It’s Monday I’m In The Labyrinth

why did i confidently read the mark one as "what i'm gonna do to you tonight's gonna leave an invincible" 😭😭

Invincible valentine cards I made

THE AWE IN HIS EYES IM CRYING ☹️☹️☹️

Commissioned art made by one of the best artists @heyhanibee

“I told myself if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in-front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off artists would offer a liveable wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists...labels we got you, but do you got us?”- Chappell Roan during her GRAMMYS acceptance speech.

"why are you so quiet, what's on your mind?"

"oh, nothing, just aang admiring katara without realizing he's in love with her"

guys, i am SO excited for tomorrow's new chapter of "the teenager in the iceberg" there's gonna be some great moment & generally im excited to start progressing past the first few episodes

here's a teaser excerpt!

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Sokka immediately jumped off, almost kissing the sand in relief, and Aang followed close behind. Katara moved to stand up and join them, but a combination of that nerve-sick feeling and a bit of light-headedness had her slipping a little, stumbling off the saddle. She would’ve landed face-first in the sand, but Aang smoothly caught her with a current of air, then offered a hand. 

Once she was safe on the ground, Katara blushed, embarrassed that she’d lost her balance that easily. She moved to tell Aang, only to have Sokka take one look at her and burst out laughing. 

“What?!” She snapped, suddenly overly self-conscious.

“Your hair!” He cackled, a shaking finger pointing at her. Confused, Katara reached out her hand to draw a tendril of water from the cold morning sea. She concentrated, forming it first into a sphere and then a flat oval, then stilled the water so that she could see her reflection…

Only to drop the water in surprise when she finally saw what Sokka was talking about. Her carefully done hair was snarled around in its braids,  bits of it loose and bits of it still intact. She huffed in annoyance, then fished out a small glass mirror and her hairbrush. 

“Aang,” she said distractedly, “could you hold this for me?” She handed him the mirror. 

“Y-yeah, no problem.”

She tugged out her hair ties, flipping her head upside down for a moment to make sure that it had all gotten loose, then she gingerly tugged a few tendrils of water from the nearby ocean and wrapped tiny streams around her hair, tugging out the crimped braid pattern and reviving her curls. Then, she carefully bent the remaining liquid back out. 

She couldn’t see his face through her thick hair as she stood back up, but from his voice, Aang seemed impressed. “I get that you haven’t been able to learn any big combat moves, but for someone whose bending is self- taught, you sure have a pretty good handle on these smaller things.”

She properly flipped her head up now, curls and waves bouncing around her face. Her dark brown locks shone with honey-toned highlights, all different shades of caramel and chocolate sparkling as they framed her face. She reached up, gently twisting and clipping a few strands out of the way, but a few wayward pieces still fell forward, gently brushing against soft, full lips and smooth skin. Aang awkwardly froze for a moment, caught off guard by how different she looked when her hair was loose and free. He had a weird urge to tell her so, but bit his tongue, instead focusing on her answer. 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

♥ check out the two chapters of this (ongoing) fic & my ao3 here! ->

Kataang is "hero gets the hero", not "hero gets the girl"

Sorry for that :)

sooo.... anyone else ever wondered how different ATLA would have been if aang had been frozen at age 16 instead of age 12?

yeah... me too 😌 my new fanfic "the teenager in the iceberg" follows the events of the show, but with only aang aged up, while everyone else remains their canon age.

also...cmon....how funny is it to switch zuko and aang's iconic dialogue to "you're just a teenager!" "...so are you?"

this idea was originally inspired by the talented @allgremlinart's aged up aang drawings, so please go show them some love!!:)<3

enjoy the excerpts from chapters one and two!

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Aang chuckled, pushing himself up with his hands on his knees. He was… taller than Katara had realised, taller than Sokka. He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, turning to look over his shoulder at the remains of the boulder-sized chunk of ice he had just been blasted out of.  “Aang. My name’s Aang.” He hesitated, momentarily seeming to puzzle something over. “And honestly? No clue. Don’t remember how me and…Appa!” He yelped, suddenly scrambling back over the hill of ice and snow. Katara followed him without thinking, and Sokka, grumbling under his breath, followed moments later. 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

“So, you’ve brought a monster to invade the village, then? You’re some incognito Fire Nation soldier sent in as an undercover scout? Well, I’ll have you know that I’m the village’s strongest warrior, a-”

“The only warrior,” Katara chimed in, lightly elbowing Sokka’s side, earning herself a responding glare. 

“The strongest warrior.” Sokka reiterated. “And I don’t much like firebenders.” He added the words pointedly.

“Ah.” Aang titled his head. “That’s a shame. Some of my closest friends are Fire Nation.”

“Of course they are,” Sokka glared, hunching over into a defensive position and adjusting his fishing spear until it pointed directly at Aang.

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Katara still wasn’t quite sure what to make of Aang. The Water Tribe boys had always been all flashy muscles, seal-jerky breath, and overconfidence, so Katara had never seen someone move, carry themself, the way Aang did. 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Katara had admittedly forgotten how much fun penguin sledding was. “Spirits, I haven’t done this since I was a kid!” she called to Aang as he raced past her, surprisingly skilled considering that he’d never even seen a penguin until half an hour before. 

“You still are a kid!” He called back over his shoulder. “A kid who’s losing this race, badly !”

Katara’s competitive streak reared its head, her eyes narrowing as Aang stuck out his tongue. She sat up slightly, no longer gripping the penguin’s fur as tightly. “You wish!” She shouted back the words as she raised her hands, breathing deeply. Her hands moved through the positions she had practised from the few bending scrolls the tribe still held on to, and before Aang knew it, the snow in front of Katara turned to ice, and she shot past him as his own ice trail suddenly became dry snow with too much friction to slide on. 

She made it to the bottom of the hill, beaming, breathing heavily. The wind had whipped her hair out of her bun, and she knew without checking that her hair must have looked like a lion-turtle’s mane. She watched as Aang made a show of drying himself off with a gust of wind that he then redirected at her, messing up her curls even more. 

“You’re a cheater !” Aang gasped, mockingly clutching imaginary pearls at his throat. “I demand a rematch.”

Katara strode past him, only turning her head to cast him a smug smirk. “Maybe you’re just not as good of a penguin sledder as you thought .”

“Oh, not so fast!” Aang grabbed her wrist, tugging her back towards him, and she internally questioned why the momentary brush of their skin made her heart flip. He tried to trip her, she tried to flip him, and they both ended up on their backs in the snow, giggling, cheeks and noses bright pink from the cold. 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

“Trouble sleeping too, huh?” Aang cocked a grin, tilting his head to Katara. She kept her eyes fixed upwards, trained on the moon and the stars, worried that if she looked away, she’d end up staring into his eyes like a weirdo. 

“I always feel so awake with the moon’s light on me. Sleeping under the stars has never really been a thing that works. It’s too energising, too… too much. It’s hard to explain.”

“No, no… I get it. I feel the same way in a windstorm, all those breezes and gusts of wind, it feels… exhilarating.” She watched through her peripheral vision as he looked up at the moon. “In times of war, I think we all tend to forget how spiritual bending is at its core. I’d say it’s a good thing that you’re in touch enough with the origins of your abilities to feel the moon’s pull tug at you just as much as it does on the ocean.” 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Aang smiled back. “Now is our time to try to make up for that. I can’t bring back everyone who was hurt in this war, and you can’t bring back your mother, but together, the two-, three of us can make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“I’d like that,” Katara exhaled, her breath calming down and tears dissipating. The two spent hours talking back and forth, exchanging the stories of their respective childhoods. Katara learned that Aang had invented several new bending moves and had been a big fan of fruit pies, while Aang learned that Katara had always been the bossier one between her and Sokka and that she had almost chipped a tooth on seal jerky when she was six. They continued talking back and forth in increasingly hushed tones until the world faded away under the cover of clouds and sleep.

Katara awoke to the loud shout of her brother. 

“Wakey wakey, lovebirds!” he yelped, chucking a rock-hard stick of seal jerky at both of them. 

“Ouch, Sokka !” Katara snapped at him, rubbing her head at the spot where she had been hit, before realising that she was leaning against Aang and immediately jumping away, blushing furiously. 

♥ check out the two chapters of this (ongoing) fic & my ao3 here! ->

i'm coming out of my writing slump to drop some lines from a very fun concept to write in!!! atla au!!! and kataang content!!!! (to nobody's surprise)

i feel like a lot of people have wondered how different atla as a whole would be if aang had been older, so in this au, now zuko and aang are the same age! naturally, i just had to flip aang being after katara from day one to katara now having a crush on aang from the very beginning.

essentially, to recap. ATLA aang aged up AU fic. kataang. where she falls first, and he falls harder.

also, cmon. i just had to write a new version of the scene where zuko and aang meet.

zuko: you? you’re just a teenager!

aang: s-…so are you…?

---

Shining blue eyes. Bright robes made up of strips of fabric coloured in shades of sunset they almost never saw down in the Southern tribes. Katara wasn’t quite sure what to make of the boy sprawled across the ice in front of her. One minute, she’d been getting upset with Sokka over how rude he was being about her water-bending, and the next, she had split a massive iceberg clean in half and released some glowing beam, a blue-arrow-tattooed teenage boy, and his hulking fluffy monster-dog-bear-thing. 

The boy would later tell her that it was called a “sky bison”, and that it flew. Sokka had refused to believe this. Katara had rushed over the hill towards the bluish glow, tumbling through the snow and ice until she had seen him. 

Shining blue eyes. Bright robes made up of strips of fabric coloured in shades of sunset they almost never saw down in the Southern tribes. 

The most beautiful boy she’d ever seen.

She couldn’t help her lips parting slightly, jaw hanging slack before she remembered herself. The boy sat up, and Katara tried her best to focus, to gather a cohesive thought.

“W-What is it?” She breathed, whispering for some reason as if the boy would spook and disappear if she was too loud. 

“W-Will-” he struggled, the words so hoarse that it was as though he hadn’t used his voice in decades. He cleared his throat, eyes sparkling distractingly, grinning roguishly. “Will you go penguin sledding with me?”

Katara blanched, momentarily caught off guard. She looked back over at Sokka, who had been watching the exchange with narrowed eyes and a suspicious expression as he recrossed his arms over one another. 

“I- um-... yes?” she answered, hesitantly, just as Sokka’s voice overlapped hers, yelping the words “She absolutely will not!” Katara shot Sokka a scathing glare as the mysterious boy rose to his feet, shaking the snow off of his cloak like a polar-bear dog. 

Sokka continued, his voice both indignant and commanding. “We don’t even know your name, Mr. Walking Ice Cube! What were you doing in there? Were you trying to mimic a snow-man and got too carried away?” 

“And you aren’t exactly dressed for the weather here,” Katara added appraisingly, giving him a once-over. “You look-”

“Dashingly handsome?” The boy smoothly interjected, accompanied by a grin that felt like it was just for her.

“...Cold.”  she said flatly, hoping she wasn’t furiously blushing as she shot him with what she hoped came across as a scathing glare.

---

♥ if you want to stick around while i continue this fic, my ao3 (with lots of other kataang and atla works) can be found here!! the first chapter is up now->

The war has been ended, Ozai has been rendered helpless, and Zuko has reclaimed the Fire Nation with the promise of peace. Everything that Aang has been working towards since the moment Katara freed him from the iceberg has been done. He's saved the world. Now, all that's left is to confess to his forever girl. The two are finally free from all the responsibilities placed upon them by the war and the world- now, loving one another no longer means neglecting their sense of duty.

OR: Aang wakes up the morning after him and his friends saved the entire world, and the first (and only) thing he can think about is Katara. When they get a chance to talk, the two take a walk down memory lane.

---

For a moment, in his still dream-addled mind, Aang wondered what he had done to wake up this way, only to have the memories rush back the moment his fingers lightly grazed the marks. For the first time in technically a century, a looming deadline of responsibility and unfulfillable promises wasn’t hanging over him.

Had it really only been yesterday when he and his friends had saved the world?

---

He remembered seeing that Katara was okay and feeling the relief so intensely that it felt as though it had reached his soul. Holding her for probably a couple seconds too long. Not wanting to let go, out of relief that she hadn’t been hurt.

---

From his place on the floor, bending a sphere of air for Momo to play with, Aang watched his friends bicker over Sokka’s drawing of them and felt so overwhelmed with emotion that he could hardly contain it. He had needed to grow up so quickly in the last year, all of them had. War had pushed them so far- each of them had lost so much, and yet, they could still smile. Could live in the peaceful world they deserved. That Aang would now be able to help create. 

Aang felt tears prick his eyes as he wondered what Gyatso would say if he had seen what Aang had done. If he knew that Aang finally stopped running from destiny. 

---

He turned to look at her, and spirits , she took his breath away. She pulled him in, and he wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in her neck, savouring in the reminder that she was okay , that they were okay , that they would have time now.

---

Guru Pathik was insane, absolutely crazy, for thinking anyone could ever choose cosmic energy over this girl. 

---

When Katara had excused herself early, saying that she had to grab a few things, Aang waited until she left the hall before jumping up from his seat.

“I have to- uh- um- A-Avatar things. To grab, from, from my room? And I should probably- uh- check on Appa. See how the, um, sleeping on the balcony… went?”

“...Mhm.” Toph deadpanned, “Sure, Twinkletoes. Just in case you were wondering, Miss Sugar Queen’s on her way to the gardens right now. You can catch up with her if you take the stairs to your left and make a couple of turns.” She elbowed Aang, hard enough to crack a rib or two. “Go get her, tigerdillo.”

---

“As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. It wasn’t the time, no matter how much I wanted it to be.” He bit his lip nervously, then reached for her hands, pulling them between the two. The water she had been bending splashed back down into her lap, and after she gave a startled giggle, Aang helped her bend the droplets of water from her skirt. He took her hands in his once more, caressing her skin gently with his fingertips. 

“But… now could be that time. If you wanted it to be.” He breathed the words, looking into her shining, ocean-blue eyes.

♥ the rest of the (completed) fic can be found here!! ->

@bxriles hi!! i'm the one from the ask:)

i for one would love to see it even if it isn't fully done:) i loved the concept when i saw the original post, and i'm sure people would be happy to give some ideas or inspo for the final act!

i've had a couple bouts of writers block now where i've just flat out asked for inspo from people and for whatever reason, bouncing ideas off of people is always super helpful for reviving my writing-brain for a particular fic.

if you don't like uploading unfinished work, i totally get that, but i'm sure lots of people would love to see it and give you some help with that final act:)

hi, did you end up publishing that acotar fic you mentioned you were planning last year? i checked your ao3 for it when the post came up on my feed a few days ago, but couldn't find it:)

if not i totally get it and no judgement, as a fic writer myself i start and don't finish WIPs allllll the time <3

Hi!! Sorry for the late response! I missed this one somehow!

I have not posted it yet sadly 🥲 It’s about 75% written at this point, but I’ve hit a wall with the last act and I am STRUGGLING to finish it. I take so much pride in finishing all of my fics, so if I reach a point where I’m struggling this hard I get scared and end up not posting lmao. But it’s nice to hear that there are people still interested!! Maybe I should consider posting it and people can help give me ideas with the ending haha

reblogging because i just spent ages reformatting & updating this 🤧

my (quillthills) ao3 ATLA fanfiction masterlist:

"so i will go to secret gardens in my mind":

after he and katara's escape to the palace gardens the night prior, avatar aang, the king of all four elements, cannot stop thinking of the beautiful dark-haired water princess. misunderstandings and deliberate deception constructed by regent ozai makes the reconciliation of these star-crossed lovers more complicated than necessary. OR: the second of many kataang regency-era works ♔

"you’re in the wind, i’m in the water":

aang has only just been crowned as the avatar, the king of all four elements, and already, he struggles to find his footing in a society without any of his people. a dance with princess katara of the water tribe, and a subsequent escape to the palace gardens, helps him find that footing. OR: the first of many kataang regency-era works ♔

"there's a star-man, waiting in the sky":

a flash-fiction atla modern AU in which yue passes away from cancer early in life, and sokka becomes an astronaut so that he can go to space and be close to the moon she always loved so much ☾

"the teenager in the iceberg"- multichap

i feel like a lot of people have wondered how different atla as a whole would be if aang had been older, so in this au, aang was frozen at age 16! naturally, i just had to flip aang being after katara from day one to katara now having a crush on aang from the very beginning. essentially, to recap. ATLA aang aged up AU fic. kataang. where she falls first, and he falls harder. also, cmon. i just had to write a new version of the scene where zuko and aang meet.

"you with the dark curls, you with the watercolor eyes"- multichap

Avatar Aang had been told time and time again that to venture across the surface of the sea when the moon had risen and claimed what rightfully belonged to it was to sign your own death certificate. And yet, he found himself here, at the water’s edge, skipping stones, lost in thought. To be the Avatar had once meant something, years before. Before the four tribes had separated, scattered to the ends of the earth. Those who formed fire itself chased the other tribes from the surface lands, those who could move rock and metal burrowed underground, those who flowed with the air sent ships with great sails across the sea until they reached towering mountain spires. Those who bent water, who bent blood… they retreated to the depths of the sea, and with time, they became a part of it. Legend told of the way in which the Water tribes had adapted, two legs smoothed into razor sharp scales and voices twisted into something dark and luring. Now, they were the monsters known as sirens. OR: a KATAANG AU where tui and la have split the earth into the sea and the sky. aang is a winged avian, while katara is a siren<3

"well, my (not-yet) boyfriend's in a band":

in which the gaang are in a band, and when it comes time for them to write an original song to submit to the republic city music festival, aang is...suspiciously good at writing love song lyrics OR kataang, if they were in an indie band and aang didn't know how to communicate his feelings except through writing love songs

"i’m no longer a kid, and everything has changed":

after aang falls to azula's lightning strike in the caves of the earth kingdom, toph, sokka, and katara are left to pick up the pieces. katara's healing abilities are put to the test in the weeks that follow, but she finds herself seeing aang in a different light as she realizes how much he's endured since emerging from the iceberg only months before. OR: the weeks-long gap between the end of season two and the beginning of season three of ATLA is finally at least partially expanded upon. ALSO OR: a bit of aangst, or kataangst, if you will

"can you see me using everything to hold back?":

Katara's life after saving the world was filled with a whirlwind romance with Fire Lord Zuko that became a loveless, controlling marriage she is no longer happy in. After finding out the extent to which her husband has betrayed her trust, she escapes to find home in the person she has missed most during her time in the Fire Nation. OR: The common Zutara trope of "Zuko helps Katara escape an unhealthy relationship with Aang" is flipped entirely and completely on its head.

"my heart is yours, it’s you that i hold on to":

The war has been ended, Ozai has been rendered helpless, and Zuko has reclaimed the Fire Nation with the promise of peace. Everything that Aang has been working towards since the moment Katara freed him from the iceberg has been done. He's saved the world. Now, all that's left is to confess to his forever girl. OR Aang wakes up the morning after him and his friends saved the entire world, and the first (and only) thing he can think about is Katara. When they get a chance to talk, the two take a walk down memory lane.

"shining down on me":

sokka can't stop thinking about yue. she comes to him in his dreams, and try as he might, he just can't move on. inspired by the song "my love, mine all mine" by mitski

"the avatar's adventures in parenting":

aang being a bad parent is CHARACTER ASSASSINATION and i won't stand for it. i just know that him and katara wouldn't be focused on just passing on bending, but the *teachings* and ideals of both of their tribes to all their children, regardless of bending status. OR, aang and katara become parents and aang finds out that parenting is his proudest achievement, more so than stopping a hundred year war or holding the position of avatar

"i'm trying to tell you something, something that i already said":

katara speaks to each member of the gaang individually and finds out that aang has been head over heels with her for years and no one ever bothered telling her. this takes place after the fire lord is defeated, but in my version, they never kissed in the finale:oo katara is basically dumb in terms of love and so is aang and they are peak miscommunication trope and theres too much zutara content and not enough kataang OR katara interrogates each of her friends (toph, sokka, and zuko) and comes to the conclusion that she has lived for years without the kind of love most people wish for their entire lives

if any of these speak to you, they can all be found on my ao3 account:)<3 happy reading!!!