#anna's posts

[drowning-in-cacophony]

lying among the daisies

It's (still) May, which means it's (still) maiko month! There wasn't an event this year, but I still wanted to put out a little something. It's been a while since I've drawn these two!

ID in alt text.

[nosyhuman]

Simeon reminds me of a doctor or dentist now — @lucivoid

Bonus:

[drowning-in-cacophony]

By Candlelight

A belated Valentine's piece of my favourite ATLA girlfriends, Ty Lee and Suki!

[ID in alt text]

[drowning-in-cacophony]

[ID: digital art of Katara, Sokka and Aang (Avatar: The Last Airbender), pictured as in the start of Book One. They are shown from the chest up, all hugging. Aang is in the front, leaning into Katara, his hand holding her shoulder. Katara, on the left, rests her cheek on Aang’s forehead and holds his arm. Sokka encloses Aang with one arm and rests his chin against the top of Aang’s head. They all have their eyes shut and their expressions are sad. The artist’s signature, @/drowning-in-cacophony, is written in the middle of the drawing. End ID].

Day Six: Grief // @aangweek​

“Sokka and I, we’re your family now.”

(don’t repost to another site)

[drowning-in-cacophony]

Mai has thin knife scars all over her fingers. She’s been playing with knives since she was young and mistakes always come with learning. She doesn’t mind them. She thinks they’re a good thing, a rebellion against what her parents want for her, one they can never take away from her. Once, her mother told her no man would love a girl with scars. Pretty women have to have pretty hands, and knife scars do not make for pretty hands, no matter how faint they might be. And briefly, Mai worries that Zuko will fall into that line of thinking. 

But Zuko doesn’t. He likes holding Mai’s hands, likes her holding him with them, and he certainly doesn’t care about the scars - he barely even notices them, and never more than a passing thought. She throws knives, of course she’s going to have the training marking her skin. 

And while Mai never explicitly tells him about what her mother’s said, she knows that Zuko’s not like the men her mother told her about. He doesn’t even think about the scars, let alone as a negative. She knows with the way he always holds her hand, clutching it close like she’s precious, or the way he asks with interest about how she throws knives and never asks her if she’s sure she can cope with the dangers of blades near skin. And the way he never asks her to tuck her hands away out of sight, or the way he kisses her hands too with only adoring looks.

Her mother warned her of the perfection she would have to be in order to be a proper lady, especially in the eyes of her future husband. But Mai is far from perfection, and Zuko loves her anyway.

[drowning-in-cacophony]

Mai notices Zuko’s got reduced vision and hearing on his scarred side. She’s observant enough to realise that even if she didn’t spend all her time with Zuko after his return to the Fire Nation. Burns like that, over the eye and ear - well, damage is to be expected. When Mai thinks about it for too long, a burning feeling curdles in her stomach that she can’t allow herself to dwell on. It’s too close to thinking that Fire Lord Ozai is wrong, and that’s the sort of thinking that got Zuko banished in the first place.

But even with the damage to his senses, Zuko seems to cope with it, or at least he’s learnt to. Mai doesn’t need to ask him any questions about it - she understands the trauma behind it, the logic of what effect an injury like has. And even if she wanted to ask questions about it, she wouldn’t. It’s too much on his mind during his return. Too much the symbol of everything he’s trying not to be. It’s better that she treat him as she feels: that it makes nothing different. He’s still Zuko, and she still likes him.

But it’s after the war that they finally get to a place where thinking bad things about his father isn’t bad, and when Mai starts feeling it more. Zuko’s permanently effected by his father’s cruelty. Not only by a scar, but his sight and hearing will never be the same ever again.

They’ve never talked about it. They’ve never needed to. The important thing has always been about how she treats him, like it doesn’t matter to her.

But one night, some weeks after the official end of the war, she tenderly cups the scarred half of his face and tells him in a very quiet but unflinching voice that she hates his father. She doesn’t need to elaborate on all the reasons why; her simple four words convey everything and more. Zuko stares back at her, almost startled by her sudden confession, at the crystal clarity of her feelings in her eyes, before he leans in and kisses her forehead. Thank you for telling me, he murmurs against her skin. Because no matter how obvious it is, and no matter how certain he is that his father is wrong - it’s always relieving hearing it from the people he loves the most.

[drowning-in-cacophony]

Honestly it gets me so much that Mai never avoids touching Zuko’s scar. Like, she understands what it represents and means to Zuko, and what he’s thought about it over the years as well, and she just touches his face without hesitation because all that doesn’t matter to her. She cares about him, not whatever meaning he and others assign to it.

[drowning-in-cacophony]

in honour of it being a year (!) since I posted my first ATLA fic... here’s a master post of all the ATLA fic I’ve written so far! All 7 fics, in one easy location!

give it oxygen word count: 7k / gen 

Or: Zuko, and his relationship with fire, family and expectations.

grief word count: 4k / gen 

Or: Sokka and Zuko, on the porch of the Fire Lord's beach house, bond over their dead mothers. 

graphite and tea word count: 4k / maiko / the artist au

Or: Mai likes drawing. Then she meets Zuko. 

home (overthrown) word count: 3k / maiko / canon compliant/missing scene

Or: Zuko chases after his redemption. Mai suffers with the fallout. 

summer blooms word count: 14k / maiko / modern au of maiko’s canonical journey

Or: Mai and Zuko are childhood best friends. Then he disappears for years without a trace, so what happens when chance brings them back together? 

follow up word count: 3k / maiko / canon compliant/missing scene

Or: After her and Zuko's night out in Ba Sing Se, Mai decides to give replication a chance.

stars word count: 2.7k / maiko/ canon compliant/missing scene/post canon

Or: it's a year after the war's ended, and Mai's taking a moment to catch her breath.