#so everyone rallied around her in her grief and i went to two funerals and like ??? rotted i guess.

[theodore-lasso]

So like certified bad day. My grandma died this morning and now I'm sick???? Bro come on

[dancingkirby]

Azula Week Day 4: AU

@azulaweek

This could’ve worked for Day 3 too, but I’m glad I took the extra day to add final details.  It’s my first attempt at an ATLA AU!

WARNINGS: Multiple character deaths, and Azula struggling with grief, depression, and paranoia as a result.  Mentions of blood, and some brief gory imagery.  Vague references to sexual abuse.  Azula is possibly not the most reliable of narrators.  (There.  I think that’s everything!)

Everyone had blamed Father for Zuko’s untimely death, but Azula didn’t get it.  How was he supposed to have known that his oldest legitimate child had had an undiagnosed heart condition, and that the stress of the Agni Kai would cause it to give out on him when Father hadn’t even properly touched him with the flames yet?!  But he had, and it did, and that was that. He had given Zuzu all the proper funeral rites, and still the nobles were mad at him!

(Azula had only cried a very little bit at the funeral, when Father wasn’t looking.)

Now that Azula was the heir, Father said, she needed extra lessons with him.  These sessions were no longer simply practicing katas and memorizing military engagements: now she was to learn how to rule.  Father would talk to her every day, and sometimes long into the night as well.  There was something almost frantic about the vast amount of information he was pumping into her head, as if he sensed that he had much material to cover and a limited amount of time in which to cover it.

He’d been right.

The worst came to pass on a sunny yet not beastly hot summer day, almost five months after Zuko’s death.  Father had decided to reward Azula’s progress in her studies with a walk through the gardens together.  There had been more gardeners out working that day than usual, but Azula hadn’t paid it any mind.  (Stupid, stupid!) They’d stopped by a rosebush, Father bending over to smell an especially tantalizing bloom, when Azula felt the shadow upon them, saw a glint of metal out of the corner of her eye.  She’d barely had time to shout out a warning when one of the gardeners leapt onto Father.  Others soon followed.  There were so many of them attacking at the same time, dozens of them, with the element of surprise on their side, that he hadn’t been able to inflict more than minor injuries with his firebending before he was completely incapacitated by his wounds.  Nobody came to his rescue.

Azula had tried to fight them on her own, but several other men had immediately chi-blocked and grabbed her, working in perfect synchrony.  Even with her bending suppressed, she’d kicked and scratched and bit and screamed with all her might, but their hold was too strong for her to overcome.  They’d rushed her out of there, carrying her lengthwise and keeping a firm grip on her head, so she didn’t see much of what happened.  She only got a quick glimpse of blood and Father’s body slumped over the bush before there was a stinging pain in her neck and everything went blurry.  

They’d kept her heavily sedated for the next couple of days; she did attend the hasty funeral, but couldn’t recall any details of it later on.  Finally, she came to her senses, only to find herself in Father’s massive suite of rooms, lying in bed.  As soon as they realized she was awake, the two servants who had been watching her at the time fell into immediate kowtows at the foot of her bed, and addressed her as “Fire Lord.”  All Azula could do was blink at them.  Father, that constant towering presence throughout her entire life, was dead just like that.  And she, in the span of a few frenzied minutes, had been promoted from Crown Princess to Fire Lord.  She was still three months away from her twelfth birthday, yet she was the absolute ruler of fifty million people.  Unimaginable power was hers…if she could figure out how to keep it for herself.

Nothing seemed quite real at first.  Now that Father’s grueling early-morning firebending demonstrations and late-night quizzes–as well as her obligations to Daddy–had abruptly ceased, Azula had so much more free time that she wasn’t sure what to do with it all.  The first day that she was allowed out of bed, she went straight to the Fire Lord’s office.  Sitting at the enormous and beautiful mahogany desk that had been built during Fire Lord Zoren’s reign, she flipped through the pile of important papers awaiting her signature, inspected all of the little drawers and secret compartments, held her brand new seal.  Her head was muffled as if it was underwater, and she started feeling dizzy.  She couldn’t breathe…

(She was told later that she’d been found lying on the office floor, laughing hysterically.  Or possibly crying; the servants didn’t all agree on that point.)

As the details of just what had happened slowly leaked out, though, Azula knew she had to snap out of this state quickly.  It transpired that a group of assassins had dressed as servants and gotten admittance into the garden.  Most of the Royal Guard had either been bribed, or were in on the plan themselves; they’d made certain that the ones who were truly loyal were sent elsewhere at the time.  This had been no ragtag group of malcontents who had acted on impulse.  The number of people involved had been massive, and the assassination had been coordinated and carried out flawlessly.  Even so, to Azula’s fury, their death sentences had been commuted to banishment while she’d still been bedridden.    They had obviously had the backing of someone powerful in the palace to be able to carry out the plan like that and escape proper punishment.

Azula knew exactly who that person was…the same man who’d been declared regent before Father’s body was cold.  Uncle Iroh. He’d kept his own hands clean, but Azula was certain he’d had it all planned out months in advance; anything to avenge his beloved Zuzu.  She highly doubted that he’d have done the same had she been the one to die. Oh sure, he’d put up an act of being concerned about her initially.  He’d come to her room a couple times, tried to talk to her, asked if Father had hit her, or had mistreated her in “other ways”.  At this last, she had threatened to have him thrown in the palace dungeon, and he made no further attempts.

Obviously, he had expected Azula to continue to be in shock–a shell of herself–and easy to manipulate.  He’d let her sit on the throne to receive important visitors, to preside over official ceremonies…but he would hold the real power.  And then, as soon as she came of age to dissolve the regency, he’d likely marry her off to one of his supporters, the idea being that she’d be too busy with childbearing to oppose being turned into a figurehead.

Azula intended to prove him wrong.  Her first official act as Fire Lord had been to change the lock on the door of Father’s office, so that Iroh had had to go find another room from which to work.  Petty, maybe, but satisfying nonetheless.  Her second act had been to start forming her own spy network.  Ty Lee and Mai would prove invaluable for the latter; no one would suspect a couple of schoolgirls of plotting anything.  

(Ty Lee kept worrying about her and asking how she was doing.  Mai, as usual, kept any and all feelings to herself.  But, no matter how strong the temptation got, Azula could never confide in either of them.  That would make them her equals.)  

Within a week, Azula had solid evidence that Iroh was holding secret talks with the ultimate goal of ending the war.  And he thought everyone would just kiss and make up, and the world would be a perfect place where nothing bad ever happened and everyone would just sit around and drink tea all day?  Ha. Unfortunately, she couldn’t remove him from power…not yet, at least.  He had too much support for that.  What she could do was make his life utterly miserable.  Father’s advisors got quite the surprise when she walked into the war room that first time and took her rightful seat on the throne. Regent or not, Iroh still had to bow and otherwise show deference to her in public.  And Azula was determined to relentlessly argue every single policy change he proposed until he wished he were dead in Father’s place.  Someday, as soon as she was able to rally her own supporters, Uncle would get his wish as he was finally punished for his crimes.

New guards had been selected for her, but she refused to have anything to do with them.  There was the possibility that they might turn on her as well, and the certainty that they were reporting back to Uncle.  Even the few who had been proven innocent of any involvement in Father’s death had been too trusting of their colleagues. And what about the servants?  What if they were plotting things as well? Shiza had taken her children and fled at the first possible opportunity, the bitch.  No, this wouldn’t do.  Any palace staff that she’d allow anywhere near her would have to undergo a rigorous selection process, run by her and only her.  

With all of these pressing concerns, every day seemed like a lifetime to her.  Nevertheless, the weeks started passing.  Azula made sure that the palace was always ablaze with entertainment.  She poured money into the arts like no Fire Lord had done in generations.  Erhu and pipa players were stationed in her antechamber all day. She had sleepovers with Mai and Ty Lee and Ruanyu almost nightly, where they binged on sweets and bounced on the mattress of the Fire Lord’s bed until they almost puked.  There were lavish garden parties, huge banquets, plays and operas and ceremonial dances.  A few foolish people had hinted to her that this might not be the most appropriate course of action in a time of mourning, but she insisted that Father would have wanted it this way.  The rest of the court, Uncle included, indulged her.  Azula could tell what they were all thinking:  Look at our beloved child ruler, so brave after the trauma of witnessing her father’s assassination.  Let her have her fun.  However, this line of thought was inaccurate in two ways.  Firstly, she wasn’t a child, and hadn’t been for some time. Secondly, she didn’t actually enjoy any of it; she just wanted something to occupy her brain, to protect her from her own thoughts.  

(The humongous pillows on Father’s…no, her bed were excellent for muffling her sobs at night, once the festivities were over and everything was quiet.  She was good at putting up a front for now, but how much longer until that collapsed?  How was she supposed to continue like this, without him?  She was surrounded by people, yet all alone.  It was as if a huge bleeding hole had been ripped into her gut, tearing her internal organs asunder.  Would this ever heal?  Could it?)

Nearly a month into her reign, Azula was finally crowned.  Traditionally, the coronation of a new Fire Lord would occur on the same day as the old one’s funeral.  However, Iroh had kept finding reasons to postpone hers.  But now he’d run out of excuses, and the Fire Sages assembled at the Coronation Temple for the second time in less than three years.  As the surprisingly heavy hairpiece was set into Azula’s topknot, she knelt in the new mantle and robes that had had to be custom-made for her small frame.  

“Hail Fire Lord Azula!” the head Fire sage boomed.  Azula got to her feet, looking out at the Sages kneeling before her, and then to the crowds of cheering commoners watching from afar.

They all loved her. She felt nothing.

[soreavs]

⌠ RYDER MCLAUGHLIN, 20, CIS MALE, HE/HIM ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, SOREN AVERY! according to their records, they’re a FIRST year, specializing in UNDECIDED; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of hands crossed tightly over his chest, the uneven collar of a muddied school uniform and a reluctant smile. when it’s the virgo’s birthday on 10/27/1999, they always request their POTATO DUMPLINGS from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. 

hello again , i couldn’t help but bring in a new chara !! unlike lucie, soren is a completely new character, so i rly went all in . i’m gonna tldr his bio as much as i can but this intro post will mostly be about his personality and some wcs , b/c i wrote a full bio which u can read here ! it explains everything in far more detail , but it’s a beefy boi , and also tw for, death, delusional disorder, implied suicide, implied murder . i’ll be yeeting out a starter soon but as always , please feel free to slither into my dms or ims !

okay so my tldr of my bio is gna sound kinda .. crass cos im truly just stating what happened but i understand that not everyone has the time to read long ass bios so please forgive if this sounds v apathetic to some of the traumas he endured. 

biography

mother left when he was born, leaving him with his dad and twin sisters who are eight years older than him. she apparently left for work with the intention of coming back, but never did. his family was always religious but turned to a strain of evangelical christianity which was very intense. when his sisters grew up they prevented him from attending. his life has been characterized by death or disappearances, four in particular. 1) his mother, who he never really knew. 2) his baseball coach who he knew well  3) his grandpa and 4) his sister. he never really processed this as grief because he had a really really overactive imagination and a rly fluctuating support system. he watched a lot of alien movies, and because his grandpa who had dementia was always going on about aliens he really started to believe that their disappearances had something to do with aliens. his father just believed he was enthused about aliens, space and physics, but never knew how that was affecting his grieving processes. it kinda all blew up in his face, when he was eighteen and his sister went missing after an argument with his dad. seven months later after the body is never found but there are indications that she may have been murdered, they have a funeral. he doesn’t believe she’s really dead, and he’s sure that he, like his mom, grandpa and sisters are in some part alien. he tells this to his sister and dad and they immediately send him to get help. because that drains them of all funds (they even have to ask extended family to help out), he feels super ashamed, but remembers the letter from gallagher he’d gotten just before he graduated high school. since it’s free and prestigious he hopes to make up for some of the harm he caused them, even though the faintest part of him still believes there’s something amiss with their disappearances. it’s likely his mother was a spy, and never told any of her family, but has somehow been trying to protect them over the years and that his sister is somewhere alive but yeh!

personality 

bb boi is rly just trying to recover from his whole life lmao .. he had baseball friends and school friends, but never rly friend friends?? he’s always been an athlete and gotten very good grades which is why his father kinda overlooked what else may had been going on with him?? 

anyways, he’s a bit shy at first but he’s pretty crackable dhjfg like an egg , just one tap on the table and he’s a gooey mess . still at the point where all he wants to talk about is aliens but as per his therapists advice, he’s trying to tone it down 

spy school wise ?? he’s into it , definitely , there’s always something to keep his mind occupied , with the extensive library and gym and pool , it’s more than enough . he did cross country and baseball in high school so he has the agility, but a binch is scared for bootcamp have u seen his twig arms 

also he’s undecided in his major b/c he wants to try everything but also he’s just a mess , he’s into this but also lowkey his main factor when deciding was the rep it had to outsiders and the fact that it was free 

he’s p soft spoken even when he’s excited , only a sliver of what goes on inside his head makes it out in the world wide world dfjhgk .. just realized none of this shit is personality based what can i say i have no braincells 

he’s nice! a little sensitive, a little moody, a little disconnected, can be chatty but can also be very nervous to talk in general constantly second guessing himself boom . 

wanted connections

lit rally anyone who’s an Expert in their major because he’s undecided but also a binch could have probably been valedictorian in the class had things not gone off the deep end towards the end of the year , so he wants to do well obviously . so one person for each major maybe ? he Shall rise as the  King  Of Jack of All Trades 

a solid friend group ? maybe a best friend? has never had one of those, sounds nice . 

jogging buddy .. he likes to run . it’s nice to run with someone . or so he’s heard , has also never done it . 

he’s in first year so the likelihood of exes is a lil slim , but i wld be down to plot smth that just didn’t work out cos he was not in the right mental frame at all like two weeks into starting Spy School and trying to hold a relationship . it would have been a v short term thing ! 

someone who tempts him to talk abt aliens , but to the point where it sounds crazy , or alternatively someone to suggest that someone in his family prolly had something to do with spydom 

hookups mayhaps 

anything else come @ me !!

[woodys]

I feel like it’s important right now that i’m typing. I’m not sure where this post is going to go and what i’m going to say, how disturbing it might get but for the first time in the longest while I have this need to park myself and type. This godforsaken site is called a blogging site so I guess, just this once, I’m going to sit here and for the first time in all my years of being on it—use it as one. Is this a post i’m proud of? No, I already know it’s not. But at the same time I think the only person i’m writing it for is for myself. My future self. For her to come back and read. To see how lucky and how strong she is, maybe serve as a reminder of how far she’s come whenever she remembers i’ve left this here for her to read. Because it’s something that happened and something I don’t think i’m afraid of anymore. Something I should be open about and something I shouldn’t repress. Because if I hadn’t been open about it at some point, I wouldn’t be here to type it for anyone to read.

December 17 was the day I was supposed to die. Monday December 17, 2018. That’s what I wanted my obituaries to say. That’s what I wanted my gravestone to say. It was the day I hyperfixated on for about three weeks and to me it was perfect in every way. When it came it was a beautiful day, the weather just ideal. Much like it had been three months back on the date, also Monday, September 17th, when my mom started the eternal rest that came sooner than she deserved. Our dates would be just alike. Just like when we matched the same outfits when I was smaller. It was something that would connect us again in a infinite day. That was supposed to be my day to go. 

I did research on what I wanted more than I wish I ever had. I had my options, all of them as painless as possible. I was counting down and for awhile just to reflect I started to keep track of one thing a day i’d miss or that I was grateful for. By the last week that fell to the wayside because it was like I had nothing left. Everything seemed against me. I felt like I was fighting this big bad world alone having to front a smile and be the person I used to be. I’ve been so tired. I’ve got no energy. By Wednesday I think I had thrown in the towel. I went to the nail shop the next day and it almost felt as if I was prepping myself for everyone else. At least my nails would look great (mom was about to get hers done) and my hair is styled in the way people normally saw me (mom’s wasn’t. she had plans to take her braids down just the next week). Sunday rolls around with what felt like the fatal blow, final straw, I was just ready to clock out at midnight on Monday Eastern time. It was midnight somewhere I thought. 

When i’ve seen people go through things like this, at least online, it looks....it looks entirely like a joke. And I do, think that there are people out there that throw these thoughts and feelings around online just to get the attention, just to snatch a moment of pity and kindness out of people. That’s why I was set on keeping the act until the day of. Being the sunny, cheery, positive disposed person everyone I interact know me as. I came into this year with a high head. I was hopeful. I was ready to do big things. But as the year went on the bad piled on and on. But I still fought! That was my thing. My shoulders were heavy but i’d keep fighting on. At any point of the year I could turn all of it around and own it. 8 is my favorite number after all. 2018 was supposed to be a good one. 

But then I went to sleep one night....and woke up to a world without my mom...my last surviving parent. The woman who raised me on her own, who was worried about me constantly, who gave the best hugs, and got on my nerves but it had always been the two of us. I still can’t believe i’m moving and living in a world that she’s no longer in. You just don’t come out of that like a champ. You can’t walk away from something like that as a champ. I tried to fight like I know she would’ve liked me to. Be myself. Try to do the things I normally did. I tried to honor her in all the ways I could but as each 17th hit I just got weaker and weaker. And i’m still so frail. The next month i’ll be in a new year without her. I didn’t want to go into the new one without her. I still don’t. 

And while I sat in my kitchen, minutes after midnight, crying so hard I don’t even think my eyes felt opened, with my phone in hand I just felt it all. I always read that people who get this point feel nothing at all...well I felt everything all at once. And I know that’s mostly because that’s who I am as a person. I care so much, I love so much. I love more than I need to. I love those who don’t deserve it. I love and care about people who do me wrong in and out and I want nothing more than to see them well and happy regardless. I just wanted to stop feeling. I’m so tired of feeling. Especially feeling everything. Feeling that I have to smile, that I have to answer that i’m okay and pretend to be okay when I haven’t been. I remember thinking ‘I feel too much to be loved so little’ over, over, and over again. Mom’s so lucky she doesn’t have to feel anymore. Feel or be tired or worry about anyone. I wanted that. For someone like me, it seemed only ideal.

Though, I know in the littlest speck deep down, I didn’t want to go. When I went to the movies that Sunday I cried at nearly every preview, thinking about about all the movies that I wouldn’t see. All the songs I wouldn’t hear and fall in love with and all the games i’d never get to play. I looked at the two pieces of my artwork on the wall and thought about how I wouldn’t create anymore. Not that I have in about a year or so, because its been a deeper battle to find that love again but...I’d never see myself improve how I wanted. I felt all of this too while I cried in the kitchen that night. While a good friend of mine talked to me about all the things i’d miss out on I felt all of it. Was I really satisfied with just having lived to see the trailer to Toy Story 4? You laugh, but that’s just how much that series means to me. And now that i’m in better mind, a semi-better heart, I can answer that no. No I would’ve missed out entirely.

It’s really a miracle I got through the 17th. It’s a miracle because I felt I was ready to say goodbye. I thought I was doing everyone I knew a favor to just disappear with no warning, no trace. I didn’t feel important. I still don’t feel important to any cause. I saw first hand how people rallied to love at my mom’s funeral and it’s so sad. How the living never know how much they’re loved until they’re laying in their casket. I wish mom knew how many people overflowed that hall for her funeral. Friends old and new and all the good things they said. I wish she could’ve known it all when she was alive. But that day, the people who knew my plan, reached out to me. People I cared about young and old stood with me through that day, buzzing my phone throughout. One friend sent me pictures of bunnies. Another of her cat. Another one just made me smile by just reminding me that she was thinking of me while my best friend just checked in. I got to show my friends Toy Story shorts they hadn’t seen. And I laughed at Toy Story 2 right into midnight of the 18th. I broke down afterward though. It felt like I had shoved aside a huge hurdle. All of it wasn’t the attention I asked for. It’s not the attention I wanted, even. It’s not attention that i’m proud to be getting. But all of it was acts of love. How could I just deny the effort of so many people that are fighting hard to keep me alive, reminding me that i’ve never been alone when I was ready to give up. Reminding me of the good things life has to offer. Be it their pets, your favorite scene, the things that make you laugh. Relationships i’ve created all on my own that i’d leave behind forever.

So i’m sitting here a day past my death date now reflecting on what i’ve been going through. If I had died that day I wouldn’t have seen my best friend laughing at some ridiculous internet catfish story that he got himself caught up in. I wouldn’t have enjoyed pancakes. I wouldn’t have heard about my best friend enjoying her goodies in the package I’d sent in the mail. I would’ve missed out on the good new soundtracks I own. I would’ve missed singing along to some old favorite songs from one of my favorite movies. 

Am I okay? No. I’m not. I’m furthest from okay right now and that’s okay. It’s okay to answer that i’m not fine instead of saying I am. It’s okay not to be happy all the time. No one expects that from me so I shouldn’t expect it from myself anymore. But I will be okay soon. I want to be. I’m not my grief and i’m a warrior. I can’t forget the people who love me and the promises i’ve made. All the movies i’ve got to see from Toothless to how badly Sonic does next November. One day I hope the 17 just becomes a sad number, and not a date I think of dying. Most importantly, I hope one day I tell my mom about everything I did after she fell asleep. The last day we were together she asked me what my goals were. I haven’t even started working toward them yet. I can’t disappoint her by having nothing to tell her when she gets to ask me again. 

Time and patience are said to heal all wounds, so I hope that it fix up this scar of mine. I still never imagined i’d be here. I never imagined i’d stare at death so close to the face and I guess that’s why i’m putting it all pen to paper. Well, figuratively. If someone I know closer to me found this and read it who knows what would happen. 

There’s no way in my lifetime i’ll be able to thank the people who stopped me even if they know they did or not. Everyday now is a day I could’ve missed out on and what I almost missed seeing. I beat the boss fight of the 17th. Now it’s just going at that final boss on the 31st. From here on out I want to do all that I can to just make it there and see the end of this (excuse my language) goddamned hell of a fucking year. Even if I can’t give my 100% i’ll try at 50. If I can’t do 50, i’ll try 25. I just can’t give up. 

And while i’m still not proud that I got this close, i’m proud that i’m still standing. I’m proud to wake up and just try even if the odds are against me. I’m proud to still be able to respond to my friends and tell them I love them day in and day out. I’m so proud of me for making it through even when I felt like I couldn’t.

I’m so proud to still be alive.