amy.

a place for anything that’s currently my “cup of tea” — and some biscuits on the side. 30s. she/her.

[cupandsaucer]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“What is the Fire Lord looking for in a wife?”

It makes him nervous to discuss it with her but… Katara might be able to offer good advice.

He clears his throat, “I assume you’re asking these questions for a reason. Do you have someone in mind? I would certainly be happy to hear the opinion of a friend.”

She adjusts a bracelet under the wide sleeve of her dress, not looking at him.

“What about the opinion of Chief Hakoda?” she asks.

“Who did he suggest? Do I know her?”

“Yes.” She puts her hands behind her back, still not looking at him. “He suggested me.”

Zuko stops in his tracks.

______________________

10 years after the war, Zuko and his council decide it's time he gets married, and that an international alliance would be preferable. He is ready to make the best he can of a marriage born of convenience when an old friend surprises him with a possibility he never thought real.

[shacklefunk-deactivated20220623]

yknow theres a lot of pressure to be successful, particularly on artsy kids whose professions are seen as useless unless theyre famous, but life is fucking hard and sometimes things dont turn out

but i think thats not bad. my dad has wanted to be a musician forever, and hes rly pretty good. but then he joined the military to get away from an abusive family, and then he got married, and then he got divorced, and a lot of horrible shit HAPPENED. he has ptsd and severe anxiety and he could never really get back on the horse. and he never made it as a musician, and now hes 53

but i grew up in a house full of instruments, and he can play all of them, and some of my earliest memories are of him playing guitar on the front porch and me thinking there wasnt a better musician in the world. so. even if you dont get to the stars, exactly, what you do isnt worthless. its not a waste of time if life is difficult and you cant make it, or if you arent famous, or if your work doesn’t influence thousands of people. it will influence someone

there are a million ways to be happy and a million ways to be a successful artist. we create what we do to enhance the human experience and relate to each other and improve ourselves. theres something to be said for just doing that,,,for the sake of doing it, yknow

[talkgentlytome]

This is the most comforting, warm and important piece of text I have ever read, and it is so true. No life is wasted that is spent sharing and loving.

[jehanneargentee]

My mother never became a professional artist. She became a social worker, then later taught emotionally disturbed children. But our home was filled with photographs of wildflowers and wildlife. Spice racks, shelves, and other useful objects were adorned with small paintings. She taught me and my sister that we could make things beautiful, even if in small ways, and let us glue glitter and fake gems on our cheap kids furniture and make it ours. Capitalism tries to say that art isn’t successful unless it makes money. But that’s not why humans make art. We make art to convey emotion. To make an object or a moment or a story OURS. And making someone smile when they hear you sing, or look at something you made for them is as valid a reason for creating as any other.

[infinitemachine]

“Capitalism tries to say that art isn’t successful unless it makes money. But that’s not why humans make art.”

[expressions-of-nature]

Atera Valley, Japan by Ron

[literaryera]

I keep hearing John Green say he's retired from working and lemme just say John Green is the least retired retired person I've ever seen.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

I am retired!!! I retired in October of 2017 and have kept my promise not to exchange my labor for money.

Since 2017, I have only done stuff that I thought was interesting or useful regardless of whether it pays, because we have more than enough money, and despite what billionaires might tell you, there is literally no difference between "more than enough" and "much more than enough."

So I no longer work for money. But in retirement one must keep busy, which is why I have taken on an unpaid gig as the social media intern for a coffee and tea business that donates 100% of its profit to charity.

I also sometimes travel to universities and other places to speak in support of Partners in Health and global access to tuberculosis care, and sometimes I write books because writing makes me happy, and every Tuesday I make a video on vlogbrothers, and I make a podcast about the world cup with my friends from high school, and so on, but none of these things constitutes work. These are just Retirement Projects, which are essential to a happy retirement.

[cupandsaucer]

People think being retired means Doing Not A Thing, but it only means Not Having To Do A Thing To Survive.

Humans are meant to move and engage, both physically and mentally, we tend to get sick when we don’t and it’s a natural thing for humans to try to contribute meaningfully to their society regardless of monetary compensation.

Though capitalist propaganda will try to tell you competition and the threat of starvation is necessary or we will succumb to laziness and chaos, that theory doesn’t hold before any observation of reality. Humans are creative and collaborative beings and those two elements are what have built the healthiest societies since the dawn of time.

Getting to invest your energy only where you wish is a dream, honestly. But most people would be genuinely happy to Have Enough and go live their lives and explore side projects.

The problem of our times is that it takes so much effort to even get Barely Enough and when we do there’s this whole discourse of “rejecting a mediocre life” that aims to keeps us always feeding the machine instead of realizing that this is a rigged game where you’re trading LIFE — the only thing inherently yours that you can never get back — for the illusion of safety and more plastic until you die.

Cheers to John Green for not only getting to the point where he can choose, but also being brave enough to actually do it! Synopsis for the new book sounds fun, sir!

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[depsidase]

[unsubconscious]

Elena Wuest (German, b. 1977) ‘Beyond’, 2025 Oil on canvas, 80 x 60cm

[mermaidenmystic]

Thank you so much @pocketfullofpoesies! 🩷

[frontmansdefender]

[marzipanandminutiae]

"there were major systemic problems in that era of the past!"

"yes!"

"so nobody in an oppressed group was ever happy!"

"no, some of them were sometimes"

"oh so the oppression wasn't real then!"

"no, it very much was and needed to change"

"but...if they were happy..."

"humans find ways to be happy in even bleak circumstances. it's kind of a defining trait of humanity. they had to live their lives in the world as it was, even while fighting to change it, so. yeah. they made happiness for themselves the way everyone does, even now with the problems we have today. there were good things in their world, too, alongside the bad. even some things we could learn from now, though definitely not their macro-level social attitudes!"

"...ohhh you're a shill for conservative values and you wish you lived back then! got it!"

"let's go over this again"

[colormush]

[perriaeyjeve]

[writingdose]

“I want to write a fic about this but I don’t think anybody will be interested in it” ummm hello excuse me ma’am what do you mean you don’t think anybody will be interested in it??? YOU. YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT???? write it because YOU are interested in it and YOU want to write about it. fanfic writing should always be first and foremost about YOUR enjoyment, not other people’s.

[softwaring]

made a pride flag using landscape photos ive taken <3

[pisces-core]

[godlessondheimite]

A YA romantasy writer filed suit against another writer for copyright infringement, and as is always the case with these things, she padded her claims with delusionally spurious examples. The judge issued a 160-page ruling against the plaintiff where you can tell from the start how resentful they (or whatever clerk actually did the work) are to have been forced by duty to have read the works in question.

[cupandsaucer]

“hot, sexy, dangerous boys - central to virtually all young adult romance novels - cannot be copyrighted.”

BHAHAHAAH

please read the excerpts, it’s so worth it

[weltenwellen]

Adrift Mark Nepo

[cupandsaucer]

This is how the heart makes a duet of wonder and grief.

In the very center, under it all, what we have that no one can take away and all that we’ve lost face each other.

It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured by a holiness that exists inside everything.

[thememedaddy]