’re losing our minds.

So of course we threw this together, Star drew the many Sidias, the wedding drawing above and the adorable bonding moment in the post below, I drew Quivers and handled the graphic design portion. This was insanely fun to do aaaaa 💕💕💕

Here’s the blank for the 5 minute template!

[soviet-siscon]

sorry this is where i put my "maybe I'm mean or a bad person but...." interpersonal shit (but to be fair it's my blog so i get to decide what i do with it) but like.... ok so this is a complicated one.

i wouldn't even say it was "before we worked out certain things" or even necessarily before i had started to form as a personality, but before we'd properly internalised everything and were just edging into self realisation we had a few ppl we'd basically talk about fauxcest with (i mean like even my hosts partner vaguely knows about her sister issues™) and we always had a bit of a weird reaction to it.

like in hindsight there's also the being ace but it's funny like.... disliking someone calling me "big sis" or whatever (also why the fuck does everyone want me to be their big sister even when older than them 😭 comptop +++) not because we're not into incest or are pretending not to be BUT because it's literally just pretend play that isn't very appealing and doesn't even slightly hit deep enough into our weird emotional complexes to be satisfying.

how on earth do you explain "can we stop this please? no not because i hate incest but because i think I'm actually into my family and this was just a cope" lol. like what do i do? do i go "hi sorry I don't want to do that anymore i didn't really like it because we're not actually related" lol. the obvious solution is just ignore it and never bring it up and it goes away because we just don't do it anymore. problem solved.

on a deeper level like maybe unsurprisingly my feelings about incest and what I'd actually want from someone are far more heavily involved in emotions and feelings of security and love than sex, but not really in a way that can just be substituted out by calling someone else "mum" (believe me I've tried). it's not the fantasy of "what if i had a mum/brother/sister etc who loved me?" it's "i wish my actual mum/brother etc loved me"

[gideonisms]

I'm so annoyed that despite my best efforts and years of trying hard to mature as a person I still will get into these situations where I am like hanging on by a thread and I am not so much concerned for MYSELF because I know how to recover from that but I am more worried that I won't be able to contain my frustration and will say something to someone else that I regret. Because STILL sometimes I will think I'm coping until I'm suddenly hugely angry with like half a second of warning

[pinkmirth]

back to big business !!!

[turtlemurmurs]

I've been watching Lost and Benry has exhibited Wilson Higgsbury™ behavior so it inspired me to doodle Wilson and his emotional support bunny, Rabbitouille :]

[cuteniarose]

Kat and Nia and their Multiverse of Madness

A masterpost for the intricate web of AUs co-created by @katkastrofa and yours truly, with linked art, fics and relevant posts for maximum convenience

(Compiled into one post mainly to help keep track of everything now that it's grown so big, but also specifically written out for @rokurookajima since she was interested. Will continue to be updated as things develop further)

Under the read more, because fair warning, this is LONG

MAIN VERSES:

We have many different AUs as part of our multiverse, but there are only two main ones, with the rest either being based on SotRL or a mix of it and FAtC:

Seeds of the Red Lotus – Suiren and Midori, my first OCs and Ming-Hua and Ghazan's children, grow up in Gaoling with their abusive paternal aunt, Haya (she wasn't abusive towards Ghazan, which is why he was inclined to trust her with his kids, but her grudge against him for abandoning her in favour of the RL + prejudice against the Swamp tribes, where Ming-Hua is from, because the illness that killed her parents started there, led her to taking out her anger on his daughters, particularly on Suiren, who is way too much like her mother). Their childhoods are awful in unique ways, and in an attempt to earn enough money to move out, Suiren, a waterbender, takes up a job as an assassin, which just further worsens her already nonexistent mental stability. In 174 AG, Team Avatar hires her as a last ditch effort to defeat Kuvira (and no, there is no giant mecha suit, because it's stupid and I hate it), and both sisters are taken to Air Temple Island. I never finished the fic itself, though I am slowly dabbling in a rewrite + continuation, but most of the discussions Kat and I have still take place in this verse, or more specifically, what we call post-SotRL

(Post-SotRL – After Suiren fails to kill Kuvira and sustains an injury to her leg, she and Midori leave ATI and by pure chance reunite with their parents and P'Li (all of whom survived the Book 3 finale and spent 3 years in hiding, because I said so). Of course, it's not all sunshine and rainbows – there are 16 years' worth of trauma, pain and guilt to work through, after all. That process is the central theme of Kat's Roots series. Some time later, Kuvira is defeated and sentenced to death, but Suiren (who's been high-key obsessed with her ever since the failed assassination) decides to break her out of jail and save her life, which leads to the start of their enemies to unwilling roommates/fuckbuddies to lovers arc. The event itself is detailed in Kat's WISH, and I myself have written this dynamic both in Astraphobia and my unfinished Avatar Sapphic Week contributions. At roughly the same time, Midori reconnects with Opal (who she met while at ATI) and they begin a relationship of their own (bc Bopal was comphet and you cannot convince me otherwise), a bit later Bolin joins the gang (gets semi-adopted by Ghazan and discovers that his mom and P’Li are actually cousins who never got to meet, so P’Li gets some family back too), and eventually this merry band of misfits break Zaheer out of jail, and what follows is some difficult political stuff that neither of us are too keen to get into, but the point is that in the end, the Red Lotus are allowed to peacefully exist and the world is slowly changing for the better)

Fate Amenable to Change – A set of fics exploring a Red Lotus Korra AU, canon to Kat's main backstory fic, Lost and Found (SotRL builds on the same events with the same backstories for P'Li and Zaheer, but with Ghazan being from Gaoling instead of Ba Sing Se, his sister's name being different, and him being childhood friends with Ming-Hua. Suiren and Midori are also not canon to FAtC). The main fic, Empty and Become Wind, differs from most other RL Korra fics because she wasn't kidnapped, rather the RL convinced her parents to run away with them, but unfortunately, both of them were killed when Korra was 11. After that, the RL took up residence in Zaofu right up until it was time for Korra to learn airbending, upon which they all relocate to Republic City. Kat's co-writer for this series quit writing, and since then we've basically adopted the two most prominent OCs from it – Nazra, P'heer's combustionbending daughter, and Tsomo, a blind airbender born to Lin and Tenzin before they broke up. The two of them feature in a few of our SotRL-based AUs (and yes, they're lesbians and in love, did you really expect anything else?). We don't really explore this verse because both of us are obsessed with Suiren and Midori, but it deserves a mention nonetheless.

SECONDARY VERSES:

Under the Oak's Shade – The first secondary AU ever created, a result of a passing idea of an AU where Zhi (P'Li's mentor and parental figure from Kat's LaF) and her partner Ikiaq (a bloodbending healer. Yes, these two are also lesbians) take in Suiren and Midori after their parents are imprisoned. Due to being unable to cope with her own grief, it takes Zhi six months to get to the girls, which was enough time for Haya's abuse to leave its mark. Both girls are nothing at all like the kids described in the letters P'Li used to send, and while Midori is quick to revert back and soak in all of Zhi's affection, Suiren is angry, skittish, terrified and resentful, reluctant to let Zhi anywhere near her. The series is still in progress, but the current plan is that Zhi will take them to the North Pole, where she lives with Ikiaq, and they shall help the girls heal from their trauma and grow up happy and healthy. One notable detail is that Suiren will train under Ikiaq and become a bloodbender, which will eventually enable her to enact a plan to break the RL out of prison early on. There have also been talks of a Red Lotus Korra element to this AU as well, but we'll have to discuss it in more detail

Ultimate AU – One of the mixes between SotRL and FAtC. This AU has existed pretty much forever, as I very quickly came up with a "hey, what if Suiren, Midori and Nazra all existed in the same verse?" concept. It is also the birthplace of Kuviren and Green Opal, both started as inside jokes, so remember kids, be careful with what you joke about, it might just become an important part of your story. It gained proper shape in May 2024 when I came up with an AU of LaF in which P'Li's little sister, Lien-Hua, gets to live and is also rescued from the warlord by Zaheer. Lien-Hua haunts the narrative of our multiverse (and actually, in SotRL-verse Midori is her reincarnation!!), she's really the central part of it all, and so it was decided that if she gets to live, everyone else does too. Xai Bau, the Red Lotus founder who died closer to the end of LaF, survives. The AU follows the storyline of FAtC with Korra's parents joining the RL, but they also get to live. In Zaofu, the kids get to grow up happily with their parents, the seeds for Kuviren and Green Opal are planted, and it's genuinely all very soft and fluffy up until Republic City and the Equalist conflict comes into the picture and things take on a darker turn. But before then, the worst thing that happens is Kuvira rejecting Suiren because she's convinced Renny (who's a massive flirt with a love for low cut dresses in this verse) is just playing with her and her feelings aren't genuine. But they sort it out soon enough, don't you worry. Essentially, this is the AU we turn to when the angst gets to be Too Much

Mud of Adversity – Another mix of SotRL and FAtC, this time a lot more angsty. Starts out the same as SotRL, with the exception of Nazra being left with Haya as well, meaning that Suiren's burden of being the protector has doubled. Haya knows who Nazra's mother is and thus is scared of her, so Naz doesn't get hit (Haya views her as a walking time bomb, essentially), but they're not given enough food to satisfy Nazra's increased appetite and she's made to feel like a freak for her height and abilities. Though in some ways, she's luckier than her sisters because she's allowed to firebend while earth- and waterbending are banned. The reason is the same, Haya being afraid that Nazra will spontaneously combust if her fire builds up for too long. Years later, when the girls are teens, Nazra gets angry at Haya for beating Suiren and accidentally kills her with her combustionbending. They dispose of the body, leave Gaoling and go into hiding, Suiren taking up her assassin job to keep them fed. When the RL escape from prison in Book 3, they go to check up on their daughters only to find an empty house, causing them all to imagine the worst. We never did finish figuring out how this AU develops, but this is the basic gist of it and maybe one day, we'll return to it

Sacrifice AU – The angstiest SotRL AU there is. As mentioned, people in the small corner of Gaoling Haya lives in are prejudiced towards the Swamp tribes, blaming them for the disease that killed so many, and Suiren as a swampbender becomes the subject of many rumours and superstitions. With time, the townspeople start to see her as a spirit (because it's easier to ignore the obvious abuse of a child if she's not a child at all, but a malevolent spirit and an omen of doom), and the rumours reach their peak when Suiren becomes an assassin and is now able to afford a slightly better life for herself and Midori, at which point it is decided that she must be the reason everyone else lives in poverty, because why else does she live better than them? Getting rid of her will be their salvation. So one night a few months after the Red Lotus allegedly die, on a new moon so Suiren is at her weakest, they attack, intending to sacrifice her as a way of securing prosperity, and kill Midori while they're at it. Kuvira, who at that point has already started her Great Uniter work, happens to be in Gaoling at the same time and saves them, taking them to Zaofu for their safety. Desperate to feel alive again, Suiren falls into bed with Kuvira on that very first night and regrets it a lot since now Kuvira keeps looking at her as if she expects something (Kuvira is just concerned, but try telling Suiren that). Traumatised, suffering from PTSD and paranoia, Suiren avoids people like the plague and stops waterbending, considering water to be a traitor since it didn't help her save herself and Midori, and instead learns bloodbending so she isn't completely helpless. And Kuvira, who keeps fretting over her, might just be the perfect test subject...

MoA Sacrifice AU – Somehow, even worse than the previous one. As the title suggests, a mix of Sacrifice AU and Mud of Adversity. Instead of Nazra killing Haya, things carry on as normal for a few more years until the night of the sacrifice. Nazra uses her combustionbending to try saving Suiren, but fails and all it results in is the townspeople deciding to sell her to a general looking for unique benders for his army. Suiren and Midori are saved by Kuvira and taken to Zaofu, while Nazra meets the same fate as her mother, being tattooed and forced to be a weapon against her will. Eventually, she is found and saved, but is so traumatised and scared of hurting people (her tattoo was done in a way that made her light chakra overactive, she literally cannot supress her combustionbending unless she's on qi blockers) that she can't stay in Zaofu and is sent to a sanctuary in the mountains to recover, where she meets and bonds with Tsomo. Meanwhile, rumours of a combustionbender spread and reach the Red Lotus, who are currently in hiding. Ghazan goes to investigate, is told by Haya about the failed sacrifice, comes across Bolin who by that point has made friends with Midori, and the reunion between the RL and their kids happens sooner than in normal SotRL. Still not too clear on where it goes from there

Avatar Suiren AU – Aang dies two years earlier and Suiren is born as the Avatar instead of Korra. The Red Lotus fundamentally believe that the Avatar shouldn't exist, and that belief was passed on to Suiren before they found out what she was. Suiren hates being the Avatar, both because she sees her parents constantly worrying about her being discovered and taken away, and because she, similar to Yangchen, is rather sensitive to memories of her past lives and it's very, very overwhelming for her. She often gets nightmares about traumatic things previous Avatars went though and.wakes up screaming names long forgotten by history, but that also allows her easier communication with them, so she's never quite alone. She remembers all the pain, all the efforts to fix the world that were ultimately useless, knows how it feels like to have your entire world upended as a child, and decides early on that she will not let this continue. The world cannot keep relying on one being to save them, and so she shall be the Last Avatar. She grows up, trains, at one point crosses paths with Kuvira in Zaofu who finds out her secret and becomes extremely devoted to her, and during Harmonic Convergence opens both Spirit Portals and fuses with Vaatu (much to Raava's dismay). She works hard to get the world ready for the lack of an Avatar, to change and establish as many things as she can, all the while bonding with and getting attached to her spirit kites, particularly Vaatu, though she spends a lot of time talking to both, and when things are as stable as can be, she lets both of them go, ending the cycle (something that would cause unfathomable outrage were it to actually happen in the show, but tbh, even this is 100x better than whatever those new leaks promise...)

Mermaid AU – An utterly niche, self indulgent AU not connected to any other verse, born out of my lifelong love for mermaids. No bending, no Avatar, just Kuvira as the best captain in Suyin Beifong's merchant fleet (and Bataar Jr's fiancee) and Suiren as a mermaid/siren/sea monster who she meets while stranded in a seaside town. Monsterfucking ensues 😁 I'm still not quite sure where I'll take this, the fic for it that I started for MerMay 2024 is still just a oneshot, but I do have some ideas I could explore, including how Suiren's parents and Midori feature in this AU (as a tiny hint.. anyone here ever seen Barbie in a Mermaid Tale? [they say, as if they don’t have several posts on their art blog spoiling the “grand reveal”…])

BONUS IMPORTANT STORYLINES:

Northern Water Tribe shenanigans – In March 2024 I made a shitpost about Malina, Unalaq's wife, Kat saw it and things spiralled from there. It came to be that there's no love in their marriage, they have not shared a bed since the twins were conceived, and Unalaq generally has no interest in Malina because he's rather.. preoccupied (🤮) with a certain spirit kite. And what's a lonely, touch starved, severely tocophobic beautiful bisexual noble woman to do in that situation? Well, start a harem made out of her guards and handmaidens, of course!! It's.. pretty much pure filth, yes 😔 That's just what happens when you let someone raised on harem dramas (a.k.a me) anywhere near noble characters. But anyway, we have two OCs Malina is close with so far – Ila, a useless disaster lesbian for whom no other woman but Malina exists, and Alasie, an aroace and touch repulsed maid who has her boundaries respected by Malina and becomes a friend to her. Ngl, those two are low-key based on Kat and me <3 And Suiren also becomes involved in all of this in the UtOS and Avatar Suiren verses, but I shall not be sharing details of that in public

Zaheer's fucked up family – Once upon a time, Kat wrote in LaF that at age 12, Zaheer ran away from his tyrant father, classist mother and two sisters, whom he didn’t have the best relationship with. One summer evening, I took that and ran with it. Semi-brief summary: Jusamah – Zaheer's father, angry, violent, barely tolerates his wife and kids, cares only for his fortune and continuing the family line, can, will and has severely punished and executed people for perceived transgressions; Sunat – Zaheer's mother, meek, anxious, secretly nearsighted, loves her children and would do anything to ensure their safety, but doesn't allow herself to show affection, focuses on social climbing to secure good matches for her daughters; Summiya – the eldest, perfect in every way down to the uncanny symmetry of her face. Married to Himman, the only son of an influential family who's rumoured to be a drunk and a brothel goer. Her two children, Liba and Abyan, were both born with visible birthmarks, thus not as perfect as her, and her perfectionism and constant criticism make Abyan resent her and Liba hate herself. As young teens, the two run away, leaving Summiya's life crumbling around her. Her kids are gone, her husband is a cheater, she's not perfect anymore, so she loses it and turns to sexual masochism to feel at least something. Her infidelity is discovered, she runs away, makes friends with a group of girls working at a local brothel (a few of whom are her husband's mistresses), heals, finds freedom in sex work, eventually reconnects with her sister, kids, mother and, many years later, Zaheer; Aiza/Emran – middle child, always failed to live up to both Summiya and Zaheer, scored a less than ideal match and couldn't stand the thought of marrying someone she had never met (my fic nobody’s son, nobody’s daughter goes into this in great detail), so disguised herself as a boy named Emran and ran away with the help of her maid. Ends up at an Air Temple, joins the acolytes, has a gender epiphany and now goes by both names, uses she/he/they pronouns, and is a genderfluid, pansexual, polyamorous ICON. Many years later, his niece and nephew arrive at the same temple and he takes them under his wing. Has many lovers all over the world, including the maid who helped them, Jia (who was tortured for information by Jusamah after Aiza left 😬) and after reuniting with Zaheer, Ghazan :D. Gains airbending after Harmonic Convergence. Over the last few months Kat and I have basically frothed at the mouth at any even slight mention of this family, and it's hard to tell why from a summary, but generational conflicts like this are fascinating so we intend to keep going with this until we literally can't anymore

Brothel girls – Summiya's friends!! Featuring: Shezan – bisexual, struggles with chronic pain, comes from a big family, loves her work but would rather do it independently; Roheen – lesbian, wanted to become a lawyer but didn't get into school despite her smarts, dislikes her job and wants to leave to pursue law school again; Gulalai – bisexual, has an identical twin sister she failed to compare to, in a relationship with Roheen, enjoys her work well enough but would leave if Roheen left; Phailin – asexual, half Fire Nation, erotic dancer who goes further for a higher price, loves dancing and having eyes on herself and dreams of returning to her ancestral homeland, the Fire Nation islands; Daneli – lesbian, youngest girl there, turned to brothel work when her dad (single father) got sick, has crushes on Shezan and Qader, doesn't enjoy her job much and will leave as soon as she can, ends up adopting the daughter of one of the other brothel girls, whom she names Kumisai (who, as a teenager, will be in a relationship with Jinora and friends with Kai); and Qader – some flavour of mspec, was bullied growing up for not being feminine enough so went full butch to spite them, picked her name herself, the most domineering at the brothel, likes her work and will keep at it regardless of circumstances, makes Kat's brain short-circuit 🤭. Honourable mention – Mekhali, non-binary, independent sex worker with an undecided dark past, Summiya's first friend who housed her after she ran away, introduced her to the girls and helped both her and Shezan start working independently too (no posted art or fics of these guys exist yet, but Kat and I have an extensive series of incorrect quotes posts featuring them)

Sweet baby Ehuang – We've had the headcanon for a while that Midori and Opal would work with kids a lot in the future, and as a result would adopt a bunch (no names, appearances or concrete backstories yet, but they adopted a boy who was born in 173 AG, a girl who was born in 175 AG, and one who'll end up nonbinary who was born in 181 AG), but after a while Midori decides that she wants to have a biological child as well. With one of Opal's brothers helping out as a sperm donor, Midori conceives and nine months later, in 186 AG, gives birth to a girl they name Ehuang (her name comes from the same legend as Ming-Hua's mom's name, Nuying, so it's all very symbolic). Ehuang grows up to be a wild and carefree child, beloved by her entire family – her moms, siblings, grandparents, uncles on Opal's side, Auntie Renny and Auntie 'Vira (Suiren and Kuvira, in case that wasn't obvious), etc etc. She's an earthbender on the road to becoming a lavabender, takes after great grandma Toph in her refusal to wear shoes, has a rock collection, and is literally the manifestation of everything good and pure in this world. We don't have much of a storyline for her yet, but that will hopefully change at some point since I already have a few ideas

EXTRA OC INFODUMPS AND RELEVANT POSTS:

Brief summaries of Haya, Summiya, Aiza, Ehuang, and Ila & Alasie

Meifeng, Ming-Hua’s cousin

Nonbinary OCs (incomplete list)

Eldest daughters

And, as one final piece of information, the SotRL-verse family tree:

Last updated: DECEMBER 20TH 2024

[mcrololo]

tell me about your favorite au you have for them?

Mean evil question. We've literally conjured up a million AUs, I can't just choose one.

Well, there is the werewolf au. Always love putting them into a vampire situation, too. We've definitely done a few mermaid ones, as well. There was one au where Beca was a blood witch and tried to hide that because blood witches are vewy scawy uwu but she was literally just protecting herself from her mom.

Childhood besties who get married in the playground, get seperated through their teens and then re-meeting in adult life AU. CHEERLEADER!BECA AU. Retired olympic!ice skater Beca and pop sensation!Emily who both compete in skating with celebrities (featuring Emily as the celeb and Beca as the experienced skater partner of another celeb). Emily's deadbeat dad (canonically super rich) owns a horse ranch and Beca's the stablehand, so when Emily's finally ready to confront his ass she's actually gaystruck by the girl who replaced her AU.

And, of course, one that kind of emotionally tugged on my heartstrings: Beca is a sex worker and Emily's dad hired her to spend some (PLATONIC!) time with his reclused daughter, who's been through some heavy shit

[starstruckodysseys]

this is a cry for help (i have no one to talk about sword af with)

[dreamings-free]

Shitty press as usual from the daily mail and daily telegraph sigh. At least the headlines. Didn't bother reading any further.

well they’re tabloids and that’s what tabloids do I don’t know how this fandom still after all these years expect anything else from those trash rags ?!!

and yea good don’t read it. because every time you do every click every engagement gives money to these vultures so they can keep writing their hateful racist xenophobic anti-social sensationalist bullsh*t. tabloids are not just harmless gossip rags writing shit about your fave celebs they are trash that influence politics that enable things like brexit anti-immigration and hate against muslims. and when you give them ad revenue you help further their damaging agenda.

every time I see someone on here the post a link to the sun I wanna pull my hair out.

[soullessjack]

reading the new responses and I would just like to say that I am personally kissing every one of u who brought up jack being a prop 🫵😙

.

and on the flip side I am begging every “mentally a baby/ baby on the inside” response to please actually watch the show with a smidgeon of critical brain power