#it’s also marketed as grim-cozy which is like. what does that MEAN

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

Caraway of the Sea

slow paced pirate fantasy

follows a woman who’s grown up as the first mate & mercenary on the ship her brother captains

after a friend dies and they dock at a pirate-run island, she starts to question her brother’s treatment of her, and her past, and whether she could break away from what she’s used to

[bellatrixobsessed1]

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 41)

I typed this chapter on mobile so it might have more typos than usual and I, a responsible fic writer, do not proof read.

Warmth. There is a sense of community in warmth and trying to stay in a state of it during the colder months. Wujing makes a celebration of doing so. And that is how she finds herself seated around the largest fire she has seen in the Earth Kingdom. She is their go to women to keep it lit until the festivities are over.

They seem to rather adore her fire and on nights like these she yearns to display a vivid blue. Perhaps one day. One day after she tells Hajime who she is. Though she isn't sure when she would tell everyone else. She hopes that everyone will take just as well to her fire when it burns blue. Perhaps if she is lucky, they will enjoy it more.

Until then she adds more orange to the blaze while Atsu shifts his weight in her arms. "My turn, Atsu!" Caihong declares.

"No-o." Atsu shakes his head, "she's my mama, go by yer dad!"

Despite the boy's protests, Azula lifts the blanket and let's Caihong crawl under it and next to Atsu. Hajime steps away from the fire and returns to her side. "I'd say that this is a promising way to start the winter."

"We've had a productive year. We have more than enough to get the Wujing through the winter." Seukhyun notes.

"No thanks to you, boy." Ojihara jests.

"I did most of the work ol' man!"

Listening to the father and son go back and forth is one more constant in her life. A thing that wouldn't feel right if absent.

Azula, to the best of her ability with to little beasts in her lap, moves closer to the fire. "Hey!" Atsu shouts, "I was com-fera-table!"

"I wasn't." Azula shrugs. Truth be told her legs are tingling from having held the same position for so long. "I need to stand up."

Neither of the children takes the cue so she tells them both to stand. She doesn't know why she expected to be met with anything other that a, "no, Rikka! We're cozy!" And an agreeing not from Atsu.

"Hajime, hold these things." She sets Atsu and then Caihong in his lap.

"These things are called children, Rikka." He laughs while Atsu folds his arms and pouts.

"They're more like chittering toad-squirrels if you ask me." She stretches her arms and then her back with a contented sigh. She makes her way even closer to the fire.

"Cider?" A man offers. She recognizes him from the market square, a clothes salesman she thinks. She can't quite recall his name but it could be Poying or maybe Poyang. The man is quite fond of telling everyone that he has a tinge of Air Nomad blood. Azula isn't the only person to take this with several grains of salt.  But he is an honest man otherwise do she takes the glass with a thank you.

"Gimme'a sip, gimme'a sip!" Caihong makes a jump or two for Azula's cider.

Poyang chuckles, "aye, lil' one we got plenty more, ya don't have to snatch Rikka's."

"You don't have to take me." She repeats smugly, holding her glass just out of Caihong's reach. The girl sticks out her lower lip, folds her arms across her chest, and gives her foot a stomp--making sure to rumble the ground for good measure.

Hajime gives her a little nudge. "Aww don't tease Cai."

"She's gonna get her drink anyways." Seukhyun dismisses just as Poyang comes back with more cider.

"Poyang has the best stuff!" Atsu declares after his first sip.

"Cause his brother's the apple man!" Caihong declares enthusiastically.

"One day we'll have to visit his orchard together." Hajime offers.

"We have a lot of one days to get to." Azula points out. But she supposes that they will have a lifetime to do them.

"It's nice to have a lot to look forward to, isn't it?" He slings an  around her waist and pulls her closer. Hot cider splashes onto her shirt. She crinkles her nose, "thanks, Hajime."

"You said that you were getting cold. I thought that I'd help you warm up."

"Won't be so warm when this cider freezes…"

"That's what you get for not sharing it!" Caihong declares smugly. That impish little earth gremlin…

That day she learns that there is a special bond, a sense of community, that comes with the seeking of warmth.

.oOo.

She hadn’t expected to outlast him, but her demise comes as a surprise all the same. And maybe it is because she had wrapped her topmost parka around him. Maybe it is because she had stripped off her remaining glove to keep a fire going for him. For the both of them.

But she is weak and grows weaker as the cold burrows into her wound and seeps deeper into her bones. She looks at the teeth marks with much hatred. Could those have been prevented?

“Azula?” Sokka murmurs. It is the first sound that he has made in a while. And she could cry. Maybe both of them will die, but at least she won’t have to watch another lover do it before she succumbs for herself. She is so terribly cold, she can’t imagine that it will be much longer now.

"Yeah?" She answers.

"What happened?" He slurs.

"First we got caught in a blizzard and then we we got attacked by wolves…"

"Where's dad?"

Azula grits her teeth. "We couldn't find him, remember." They might have fared better against the wolves if they had. As things were they had taken a good chunk out of her arm before being struck down by Sokka's boomerang. The man best appreciate her taking those teeth for him instead of focusing on her own fight. On the grander scheme of things she supposes that it doesn't matter at all. They had done more damage than even that in shredding Sokka's parka and stealing one of her gloves. If they hadn't, she might not have had to spare one if her own.

Agni, she isn't built for this weather. She isn't adapted to withstand it. And it hurts so terribly. Everything stings and tingles. Her face and toes especially. Her fingers had tingled  it that has subsided to a more than alarming nothingness. She sniffles, if only to remind herself that she still has a nose. Her cheeks are so red and she feels as though they have been slapped repeatedly. In a sense, they have. The winter slaps them with a force that a human hand couldn't possibly manage.

She had never realized just how much the cold could burn. Very resentfully, she thinks that the cold might just be higher than even her fire.

She huddles closer to Sokka, rather she tries to do so oh to find that they are as close as they can possibly be. And there is nowhere near enough warmth between the two of them.

"Take your parka back, Azula." Sokka says.

She shakes her head.

"Azula, you need it more, you're not…"

She shakes her head, "no." She won't be the weak one here. She can't allow it. She can't allow it especially if it means watching another lover die. "No."

At least now she can say with conviction that she does love him. Very much. Just as much as she loved Hajime. And more than enough to let herself succumb to the cold to give him a chance.

He tries to remove his parka anyhow so she rolls atop him, he is too weak to shove her off. Which is good because she would have been too weak to resist if he had.

The bite marks on her arm flare. She closes her eyes and shudders as another pang passes through her. How long have they been out here like this? Long enough for the blizzard to pass.it occurs to her that she and Sokka are half buried.   The realization come with a jolt of panic--a queasiness in her belly and a spinning in her head. She doesn't want to be buried in a coffin of snow. She doesn't want to be buried at all. The panic is fleeting when she recalls that she has already unburied herself in putting her body atop Sokka's. Though that isn't to say that more snow won't come to cover them up, she hopes to be hours dead by then.

"You know, I always thought that I would die in combat." She mumbles, pressing her ear to his chest so that she can hear his heartbeat. So that she can be sure that she isn't alone. "That would have been more glorious than this."

"You're not…"

But she isn't done lamenting, "but I also always thought that I would be alone when I died. So I guess that this is better." It's certainly better than dying alone and dehydrated in a grassland.

"We're not going to die."

"We're in the middle of nowhere and the rest of the village didn't expect us to venture this far out to the glacier. We've been out here for hours, my arm won't stop bleeding…"

"Yeah." Sokka's expressions darkness. "Looks pretty grim doesn't it." He is so cold that his breath no longer comes out in puffs. He is quiet for a very long while. "Katara, Aang, Toph, and I were once lost in a desert with ver little water. You made it out of several situations like this…"

"Yes, Sokka and it was mostly luck. How many times can I keep getting lucky?" She doesn't have the energy for shouting. For changing her tone and diction at all really.

She feels Sokka's hands patting her hair. "Hopefully every time."

.oOo.

There is no worse feeling than watching Azula go limp and mostly quiet. For the last several minutes, the oh sign of life was an occasional wimper. Her body is still trembling but not as violently as it had been. She is shutting down. And she still won't take his parka.

"I'm so cold, Sokka." She whispers, her voice sounding so pathetically small. But she is afraid. He can tell, if only because he is terrified too.

"Yeah, me too, Azula."

She rubs her face against his chest. She gets no warmth out of it because there is none left in him. He looks to the sky. To the glimmering cosmos above. Maybe he'll be reborn as one of them…

Azula clings to him with what can oy be the last very last ounces of her strength.

"It's okay, Sokka." She tries to smile though her face is too stiff with the cold. "I told you on the first day that I came back that I had more waiting for me in the Spirit World…"

"Don't say that." He squeezes her tighter.

"It's okay." She says again. "I think I that he wanted me to do a bit more exploring but he'll be happy to know that I got this far."

He wonders if she is thinking of Caihong at all. He wonders if that will do her any good anyways. He doesn't want to say it, especially not to her. But she is right, she is dying. He doesn't think that she will last the night even of he does force her back into her parka.

He hugs her as tight as he can. And then he rolls her onto her back. She murmurs some sort of protest, some sort of distress. But there is something that he wants her to see. Something that he needs her to see.

"Look up, Azula. Open your eyes." He gently slaps her cheeks and her eyes flutter open. They are unfocused and mostly vacant. He slaps her cheeks again until he has her at least a little more alert. “Look at the lights, Azula.”

He thinks that she might have smiled. "That's nice, Sokka." But her eyes close again and the moment is good.

She doesn't cry. She doesn't bargain or beg. She simply squints and, to the best of her ability with blackened, numb fingers and clumsy daze, touches his cheek. And then her hand falls and her eyes close once more. No amount of slapping gets them to open again.

In the distance he hears barking. Sprits, he prays that the wolves aren't back. He squeezes her hand if only to feel her slowing pulse.

[im-fairly-whitty]

Hi Whitty! Do you have any ideas and suggestions for @muyguapemusician's (with a tiny tiny partially edit from me) Fame AU? For example, how does Miguel and Hector get along together and what should the main conflict be and mooooooore? We will LOVE ANY addition headcanons from you guys!!!!!!

First off, the Fame!au you and @muyguapomusician have created is extremely interesting to me for a couple reasons. The main reason being that the entire AU revolves around a very dark twist in Hector’s character that I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else: What is he really did leave his family behind for a life of fame like Imelda thought he did?

Because Hector’s main redeeming quality as a character, and indeed the whole point of the movie, is that he didn’t, I think first you have to establish why he did to find the main conflict of this AU.

But Hector would never leave his family right? That’s literally the core of who he is, his greatest strength as a person is his unfaltering and (literally) undying love and devotion to his wife and child. It’s this love that drives him to go on the road with Ernesto in the first place to provide for them, it’s what makes him try to leave Ernesto when he realizes it would be better for Imelda and Coco if he was home with them, it’s why Imelda asks “how many times must I turn you away” because he’s tried to come back to her so many times, it’s why he has increasingly desperate plans every year to try to cross the marigold bridge to return to Coco.

We know Hector I determined, he’s creative, and he would do anything for his family.

So what would have to break him so completely that he would leave them behind?

Well, let’s take a look at his weaknesses.

Hector is non-confrontational. He’s grown up his whole life under Ernesto’s wing, meaning that he’s used to being domineered over and directed by someone else. For better or for worse, you can see that reflected in his marriage to Imelda, whose fiery personality completely rules the home. He’s so used to cozying up to a more dominant friend that can be bold and forceful for him, that he unconsciously sought out the same headstrong and controlling qualities in a spouse. 

Of course Imelda and Ernesto are different, Imelda’s pride is the kind that takes care of others, while Ernesto’s only takes care of himself, but it speaks to the fact that when push comes to shove, Hector would much rather be shoved than push. Even when he confronts Ernesto at his mansion in the movie, Hector says he doesn't care about getting credit for his songs, that’s a fight he never even tried pursuing, he just wants to get home. 

We also see how easily he’s swayed by Miguel in the movie, letting Miguel convince him to travel with a living run-away living boy to find his old friend he hasn’t talked to in decades, to let Miguel play in a talent show their whole plan hinges on even after saying he’s never performed before, ect. Hector rarely pushes back on Miguel's hothead decisions, only when he realizes that Miguel has a family to return to does he try to put his foot down. 

Hector will do a whole lot to avoid fighting or pushing or even being direct, instead opting to find a way to sneak around his problems and obstacles to achieve his goals. 

Hector’s emotional, but he also avoids confronting his problems (otherwise he would have picked up on the red flags Ernesto had been dropping long before he was poisoned,) which leads me to beleive that Hector’s downfall would have been triggered by his inability to say no to something that would start to paralyze his driving ability to feel love and concern for his family.

In the year 1920, Mexico established a law that more tightly controlled the import and distribution of drugs such as Cocaine, Opiates and Marujana because the drug problem in the country had reached a level of national concern. But we all know that a heavy law against a substance often has the unfortunate side effect of creating a thriving market for that very substance.

It’s terrible, it’s awful, but opium drugs are also the perfect way for Hector’s personality and priorities to have changed to fit the Fame!AU. 

While on tour Ernesto realizes he’s going to have to do something drastic to keep Hector from returning home, but he doesn’t want to kill Hector. That would be stupid, he’d never be able to get anymore songs from his musico partner, and besides, Hector’s his hermano. Ernesto could never kill him. 

But Ernesto is still getting desperate, so he seeks out a poison anyway. But this time it’s not arsenic, this time it’s opium. A poison of the mind instead of instant death.

Hector’s done a lot of stupid things over his life long friendship with Ernesto, a lot of hilarious, fun, risk-taking things that boys always get up to. So one night when Ernesto brings a small pouch of powder heroin back to their inn room, and won’t leave him alone until he’s tried just a little, it starts a drastic downward spiral that Hector’s never able to climb back out of.

Are you cringing yet? Good. Because that’s the awful reality of drugs.

A few symptoms of opiate use? Boredom, feeling detached from self, loss of interest or pleasure in activities, or nervousness.

Hector’s still performing, he’s still writing songs, but that underlying sense of needing to see his family again is drowned out by the omnipresent detached feeling that looms over him. His need to see Imelda is smothered in his even greater anxiety that he can’t quite pin down, but seems to ease when he sticks close to Ernesto (who of course makes sure to get Hector his next fix whenever he needs it.) 

Memories of Coco and Imelda, hopes of seeing them in the near future, those are all thoughts that are lost as Hector’s brain chemistry alters around his growing dependence on his drug addiction. Addicts dont think about the past and they don’t think to the future, they think about the now. Because they need another hit now.

Hector doesn’t realize how much he’s changed of course, addicts rarely do, but Ernesto keeps him on a tight leash and continues to feed his partner anxious lies about how he’s got to keep performing if he’s going to provide for his family, that it hurts but but it’ll hurt more if he leaves, that the only smart thing to do for Imelda and Coco’s sake is to always, always be performing with him as they continue to claw thier way to sucess (and of course they suceed with Hector’s brilliance.) And Hector never, never sees through these lies on his own all those years because he no longer has the mental capacity to see through the hazy anxiety that now rules his life.

He always wanted to go home of course, but he just…he just was never really able to…right?

Ernesto of course never touches the stuff. Oh no. That’s just for Hector.

Hector of course writes his daughter whenever he can, he still loves her, but now the looming detachment of the drugs that have riddled his mind creates a kind of untouchable barrier between them that he just can’t manage to get over. He keeps meaning to visit, keeps meaning to come be his daughter’s father, but things are just always so busy, and he can never really manage to think ahead far enough to make it happen. Especially since Imelda has stopped speaking to him after being truly abandoned all these years, only accepting the rich paychecks he continues to send home for Coco’s sake.

And Hector and Ernesto make it big, they become huge stars on the silver screen together, a wildly successful duo. But of course Hector dies before Ernesto when his opiate strung out body gives up on him one night, unable to take it anymore.

Ernesto suffers a tragic stage accident shortly after, and the two performers are reunited in the land of the dead, much to the delight of the thousands of fans on the other side who eagerly put them up in a mansion of their own, excited to have their two favorite performers back together.

And so it begins again. The caged life that Hector was trapped into in life is also the same numbing cycle he now performs in death. It’s all he knows at this point anyway. 

And so is the life and death of an addict.

That’s all the time I have left this morning to expound on this, but I hope it makes you as ill inside as it makes me. Even the very best of people can be brought to the lowest of lows doing things they’ve never do otherwise when their brain chemistry is shoved around. It’s a grim AU, but drugs are grim stuff. You can’t mess around with them lightly, and Ernesto knew that all too well. 

Does this whole thing reek with regret and broken promises and half-finished plans?

Oh, you bet it does.

And that’s why the Fame!AU is such a captivatingly dark one. 

[Side note: this post also comes with the experience of my having worked professionally with addicts, it’s really not a pretty sight. Drugs can kill a person you love much more effectively than arsenic.]