#go read flwogb right now

[oldpotatoe]

hii, you don't know me, but i recently re-read flwogb in on evening and it's just as amazing as i remembered. your ability to create such a gut wrenching, wonderful, breathtaking piece of work is truly something i will always admire.

it's actually kind of silly, how easily you make me feel like i have known the characters and their little quirks for years, just like with old childhood friends.

actually, i wanted to get back into reading, but with everything going on in this world, it was kind of hard to focus. your writing was actually the first in a while that made reading feel easy and fun again, unlike a chore.

so i guess i just wanted to say thank you for sharing your gift with us and thank you for the tumblr gods for making me stumble across your blog! it's truly been wonderful, to be able to escape into your beautiful world!

-a secret admirer, who is sorry for any grammatical/spelling errors they may have made :)

how dare you end this lovely heartwarming message with an APOLOGY???

thank you for the kind words friend.

"actually, i wanted to get back into reading, but with everything going on in this world, it was kind of hard to focus. your writing was actually the first in a while that made reading feel easy and fun again, unlike a chore."

^^ i feel the exact same way right now - reading for fun feels so out of reach, especially when reading documents is my literal livelihood rn. so i'm so so so glad that my writing was able to break through the block for you <3

[enbies-and-felonies]

“ Oh, how he’d ached to know. Oh, how he ached to forget. “

FUCK YOUUUUUU I LOVE THIS AND I HATE THIS AND I’M ABOUT TO CRY AND SCREAMMMMM @oldpotatoe

[halfpint55]

Feels Like We Only Go Backwards - Chapter 16:

by @oldpotatoe on AO3

"Hina claps with awe at the eruption of flames from Zuko’ skin. It is yellow, yes, orange too, but there is purple in the fire, and green, and red, blue, white, pink and more, all dazzling and brilliant as they burst from Zuko’s palms.

“Cool!” she yells, but Sokka hears her as if from a distance, finds his heart catching somewhere between his throat and mouth at the sight of Zuko’s shy smile, the rainbow reflected in his eyes. The light flickers over both their faces, vibrant and ethereal.

...

Sokka turns on his heels slowly, awestruck at the colourful warmth surrounding them. Zuko’s taken care to keep the flames a safe distance away, but Sokka can still feel the gentle heat of the fire flowing around him. It sinks into his skin, pushes all the way through to some unknown, untouched part of him that resides deep within his chest, making it unfurl until its blossoms peek out like the first buds of spring. And when he comes to a stop right back where he started—staring at Zuko’s cupped hands, his upturned mouth, his hair shimmering a thousand different shades, the way he looks up at Sokka just then with his unscarred eye squinting at its corner, bright and effusive and striking— the blossoms spread wide in his chest, trailing up and down and throughout him, catching at his seams. Coming alive.

And he thinks, oh.

And he thinks, oh shit."

Note: This art has a very specific song to go with it!

“We’re not equal parts / light and dark / we can be brilliant”

I literally had this song on repeat most of the time that I was drawing this and this particular lyric just hoofs u in the chest as you look at Zuko SOFT AS ANYTHING bending dragon fire so pls, feel free to play it while you peruse the art.

There’s been a lot of really amazing but oh my GOD PAINFUL art from the flwogb fandom recently so in these trying times may I offer this happier piece to remind you of the magic moment Sokka fell for Zuko for the second time in 5 years. I title it “Oh Shit”. 

I'm such a sucker for a character realising they're in love with the italicised "oh shit" I go FERAL for that every single time and ms oldpotatoe fucking DELIVERED on that (even though she delivered an emotional sucker punch almost immediately after thank u ma’am). This moment just made my breath hitch as I read it and I was thinking “of course, of course they just make their way back to each other. of course they do”. It was such a gorgeous moment I had to put my phone down for a moment and BREATHE.

something that really inspires me to create from Ruby’s fic is the perfect clarity of the writing - I can SEE these gorgeous moments she writes as already made paintings in my head and I gotta DRAW. This one was clear as day, so I’ve spent so long trying to achieve what I saw in my head and I think I’ve come pretty close.

Not gonna lie I drew his expression and immediately got emotional about my OWN GODDAMN ART, (but I have been assured that this is completely normal).

Now I can’t post this without talking about the goddamn hair. I wrestled with his hair on this for MONTHS - I always thought that I'd struggle with hands, or even anatomy and proportions but NO. Hair seems to be my drawing nemesis and makes me wanna snap my tablet in half but nonetheless i have persevered (but for the love of all that is holy please zoom in I beg u I spent too long on the little details).

In terms of the shading and colour, the hair is very much An Experiment and I haven’t played with hair and light much before, but i was so intent on capturing the colours of the fire reflected in Zuko’s hair, i wanted it to be so ethereal. ethereal enough to just make Sokka fall headfirst down the stairs, two at a time, in love. So I gave it a go. It’s possibly too shiny and not quite how real hair would behave, and i’m probably gonna go away after posting and keep fiddling with it, but you know what I think it’s pretty, and im gonna challenge my perfectionist self to just... leave it be. 

Ruby, I love u and I offer u this humble art as a small bribe to treat my boys well in the coming chapters (please, we don’t always have to go backwards do we?). <3 <3

[emperormomo]

Yeah so okay the reason for this blog? I read SO MUCH Zukka fanfic and all of these emotional scenes get stuck in my head. feels like we only go backwards by @oldpotatoe is one of those that has kept me floating through the past couple of weeks of utter disaster that is online education. FLWOGB is really just so lovely and frustrating(!!!!!) everyone should go read it right now.

So here’s kind of a scene from the latest chapter of a confused Sokka looking longingly at an exhausted Zuko from across the pond (and when I say kind of I mean that it’s not strictly what happened haha it just came to me like this) (also sry Miura u didn’t fit the frame boo) ❤️

And it’s just a sketch so far! Hopefully I’ll get back to finish it soon (s what I always say 😅)

[becauseanders]

1. How long ago did you start reading fanfiction? Writing fanfiction?

3. Are there any fics that inspired you to write what you do?

4. Link your three favorite fics right now.

32. Copy and paste your top three favorite lines/jokes/sentences you’ve ever written. What fics do they come from?

39. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

1. How long ago did you start reading fanfiction? Writing fanfiction? answered here! :)

3. Are there any fics that inspired you to write what you do? oh yes. i started reading before i started writing and i honestly can’t remember what the first fic that made me go “i want to do this too” was (i know it was for dragon age ii, but unfortunately that’s all i’ve got), but then i started going and just couldn’t stop! @hawkeykirsah, @faith-less-one, and @rock-paperback-scissors were definitely super inspirational in me getting into writing for mass effect. and then I’ve Built My Life Around You by @tikmasjiens was the first one i read that really thrust me hard into atla fic, and then feels like we only go backwards by @oldpotatoe, and i was just so blown away by those that then the progression from there was natural, lol.

4. Link your three favorite fics right now. oh god, this is hard but…umm… (and i won’t count ibmlay or flwogb since i’ve already linked those anyway)

Mark Time by @foyal​ (which i’m sure literally everyone knew i would say, but hey)

The Last Time You Leave by @arejour​

we dream together to survive by arsonist (if he has tumblr i don’t know it, i’m sorry!)

also special mention to Salvage by @muffinlance​  even though i know that’s cheating but because, again, this was really hard and i feel wrong not listing this but also like literally everyone reads it already, so (for real, though, the amount of fics i’m leaving out here is killing me, i am so sorry)

32. Copy and paste your top three favorite lines/jokes/sentences you’ve ever written. What fics do they come from?

hmm…this is also hard but for entirely different reasons, ahaha…and tbh all of these answers would probably be entirely different if asked on another day but i’m just going with whatever comes to mind first

“Do you think anyone here knows anything about how to get your cat to choose a Hebrew name?” / Sokka looks Suki in the eyes at that, snickering into his hand. “I’m sorry, what the fuck?” / “One of my coworkers has a cat who’s turning thirteen soon and she wants to give her a cat mitzvah, but she’s stuck on how to go about giving her a Hebrew name.” / “Please tell me you’re not making this up.” / “Cat mitzvah, Sokka. Cat mitzvah. Do I look like I’m making that up?” — from Where I Want to Be

“‘With both my hands full—I can die a happy man—All is gratitude.’” — from All I Ever Wanted Was Everything

“Her greatest vulnerabilities are vespertine.” — from Lady Lazarus

39. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

i honestly don’t know from my own perspective, but i am told a lot how well i handle disability and mental illness, as well as abuse, but that kind of feels a little cheap to give myself real credit for since that’s stuff i can write pretty easily because i have so much experience with it but…yeah, that’s all i’ve got

[enbies-and-felonies]

felony! i really really wanna read flwogb but its so long and such a commitment and i already have a whole list of things to read what do i doooo

I would say ‘READ ITTTTT’ but I also understand that yeah, it is a commitment bc its got 19 out of 20-something chapters. You can add it to your ‘to-read’ list, OR you could start reading little increments of it when you have the time/energy for it? You could set aside a specific time of day (or day of the week) for you to read a chapter or something if you want to :))

[oldpotatoe]

OKay so full disclosure is I haven't actually read flwogb yet because I need the very thin thread of my mental health to hold just a little bit longer, but I HAVE seen everyone talking about it enough that today I was listening to music and heard a song that made me go "huh this feels like a flwogb song" so just know that's how strong your influence is - I haven't even READ it and I'm thinking that (I do intend to at some point, even just to see if I'm right)

i have been. dying at this ask all week PLEASE. look what you’ve done to my ego. look at it, it’s turned unmanageably massive

also thank you this is so sdkhfkjshf im legitimately collapsed in a puddle of goo you’re too kind

now im very curious about the song 👀 if you do ever decide to give flog naw a go (no pressure!! its angsty as shit, and long as shit, and waffly as shit, and--) then i’ll also be curious to know if it fit the context as well as you thought it might have done 

[oldpotatoe]

recently came across 'Blue skies' by birdy and personally cant stop imagining reading a flwogb happy ending to that song

miss veeaziel not only will i give u a happy ending, but also a hug

I never saw the sun shining so bright Never saw things going so right Noticing the days hurrying bad When you're in love, oh my how they fly

like. five hugs maybe

But blue days, all of them gone Nothing but blue skies, from now

[oldpotatoe]

Hi hello I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely adore FLWOGB and excitedly await each update every Tuesday! (This isn’t meant to pressure you or anything I just absolutely love your fic!) and I feel like yiu really captured the relationships between all of the characters really well which is especially hard as those relationships change with age and experience so they shift when Sokka loses his memories but everyone else remembers. (Part 1/2)

(Part 2/2) to be honest, when i was scrolling on ao3 and saw your fic summary the first time I didn’t think I would be interested at all and was going to keep scrolling. But I took a chance and opened it to read and I’m so so glad I did. It’s absolutely incredible and so beautiful and painful and i’m always left wanting more. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to reread all the previous chapters just because I love it so much. You are a fantastic writer and world builder!

im. genuinely so humbled by this. I have to reign in the urge to just keysmash my appreciation because you deserve a coherent response

thank you for taking the time to write such a lovely message, if only you could see just how wide my smile is right now. this fic could never be what it currently is without the love, support and validation it received from readers such as you, and I truly cherish every single one of these messages plus the comments on ao3 as they literally fuel my motivation 1000% more than what it would have been on its own

now time for keysmashing: ASJDGSAJHDASJKDH ily ASKDAKS8DHIUEDH

🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖 🥺💖

[enbies-and-felonies]

please help me what is a flwogb

It is an angsty zukka fic by @oldpotatoe and it is GOLD

(its short for ‘feels like we only go backwards’. and its on ao3, so I would HIGHLY recommend you go read it. Right now its still a wip, but its got 18 chapters of pure angsty-goodness <3)

link is here <3