Hi! I Like Your Collages :) I Wonder How Long Does It Take To Make Them?

2020 is the túrin turambar of years

microdosing on being goth by wearing black jeans

Too much praying directly to the Valar and not enough praying to their Maiar for their intercession

Femenine urge that

Masculine urge this

What about the autistic urge to info dump about your special interest even tho you just infodumped someone else like 3 minutes ago?

ATLA Gen Fic Recs!

this took a while but here it is! this is just going to be the fics that i've been reading recently, because otherwise this list would go on forever. if you want the full atla list of fics i read, check out my ao3 bookmarks.

How to Disappear Completely by aeoleus @ta1k-less : zuko unexpectedly gains custody of both kiyi and azula after his mom dies in a car crash. i love this one... zuko loves both of his sisters so much and he would do anything for them T_T

The [insert title here] and the Fire Lord by azenki: this one is technically gen but literally everyone thinks zuko is dating around. this is just such a silly and hilarious fic, really made my day after reading it.

Kintsugi by @discordiansamba : this is a series where zuko is just dumped in the earth kingdom after his agni kai and somehow becomes toph's bodyguard. i love the bonding between zuko and toph, and i abosolutely adore the oc's in this fic

Dragon Moon by Satirrian: technically so far this is gen but the author did mention there might be shipping later. THIS FIC!! It literally has so many different things going on but it works. Dragon!Zuko. that should already be enough to get you reading. June teaches Zuko how to be a bounty hunter and their bickering is hilarious. Zuko is such a sassy little shit in this one. Katara has a Mulan moment and it’s absolutely badass.

There Is No Fire Lord by OccasionalStorytelling: this one is inspired by Towards the Sun by @muffinlance. So zuko gets caught while escaping during the eclipse, he gets thrown in prison, and then when ozai is defeated zuko technically becomes fire lord but stays in prison. also his leg gets broken like 3 times lol

A Hundred Golden Suns by aeoleus (@ta1k-less): zuko dies at the agni kai but agni says fuck that and he is basically resurrected in the southern water tribe, where hakoda adopts him. this fic will hurt your heart but in a good way

In The Garden Light At Dawn by Rosemary_and_Geraniums: this one is Very Angsty and has a major character death so warning on that. I just had to include it because it's soooo good and i love angst fics, but if that's not your thing then skip this. This is a soulmate au, but not in a good way lol. zuko never got away after confronting his father during the eclipse. again this is Very Sad so skip if you get upset with unhappy endings

Consider Chaos series by @awesomeavocadolove : ChaosAvatar!zuko. How can you say no to that???

Pride Is Not The Word by @sword-and-stars : iroh gets a call from his long-lost nephew asking him to pick him up. then he discovers that his nephew has been homeless for a year after ozai kicked him out. iroh is having none of that and takes zuko in while quietly think of the best way to murder an abusive piece of shit

The Heat That Drives The Light (the fire it ignites) by isamagicdragon and thegracious: im obsessed with this one. azulon asks ozai to kill azula instead of zuko, who both say "fuck that" and run away to the earth kingdom. years later they hear about the avatar, who was captured by admiral zhao and kept prisoner in pohai stronghold. they decide to break him out

The Family You Choose by TunaFishChris: another soulmate one because i am a slut for them. some people are born with soulmarks. zuko's were burned off by azulon when he was born, because they make you weak.

Doe-eyed by anonymous: a gift fic for @muffinlance. azula is the firstborn, and she is eleven when zuko is born. bigsister!azula is everything you didn't know you needed

East and West by @d-naggeluide : zuko, toph, and earth king kuei go on a field trip together. sarcastic toph, resigned zuko, and kuei who had no idea what he had gotten himself into

Things that are really fucking me up today

Just how close in age Elrond and Elwing are, by the Elf standards. It must be so strange when they finally meet, to look at each other and realize the difference between them is only a little over thirty years.

Like, in comparison Finwe was a thousand years older than Finfarin, and Elrond was already roughly 4000 years old when he had Arwen.

So idk it just must have been so strange for them. A mere thirty years is such a wildly negligible amount of time. They’re basically peers when they first meet.

Why did Galadriel make her star glass?

Did she have a vision of it’s future need?

Or is it like how those who have faced starvation compulsively hoard food?

“May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” Says someone who lived through the darkening of Valinor, when light far stronger than the sun and moon went out, and took all the safety and sanity with it.

Three ages of the world later she is moved to capture the echo of the Silmaril that sails the void in a glass vial. Despite all the horror that her family capturing light in artifacts has historically caused.

Just in case.

And then faced with the days growing darker, she faces the same choice her uncle did with his creations: hold on to paranoia, and keep it close. Or give it away, that it might go where it can do the most good.

And she chooses to let it go.

OR

Exile to middle earth wasn’t a problem, until her daughter needed to go to Valinor to heal. Now, she needs a way to get to Valinor when the Valar have not forgiven her.

Because she WILL see her daughter again.

She only knows of one thing that has gotten a ship to Valinor when it was fenced from the Noldor- A Silmaril, carried by Earendil. And so she sets about capturing the light of Earendil, that one day she might trade it for entrance and keep her pride.

But, turns out, the Valar sent a different test.

"So, wait," said the thief, topping off the detective's wine glass. "You're saying that your stressful case is catching that hot shot cat burglar that everyone's talking about?"

The detective grimaced, but didn't change the subject. "Yep," they muttered into their Pinot and took a swig. "The celebrity criminal."

This was a triumph. This was their third date and the thief had spent the prior two carefully laying the emotional groundwork leading up to this moment. The detective, as a social partner, was affable and considerate - surprisingly funny even, in a dry, deadpan way - but rigidly guarded about their line of work. The thief had asked the normal questions about jobs and had been expertly deflected with self-deprecating jokes about spreadsheets and paperwork. The thief had been content to wait. The detective was a fundamentally honest person, and the thief trusted the truth would work its way to the surface soon enough.

"But that sounds exciting!" the thief prompted brightly. "I mean, daring heists executed by moonlight! It must be such a nice change from your run-of-the-mill crimes."

"Mostly it's just exhausting," sighed the detective, rubbing their temples. "This perp is such an asshole."

The thief blinked. "Excuse me?"

The detective shook their head, tried to force a smile. "I'm sorry. I've had too much wine. You were saying about your invitation to audition for the Bolshoi -?"

"Oh, forget about me," the thief said quickly. "Please, go on. You're clearly stressed about -"

"Do you know," the detective went on as if they'd never stopped, "the morning guy on Channel Seven had the nerve to call this a victimless crime?"

"Well, the insurance will pay for it," the thief started.

The detective slapped the table. The thief jumped. "What about the people?" the detective exclaimed. A few nearby heads turned in their direction. "Are people supposed to walk into museums and look at what, framed checks on the wall from Lloyds? And meanwhile, these masterworks disappear into the vaults of gangsters and petty criminals, never to be seen again. Because you can be sure," they added, jabbing a finger at the thief, "crooks that steal art have no love for it. They'll destroy it, every lick of paint, if there's the slightest risk to their own skins."

The detective took another deep swallow of red wine. They looked close to tears. The thief awkwardly patted their hand across the table. This was not at all what they'd expected on this little reconnaissance side mission. The detective caught their hand and squeezed it with a grateful look that wrenched something in the thief's upper chest area.

"Now those guys," the detective said thoughtfully. "The criminals with the vaults. Now that seems like a worthy target."

"I... huh?" The thief stared across the table. The detective looked back with those guileless, honest eyes. 

"I'm just saying," they said, with the slightest drunken slur on their words. "Walking the art out of some budget-strapped public facility is one thing. But emptying out of one of those vaults, liberating all those works of art and returning them to their rightful place before the public..." The detective sighed dreamily. "Now that actually sounds like a daring, hot shot kind of heist."

There was a moment where neither moved, gazing at each other like the lovers they were pretending to be. Then the detective tugged their hand free, stood up with an apologetic smile. "But I'm definitely tipsy," they said. "Let me go splash some water on my face."

When the detective returned from the restroom, the thief was still at the table, watching the waiter clear the plates. By unspoken agreement, they didn't speak until she was well clear.

"So, hypothetically speaking," the thief said finally, running a finger theough a puddle on the tabletop. "How would one go about this vault heist of yours?"

The detective smiled again, nothing drunk or vague about it at all.