#CALM AND CARRY

[williamvrex]

CHECK FOR INDICATIONS THAT ALIEN MILITARIES OR TIME TRAVELING CRIMINALS HAVE CLAIMED BRAD GEIGER WAS KILLED SO THAT THEY CAN CLAIM HE WAS REPLACED BY AN INVADING IMPOSTER

[kinky-cas]

the gaydar is inherited

[muffinlance]

Consider: Post-canon Zuko wakes up in the body of his childhood self, the morning of That War Meeting. Would he still speak against the plans, knowing his fate? What do you think he would do differently the second time around?

"Turned away at the doors, Zuzu?"

"Shut up, Azula," her brother sulked. But sulked weirdly, after staring at her too long and too wide-eyed, not like she'd surprised him but--

But like he hadn't expected her to be there. At all.

He turned away. ...He turned back. "Hey, Lala? Do you think you could help me practice that one set?"

He didn't meet her eyes.

She narrowed hers. "Which set?"

"The one I'm bad at."

She scoffed. Pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "That's all of them, Dum-Dum."

He didn't shout or stomp or yell about the nickname. His lips twitched.

"It's okay," he said. "If you're afraid you won't be a better teacher that my instructor..."

It was the most obvious manipulation ever.

Perhaps if he proved an adequate firebending student, she'd work on his courtly survival skills next. Honestly, it was good that not even Uncle Gets-Cousins-Killed had been fool enough to take Zuko into that war meeting. She could only imagine how terribly that could have gone.

"Keep up," she said, and turned her steps towards the training grounds.

He did. There, and during the katas she ran him through.

Azula kept her eyes narrowed.

"Hey," he asked, "do you know how to bend lightning yet?"

As if he could have missed it, if she'd been able to get more than sparks. "I will soon," she said.

"You will," he agreed, and flowed through his next set. The one she'd only just mastered.

Father didn't notice how weird Zuzu was being. Uncle never noticed anything. Zuko ate dinner and asked a servant for seconds and didn't stutter or flinch or lose his appetite when father asked, coolly, what he'd done with his day. Azula's shoulders tensed, because one mention of how she'd squandered her own training time teaching him--

"Azula hogged the training grounds. For hours," Zuzu scowled, exactly like a petulant thirteen year old.

Exactly like he hadn't been acting all day.

By the time Father was looking her way, Azula had her usual smirk in place. "I'm sure there would be room for both of us," she said, "you're not afraid of a little friendly fire, are you, brother?"

Zuko sulked. And ate his seconds, like he was enjoying each bite. There was something in his eyes, like a joke no one else was getting.

---

Father died that night. A heart attack. There were the faintest of burns to either side of the treacherous organ; the royal physician hypothesized that he'd grabbed at his chest, fingers burning hot in his final moments; so hot they'd only exacerbated the problem.

The royal physician would never have been brought any victims of lighting strikes. Those that occurred in the capital did not generally require a doctor in the aftermath.

Zuzu ate a hearty breakfast.

He didn't order seconds. Azula gave him points, at least, for not being tacky.

---

The sages named Iroh as regent.

They named Zuko as Fire Lord.

"No," the tiny Fire Lord in his perfectly miniaturized Fire Lord robes said, sitting at the head of his war council. "We're not doing that. And I'll be reviewing all recent battle plans, as well. What's this I hear about a division of new recruits being deployed to the front?"

He did not mention how he'd heard of the 41st Division. No one asked.

"Prince Iroh, surely--" one of the generals tried to appeal.

The young Fire Lord's regent was looking as startled as the rest of them, for a moment. Then he sipped his tea, and smiled.

"Your Fire Lord is correct, of course. A change in our leadership--a change the other nations may mistakenly view as weakness--will necessitate a change in our strategy."

"Now," said their lord, "what, exactly, is our overall objective in this war?"

War, the new Fire Lord decreed, was not an end unto itself.

---

The new Fire Lord continued to have time, to pretend to be trained by her. Azula watched him. Adjusted her footwork. Did not tolerate, and was not offered, any commentary on who was teaching who.

"What did you do with my brother?" she asked, as they flowed from one set to the next. As her hands, poised to throw fire, just so happened to be pointed his way.

He missed a step. It didn't look like an act.

"I'm, uh. Right here?"

She didn't bother to dignify that.

He didn't bother to look worried about her hands, one movement off from a true attack.

He looked around, then grabbed her sleeve, and tugged her further from any walls that may hide ears. The royal family's private training grounds were wonderfully large, and wonderfully open.

"It's me," he said. "It's still me. Just. More of me? Longer of me?"

She narrowed her eyes. A familiar expression, by this point. "Explain."

"...I found the Avatar," he said. "And this is definitely his fault, but--but I guess it started at a war meeting, when I was thirteen."

Azula listened. It was a very Dum-Dum story.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Burning Rotten Bridges

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[issydubcom]

pretty perfect life

song of the day: black barbies - nicki minaj, mike will made it

[oldinterneticons]

[paintedcrows]

Human Bill! I wanna put him in a microwave

Bonus-ish: Really liked the flats on this one!

[vepppy]

guiding key ✨

[mieczy-stiles]

nicky, strapped to a table like a lab rat: chilling, flourishing, in my lane, talking to my husband, giggling, snorting at his jokes, loving his nicely tousled hair, thinking about malta, thinking about going to malta, dropping truth bombs, having the time of my life oh this occasional hurt is but part of the process such is life it will end one day both mine and yours do what you will. amen and mwah

[coldasyou]

[defensive-tactics]

Keep calm and carry...

[shirtlesssammy]

Dean and Cas every day not often enough -- 64/?

Supernatural 12x01//Keep Calm and Carry On

[mediumgayitalian]

okay i’ve seen the take around and i have to add. it’s killing me.

i do not agree that will would avoid the medical arts when he gets older.

i see the argument about trauma and growing from it. and, like, yeah. he had so much on his shoulders from so ridiculously young, it had to be rough.

but it’s also like.

what he’s good at.

let me tell you a story. there was a girl. when she was a year and a half old her first sister was born. and her mother’s family warned her to keep her away from her sister: she had been an only child for her entire life up to this point, she would be jealous of the baby. she might even try to hurt her.

but the mother shook her head and reclined on her hospital bed with her new baby in her arms. and she called her daughter softly up and showed her how to sit, how to fold her hands. she placed her newborn into her daughters arms and her daughter, he toddler, stayed there for hours. for hours, mesmerized by her baby sister, holding her carefully.

that daughter doesn’t remember, obviously. but her mother tells her this story often, smiling. the daughter had hands to hold from infancy.

the daughter gets another sister when she is three. and another when she is eight, and a brother when she is ten. she has been surrounded by babies her whole life, while her parents work. she learned to change diapers before she could divide, learned how to cook before she learned to play properly with friends. she has known domesticity every day of her life.

and she excels at it.

she chafes, a little. of course she does. when she takes her baby brother to the park people confuse her for his mother — she is ten years old. she is used to walking with a child on her hip. her name was her brother’s third ever word, and sometimes — often times — her siblings seek her out instead of her parents. she is made to do thrice the chores her siblings must because she is more organized, because she is more capable. she is meant to take them safely to places — no one takes her safely to places.

but she glows when her siblings need her. at family reunions, she volunteers to mind the babies, nervous about conversation with adults. she is the only one patient enough to tutor her siblings when they’re struggling and frustrated and pride blooms in her chest. when she cleans, her anxious mind quiets.

she grows up to be an elementary school teacher, after a couple years of discovering.

do you see the projection connection i am trying to make here. it is hard to be trained your whole life for something — there is part of you, always, that will resent it, that will wonder.

but it is another thing when the training is so easy because you are so good at it already. when doing what you have been trained to do makes you calm after a long day, when the tedious tasks that others spurn brings a smile to your face. yes, i’m sure healing carries a lot of pain for will. yes, i’m sure he’s frustrated. yes, i’m sure he takes some time to experiment.

but he is good at healing. and he likes to be needed, to be the rock upon which others need: if he is the rock it means he is strong, he is steady. when he doubts himself he can remember those he has helped and it is impossible to write off his own importance. he has healer’s hands, builder’s hands, carer’s hands — to be anything else would be a struggle, first, but it would not bring the same relief. the same steadiness in knowing that he is capable and righteously proud.

i don’t know. this isn’t a real essay and i don’t have a real conclusion. i just cannot find it in myself to imagine a future where my path is dark and overgrown with foreign weeds, rather than peppered with the flowers i grew up tending. i doubt will can either.

[issydubcom]

love pink

song of the day: in my feelings - drake

[fatedroses]

Two former military elites taking merc jobs perform absolutely hellish battle tactics together.

[linoyes]