#it will make sense at the end

[ssreeder]

Chapters: 13/? Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), others to be tagged later - Relationship Characters: Sokka (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar), Aang (Avatar), Katara (Avatar), Toph Beifong, Jet (Avatar), Suki (Avatar), Kyoshi Warriors (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar), Jee (Avatar), Hakoda (Avatar), Bato (Avatar), A bunch of OCs, Long Feng, Joo Dee (Avatar), Azula (Avatar), Mai (Avatar), Ty Lee (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar), General Fong (Avatar) Additional Tags: Violence, Blood and Injury, War, Minor Character Death, Rape/Non-con Elements, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Attempted Sexual Assault, Major Character Injury, Amputation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, possible major character death, themes similar to the first two books, Sexism, Racism (like has already been written in first two books), dark themes, Human Trafficking, Slavery, Just a lot of dark war-like themes, there will be a battle, Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Injury Recovery, Healing, Underage Sex, Underage Drinking, Animal Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Warnings each chapter, Hopefully some healing for Zuko finally, no promises, but that’s the goal, Reunions, hopefully a happy ending, Sokka gets some healing too, Non-Consensual Drug Use Series: Part 3 of Leaving It All Behind Summary:

-This is the last book of the series LIAB, please go read the other two books before this, or you will be very confused-

Zuko has been taken by the Earth Kingdom army to who-knows-where, and Sokka is determined to get him back.

But he can’t do it alone.

With Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors by his side, Sokka is headed to Ba Sing Se to find Katara and Aang so they can go rescue his fire bender.

Things aren’t as easy as he had hoped. Corruption, lies, and unknown horrors await them inside the city’s walls. None of this is helping Sokka’s mental well-being.

Hakoda and his men face a problem of their own as Azula approaches with the intentions of making it rain fire.

Sokka and Zuko will both find themselves having to reintegrate back into a life they thought they left behind, with people they hardly remember. It isn’t easy for anyone, especially when they don’t recognize the person standing in front of them.

[bamsara]

I think that one thing people fail to understand is that unsolicited literary criticism coming from an online stranger who is reading with no knowledge of what the authors intended goal is, is not going to be received the same as say: the authors beta reader or friends who know what the authors intended goal and has the sufficient knowledge and input to help the author reach that desired outcome.

"But I'm only trying to be helpful" How do I know you have the knowledge and literary skill for you to be able to actaully do that when we don't know each other and you are essentially a stranger to me? Are you applying this criticism based out of personal biased experience and desire to see the story or characterization be driven in another direction or tweaked, or do you know the author's intentions for the character? If the story is incomplete, are you basing your criticism of a character on the incomplete narration with only partial information available of them or are you building up a report until the story's completion? Did the author provide you with the information needed to make a fully informed criticism?

Have you discussed with the author what their plans are or are you assuming them based off the narration, especially if the narration is proven or implied to be unreliable or missing key points of the plot? Are you unbiased enough to help them reach their desired outcome for the characters and story regardless of your personal feelings towards the characters/antagonists and setting? Can you handle being told your specific input isn't wanted because you're a reader and/or have no written anything relating to their genre or topic? Do you understand and respect that the author's personal experiences might influence their writing and make it different than how you would have done it personally? Do you understand if an author only wants input from a specific demographic relating to their story?

If it's for fanfiction or other hobby media, are you holding a free hobby to a professional standard? Are you trying to give criticism because you feel like the author has produced 'subpar job performance' of their fic? Are you viewing their work as a personal intimate outlet or something that must conform with mass media? Are you applying rules and guidelines when the fic is shared for simple sharing sake? Is your criticism worded appropriately and focused on the parts where the author has requested input on rather than a general dismissal and or disapproval?

Have you put yourself in a place where you assumed you have the input needed for the story to evolve better, or have you asked what the author needs and what they're having trouble with? Can you handle having your criticism rejected if the author decides their story doesn't need the change and not take it as a personal offense against your character? Are you crossing that boundary because you think you are doing the author a favor? Are you trying to be helpful, or do you just want to be?

I think sometimes when people hear authors go 'please don't give me unsolicited writing advice or criticism' they automatically chalk it up to 'this author doesn't want ANY constructive feedback on their stuff at all' and not "i already have trusted individuals who will help me with my writing goals and- hey i don't know you like that, please stop acting so overly familiar with me'

[stuckinapril]

lived my whole life in guilt bc i thought i was responsible for people's feelings. newly realizing that other people are responsible for their feelings and reactions, even if they make it seem like i'm the problem. a lot of the time it really has to do w them and their own emotional regulation. i can't keep thinking i'm not allowed to have space bc of other people's insecurities. like i literally refuse to dim myself. other people are responsible for their feelings just as i'm responsible for mine.

[oobbbear]

I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times

Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo learns something about himself 🏳️‍⚧️

Based roughly on this old post.

Bonus:

[Leo is taking the fact that he was born biologically female simultaneously very well and also not so well but overall he’s mostly coping with the fact that it was Draxum that just essentially gave him the turtle equivalent of ‘The Talk’.]

[taonpest]

Sometimes being an artist is feeling like a baker seeing a chemist making the deadliest liquid in the world and wishing you could make the deadliest liquid as well but you're a baker, not a chemist, and then you feel like your bread is worthless

[ruporas]

need to exist in your warmth (id in alt)

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[sameboot]

Simon petrikov coping FAIL compilation

[puppyeared]

learned something about myself lately

[sunnystrikerz]

Mac and his scary titan privileges :]

[justaz]

au where merlin doesn’t know balinor is his father and he and arthur are chilling in his cave and balinor mentions hunith and merlin Locks In as he subtly questions the random man and boom arthur and merlin are aware that the last dragonlord is his father.

[time-woods]

EMOTIONAL WIN ! ! the bug lets his emotions make decisions for once !

[egophiliac]

like mother, like son, but less wholesome this time?

(I couldn't decide whether or not to put them together, so have them in all the different ways!)

[goldensunset]

when people refer to canon story-relevant kingdom hearts games as ‘spinoffs’ it makes me sad not only for the obvious reasons i always say but also bc like man i WISH this series had spinoffs. imagine what they could do if they had permission from nomura to truly go off the rails and ignore the greater canon for a second and just do some fun whimsical plotless thing in an alternate universe. imagine a fishing/boating game on destiny islands. kh fighting game. it is an injustice that we have been deprived of kingdom karts. can anyone hear me

[kenjakusbraincum]

Sukuna is old. He is also weirdly cultured for the monster that he is. With so much time on his hands, he loves indulging in arts and literature, and as with everything else he tries, he's good at it. You wouldn't know this, of course, you are only his pet. The time you spend with him is limited and hardly consists of intellectual conversation. You are there to serve one purpose and you know that quite well. So when you wake up in his bed one morning, two things come as a surprise. First that you're even here. It's one of those rare occasions when Sukuna couldn't be bothered kicking or carrying you out of his chambers once your time together was up. Second, he's awake, bent over his desk and so concentrated on a little figurine in his hand that he doesn't immediately notice you've shuffled awake. Once your eyes focus, you see that he's holding a tool in his other hand. He's carving wood. You're almost hypnotized by the scene. The scene feels so private that even for a pet like you, who knows Sukuna in the most intimate way, it feels like you shouldn't be watching. But you can't look away.

"Awake?", he asks, without sparing a glance at you. You apologize for staring, and look for your clothes around the bed. You throw them on just precisely enough to cover up until you reach your chambers, just wanting to be as quick and innocuous as possible. You wait for Sukuna's approval to leave. He gives you a simple nod, once more avoiding to look at you. You leave feeling conflicted. Special, because he allowed you to stay and watch (even as little as you did), but saddened because he barely looked at you, once more solidifying in your mind that you're only interesting to him when you're naked and bent over. As long as you've been here, you could never stop wishing for his validation.

Sukuna knows when you get insecure too. He notices the way your eyes droop, the way you close in on yourself and seem absent in his presence. He justifies this excessive worry about you by telling himself he likes to be the only thing that bothers his pets. All the way until he realized he already is the only thing that can make you sad. This realization falls upon him one time he lashes out on you and sees the immediate change of heart on your face. Now, he isn't one to apologize, especially not to someone who is as low under him as his pet. But why does he feel guilty when he sees this one act of his ruin your day? When he catches a glimpse of you sitting in the garden with your head hung low, or leaving more food on your plate than you usually do. If only you knew the way you really made him feel.

He beckons you to his chambers, and you follow three steps behind him like a good pet does. You didn't expect this time to be any different than others. You've become used to serving Sukuna on days you loved him and on days you hated him. But when he tells you to close your eyes, you know something is different. You obey, of course, and listen to his footsteps as he fetches something from the room. His hand takes yours and opens it, placing a piece of wood onto your palm. You already know, but you wait for him to allow you to open your eyes. He lightly presses his thumb on your cheek under your eye, and when you look, you find a small wooden fawn, curled up and asleep in your hands.

"Master!!..", you start, but nothing else can leave your mouth. You turn the figure around in your hand, inspecting and admiring the details. He's given you gifts before, but not ones carved by his own hand. Not ones made with love.

"You don't have to squint anymore.", Sukuna says, almost jokingly. But his face is as serious as ever as he looks at you, his muse. He thinks of the first time he's exhausted you to the point of passing out right after your nightly meetings. You were relatively new and very unsure of your safety. He thinks of your small body curled up in sleep on the edge of his bed, knees pressed to your chest in a primal, subconscious attempt to protect yourself. His little pet, his fawn.

You slur on and on about how beautiful it is, how you don't know how to thank him, the usual when you receive a gift. And as usual, Sukuna shuts you up with a kiss. You welcome it and wrap your arms around his neck, giving yourself in to him and letting him take you to the bed.

And he takes things slow tonight. He's gentle and so, so giving. Every sensation is delicate, prolonged and heightened to exhaustion. You cling to him, pull him impossibly close, and come apart under the comforting weight of him. Afterwards, you hold his hand to your face and kiss it softly. His hands, so large and strong, capable of such violence, yet for you they craft gifts, cradle, caress, love... in a very subtle and distant way, of course. With these thoughts your hands slip away from his, you turn around and quickly drift off.

He looks at you now, sleeping so close to him. Trusting him with your back, and turning your curled up form to the outside world. As if he is no longer a perceived danger. He smiles to himself in victory, and plants a chaste kiss to your shoulder to wish you one final goodnight.