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[missmists]

It puzzles me when people cite LOTR as the standard of “simple” or “predictable” or “black and white” fantasy. Because in my copy, the hero fails. Frodo chooses the Ring, and it’s only Gollum’s own desperation for it that inadvertently saves the day. The fate of the world, this whole blood-soaked war, all the millennia-old machinations of elves and gods, comes down to two addicts squabbling over their Precious, and that is precisely and powerfully Tolkien’s point. 

And then the hero goes home, and finds home a smoking desolation, his neighbors turned on one another, that secondary villain no one finished off having destroyed Frodo’s last oasis not even out of evil so much as spite, and then that villain dies pointlessly, and then his killer dies pointlessly. The hero is left not with a cathartic homecoming, the story come full circle in another party; he is left to pick up the pieces of what was and what shall never be again. 

And it’s not enough. The hero cannot heal, and so departs for the fabled western shores in what remains a blunt and bracing metaphor for death (especially given his aged companions). When Sam tells his family, “Well, I’m back” at the very end, it is an earned triumph, but the very fact that someone making it back qualifies as a triumph tells you what kind of story this is: one that is too honest to allow its characters to claim a clean victory over entropy, let alone evil. 

“I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing–no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”

So where’s this silly shallow hippie fever-dream I’ve heard so much about? It sounds like a much lesser story than the one that actually exists.

[missmists]

Exactly none of their boundaries or responses had a chance to be negotiated in the immediate aftermath of Zuko’s disfigurement because he was exiled while still freshly injured. We know from his reactions to others that Zuko is deeply concerned about his scar and the visibility of it both personally and politically, but with Mai he can tell she’s touching his face not his scar, she sees him. And he sees her right back she’s manipulated into traveling with Azula but Zuko comes first because they share motivations: safety for themselves and their nation, and family though each of them are abused by members of their families in different ways they crave the affectionate connection and approval of their families. They are separated for years but know each other so well that their reunion is with complete trust and respect for each other even with massive changes in their relative status, perceived loyalty, lived experience in the colonies, shipboard, and in larger world communities, and a significant window of growth from youth to emerging adulthood. In a world where they are both surrounded by people who want to use them to further their agendas, where that is expected and accepted, Zuko and Mai truly trusting each other is relationship defining.

there is a serious lack of discussion about how mai is zuko’s safe space. we see this in their first appearance together (that’s not a flashback). when mai asks him a simple question, “aren’t you cold?” and zuko, who has a hard time opening up and expressing emotions that aren’t anger or angst, freely and openly starts to tell her his worries about going back to the fire nation. and while people love to chastise mai on her reply, “I just asked if you were cold, I didn’t ask for your whole life story”, I think they misunderstand her approach to this. zuko is worrying and overthinking about something he cannot change, something that will only drive him crazy and she tries to distract him with a joke. and it might fall flat, but she realises this and suddenly she is comforting him with her touch. her hand reaching out so casually towards scar like it’s not a big deal, because it’s not. they’ve known each other for a long time, they’ve grown up together and their relationship was a long time coming. and zuko leans into her hand, and her kiss, without thinking twice about it. because mai is familiar, and mai is comfort and that can be seen when you contrast it to song’s attempting at touch his scar, and how quickly he was to stop her. but it’s not only this moment that showcases mai as his safe space, but also when he’s back in the fire nation. when he’s stressed out and going through a tumultuous time, not knowing what’s right and wrong or what he should do next, it’s mai he goes to. we see this in “nightmares and daydreams” when he spends all day at her house, when he can’t stand being in the palace anymore, mai and her house and her bedroom is his safe space. and here we see her trying to comfort him, trying to say the war meeting is stupid, it would be be boring anyway, and shall we go for a ride around town? it’ll be fun… and even though he’s still sad, he goes back to her house on the day of the war meeting and she’s making him tea. and even when he does get invited to the all day war meeting, she goes to the palace with him and waits for him all day, to see if it went well and to comfort him if it didn’t. when he says that it was everything he thought wanted it to be, she’s immediately happy for him, reaching out to touch him with a smile on her face. mai is who zuko feels safe and comfortable around, even in his vulnerable moments and it’s something we should talk about.

[missmists]

there is a serious lack of discussion about how mai is zuko’s safe space. we see this in their first appearance together (that’s not a flashback). when mai asks him a simple question, “aren’t you cold?” and zuko, who has a hard time opening up and expressing emotions that aren’t anger or angst, freely and openly starts to tell her his worries about going back to the fire nation. and while people love to chastise mai on her reply, “I just asked if you were cold, I didn’t ask for your whole life story”, I think they misunderstand her approach to this. zuko is worrying and overthinking about something he cannot change, something that will only drive him crazy and she tries to distract him with a joke. and it might fall flat, but she realises this and suddenly she is comforting him with her touch. her hand reaching out so casually towards scar like it’s not a big deal, because it’s not. they’ve known each other for a long time, they’ve grown up together and their relationship was a long time coming. and zuko leans into her hand, and her kiss, without thinking twice about it. because mai is familiar, and mai is comfort and that can be seen when you contrast it to song’s attempting at touch his scar, and how quickly he was to stop her. but it’s not only this moment that showcases mai as his safe space, but also when he’s back in the fire nation. when he’s stressed out and going through a tumultuous time, not knowing what’s right and wrong or what he should do next, it’s mai he goes to. we see this in “nightmares and daydreams” when he spends all day at her house, when he can’t stand being in the palace anymore, mai and her house and her bedroom is his safe space. and here we see her trying to comfort him, trying to say the war meeting is stupid, it would be be boring anyway, and shall we go for a ride around town? it’ll be fun… and even though he’s still sad, he goes back to her house on the day of the war meeting and she’s making him tea. and even when he does get invited to the all day war meeting, she goes to the palace with him and waits for him all day, to see if it went well and to comfort him if it didn’t. when he says that it was everything he thought wanted it to be, she’s immediately happy for him, reaching out to touch him with a smile on her face. mai is who zuko feels safe and comfortable around, even in his vulnerable moments and it’s something we should talk about.

[missmists]

『 ATLA teacups 』 🍵

available as a clear vinyl sticker set for preorder!

— ends sunday sept 9/27

baomii.shop 💫

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[missmists]

Jet hates his face. He can't stand to look at it. He always looks away from mirrors when he's in the bathroom or ignores his reflection completely whenever he walks past water.

He doesn't believe he's ugly, no far from it. Jet knows he's not from the way girls smile shyly whenever he talks to them. The way they giggle with flustered faces whenever they're in his presence. Smellerbee always rolls her eyes whenever he indulges a little in flirting with girls whenever they pass in a town.

No, Jet hates his face because he looks just like his mother.

His beautiful, caring mother. The one that would always kiss him goodnight after telling him stories of spirits or star-crossed lovers. She was a hopeless romantic jet remembers that. His mother who would coddle him and rock her in his lap after he came home crying, another one of the village boys picking on him for how small he was. Jet used to be quite scrawny and weak if his freedom fighters could believe that.

His mother, the one that protected him from the seething hot flames the best she could the day the fire nation came to their village. while his father did his best to hold the soldiers off. And when he failed to do so, held jet tight to her as she told him to run as far as he could and to never look back. Even promising him she'd be right behind him.

He didn't keep the promise of not looking back as Jet heard the wailing screams of his mother dying. Tears blurring his view of her as the last thing he saw of her was her eyes. Only to see her killer on a Komodo Rhino in front of him with a hatred he'd never seen before.

So now jet covers mirrors. And if he can't do that, he breaks them. Letting the glass shatter as his fist covers in blood. Not only does jet hate that he looks like his mother, but he has the same hatred in his eyes as her killer. Hatred for the fire nation and what it did to him, to his own people and others.

And the thought of the only reminisce jet has left of his mother being tarnished by seeing her face with hatred in her eyes, would kill him sooner than what was to become of him in ba sing se.

[missmists]

[missmists]

[missmists]

For anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.

summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.

Examples:

summary: Bruce

summary: "Bruce Banner"

summary: Bruce OR summary: Banner OR summary: Hulk

You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.

The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.

expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.

You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.

otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false

[missmists]

Okay guys. After doing a 3 strand endband for Lost and Found I decided that I hate myself and did a 5 strand endband.....I love it.....but my god was it kind of the worst 😅

And the worstest part is that I want to throw together a book block so that I can clean up the process a little and do a tutorial on a 5 strand endband so other people who are insane can do it too without having to rely on multicolored thread

Catch me maybe doing that a few months from now

[missmists]

Bound: All the Young Dudes by MsKingBean89

Well THIS took a long time.

I started typesetting it months ago. It's so long with a lot of chapters, and a lot of details. At first I split it into three volumes, but one would have been way longer than the others, so I resplit it into four, which I like, but just made it take that much longer.

Compared to the typesetting, binding it was a breeze. I purposely did not put any color on the inside so that I could just print it out on my laser printer. I put that thing through a workout! I had to stop and let it rest quite a bit. Poor buddy. Everything went smoothly with the folding and the punching and the sewing. I had fun making the end papers.

So lovely and clean and straight!

And then.

Then.

See, I was going to sand the edges instead of putting it through the guillotine. I even bought a power hand sander a few weeks ago. I was going to embrace the sawtooth, just sand the top and bottom a bit.

But for SOME reason I decided to trim the edges and, well, that was a big mistake.

Nothing ended up square. Everything shifted while cutting. The best I can say is that no text got cut off in the making of these binds.

As I was creating the cases, I realized that the boards (which I also cut with the guillotine) were not square either. It was all such a mess. But in the end, the text blocks fit within their cases, just not squarely. So looking at the outside of the set, you'd never know they're all cattywampus inside.

Moony says they look fine.

Oh, lovely!

Well, let's take a peek at the inside, shall we? I'm going to put them under a cut because it's a horror show.

Well, the endpapers are cute.

Oh that's not so bad!

OH GOD

Moony does not like this, though.

What's a "square"?

So, there you have it. Sigh.

Fonts: Chapters and titles: Krifon Body: Miller Display

This was supposed to be a gift for a friend, but I'm going to make a paperback version next and let her decide which one she wants.

[missmists]

@erisenyo and they're done!!

I plan on redoing them at some point but for now this is what I have. I did some things differently this time. I perfect bound it because I could not bring myself to sew again.

Have some more pictures.

Book three is definitely my best work, still flawed but my best work. I realized what is causing my spines to be wonky but it was too late for this bind.

Also we're not going to talk about the paint bleed.

[missmists]

nothing canon era fic writers could come up with will ever be as cruel as modern au fic writers putting these guys in the most basic modern scenarios. like he was born to live & die by the blade, his story was over before it began. and you made him take the bus and work a 9 to 5 job

[missmists]

[missmists]

@mistermetalmaker

No see results, we die like artisans

[missmists]

A brief moment of rationality from the bird place.