#avatarocchallenge

[wishingforatypewriter]

Four Seasons OC Challenge

This challenge is for fans in the avatar-verse looking for an opportunity to share some creativity around their ocs!

The challenge will begin on December 22, 2024 and run through January 18, 2025. We can use the tag #avatarocchallenge for our works (art, fics, moodboards, headcanons, or anything else you'd like to share). There will be seven prompts for each week, so you can use one a day, or as many or as few as you'd like.

This will be more of a personal challenge than a formal moderated event, but anyone can feel free to use the prompts! My only ask is that folks don't use these prompts in ways that promote racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or any other form of bigotry.

Here are the prompt lists for each week!

Week 1: Winter (December 22 - December 18)

Holiday

Resolutions vs Regrets

Warm Soup or Warm Tea

Dusk

Traditions

Moon and Ocean

Stranger

Week 2: Spring (December 29 to January 4)

Origins

Picnic

Metamorphosis

Thaw

Generations

Garden Spirits

Young Love

Week 3: Summer (January 5 to January 11)

Festival or Fireworks

Travel or Vacation

Passion

Gold

Hard Work or Training

The Beach

The Painted Lady or Agni

Week 4: Fall (January 12 to January 18)

Temple

Harvest

Death or Rebirth

Recipe

"Take my coat"

Rest or Quiet

Community

[wishingforatypewriter]

Day 1: Holiday (Cobra feat. Linzolt)

This was written for Day 1 of my little Four Seasons OC Challenge. This one centers on Cobra (aka Akiak) who is a founding member of the Triple Threat Triad, Zolt's closet friend, and Viper's older brother.

As soon as Cobra opened the door to his fourth-floor walkup, he was greeted with the rich, savory smell of meat roasting. He followed the scent to the kitchen, where Lusa was bending down to take an arctic hen out of the oven. 

“Let me get that, Luz,” he said, but by the time he grabbed a pair of tea towels, his fiancee had already moved the bird onto the cooling rack and started flipping the puffin-seal sausages on the stove.

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her middle, hands coming to rest on the baby bump that was just beginning to show. “What happened to taking it easy, huh?” he asked. “The doctor said—”

“Is the doctor going to come here and cook for the Moon Festival?” Lusa replied. “We’ve got your friends tonight and my family tomorrow and your mother already asked if I could bring over some mooncakes and blueberry cookies.”

“You spoke to my mother?”

“One of us has to,” she replied with a pointed look. “And if I can’t promise her the whole family around the table this year, the least I can do is send some desserts. Now, release me. I have noodles to roll.”

Cobra left a lingering kiss on her cheek before letting her go. “At least let me help.” 

“Did you buy the good gin for the polar martinis?”

“Of course,” he said, gesturing towards the large paper bag on the counter. 

“Good. Now go have one for me and entertain your guests,” she said and then promptly shooed him and his gin out of her kitchen.

A few sips into what turned out to be a damn good polar martini, the doorbell rang, and Cobra buzzed in the first of their visitors. A minute later, Zolt and Meilin strolled in, bearing more top shelf liquor and Fire Nation sweets.

“Thanks for coming, guys,” Cobra said, taking the bottles of ice wine and bourbon from them. 

“Thanks for having us,” Meilin replied as Zolt helped her out of her long green coat with fur trim. It was perhaps too nice a coat for the factory girl persona she put on whenever Zolt brought her around, but there was no good way of telling her that without ruining the evening. 

“Think we can afford to cut our people a bonus for the holiday?” Zolt asked once they were settled on the couch. 

Cobra considered it for a moment, weighing the possibility against what he’d last seen in the accounting books. “Then we’d have to do the same thing for the Fire Festival and the Spring Equinox to prove we’re not biased.” 

Zolt shrugged. “We can probably swing it.” 

Cobra bit back a sigh at his friend's magical thinking. “Not unless we edge the Agni Kais out of sports betting, and even then—” 

“Enough triad talk. It's the holidays,” Lusa said as she entered the room, carrying a tray of appetizers. “And poor Meilin’s probably bored out of her mind.”

Cobra took the tray from her and set it down on the coffee table. Then he took her hand and guided her to take his seat on the couch. “You've been on your feet too long, my love.”

“But dessert—”

“I’ll finish it,” he said. 

Lusa gave her head an amused shake. “You have many talents, Akiak, but baking is not one of them.” 

“Don't worry,” Zolt told her. “I'll make sure he doesn't fuck it up.” 

Lusa sent Meilin a questioning look—‘can he actually bake?’—and received a nod and a little smile in return.

“Alright, fine,” she finally said, and leaned back against the couch, one hand on her stomach and started chatting up Meilin. 

“I can't believe you’re gonna be someone's dad soon and you still can't cook for shit,” Zolt said once they were in the kitchen, and he picked up right where Lusa left off.

“And I can't believe you haven't proposed to Meilin yet,” he replied without missing a beat. 

Zolt sighed. “That's not on the table. She wouldn’t want…”  He handed Cobra a bowl of wet ingredients. “Just fuck off and stir that.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be the optimist between us?” Cobra asked. “All I’m saying is she might surprise you.”

[wishingforatypewriter]

Day 7: Stranger (Yuna feat. Baby Yasuko)

Written for Day 7 of my oc challenge. This one focuses on Yuna, the mother of Yasuko Sato and Asami's maternal grandmother.

From a very early age, Yuna had been taught that the way to survive this life was to expect little and accept most. So when her parents pressured her to marry Tae Joon, the green-eyed illegitimate son of a coal tycoon from the mainland, she agreed without much fuss, though he was older and prone to vice.

When Tae Joon asked for a child, she closed her eyes and imagined Minji’s deft but gentle touch in the place of his sloppy, choppy movements. Then, when Yui came and he still wanted a boy, she let him sweat on top of her until she was with child again.

And when Tae Joon’s father cut him off for squandering their allowance on high-stakes card games and tears of the pyre poppy, Yuna—still heavily pregnant with Yasuko—went to find work in an uptown hair salon, the stability that had been entirely the point ripped from beneath her.

She endured and endured, and likely would have kept it up until the day the sages lit her funeral pyre. But when she came home one day and found baby Yasuko crawling out onto the fire escape and her husband—who had no task but to watch her—slumped over on the couch with his pipe, she knew she had reached the upper limit of what she could accept.

As she yanked her youngest back from what would have been certain death, she remembered how to feel things, how to want. And the first thing she wanted was him gone.

Everyone in Little Caldera knew about Smoke and Mirrors, the base of the Agni Kais, just as they knew about city hall and police headquarters. But going inside was another matter entirely. And doing so with a stroller was a third thing altogether.

Still, Yuna squared her shoulders and walked up to the bouncer.

“Are you lost, Miss?” the burly, rough faced man asked when she approached.

“No, I'm here to see Sola,” she said, the name tasting of strength and danger. Of course she’d heard the stories—the smuggling ring that ran from Yue Bay to Harbor City, the councilmen who changed their votes in accordance to her whims, and of course, those who crossed her and subsequently disappeared.

“You’re not on the list,” he said without bothering to check.

“Yes, well, I was hoping to get on the list. Today, in fact. Preferably before I have to pick up my other daughter and well…” Yuna fumbled around her bag for a moment before pulling out a twenty yuan banknote, which she tried handing to the bouncer. “I don't know if this helps.”

The bouncer sighed. “Lady, take that and buy your kid some milk. Can't believe I'm saying this, but whatever you need, you'd be better off going to the police.”

“The police can't help me. Not with this. Listen, if you'd just let me talk to her I'm sure—”

“The Agni Kai don't take charity cases.”

“Charity? No, I can pay. I have-”

“Miss, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.”

Yuna had just drawn a breath to argue further when a svelte figure emerged from the smoky doorway. The woman was mainland pretty—red lipped and golden eyed with long black hair in a half topknot.

“Kazi, fuck off and let her through.”

It was somewhat jarring to hear coarse language come out of such a patrician face, but Yuna was given little time to think on it before a long painted nail was beckoning her forward.

“Come inside and have a drink,” the beautiful stranger said, and then disappeared back inside the club, certain that she would be followed.

The club was empty save for a man smoking a cigar at the end of the bar, and a lone bartender in a suit taking inventory. She had little time to take in the endless mirrors that lined the walls or the ornate banquettes with their raised circular booths before the woman in her tall boots and tight black trousers disappeared behind a red curtain.

She then gestured for Yuna to take a seat at a small round table.

“What do you drink?” she asked, walking over to a bar cart.

“Oh, I don't, really.”

“You should start,” she said, and placed a glass of some brown liquor down in front of her. “Drinking is a lot easier than getting rid of your husband.”

Yuna gasped. “H-how did you know I—”

“I know your type.” She gave a casual wave before plopping down into the chair across from Yuna, a far more generous portion of liquor in hand. “So tell me, what did he do to bring you to this point?’’

The question uncoiled something within Yuna and before she could think better of it, the whole ordeal was tumbling out of her. The fire escape and squandered fortune, the arranged marriage and the bad sex, getting caught with Minji and never feeling that same desire for a man, no matter how she tried. At one point she started weeping and was handed a red handkerchief embroidered with a golden sun.

“I'm sorry.” Yuna sniffled towards the end of her tale. “I'm normally not like this, but I just can't have him around my girls anymore.”

The woman sighed, drumming her long fingernails on the table. “The going rate for what you're asking is five thousand yuan. It'd be cheaper to do it yourself. There's an apothecary down on Port Street who keeps arsenic in the back.”

Yuna's brow furrowed. “I don't want Tae Joon dead. I just want him far away from my daughters and I.”

“Dead is cheaper. And more effective on the whole.”

Yuna chewed at her lower lip. “He's their father, I can't…”

“Fifteen thousand and he never sets foot in Republic City again. Half now. Half when he's gone.”

“Right. The thing is I only have three thousand—”

“Oh, sweetheart—”

“But I was hoping that if I could talk to Sola, maybe…” The smile that grew on the woman's face was enough to still Yuna's heart in her chest.

“And just who do you think you've been talking to this whole time? Princess Azula?”

Yuna blinked once, twice, her face going red. “Oh. Oh.”

“You're funny,” the stranger—Sola—said, chuckling. “I like you. Fuck it. Three thousand and a favor someday.”

“Thank you!” Yuna said, more tears threatening to spill. “Thank you for helping me. You won't regret it.”

“I regret it already.” She took a sip of her drink. “Go pick up your other kid. I'll handle the rest.”

[wishingforatypewriter]

Spring has arrived (well...sort of)

Officially commencing Week 2 of the Four Seasons OC challenge! Happy creating, everyone! (And if you, like me, are still working on some of the Winter prompts, please don't worry! We're all working at our own pace!)

[wishingforatypewriter]

It's tiiiiiiiiiiime!

It's almost time for the Four Seasons OC challenge!!!

[nyamadermont]

Way late for Winter Week, but done, nonetheless!

Fresh Start Tan and Yu Jin spend their first winter solstice together in the shop.

Red Jade was created with @slowdissolve

Four Seasons OC Challenge

This challenge is for fans in the avatar-verse looking for an opportunity to share some creativity around their ocs!

The challenge will begin on December 22, 2024 and run through January 18, 2025. We can use the tag #avatarocchallenge for our works (art, fics, moodboards, headcanons, or anything else you'd like to share). There will be seven prompts for each week, so you can use one a day, or as many or as few as you'd like.

This will be more of a personal challenge than a formal moderated event, but anyone can feel free to use the prompts! My only ask is that folks don't use these prompts in ways that promote racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or any other form of bigotry.

Here are the prompt lists for each week!

Week 1: Winter (December 22 - December 18)

Holiday

Resolutions vs Regrets

Warm Soup or Warm Tea

Dusk

Traditions

Moon and Ocean

Stranger

Week 2: Spring (December 29 to January 4)

Origins

Picnic

Metamorphosis

Thaw

Generations

Garden Spirits

Young Love

Week 3: Summer (January 5 to January 11)

Festival or Fireworks

Travel or Vacation

Passion

Gold

Hard Work or Training

The Beach

The Painted Lady or Agni

Week 4: Fall (January 12 to January 18)

Temple

Harvest

Death or Rebirth

Recipe

"Take my coat"

Rest or Quiet

Community