I Have Two Fics ("you're In The Wind, I'm In The Water," And "so I Will Go To Secret Gardens In My Mind")

guys it is going to be like two days late atp because i last minute got indescisive and started some heavy editing, but my fic for kataang week day two (the protectiveness prompt) is a rapunzel tangled AU where katara= rapunzel and aang= flynn rider and i am so beyond excited to share it with you lovely ppl!!!

i like them

this one's for all the kataang shippers that got a little sad every time they saw absolute husband aang slander in a zutara fanfic.

OR: the common zutara trope of "zuko helps katara escape an unhealthy relationship with aang" is flipped entirely and completely on its head.

...

The liveliness of this mountaintop temple was nothing like the cold quiet that she had felt in Zuko’s castle these last few years. After she and her friends had saved the world, ending the Fire Lord’s reign, Katara had found herself at a crossroads. Although it made the most sense, she couldn’t bring herself to return back home, to the Southern Water Tribe. The memories were… too much.

Sokka had extended an offer for her to join him at the Northern Water Tribe, where he planned to find a teacher to aid him in mastering the traditional non-bending fighting styles of their people, but Katara just couldn’t bring herself to go back there, either. Toph and Aang were both headed to reconstruct important cultural monuments destroyed during the war, including the Air temples. She had considered coming with them, she really had, but ultimately… she made a different choice. 

...

So she had stayed with Zuko. 

Through his breakup with Mai, she had been the one he came to.

Through his first year as the Fire Lord, she was at his side. Attended every meeting, talked through his ideas, dragged him out to social events when he felt so in over his head that he would sit paralyzed in his room. That closeness had turned into something else the first night that he had kissed her.

...

And after what felt like years of quiet complacency and mild agreement, Katara felt her temper awaken, flicker. She calmed herself, reasoned that she didn’t know what he was doing with them. He could be checking for threats on her life, for poison sealed into an envelope. She held fast onto that tiny scrap of belief that he was still the man she had married, trusted, loved and been loved by.

Until that last thread of hope and trust was pulled taunt and then snapped entirely when Katara slipped into his office and found them. 

There were entire drawers of letters with her name on them.

...

Her attention drifted to the bottom of the bag. To Aang's scrolls. The ones she still hadn’t let herself read.

...

Katara,

How’s the fire palace? Started any underground dance clubs yet? I guess they’d be pretty tricky to start right under the nose of the new Fire Lord. Is Zuko adjusting well? I’m a bit worried about the burden of dismantling an entire empire falling squarely on his shoulders. Do you think I should head back, stick around for some peacekeeping? Give me any reason to come to be with you help, and I will.

Yours, Aang.

...

(Fire Lady) Katara,

I heard by word of mouth from a few Fire Nation travellers that passed through the Western Air Temple that you and Zuko had gotten married. Congratulations are in order, of course, but… Sokka, Toph, your dad and I never got our invitations. Was it a Fire-Nation-only event, or something? Your dad is pretty broken up about it. Sokka and I tried to console him, but he’s fairly upset, and honestly? I’m worried about you, Katara. This doesn't seem like you. You don’t sound like yourself.

Yours, always, Aang

...

She selected a third scroll, dated only a month before.

Katara,

I can’t deny that I’m concerned about how you’re doing. Especially considering that the Katara I know would never shut down every single opportunity to see her friends. We don’t mean to be overbearing, but we love you. So much. If all the new duties that come with being wife to the Fire Lord are too much, please, please, talk to any of us. Talk to me. I care about you, Katara, I always have, and I miss my best friend.

Forever yours, Aang.

Katara slid the scroll closed before her tears could drop onto it, and she quietly packed the papers away. She reached up, rubbing those tears away furiously the way she did as a child whenever Sokka called her a crybaby. The attempt to hold the tsunami of emotion back was fruitless. She doubled over, shoulders shaking with sobs.

She knew where she would go once the cargo ship reached the land. 

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

consider this my attempt to hold myself accountable i'm finally working on my new teenager in the iceberg chapter again

yet another question for the writers of tumblr, but this time around, it is for fanfic writers & the fanfic writers alone...

in the fan-fiction community, i think we've pretty much all come to accept the existence of the fanfic writer curse (for those who don't know what that means, it typically refers to fanfic writers often experiencing crazy things like car crashes or personal problems that stop them from updating for a bit).

i've heard so many different, crazy stories of fanfic curses in different places, and so, i figured why don't we compile a bunch of them, all in one post?

so... fanfic writers of tumblr, what is the worst occurrence of the fanfic curse you've ever experienced?

if you don't have a story, but you know a good one, feel free to share it (with permission, of course:))

now that ao3 is back up, boy oh boy do i have a fic rec for you!!!!

i get that the comics are meant to fill that gap between atla and lok, but i feel like we've always been missing that moment where katara and aang actually formally confess their feelings and talk about everything they had been through. with how mature both of them are, it feels somewhat... unrealistic to me that we're never shown that moment where they talk it all out, after three (3!!!) whole seasons of buildup >:(

this fic was inspired by me wanting to show the moment when aang and katara are finally free from the responsibilities placed on them by the war!!!<3

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.

---

“Is it ok if I ask you something? While we’re on the topic of… us kissing?” Aang asked, hesitantly. 

Katara nodded. She had a feeling that she knew where this was going. “Ember Island?”

“Yeah.” He breathed. “We never got to… talk about that. After we kissed at the invasion, there was never a moment alone, and I do recognize now that Ember Island wasn’t the right time to bring it up, and I shouldn’t have sprung all of that on you. It wasn’t fair for me to ask you to make such a big statement. It wasn’t right for me to be so demanding. I felt ridiculously jealous over the implication that you were interested in Zuko, and I… well, I reacted poorly. I really am sorry for that.”

“I appreciate you saying that.”

He continued. “But, if you don’t mind me asking… what did you mean when you said you felt confused?”

Katara sighed, drawing water from the lake and tossing it between her hands idly. “I still don’t quite get it, even now. I think the best way to describe it was that I was in fight or flight, locked into survival mode. I did have feelings for you, and I knew that, but I just couldn’t let myself be vulnerable like that at a time like that. I guess that I was worried that if we started something, it’d be a weakness for the both of us. It felt too selfish to distract ourselves from the greater mission at hand when the world was at stake.”

“Ah.” Aang said, thinking it over as the pieces began to click together. “That… that makes a lot of sense.”

Katara continued. “If we’re both being honest, you do have a history of… avoidance, Aang. Giving into my feelings for you felt like it would mean enabling that bad habit of yours, and it seemed like the world needed you more than I did.”

---

Katara fought the blush spreading rapidly across her cheeks as the two leaned closer together. “Do you remember making that necklace for me out of fishing twine? So I could have a placeholder while Zuko had my mother’s necklace?”

He only nodded in response, her proximity rendering him entirely incapable of producing coherent speech. “I still have it. I don’t think you realize how much that meant to me.” She laughed, lost in memory for a second. “The way you looked at me when I put it on… and Sokka said you were acting like you were in love, and I… called you a good friend?”

“Mhm?” Aang asked, about as close to her as he could be without her lips on his. “What… what about it?”

"I don't want us to just be... good friends, not anymore." She took a deep breath, her voice wavering with nerves.

I think we were meant to be more than that." Katara breathed.

---

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

my (quillthills) ao3 ATLA fanfiction masterlist:

"if happiness were a tangible thing, it would be you":

Katara is tired of the iron grip that Emperor Ozai has over the kingdom of Rosas, tired of watching him spread his influence across the mainland. When Sokka comes home from the palace with the knowledge of an impending tragedy, Katara is left to wish on the stars in hope that they will offer salvation. They do, in the form of the Avatar, a boy transformed into a wishing star almost a century earlier. Her wish for hope is fulfilled, in the form of a boy known to be the embodiment of hope. Will that same hope be enough to stand against a man powered by the dreams and wishes of an entire kingdom? OR: ever since pixina put the idea in my head of a kataang wish AU, i haven't been able to stop thinking about it. this fic is the result<3 if you haven't seen wish (2023) yet, don't worry! you don't really need to to understand this fic:)

"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!!!

the MUSIC in the backgrounddd ugh this scene will never ever fail to make me cry. the pure devotion and love in their eyes like CMONNN 😖🤍

the WAYYYYY that they look at each other in this scene is forever going to be my Roman Empire. it actually makes me crazy. everyone else moved on but I never left this moment upon viewing it live fr. altered my brain chemistry forever

i think i might need to write dickkory college AU fic where the titans are all roommates in a shit first year dorm apartment 🤨

STOP BECAUSE THEY'RE ALSO BOTH EACH OTHER'S BOOKTOK BOYFRIENDS

c'mon, every time aang went into the avatar state, you can't tell me you can't see katara saying "aang 🥺 this isn't you baby 😔 please, stop 🛑✋ for me 😌"

thinking abt this tweet again