To give you perspective , I dont really feel my legs unless I’ve worked out for at least five minutes and it’s been like this for a couple years now so when the first couple seconds popped up I was like “yoo this kinda sounds good? Familiar?” Then THAT shift happened and istg I could feel all of my limbs and they all were screaming at me with the fight or flight response. Freaked me the fuck out man but good song
Look, I don’t know if there’s such a thing as the opposite of an ASMR video, but this EXTREMELY CURSED OBJECT is it, I was curled into a ball wracked by horrified shivers.
Ok but also Lemon Man was the one that had no other name thing that identified him. Just two emojis, one of which was a lemon. That’d be like if someone here didn’t stick their name in their bio and got butthurt that they were called some form of their url smh
it’s wild to me how there is literally ZERO correlation between what a piece of media is like and what its fanworks are like. 2014 captain america fans were out there writing poetry and full-on academic papers inside of their fics. sonic the hedgehog and my little pony fandoms are both famous for drawing fetishes you’ve never even heard of. les miserables fans spent most of their energy on college aus. there is literally no consistency or observable pattern and it’s incredible
It’s actually pretty easy. The fanworks we make are things that the source material makes us think about but doesn’t include.
Captain America’s movies glazed over a lot of really intense subject material and never addressed some of the really important changes a WWII hero popping up in the modern day would cause, and also some of the emotions a WWII hero popping up in the modern day would have.
The furry community has drawn its borders a lot further out than most communities have on the things people can portray without being ostracized. So shows that provide an opportunity to explore those things in the context of their interests is going to be welcomed.
Les Mis had source material that was powerful, emotionally harrowing, and from the POV of your average Millenial terribly relatable. (Look around, seriously.) So people want the things they connected to but with at least the remote possibility of a happy ending.
Shadowhunters wanted to see domesticity. Buffyverse wanted to see the normal humans given a chance to be badass. Supernatural wanted the brothers and their angel to a) have a nice goddamn day occasionally and b) actually maybe think things all the way through just. one time. Sherlock wanted the titular character to actually treat Watson with some respect and affection. Comics fandoms want the storylines to make sense. NCIS wants realistic consequences for the things that happen. Crossover writers want Cool Character From Fandom A to interact with That Other One From Fandom B because oh ye gods that will be hilarious.
And everybody wants to see their favorite pairing get together. Everybody wants to see the character they loved that got a shit ending get a good one. Everyone wants to see the storyline that got ignored fleshed out. Everyone wants their favorite side character to get more attention. Everyone wants to see the one that got stepped on get their revenge. Everyone wants the one that got rejected to be so awesome that the one who rejected them regrets it.
Fans don’t want more-of-what-they-got. They want things they didn’t get, things the source material left us hungry for. And that’s why fandom is amazing.
“Aunt Petunia smacked her hands over Harry’s young ears; and her voice was sickly sweet when she said, “Thank you very much for your concern, sir, but he does not need your religion, he has science and socialism and birthdays. “
I have been Cursed with an Image that haunts my every waking hour. A fanfic idea, emerged as a fully formed meme, that mocks my every attempt to write it or banish it from my mind.
I beg of you, send one of your knights to vanquish this foe, to bind it in writing so it may torment me no more.
(Image ID: Trying To Explain Meme- a black girl stands in the hallway gesturing as she tries to explain something obviously very complicated. A black women reclines on the couch with a blanket pulled up to her shoulders. She patiently waits for the girl to finish explaining. Text reads: 'Time Traveling Salvage! Hakoda explaining that they need to assassinate 2nd prince Ozai and kidnap his son' and '6+ years pre-canon Southern Water Tribe/Earth Kingdom.' End ID.)
Okay Okay Okay.... so anyone up for Parental soulmarks Zuko and Hakoda AU of Salvage??? Imagine ZUKO knowing who his Marked Parent is but not HAKODA who only has like idk the blue spirit mask or the dao swords or smth. Maybe soulmarks can't be injured off of someone? So Loserdad couldn't burn it off of him (though not for lack of TRYING)
Zuko, born with his face half done up in vividly beautiful Water Tribe wolf warrior paint: *canon typical scarring occurs MUCH earlier* *hey, at least Ursa caught him when Ozai tried to instintively yeet a newborn out the window*
--- Years later, but not nearly long enough ---
Hakodad, fishing a shivering Fire Nation gremlin out of the water and seeing wolf warrior paint starting to bleed back in wherever his scar has healed: Shit, whose child is this?
This is a huge FUCK YOU to the Fire Nation Royal Family. The spirits have declared that Ozai and Ursa’s first born, 4th in line for the throne, should have been born into another family. That a “savage water tribe barbarian” is Zuko’s True Parent. Depending on the legal structure of the Fire Nation, Hakoda may have just gotten in-lawed into Fire Nation Royalty. He most definitely has some sort of Foster Parent rights. Which, considering, Zuko at age 13 was allowed a say at a WAR COUNCIL solely based on his birth...
This is a problem. A huge political problem that Azulon-Kill-Your-Own-Son-For-Suggesting-I-Skip-Succession is going to want gone. Immediately. With the mark forever healing, they can’t just burn it off and call it good. Both Ozai and Azulon are going to try and kill bb!Zuko.
Zuko’s birth was a difficult one, depending on when the mark shows up Ursa may not be awake/healthy enough to put up a fight. 15 years pre-series means Iroh isn’t besieging Ba Sing Se and Lu Ten is still alive.
[In all the ways he imagined using the Royal Family’s secret messaging system, Lu Ten never imagined he’d have a baby tucked under one arm. It is most definitely not Appropriate Baby Carrying Method but Lu Ten needs his right hand free. He also needs a firm hold because this kid is struggling like that’s all he knows how to do.
Keep fighting. Lu Ten thinks as the message takes off. Smoke flicks past his nose. A wing of the royal palace is on fire and if he strains his ears, he can still hear Ursa screaming her rage. Don’t ever stop.
He can’t stop either. Father will get the message and come back from the front and put this all to rights. Grandfather and Uncle will have calmed down by then and be ashamed of their reaction. But until then, Lu Ten needs to get out of the Caldera.
Slipping on a cloak, he strangles a hysterical laugh. Just because he told Father that he was now a man grown doesn’t mean he is ready for a baby, Agni!]
There will be no years of disappointment accumulating in banishment. No slow build up. Only heavy tensions inside the Royal Family and Zuko always knowing Ozai wanted him dead. I forever banish the comics from cannon because of how they turned Ursa into a stereotypical Female Character. THIS Ursa earned her title of “vicious,” this Ursa was happily married to Ozai for several years before his attitude towards their kids broke things down, this Ursa was part of the Fire Nation Imperialism just like Iroh was. This Ursa’s relationship with Azulon is going to make “I only refer to him by his title” of cannon look idyllic. She is complicated, loving and vicious, and exists more than to be the Mom.
There’s a truce. Its a fragile as rice paper next to open flame, but it exists. Until Lu Ten dies. He was just suppose to be running important orders to Iroh. He wasn’t suppose to be near the front and come back in three months. But now’s he is dead and Iroh called a retreat then went missing. Ursa’s greatest supporters are gone and she has to take drastic measures. By the time all is said and done, Ursa and Azulon are both dead. Ozai is the only adult Fire Nation Royalty accounted for.
[Today proves that it was always Ozai’s destiny to be Fire Lord. All he had to do was be patient. Wait for the right moment, spread the right truths to the wrong people, and here he was. Being crowned god over men.
He had hoped those water bending savages would delay Lu Ten’s return but instead they surpassed his expectations and removed the thorn in his side and crippled the other. Without the barrier of Lu Ten and Iroh, Ursa and his Father destroyed each other just like he knew they would.
As the sun shines down on the beginning of his glorious reign, there is one shadow. Even decked in red and gold, can’t wash away the blight that is Zuko. At least the bandages hide what remains of his Mark. The boy is wavering back and forth like a sickly tree as he tries to stand under the summer heat. If Ozai had another heir, he would have killed the boy and be done with it.
Ozai frowns as he recalls Ursa’s refusal to have another child. Now it will be at least two years before he can be assured that Iroh won’t get the throne when he crawls out from whatever cave he shut himself into. Damn, the mandatory “mourning” periods.
“What about Mother?” Ozai has been ignoring this question for hours. He will ignore it for hours longer but Zuko will not give up and finally Ozai snaps out:
“Ursa was a traitor and has been given a traitor’s funeral. Her body was dumped in the pit and buried. Never to see the sun again.” The brat’s face wobbles.
“But she was my Mother!”
“Then you should never have been born.” He points at the side of Zuko’s face that is Marked. “If you had the decency to die instead of limping on, stead of being Marked, then she would be alive.”
Ozai sweeps out of the hallway to sit on the throne. Zuko’s sobs are cut off by the doors closing.]
Azulon, while he lived, definitely took Zuko’s Water Tribe Mark as a sign that he just wasn’t thorough enough in his genocide. It isn’t enough just to kill water benders to prevent the return of the Avatar. He need get rid of them all. Eventually, he’d get Zuko’s Spirit Parent and that would get rid of the Mark on his grandchild.
The war effort is retooled. The Northern Water Tribe must fall next. Obviously, Zuko’s Spirit Parent can’t be from the Southern Tribe. They were crippled years ago. Iroh doesn’t besiege Ba Sing Se. He fights at the North Pole. Whose Polar Winter’s give him a very convenient excuse to come back home for months at a time. Both the Southern and Northern Water Tribes are wrecked by the time Cannon starts.
Hakoda has no idea about any of this. All he knows is that shortly after he married Kya, a blue mask with dual swords crossed beneath, shows up on his shoulder. Bato swears he didn’t give him that tattoo. It takes several tests before Hakoda confirms that it is a Mark. Who its for, he has no idea. No child in the Southern Water Tribe was born with one recently. An Earth Kingdom sailor mentions that the mask is from a famous Fire Nation Play. Hakoda and Kya go see a production held on Kyoshi Island. Hakoda hopes that whoever this kid is, he’s less dramatic than the play.
(Zuko wasn’t a good fire bender. Swords helped. Sneaking helped more in those months between Ozai becoming Fire Lord and Iroh returning to the capital. Especially when Ozai wouldn’t let Zuko be in public if his Mark was intact. Zuko salvaged exactly one thing of his Mother’s before it was all burned and he’ll keep the theater mask until his dying day.)
Hakoda doesn’t have much time to think about his Spirit Child. Not when he has two Blood Children and the Fire Nation taking extreme dislike to the Water Tribe existing. At All.
The Southern Water Tribe doesn’t have a village anymore. Its people flee deeper into the Pole or out to sea when soot rains down. Katara and Sokka have been on a ship more than they have ever been on solid land. Some nights, Hakoda feels bad about that, other nights he thanks La and Tui that he still has his children at all.
Hakoda leads his men into war. Trying to assist the Northern Water Tribe while the Earth Kingdom spends its energy trying to recapture land turned into Fire Nation colonies while ignore the battle ships flocking north and south. How bitter Hakoda is about that depends entirely on how many men he’s lost that month.
Iroh returns to the Fire Nation a changed man...and right into a situation he only envisioned in his worse nightmares.
[”You left.” Ozai snaps at him, wearing their Father’s crown. “Father was dead and the nation needed a leader. Should I have let is dissolve into chaos?”
Iroh has little love for Ozai. Less since seeing his nephew since he got back, but Ozai is a master at using the truth when it hurts the most. Iroh had let grief blind him to the consequences of vanishing into the Spirit World. He won’t regret it, he learned too much, seen truths he would never have found tucked in the arms of the Fire Nation Army, but there are consequences. Such as his heinous brother ascending to the throne because Iroh had naively believed the peace between Azulon and Ursa would hold as it had for years. That his leaving, temporarily, would not be seen as an abdication by the eyes of the Fire Nation.
By law and by force, Ozai has pinned Iroh into a corner. Iroh could challenge him to an Agni Kai but Ozai has no reason to accept. He could force the issue but Zuko standing stock still with Ozai’s hand digging into his shoulder reminds Iroh that there is family he has failed that still breathe.
So, Iroh takes a breath and lets out words instead of fire. He walks back his anger, walks behind his brother, but in front of Zuko. Iroh lets Ozai believe he’s won. That Iroh is a broken man who cares about nothing but tea and his nephew being left alone.
As much as Ozai is a manipulator, he was never good a building things. His strategies are devastating but brief. Iroh takes his time. Building relationships that will be key later, when Zuko is old enough to take the throne himself.
When Ozai’s wife gives birth to a healthy girl, Iroh is already prepped with a ship, a loyal crew, Prince Zuko, and an excuse about finding the Avatar. The official banishment is unhelpful but not unexpected. Zuko takes it hard. He imagined death, not never being able to set foot on the country he loves so much ever again. It’s four days out from port that Iroh gets the second reason for Zuko’s anguish.
“She’s all alone with him.” Zuko mutters as the doctor changes the bandages again. Ozai had scorched his son’s face again. Its part of the reason Iroh was able to move him out of the capital without a fuss. No one was expecting Iroh to risk his health to move him and Zuko certainly wasn’t going to be able to get out of the Healer’s Wing alone. Like any good general, Iroh weighed the pros and cons and deemed which sacrifices were worth it and knows exactly how much pound of flesh he will take out of his brother at the appropriate time. “Mother said...”
Iroh doesn’t ask for more. He knows that Zuko would be a good brother. He also knows that little Azula won’t see her brother until he’s come of age. That Ozai had caught him one last time, because Zuko had been attempting to sneak into the birthing room when he heard Ozai’s wife’s water had broken. Ozai had been waiting for him.
Iroh let it happen and, spirits curse him, one day they will collect their pound of flesh for his crimes as well. He expects it. He hopes for it.
What he hadn’t expected was finding the Avatar.]
So, Zuko-Its-My-Fault-My-Family’s-Messed-Up-And-Mostly-Dead and I’m-Still-Neck-Deep-In-Fire-Nation-Propaganda is desperately chasing after Aang to prove to his nation (if not his father) that he is Worth Something and get his Uncle’s banishment undone (because Zuko isn’t a complete idiot, he KNOWS Iroh’s exiled because of him. No, he will not listen to Iroh insisting that he doesn’t care or take constructive criticism on how he’s handling being 13, abused, and sailing across the world.) and get back to his sister because he knows Ozai is going to do something horrible to her.
This does NOT make him any more together than Cannon!Zuko. Things proceed accordingly.
Let it be noted that the Mark heals at the standard rate for skin/muscle healing without scarring so Hakoda has NO idea that the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation is his Spirit Kid while Zuko takes exactly 56 hours to realize that the Southern Water Tribe Chief is his Spirit Father and proceeds to Not Handle This Well. Afterall, Zuko’s only father figures are Ozai and Iroh. Aka A+ Plus Parenting and Trying But Still Part Of the Web of Abuse. Zuko is not filled with confidence towards Father Figures. But Zuko wants. He wants so bad and as Hakoda shows that he isn’t the Worst, Zuko panics because he’s been hunting Sokka and Katara. He’s hurt them, threatened them, tied to kill them. Hakoda loves them so much, why would he want anything to do with Zuko?
Any way, Marked!Salvage is still messy and heartbreaking and I’m going to die now because just the idea of it has ripped out my soul.
Okay Okay Okay.... so anyone up for Parental soulmarks Zuko and Hakoda AU of Salvage??? Imagine ZUKO knowing who his Marked Parent is but not HAKODA who only has like idk the blue spirit mask or the dao swords or smth. Maybe soulmarks can't be injured off of someone? So Loserdad couldn't burn it off of him (though not for lack of TRYING)
Zuko, born with his face half done up in vividly beautiful Water Tribe wolf warrior paint: *canon typical scarring occurs MUCH earlier* *hey, at least Ursa caught him when Ozai tried to instintively yeet a newborn out the window*
--- Years later, but not nearly long enough ---
Hakodad, fishing a shivering Fire Nation gremlin out of the water and seeing wolf warrior paint starting to bleed back in wherever his scar has healed: Shit, whose child is this?
OHH, IDEA! What if the size/subtlety of the mark is related to how quickly you'll meet them? Bio-Parent marks don't NEED to be big, because it's going to be Pretty Obvious who they belong to most of the time. Ursa (and Iroh) have marks that are easily tucked away under normal clothes. Meanwhile, Zuko doesn't meet Water Dad until he's 16, so The Universe decided that meant they needed to stamp his Fatherly Dibs across 1/3 of his face in unmistakable warpaint.
(This is more helpful when not in wartime. But it IS awfully convenient that the Fire Nation makes full armor and helmets mandatory. It's much easier to ignore the peeks of emeralds and earth tones peeking out on ungloved hands when they know to Not Look for it. [They look anyway. They were Fated to meet, after all.]) This is a good incentive to keep enlistment ages as high as possible! Usually!! (The 41st recruits were SPLATTERED with greens. This was not a coincidence)
Okay so we COULD go tragic here
Or we could institute No-Weep-Wednesdays and say:
The Earth Kingdom army marches out to defend their homes one day, and comes back to base herding a whole gaggle of terrified young Fire Nation soldiers they've forcibly adopted and are now being RUTHLESSLY kind too, you eat your spirits-damned veggies and sit under this blanket while you shake with barely repressed terror SO HELP ME SON. If the Council of Five says anything they are going to THROW HANDS and defect to Omashu.
King Bumi is a RAINBOW of overlapping splatter-paint markings from head to toe, he WILL adopt everyone here, do not test them.
Hakoda’s first Soul Bond formed during the Winter Night. It crept up his arm as the babe struggled for breath, and the midwives told him the child of his spirit wouldn’t live to meet him. Kya, not yet his wife but still the balm of his heart, held him as they waited for the Mark to settle on its black and grey corpse. But silver slowly (slowly!) wound its way up his entire arm before dissolving in a riot of color.
The Mark was… strange. Flames and scales curled around his wrist and bicep, blue and green and purple as well as gold and red. Hakoda had never seen one like it, even among Parents of war children.
People talked. Some said a Father of an ashmaker couldn’t be trusted. Others shouted them down, only to console him about his poor, poor war child. Bato swore he hadn’t started the rumor that the Mark belonged to the long lost Avatar, reincarnated into Fire, but he also wouldn’t look Hakoda in the eyes. Dear Kya, though, said nought about the Child, just that she trusted Hakoda to be a good Father and Guide.
She married him soon after, despite not sharing the vivid Mark. It wasn’t that uncommon for husbands and wives to bear different Marks, but Hakoda’s Child would come to him late and Bond with him strongly. A more jealous woman might have set him aside for fear of her own children. Not Kya.
She was swiftly vindicated: Sokka’s Mark came just as vividly as the first. The tiny, matching wolves howled on their wrists like guiding stars. Then Katara’s waves lapped at his toes so vividly one could almost feel the cold. They lost the next child too early for a Mark, then the next, and Kya said three children were enough.
Then Kya’s Mark burned to ash on her children’s shoulders. And Hakoda made the hardest decision of his life.
The old complaints about following a man with an ashmaker Child resurfaced, but Hakoda’s character and tactical acumen spoke for themselves. Still, his men always spent several days after a raid looking at Hakoda’s arm. Hakoda wasn’t sure what he’d do if it ever turned grey. He’d never loved anyone as much as he loved Kya, and here he was. Doing his duty to his children and his people. Would it be different, if he maybe killed his Child but could never know for sure?
They fish the half drowned soldier out of the sea, and he’s a teenager wearing full sleeves that Hakoda wants to pull up and see, but it doesn’t matter because he’s a Prince and they’re keeping him anyway. And then he’s scared shoulder to wrist but it doesn’t matter because Hakoda couldn’t love a soldier who invaded the South and took Kya/Katara’s necklace from her.
Things aren’t quite as dire as he imagined, but Hakoda still can’t see himself Guiding this mess of a child. Besides which, there’s no reason to think that there’s anything but bare skin under the burn, and Kustaa already has a matching sprawl of leaves and vines on his back that they haven’t informed the prince of.
(Sometimes, the unfulfilled prophecies of a Mark were cruel. Hakoda can’t even picture a world in which Zuko could have been Kustaa’s apprentice, but they would have been good together.)
Tolko discovers their Brother Bond (a thin red, purple, and blue ring around his thumb) first, then Panuk. Bands of color spot Tolko and Panuk’s fingers and toes as they should, but these are the prince’s first. The crew starts thinking about scars and unnaturally quiet night terrors. Of what circumstances could keep a boy friendless until he was held for ransom.
The prince starts staining fingers and hands with pretty blooms of Community Bonds as he passes dinner plates, and maybe that influences Hakoda’s decision to keep him, maybe it doesn’t. Bato isn’t happy about it, but Kustaa has the boy learning herbcraft and brewing burn cream and that feels like the only thing to go right in a long time.
Then Hakoda discovers neither Zuko’s tiny dragon nor his little flame is his father’s. What’s done is done, and Hakoda doesn’t need a cue from Destiny to claim this Child.
(Zuko had kept his arm covered for as long as he remembered. All he knew that his Mark was blue and purple and silver and HUGE. It was… self indulgent to imagine it might be a wolf.)
Elsewhere, an old dragon stared at living, bright dragon fire and ordered his crew onward. His Child was still out there.
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