Wait, what’s going on with Embers???? That fic has been on my read later list since 2021, what’s happened with it???
Brief overview, then I'm likely never touching this topic again, because this is not a Drama Blog:
Context: Embers is a super old AtLA fic that was written during the early fandom days, read widely at the time, and was the origin of the widely-used fanon name of "Wani" for Zuko's ship (kind of by default that it was one of the first popular fics to give his ship a name, I think?), even though most fic writers don't seem to realize it's from there anymore.
"What's Going On": I used to include a link in all my stories to it, because I believe in crediting other writers for borrowed elements, and I was using "Wani" in all my fics. But BOY did I not want to be sending readers that way anymore, so I've adopted a new name for Zuko's ship, and removed all Embers links.
None of the criticisms about Embers itself are new; I'm assuming they date back to when the fic was being written, because this isn't an "it aged badly" thing, this is an "actually yeah this gets worse the longer you think about it and I shouldn't have ignored my bad feelings just because some of the worldbuilding was interesting" thing.
An Incomplete List of Why I Made the Change:
I don't actually like the story that much anymore, and don't want to rec it
I tried to re-read it recently to see if some things were as bad as I remembered and it turns out they were So Much Worse Oh Yikes. More specifically, the treatment of Katara and Aang and their respective cultures has... rather a lot going on. One example: The Fire Nation and Air Nomads are both given multiple backstory elements in an attempt to make the average Fire Nation soldier's participation in the genocide/war in large part the fault of the Avatar and the Air Nomads themselves, and also fully justified from the Fire Nation perspective. And I do mean fully. One of its core tenants is "People from the Fire Nation (and only people from the Fire Nation) who don't follow orders Literally Die, therefore murdering pacifists and babies and continuing the war (and their regularly scheduled war crimes) is the only thing it is physically possible for them to do". I cannot emphasize enough how literal that is.
Also the name "Wani" means "Alligator" and is... objectively a pretty lame name for Zuko's ship? Where's the personality, where's the deeper meaning, where's the resonance with Zuko's themes? @tuktukpodfics initially thought I was calling the ship "Wanyi", and that's what I've switched to, because it is Objectively So Much Better. In their words: “Wànyī (萬一): Literally ‘one in ten thousand,’ ‘perchance.’ Used grammatically in Chinese to mean ‘what if’ or ‘just in case.’ I think a ship called ‘The Perchance’ is perfect for a boy clinging to false hope.”
TL:DR; I don't rec Embers anymore, because I don't actually like the story anymore, and there are things about it that get worse the more I think on them. I've removed links to it and renamed Zuko's ship to "Wanyi" ("The Perchance") because our boy deserves a ship name that reflects his character arc.
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Danny, while out exploring the Infinite Realms, gets caught up in a wierd evil scheme to clone...a robin? Okay, strange but hes dealt with weirder stuff. Nothing really prepared him for finding a little newborn baby amongst all the empty pods and computers he was destroying.
He picked it up carefully and soon discovered it was a girl. Phantom, knowing this was very much not a bird, started looking for answers while the baby rested in his arm. Robin turned out to be a kid who looked around eight or nine...or he was just small. Either way he was waaaay too young to take in a baby and anyone who dressed up like a bat and let thier kid run around with them at two in the morning to fight serial killers and terrorists in the city that is the embodiment of late stage capitalism probably isn't a good fit for a child.
So he turned to the child and muttered, "Guess I'm a dad now." before taking her back to the Infinite Realms. He named her Asteria after the greek titan goddess of the stars.
She was so inquisitive and wanted to grab and investigate everything she saw. She was smart and ridiculously bold, almost reckless, which made it easy to pass her off as his and telling his sister that he had a fling with a tourist and she told him the baby was his. He even presented a fake paternity test to her and then silently waited for her judgment.
She just sighed.
Danny didn't hate being a father but man it was tiring. They had moved away from Amity Park after thier parents and Vlaad "passed away" which was code for Jazz murdering them in cold blood after...the incident
He and Sam stopped being friends after they had a bad break up, but Tucker was his best friend, even all these years later. Valerie still seemed to come and go too. Danny was happy just being a single father.
Until it happened.
Asteria started coughing. He didn't think anything of it at first. Kids got sick all the time but...it never stopped. Danny had taken her to doctor after doctor but no one seemed to know what they were looking at. They all said something similar, that it was some sort of genetic disease involving her lungs but they had never seen anything like it.. they even asked to record this for future medical studies. He agreed so long as it was within reason and wasn't invasive.
The cough just kept getting worse until one day she had a fit so bad it sent her to her knees. She had to stay on the ground coughing as Danny frantically patted her back and tried to comfort her. By the time it was over she was sobbing uncontrollably and hugging her teddybear to her chest as Danny held her.
Danny decided he needed to go back to Gotham. If this was a genetic disease then it must have come from that Robin guys family, right? He didn't want to have to go to him directly, it had been four years since he took her and its possible the guy might sue him for custody. Or the Batman will. Or they might kidnap her and he would never see her agia-
Danny took a deep breath. He was not going to talk to the furry patrol. But he was sure that someone in Gotham had to know what this was.
---
Leslie got a knock on her window as an ungodly hour of the night. She opened it intending to yell at someone, but when she saw that unique look of desperation on a young man's face while holding a little girl in a light blue princess nightgown the words died on her tongue.
The man said he couldn't go to a normal hospital or doctor as they would have questions he couldn't answer and her sickness isn't something he had ever seen before. She was adopted and her disease was appearently genetic. He even offered to give Leslie samples of his blood for study since he heard she liked to study metas.
She made sure he knew this wasn't necessary and that she didn't want him to feel forced before taking the offered sample.
Asteria began a slow recovery after that. One where neither of them could leave Gotham until she was completely cured. Whats more is that Asteria would need medication for years to come. Money wasn't an issue. Danny would just need to find a reliable form of transport between dimensions.
Unfortunately for him, Leslie discovered the "Altered Lazarus water" in his blood samples and notified Batman.
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TW // Food , EDs
Something about Usopp getting sent to an island where delicious food is used as bait and he has to actively fight to eat (thus probably ending up just straight-up not eating some days and relating food to negative experiences) and Sanji constantly using food to serve and make others enjoy but barely eating himself because it isn't as rewarding and he doesn't really care about his well-being because he is used to starving (both physically and emotionally).
Like-- Usopp not really refusing to eat but kind of having a defense mechanism/odd quirks around it (eating too fast, keeping food for later, feeling safer if he straight up doesn't eat, or directly not being hungry at all) and Sanji actively just forgetting to feed himself and when he tries to do so he isn't... Full? At all? or satisfied? It just leaves him emptier. He likes giving food to others, that's what completes him. Eating just because just feels wrong for him.
So you have this guy with strong defense mechanisms against food who treats it as a necessity to live instead of enjoyment and another who treats food as an enjoyment but ONLY for other people and never himself.
And I like to think Usopp, after spending so much time getting used to storing food just in case he can't go hunting for more, still does the same when he's back with the crew. But he doesn't even know why he does it exactly. He is eating. He doesn't need to do this. But then he realizes he always thinks about Sanji whenever he keeps food. Usopp notices Sanji barely eats if the food is something he gives to himself, but gladly enjoys it when it's somebody else's doing. So Usopp just waits until everybody is out of the kitchen to approach Sanji and go "Hey, um, would you like to share the leftovers with me?" and something like that. And Sanji does end up eating more than usual which is, you know, an average meal.
On the other hand, Sanji stays with Usopp while he eats and speaks to him. Makes him feel safe so he doesn't have to make everything quick and running. Make him see that he is alright and he can take his time to enjoy the food without any worries. At the end of the day, they end up eating together after the whole crew has gone away, but that's more than fine with them.
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agere blog reccommendations? xx
Hmm, that's a tough question, because I want to say almost every agere blog!! It's very rare I see actual agere accounts doing something I don't like. But, this is a great opportunity to talk about some of my personal favorites!
@/dino-boyo-agere is super nice, makes really fun posts and loves dinosaurs like I do!!
@/snailsagere makes really cool and inclusive boards! They were one of the people whose content gave me the idea to make moodboards on this account!!
@/tinyowlet makes the best dni banners ever! And creates really awesome moodboards (plus he's super cool)!!
@/plusie and I have never interacted, but they have a ton of cute plushie boards!!
@/tinikip is another favorite of mine! He's not online very often, but I'm always happy to see new posts when he's active!!
@/hyperfixated-maybe isn't necessarily an agere account, but he's so so cool! Seriously one of the best people I've met here! And, he has the best recommendations for things to check out!!
@/litlpawz is so so nice!! And he makes super cute stuff!! Seriously he has so much variety and answers requests a lot faster than I do!!
Finally, @/cgstuff reblogs a lot of stuff that's fun!! I like to look through her blog and see posts that didn't show up on my dash!!
I would do honorable mentions but truly it's just most people I didn't mention by name! There's so so many agere accounts that do cool things and I'd love to know and name them all!!
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Signal Lost
I've had something happen to me that's so incredible and that I could have never hoped, something so touching and so unbelievable that it made me rethink a whole lot of stuff: a wonderful reader on Ao3 started reading my long-form fic (101k words!!!) and commented basically every chapter after a certain point. And wow, I would have never thought something like this might happen.
And yeah, it is my first fic with plot in it, yeah I will never believe it to be perfect, but it's good enough. And receiving all those emails from Ao3 really was the highlight of my days over the course of which I saw said reader slowly go through all my favorite parts!
And so I wish to give it some spotlight here, while I'm finishing up my school year and work and whatever! I will post this here for now, but I will drop chapters every few days and make a Masterlist for it this weekend. I have too many loose ideas in my head so this is just to pass the time till the brain worms wiggle all in the same direction
So without further ado:
Link to AO3 here : Signal Lost - a John Price x reader fic
----- here's a blurb to pique your interest!
“I don’t think I’ve ever received a document as classified as this one. What am I supposed to do with it, Kate?” he says, dragging his thumb across the pile of papers, each file filled with more ink than the last.
“You asked for proof, there’s your proof,” Laswell says.
“You said you’ll bring someone competent, and who can help us, this doesn’t tell me shit.” He stares blankly at the screen, tired. She stares back.
“The Captain specifically asked to keep this under wraps.”
He rubs at his face, scratching at his beard. It’s getting long again.
“Who is he, anyway?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
He groans again, picking up the file on top. No photo, no name, no age, no height, weight, no nothing . And he thought Simon was secretive.
“What can you tell me?”
“It’s the closest we’ve ever gotten to him. Did things a particular way.”
He shifts through the papers. “And the discharge?”
“Left after the entire team got wiped out. Messy stuff.”
“That why he doesn’t show his face?” He bends forward, grabbing the cigar from the ashtray and bringing it to his lips.
“John.” Her voice carries a heavy warning.
“Just sayin’,” he says, biting around the cigar with one side of the mouth. “What kinda captain doesn’t go down with his men?”
“Got enough guilt as is. You’re lucky I convinced them.”
They both remain silent. They know the missions would be a slippery slope. One wrong move and a war is started. He puffs a cloud of smoke.
“Anything else?” John asks.
Kate looks to the side, her face illuminated by another screen. He can see her hesitate, her lips are pursed in a thin line as if she’s debating her options.
“You’ve worked together before.”
His face lights up. “Finally! Who?”
Her face immediately hardens back up. “Can’t tell, John, my hands are tied.” She sighs. “You were still a Lieutenant.”
Years ago then. He mentally catalogs everyone he’s ever worked with, but he knows that at that age, he was throwing himself at every available mission, wanting to make a name for himself. “So an old fart then? How’s that gonna help us?” If the guy was a Captain when he was still a Lieutenant, and he felt himself grow old, he can’t imagine who Laswell is bringing back from the dead.
Laswell’s face distorts, he knows he’s pushing her buttons, but he has to know.
“Not older than you John.”
His eyebrows raise. “Oh?”
---
or
returning to the military to hunt Makarov is hard enough, to do it with your past lover is even harder.
a "friends to lovers to enemies to friends and back to lovers" story
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Tags and other CW:
will be posted for each chapter containing warnings for more hardcore stuff (i.e., torture and angst namely), but this is a fanfic, with smut, so if you want all the tags feel free to check the ao3 link bc there are a LOT and I am lazy to retype them all here
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