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When and why did you get into Azukka ?

thank you for sending all these asks I feel #relevant. Wild!!

I started shipping Azukka as an adult. I’ve been a Zutara shipper since I was like 13 (baby’s first ETL) but I needed the refinement of an adult’s taste to appreciate Azukka. I think a part of it was looking at the four characters, Zuko, Katara, Azula, and Sokka, and seeing the parallels between all four of them and thus the compatibility/interesting elements that are present in both ships. Both of them have dysfunctional relationships with their respective siblings for various reasons, both have mom and dad issues…then there are huge aesthetic drivers—Azula kinda combines the two types of women he’s into—very feminine princess and women who can kick your ass.

I also really like how Azula and Sokka share some darker qualities. Sokka is quite callous and practical which I think is very intriguing. He’s exceedingly practical and utilitarian on top of being extremely intelligent. I think these are qualities someone like Azula would be really drawn to. I also think sokka’s bender insecurity is fascinating to play with in context of him being in a relationship with the worlds most powerful firebender. I think the two of them would probably take over the world as a couple and I think that’s also hugely interesting. There is also just a special vibe they have that I can’t quite quantify that I'm obsessed with.

I started writing Azukka in the context of a Zutara story a few years ago and that’s how I roped @southsidestory into the ship. Now it is truly my favorite ship to write. Whenever I’m down or need some dopamine it’s Azukka hours all day every day!!

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How did you get into atla?

I had the unfortunate luck of having a Nickelodeon TV package in 2005 when ATLA started airing….the rest was history….

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🐢🦆

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What do you think about Shogun?

I thought it was amazing.

i love it! It’s very angsty and aesthetic. The first episode was a bit much for me but I also had a bad cold and took some afrin which kept me up all night….i think the relationship between Mariko and John is interesting. Culturally they like, can’t really comprehend each other and that never fully resolves. It’s very tragic!!!

I love a good period drama and I am a sucker for costumes. If I had time to read the 1200 page novel I probably would!

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for danger is in words 

“My wife’s name is Mary,” he said, first in English, before he noticed and then again in the Portuguese she would understand. There was a something about her face that told him he perhaps hadn’t needed the translation. “Not so different—”

“You did not call me by her name,” Mariko said, a reassurance he should not have needed, but it had been a long time since he’d tumbled a woman and Mariko had touched him in ways he had not imagined, given him pleasure with hands he would have thought devilish clever except for the look in her dark eyes as she’d stroked him. Tenderness and wonder, as if he were precious, an unexpected marvel, not a scarred sea-pilot with manners too rough, too eager, for the subtle Japans.

“’Tisn’t proper to speak of her now, I warrant. After pillowing,” John said, using the term Mariko had. She was a widow, even if not as merry as widow as one would find in London or Amsterdam, so perhaps she had done nothing untoward by her rights, but it didn’t seem polite to hold a woman in his arms, her bare skin more delicate than her silk robe, the taste of her yet in his mouth, and talk of another.

“Men’s tongues wag after congress,” she said. “Unless they sleep.”

“You gave me great joy,” he said. It sounded awkward, formal, but his Portuguese did not run to either poetry or the sweet-talk lovers used, endearments and admissions. Praise was used quite differently here and he didn’t want to risk offending her.

“I thought I must,” she said. “You were very loud.”

He laughed, a low, rumbling chuckle that startled her, a sudden tenseness in her shoulders. He would not have been able to tell if she were wearing her usual robes, standing across from him, but naked, pressed against him, it was undeniable.

“I suppose I was. I offer my most sincere apology if you’d have it,” he said.

“You did nothing wrong. Many cry out at the peak,” she said.

“You did not,” he replied. She had made a very soft sound and he’d felt her body surge around his, her hands tightening on his back, her neck arched. The moonlight through the paper screens had not enough power to give him any color, but he’d felt her flush even if he could not see the roses in her cheeks, the hue of a Tudor blossom down her throat and across her full breasts.

“Did your Mary?” she replied. For once, perhaps, it was not a challenge nor a game whose rules he was meant to discover mid-play. She was curious, about Mary and about English women, about the world he’d left behind. What he’d told her about the Thames had not slaked her thirst but whetted it, but she wanted more than details of a silver river in a filthy city, a jeweled Virgin Queen on her throne. She wanted to know about the bed he’d lain in, conceiving his children, the bedclothes rumpled, the rushes on the floor with their wilting herbs. Mary with her bright chestnut hair unbound, a spatter of freckles across her cheeks, her eyes light. He couldn’t recall their blue anymore.

“Not at first. She was shy, ‘til she learned to like it,” he said.

“To like pillowing?”

“To like make noise. To letting me know I’d pleased her. Or that she wanted more,” he said. Mariko shifted and sated as he was, she stirred him. It would not do to think whether each gesture was studied, a courtier’s or a courtesan’s. He would not know unless she told him and she would not tell him if he asked direct. That at least, he’d learned, how little appreciated was the confrontation, even if his only goal was the discovery of her appetite, her delight. 

“Without you, she is quiet,” Mariko said.

“She is virtuous, a respected matron. Her bed is empty but she is quiet only in that regard. She’s known for her wit, her temper,” he said. Mary would like to be rendered so, even if she sulked to learn he’d shared his bed with another. 

“You miss her,” Mariko said. At least, he heard it thus. The word she chose was one she paused before uttering and he wondered how deficient she found Portuguese to her purpose.

“Less than I ought,” he admitted. “All is dross that is not Helena,” he added wryly, mocking his own inconstancy, ruing the comparison that Mariko posed, in every way lovely and quick, fair and bright and with untold depths he would never plumb.

“I do not understand, Anjin,” she said.

“A line from a play, from home,” he said. “I mean to say, I do my wife a disservice, but one I cannot regret.”

“Because you pillowed with me?”

“’Twas not only such for me,” he said. If he were fluent in her language, still he would struggle to explain to her what he had felt during their coupling, all words platitudes in their attempt to contain the ineffable. He would have felt embarrassed to describe it so except that he felt most himself surrounded by the sea and the horizon, by those things elemental—water and salt, air and star. Something in her answered him, even if it was an aspect she had withdrawn behind her bloody fence, and that was more powerful than any ecstasy.

“To a starving man, a crumb is a banquet,” she said.

“And now I know you have never had a hungry winter,” he replied. He’d had his fair share as a child. He didn’t mention the desperate straits they’d come to before being taken in by the Japans, the men turning in their hammock as if winding their own shrouds about their bony carcasses. “A crumb to a starving man is not a banquet but torture and lying with you was neither feast nor agony.” He leaned in and grazed her temple with his lips, traced the curve of her cheek with his forefinger.

“Sweet,” he murmured.

“You are gentle, Anjin. More gentle than I expected,” she said. He thought of how she’d become very still when he’d brought her palm to his lips and when he’d drawn her close to nestle against him as they rocked together on the cusp of abandonment. He thought of how she’d touched the scars on his back and arm, the ones on his ribs, his belly, the question in her eyes unasked, unconcealed.

“I would have you call me John,” he said. 

“I am not your consort,” Mariko said. 

“That is why I ask. It is not a demand,” he said.

“Only now,” she said. She looked at him and took a breath. Her lips parted, as if invitation. “John.”

“We agreed now is the only time there is,” he replied and pulled her to him, tasting his name on her tongue, sighing the pleasure of it into her mouth and stroking it down her back.

The cry she gave when he brought her to the crest was sharp, like a wheeling gull’s, and so shocking that he spent in the next instant, his groan swallowed into silence. He lay panting, his cock still hard within her, his hand at her waist when she moved to whisper in his ear.

“John. Only now.” 

Shout-out to @aquitainequeen for her post on early 17th century theater and what John could have seen/quoted. I went full-throttle Dr. Faustus, as she suggested he'd had loved that!

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also if you were watching the show as it aired (me, circa 7th grade) the trailer shorts for the season finale were INSANE. This scene and the baiting was like, off the fucking charts. Also consider that like, Toph had just been introduced as a character and had fantastic chemistry with Aang in addition to being his age…it felt like it was all coming together!! season 2 was quite the time to be alive.

i will never understand when people act like zutara shippers are reaching when we say the crystal catacombs scene is intensely romantically coded because like... ignoring literally all other context (which does have other hallmarks of romantic coding, but literally pretend you don't know anything about the show or scene for a second)... what would you think happened in this picture?

would it .... would it maybe be an interrupted almost-kiss

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2006: A conversation with a military recruiter prompts 18-year-old Tessa Halifax to enlist in the US Army after graduation. This pivotal decision takes her from her New Jersey suburb to the streets of Baghdad, as a military working dog handler. In Iraq, Tessa meets disillusioned soldier Ryan Chao. Their experiences as soldiers lead them to make a dramatic departure from the careers they envisioned for themselves. 2025: Tessa’s ultimate goal as Chief of Staff to Vice President Ryan Chao is to help him win the White House in 2028. However, fallout from the events of the 2024 election cause a ripple effect that permanently alters Tessa’s life.  A Box Full of Darkness is an intensely personal story of strength and resilience, of healing and rebuilding after loss, and of devotion to the causes - and people - that matter the most. 

So many of you have read my writing (Strings, Lights in the Shadow, Delicate) over the past several years, across different fandoms. Thank you for being so supportive. All of your encouragement on tumblr and Archive of our Own helped me take the step toward writing an original novel. I'm so excited to share this with you.

Paperbacks are available here and on Amazon. The ebook is also available on Amazon. Unfortunately, Kindle devices are experiencing technical difficulties at the moment, and if you plan on reading on a Kindle device you may want to wait for the next update coming soon. However, the ebook works great on iPads and other browsers. As you can see from the screenshot, the paperback is beautiful and is well worth the wait. :)

Thank you to @chewytriforce for her cover art and design, and @broomchickabroom for her interior design and typesetting!

If you have any questions about purchasing the novel or ebook, please don't hesitate to contact me. ❤️

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[Zutara AITA post because it sounds so funny to me]

AITA for getting shot by lightning?

So I (17M) and a group of friends (13M Aang), (13F Toph), (17M Sokka), and (15F Katara) went to war against my tyrannical father in order to save the world from dictatorship. We split into three groups and Katara and I were sent to fight my somewhat tyrannical sister. She challenged me to an Agni Kai which resulted in her throwing lightning at Katara. When I noticed, without thinking, I jumped in front of it to save her. Long story short, I almost died but Katara beat my sister and healed me👍. After Aang beat my father and took away his bending for good, I guess he kind of assumed Katara would date him? Anyways, I guess I cast some sort of love spell (?) when I risked my life to save hers without thinking and she said that she liked me and not him in front of our whole friend group. So he got a little pissed and upset because she was supposed to be his “forever girl” (if someone could let me know what that means too that would be great) and then got pissed at me and said I forced her to fall for me. I was just trying to save her life. Now I feel kind of bad because I took away the romance I guess they had. I mean, I’ll admit that I like her too but I never tried to push it on her! Can someone help me understand this mess? Am I the asshole?

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*pretends I didn’t already drew this exact scene years ago*

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. 𝕒 𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕖𝕥 𝕞𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 

[ i made some time to finish a new painting ] 

instagram: @winterofherdiscontent 

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.𝔀𝓪𝓻𝓶𝓽𝓱.

quick sketch from the other day for a future painting 🎨 🔥+🌊

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looking forward to everything you and SSS have cooked up :D

we are beyond excited too I just wish I was faster at editing/compiling scenes into stories so we could post tons of it ASAP we’ve been writing them for a few years now and it just kills me we don’t have any of it posted 🥲🥲🥲🥲 I love them more than oxygen.

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I literally cannot wait to post the literal hundreds of thousands of words @southsidestory and I have written because I can just tell these are the best damn shippers in this fandom like THESE ARE MY PEOPLE.

sokkla

I absolutely adore the fuck out of Sokkla, and have since pretty much the beginning. There are no words to accurately describe how much I love this ship. It is perfection, and it makes me so happy to see that it's becoming more popular. And Sokkla shippers are such a cool group of people, who legit have created some of the best works of fanfiction and art in the entire fandom. Like it is seriously top-tier. I hope to add to that myself and write more Sokka/Azula fics.

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Zutara and North Pole, ahah

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if zutara would have happened the azulon statue would have been replaced with katara i don’t have proof of this except vibes

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felt like drawing adult zutara for some reason!! 🌊❤️‍🔥

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