attackfish | The Avatar_500 Jump Start Posting And Comments Meme

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The Avatar_500 Jump Start Posting And Comments Meme

Alright, I'm unwilling to let

avatar_500 go without a fight, so I am going to incentivize participation. Write and post a fic for Round 65 - Air, and I'll fill a drabble request of yours. Comment on all of the fics in the round (everybody said they wanted more comments), and at the end of the round, link me to all of the comments and I'll fill a request for you. Do both, and I will fulfill three requests for commentfic.

The rules for posting to

avatar_500 can be found here.

You don't have to belong to

avatar_500 or have ever participated in it before to earn a request for commenting, and if you do want to join to post a fic for the round, all you have to do is click the "join the community" button, and you're in, easy.

About which I will not write (so don't request):

Ty Zula
NC-17
Incest
Ships where one party is much older or younger than the other(s)
Rape
Other people's OCs

Other than that, everything is fair game.

The deadline to post fic is Saturday December 1st at 11:00 PM EST. The deadline to post comments is Saturday December 8th at 11:00 PM EST.

Fics in The Round So Far:

Marking Boundaries by

attackfish
The Need to be Seen by

lalunatique
Playtime at Air Temple Island by

wolfs_lament
What Are the Odds? by

c3childs
Wrong by

chordatesrock
Four Element - Air- Third Stanza by

clockwerkchaos
How Tenzin Met Pema by

lavanyasix

Fills:

For

wolfs_lament:
For a story: Hufflepuff Zuko, Secret Tunnel

For

chordatesrock:
   For a story: Holding This Breath: the Aftermath of Kidnapping Aang
   For commenting on everyone's fics: Quiet Shadowed Places: the Cooler
   Bonus: Zuko/Toph, all grown up and surviving state dinners

For

lalunatique:
For commenting on everyone's fics: Ty Lee and Suki - Sake

For

somariel:
For commenting on everyone's fics: The Grand Lotus puts out a call

For:

c3childs:
   For a story: Hama - Katara wasn't her first pupil *Warning for violence and death*
   For commenting on everyone's fics: Amon - the vigilante of Republic City
   Bonus: Yakone - he owns Republic City

For

lavanyasix:
   For a story: Lin Realizes Toph is a dirty cop
   For commenting on everyone's fics: Pre-series - Korra encounters prejudice due to being half Northern and half Southern
   Bonus: Ozai marries his son off into an insultingly low-ranked colonial noble family. Zuko/Kori

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Comment here with a link to the

avatar_500 post for your story and a prompt/request for me to answer.

Edited 2012-11-19 21:49 (UTC)

Wrong by chordatesrock, for avatar-500 prompt #65. (http://avatar-500.livejournal.com/226185.html)

That horrible universe where the Northern Water Tribe captured Zuko: what ever happened with his attempt to kidnap Aang?

The ice wall parted, and Zuko's head jerked up. Yue caught his eyes from the doorway and held them as she crossed the floor of his room and sank down to her knees beside him. "Zuko, what were you thinking?"

He dropped his eyes and glowered at the floor.

"Don't be like that." Grabbing his chained hands and cupping them in hers, she tried to catch his eyes again. "You had to know it wasn't going to work. What were you going to do when the cotton-poppy juice wore off?"

He stubbornly refused to look at her, and it made her unreasonably angry. He was the one who had run. He was the one who had left her alone.

"Zuko, it's me." She rubbed the back of his hand through his mitten. "Talk to me."

"What was I supposed to do?" Finally he met her eyes again, and his own were wide and unhappy before he narrowed them. "I never even had a chance to go home before, the Avatar- I never really believed he was real before, and now..."

Yue kept rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb. All day, she heard people talking about it. She wondered if the guards talked about it in front of Zuko, now that he was chained up again and harmless, or if they had stopped talking in front of him at all and consigned him back to the bubble of silence that had surrounded him when he had first been captured. She didn't know which was kinder, and she hoped that mattered to the guards, at least a little, enough for them to consider it.

They never had ever had a chance before either, not really. Nobody talked about it, because nobody wanted to remember, but they all knew that the only thing keeping the Fire Nation from their door was that they just weren't worth the struggle, at least not while the Earth Kingdom was around, richer, and easier to pick away at. But that wouldn't last forever, and everybody knew it.

It was usually much, much easier to forget about all of that when she was with Zuko, to forget that out there, it was Zuko's nation that was creeping ever closer to swallowing them whole. "Do you think your father really would have loved you again if you brought him the Avatar?"

"He does love me!" The ice under him hissed as it melted and boiled all at once. "I just have to-"

"He left you here to rot! I love you, I-" She stopped. Her mouth snapped closed, and absurdly, she heard her mother's voice telling her not to interrupt.

And suddenly it was his hands cupping hers, and he had slipped off their mittens to touch them skin to skin. "You've never said that before."

She hadn't. In all of their long, veiled conversations about duty, and honor, neither of them had ever said the word love. It was safer that way, pretending that they were talking about something, anything other than the fact that they could not be together.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I love you too." His hands were warm around hers, but his voice was small and frightened. "I've loved you for a really long time."

"But you still need to try to go home."

He nodded, and she forced down the pricking pain at the corners of her eyes.

"And I need to marry Hahn." Her mouth drew into a thin, unhappy line, as she felt her words begin the well-trod path that would end with both of them without each other, both unhappy and honorable.

He wasn't going to succeed. They both knew that. She wondered what would happen to the Fire Nation prince if the Fire Nation conquered his captors. Would they let him free? Put him on a ship and send him out to sail the world again? Where would an exile sail when the whole map was colored red? "Do you ever think about what would happen if we won the war? Not the Fire Nation, I mean. The Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom."

"No." There hadn't been any reason to, she supposed. "I guess I would be stuck here forever."

"Your father would be dethroned," she said softly, barely daring to continue. "There would need to be a new Firelord."

"My father would be dead," he said flatly. "Not dethroned, dead."

"They might put him in prison." But of course neither of them believed it.

"And would this new puppet Firelord," Zuko closed his eyes and swallowed. "Be able to marry the Northern Water Tribe princess?"

"It would be a good political match." She clutched his hand. "I can put Hahn off for a little while. Maybe a year. It might be enough."

"It's dishonorable." Zuko looked away. "He's my father."

And that it. It always was. Her hand still in Zuko's, Yue sat back with him against the wall to stare out over Zuko's quiet, empty, little cell.

Edited 2012-12-03 05:14 (UTC)

Wow, this universe never gets any less horrible, does it? Poor Zuko.

No, it really doesn't. This is why I don't like to poke my head in. It never stops being grindingly horrible.

whoa. it is very horrible. but also poignant and I love the Zuko/Yue (Zue?) relationship.

I love them in this verse. I mean, part of the reason I love them is because they're the most tragic tragedy that ever tragiced, and they revel in it, but also because they have real misery and problems, and I'm a sucker for angst.

Playtime at Air Temple Island (http://avatar-500.livejournal.com/225470.html)

Can I request Hufflepuff Zuko? Toph and Zuko in an unintentional adventure, or coming back to the house dorm after Toph has lost a bunch of points and Zuko getting caught up in it.

Hufflepuff Zuko is always request-able! This takes place in their fourth year.

~*~

"Well I didn't know they kept an army of animated suits of armor down there." Toph folded her arms and smirked. "Not my fault."

Zuko scowled back at her which she was totally oblivious to. "I don't think anybody else knew either, but most people know better than to go of running down every secret tunnel they come across!"

Toph set her jaw and sat down on the bench, arms still folded. "You didn't have to come."

"Yes I did, you dragged me in with you."

"You could have climbed out again." She shrugged, grinning and spreading her arms wide. "It was only a few feet."

Zuko had seen the look on her face, when the stairstep had vanished, and she had stepped down onto thin air, when she had grabbed his arm reflexively and held onto him as she fell. "Just help me get these seedbeds manured."

She grabbed the spare trowel and pulled it out of the manure with a nice, heavy load. "Admit it, you had fun."

Zuko's good eye bulged. "No I didn't, we had to run for our lives!"

"See?" said Toph triumphantly. "Fun."

"Ugh," Zuko replied. He was on his hands and knees, spreading manure in a greenhouse on a Saturday morning. He didn't want to deal with it.

"Personally, I don't know why they gave us detention," Toph said innocently, blinking her eyes. "They shouldn't leave vanishing staircases like that over tunnels that poor helpless little blind girls like me could have fallen into."

"Give it a rest," he groaned. "Nobody buys that anymore." Except for Zuko, especially when he knew he shouldn't. And there she was, saying the same thing Longbottom and Smith had said to him, about how he didn't have to go with her, and he stood there, unable to tell them yes, yes he did, because Toph was going down that tunnel, and what would she do without him if there was something in the tunnel with her. And she had, needed him, hadn't she? "You lost us a hundred points."

"Hey, I lost us fifty. You lost us the other fifty." She grinned again, wild, and carefree, and unafraid. "Anyway, they should be glad we found those suits of armor before some first year did."

Zuko picked up another trowel full of manure and spread it over the bed. "Most first years aren't stupid enough to poke something they find down a dark corridor with their wand."

The manure hit him right between the shoulder blades.

"You've got to be kidding me," he yelped, grabbing a handful of manure to throw back at her.

Edited 2012-11-30 15:43 (UTC)

Yay, Toph and Zuko antics! Thank you!

Hope they don't lose extra points for throwing manure around. Why do I have a feeling Hufflepuff don't do very well in the inter-house competition (I've forgotten what the overall competition is called)?

So is Smith their house master, or does he just take perverse pleasure in dealing out negative house points to Zuko?

Zuko had seen the look on her face, when the stairstep had vanished, and she had stepped down onto thin air, when she had grabbed his arm reflexively and held onto him as she fell. I love this bit so much! Toph's talking tough after the fact and Zuko's not going to call her out on it.

I think this has been addressed before, but are all the Gaang and the Dangerous Ladies in the same year?

They do. And they have led every house but their own to victory at least once.

Smith is their head of house, but he doesn't really take perverse pleasure in taking points from Zuko, so much as he bullies everybody except his favorites, and he's convinced Zuko's no good.

Part of what I love so much about writing this verse is just Toph and Zuko as besties. The dynamics there are wonderful.

Yes, the Gaang and the Dangerous Ladies are all in the same year, just to make things easier on me. The crew of war orphans, however, are more spread out.

Wow, Hufflepuff must love them, then.

Ok that makes more sense. I imagine many of the other Hogwarts' teachers treat Zuko in a similar manner (well, less bullying and more lack-of-trust).

Part of what I love so much about writing this verse is just Toph and Zuko as besties. This is mostly why I love reading it so much.

Yeah, that's the other reason Smith doesn't like Zuko. Hufflepuff losing every time due to a pair of troublemakers doesn't make their head of house look too good, does it? Yeah, his housemates kind of resent them.

The only two teachers who like Zuko are McGonagall, and Longbottom, and both are fairly distant in their regard. Being in Hufflepuff helped reassure some people, but not many.

They're such great besties.

http://avatar-500.livejournal.com/225572.html

Hama - Katara wasn't her first pupil.

Warnings (big warnings) for graphic violence, and blood, and death, and bad things.

~*~

"What's the point of practicing like that anyway?" He pressed himself against the bars of his cage, thin legs poking through. "There isn't any water here."

"Hush," she rasped, body too dry to wet her mouth. "I need to concentrate."

"Concentrate on what?" He let his arms fall away from the bars and swing to his sides, and Hama couldn't help staring at them, and how thin and knobbly they were, like twigs. She tried to place him. "You're not bending anything. None of us are ever going to get to bend anything again."

Yuna's boy. He was what, maybe fifteen or sixteen? He can't have been more than ten when she left, and now look, he was old enough to go to war and become a prisoner. She laughed at him, coldly. "Not if you think like that, you won't."

"The guards are going to catch you. They're going to take you out and beat you. You really want that to happen again?" He licked his cracking lips, but it didn't do any good.

Hama's eyes flicked back to him as she began her forms again from the beginning. "You can watch for the guards if you're so worried."

"I don't get it." He said flatly. "There's no water."

No. Not there, where the air was so dry it stole away their tears and their sweat as soon as they formed, where the cups of water they were given weren't enough to keep their mouths from tasting like dust or relieve the pounding in their heads, where the guards measured their piss and beat them if they didn't think it was enough. And it was never enough, because the water was never enough. "Yes there is, don't you feel it?"

He stared at her as she continued her way through her forms as if she had gone crazy, and she smiled fiercely back. She got it, and he didn't.

"There's water inside of me," she said, her voice low, and she wondered what he saw with his sad, terrified eyes. She was a young woman still. Did he see a grownup, someone who had already been fighting when he had been a little boy, or did he see the closest thing to a pretty Water Tribe girl he was ever going to see again? Was that why he was worried for her? "And inside of you, and inside the rats that scurry around this prison." She let her voice drop even lower until he had to lean into the bars to hear her. "And inside the guards carrying the keys. We'll bend their blood."

"That's impossible. Nobody's ever-"

"I already have." She grabbed the bars of her cage. "I made the rats come out of the shadows last month, and under the full moon, we will break free, and they won't be able to stop us, because I'll control their very bodies."

"Show me," he hissed. "If you're so great, show mw while the guards aren't looking."

Hama looked away from him. "I need the full moon and the power it gives us."

He shook his head. "I don't believe you."

"Wait." She smiled. "The full moon's in two days. I'll show you."

~*~

Hama pulled her arm back, and the rats slumped forward, and then, with a flick of her wrist, the rats flew out of her cage, and back into the shadows.

The boy's lips has parted in astonishment, and he closed them, siting there with his legs hanging out of his cage, silently until he managed to speak. "Can I try?"

"Go ahead." Hama smirked. "Nobody's stopping you."

He breathed out. His hands tensed into claws, and she could see him grab hold of the water in the rats' veins. Two of them jerked forward, into a patch of moonlight between the cages when he moved his arm. He let his arm fall, and they ran off, chittering into the darkness. "I think I can do more."

"That's good." Her eyes didn't leave his. "That means I'm not alone."

He pulled his legs back inside the cage. "It felt really..."

"Powerful?"

"Yeah, I guess." He gulped. "Weird.

"Help me." Hama reached her hand through the cage bars. "You want out too, don't you? We'll take our freedom together."

"Yeah." He nodded. "We'll get everybody out together."

~*~

"Go slower." Hama ordered, deliberately taking even longer to finish her own form.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, go slow, so you can get every little bit right." He rolled his eyes and pitched his voice high and mocking, and Hama wondered who exactly he was supposed to be making fun of. He certainly didn't sound anything like her. "I know how to practice forms."

"You go slow so that you don't catch the guards' attention." She thought the fact that she restrained following it up with "you idiot" was very kind of her.

He flushed, and slowed down, properly chastened.

~*~

But it didn't last, not that Hama thought it would. He was a child.

"Stop moving," she breathed. Wasn't he the one who was supposed to be so worried about the guards, she wondered.

But her warning didn't come soon enough, and the guard shouted out as he rounded the corner. "Hey you! Stop that!"

The boy stumbled in the middle of his leap and crashed to the floor of his cage, legs askew beneath him. Hama slumped back against the bars of her cage and watched, eyes blank as she could make them.

As the other guards sprinted from their posts to the prisoner, lying sprawled in his cage, the first guard unlocked the bolt on the boy's cage and yanked open the door. "You, boy," he shouted, grabbing the boy and threw him out onto the prison floor. "Were you trying to bend?"

"No!" he yelped, cowering against the ground. "I swear, I was-"

"Shut up!" the guard yelled, shaking him until his head rattled up and down on his neck.

It was then that the other guards began to catch up. The prisoners, trapped in their separate cages could only watch, their eyes boring into the guards, as the first kicked the boy in the ribs. The air in his lungs spilled out into the room. Years Later, Hama would swear she had felt it, even though she knew there was no way she could have.

Some of the prisoners clutched the bars and screamed out. Hama heard them as if through layers of snow. The guards kicked the boy, and hauled him up in their arms to punch him, and dropped him back to the ground to kick him again. His moans, louder in Hama's ears than the screams all around her, gurgled out of him with flecks of his blood.

~*~

All through the night, Hama sat awake, pressed against the bars of her cage and listened to the air bubble in and out of his lungs. She snaked her arm out of her cage to grab his own hand, left dangling out of the bars, and felt him grip her back. So she was the one to hear his breathing stop, and feel his hand go slack in hers.

~*~

The next morning, a guard poked the boy's body through the bars. "Hey, guys, he's not moving!"

Hama listened to the recriminations, the you-weren't-supposed-to-kill-hims, and the well-it's-your-fault-for-kicking-his-ribs, and the everybody-just-shut-ups, and found that she didn't care at all about what they were or weren't supposed to do.

~*~

The moon rose in Hama's blood. She opened her eyes, dispelling the fitful sleep she had been chasing, and twisted her hands into claws, and waited for a guard to pass near enough to her. She was escaping, and she was, she decided, doing it alone, so that nobody else could mess it up.

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The Avatar_500 Jump Start Posting And Comments Meme

For Stories

Re: For Stories

Holding This Breath - The aftermath of kidnapping Aang 1/2

Holding This Breath - The aftermath of kidnapping Aang 2/2

Re: Holding This Breath - The aftermath of kidnapping Aang 2/2

Re: Holding This Breath - The aftermath of kidnapping Aang 2/2

Re: Holding This Breath - The aftermath of kidnapping Aang 2/2

Re: Holding This Breath - The aftermath of kidnapping Aang 2/2

Re: For Stories

Secret Tunnel!

Now I have that song stuck in my head...

Through the mountains, secret secret secret tunnel!

Re: Through the mountains, secret secret secret tunnel!

Re: Through the mountains, secret secret secret tunnel!

Re: For Stories

Hama - Katara wasn't her first pupil pt 1/2

Hama - Katara wasn't her first pupil pt 2/2