#keep the Zutara tag out of it

[late-draft]

Force of Nature

continuing my WIP series, see here more posters

#atla #avatar the last airbender #zuko #katara #you can tag it however you like #zutara #zutara month #I hc she kept her hand scars #hopefully I finish there #keep an eye out but #in case I don't at least I posted the sketches #my art #fire nation

[asocial-inkblot]

Zutara is better than Maiko for one reason: It didn't happen.

Zuko getting away with treating Mai like garbage while dating her was awful, and him getting to do that to Katara would have been even worse.

#Anti Zutara #against ship #Katara #Mai #I'll be nice and keep this out of the Zuko tag.

[femme-malewife]

It really bothers me how (some) zukka fans claim that zutara fans only ship it because it’s m/f??? like lmfao did we watch the same show???

Did you not read the room when Katara tenderly touched Zuko’s scar in the crystal catacombs? Did you fall asleep during The Southern Raiders??? The entire episode had to be watered down because it was “too shippy” for zutara.

Did you not realize that Zuko and Katara literally spent the entirety of the Sozin’s Comet episodes together, practically glued to each other’s side? Katara comforted him, and he helped her. Out of everyone, he chose her to fight alongside him against Azula, and he protected her from lightning.

There’s plenty of other reasons why zutara is a fantastic ship, and this is just what we see in the show ^

Why do (again, some) zukka fans have to insist its “heteronormative” for us to ship zutara? Isn’t that literally the opposite side of the coin as seeing two guys and shipping them together because they’re guys???

And then make posts just flat out insulting zutarians when we have done absolutely nothing to you? Can you seriously not just stay in your own shipping bubble? Do you have to complain about another ship that much? Are you that insecure?

This is why I don’t interact with the atla community often, because it’s filled to the brim with toxic people who can’t just shut the fuck up and enjoy their own shit.

#also lol bold of people to say all zutarians are straight white girls who are 100% heteronormative #when i. a lesbian woc. have trauma with heteronormativity <3 #oh no im not a straight white girl and i ship zutara??? #i must be ✨toxic✨ #and like i said in the post. its not all zukka stans #but there are some who i just want to fucking tear my hair out whenever i see them invade the zutara tags #i block the dipshits but lol they just keep coming

[t3rrarium]

No bc based the way people complain about zutara fans I thought they must've straight out murdered one of the creators or something, but the only thing you see in the tag is breathtaking fanart and incredible pieces of writing of people defending their ship. And it's so confusing to me how people can hate the ship so passionately?? If you don't like it maybe just. scroll? News flash but when you're in a fandom you're going to see people with ships you don't agree with and you can just, choose not to interact with them. Specially when zutara fans stay in their own tag and they're just enjoying their ship in peace without bothering anyone. Every time I make a post saying something is rotted in misogyny I have people insulting me in my comments, so I will just say that it's weird how zutara antis keep complaining about how annoying the girls that ship them are and how they only do it because they have a crush on zuko, as if girls lack the comprehension skills to ship something because they really understand both characters and think they genuinely work well together

[korra-bending]

I need to rant a little about the shipping wars in the Avatar fandom.

I have to dig DEEP through the cesspool to find people who feel the way I do. I know they're out there too.

I am a Zutara fan, I have been since the show came out. I'm also aware that people fight now and they fought then.

What I dislike, on both sides, are people putting each other down for liking a ship.

Yes I understand Kataang is canon, and within the current narrative Zutara is not. Personally I feel like there were seeds planted for Zutara that simply never bloomed, even the writers considered making them endgame. But unfortunately that never happened, and you know what? That's okay, because look at all the wonderful discussions we get to have about it, allowing us to look deeper into why we think they would have connected so well. On top of that, so much amazing art and fanfiction is out there for us to enjoy. I love seeing everyone's interpretation of how they would have wanted things to happen.

What I dislike about some fans of Kataang, and this is obviously not all of them, is that some are alluding to Zutara fans being delusional and idiotic simply for liking the ship. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a ship different from yours. if you disagree with it, IGNORE IT. IT'S NOT THAT HARD. And it's not going to kill you to see a different ship on your timeline, if it ruins your day then you need to look at yourself and why you feel so strongly about that. Just let Zutara fans have their enjoyment, there's nothing wrong with it.

As a Zutara fan myself, I also see problematic people on this side as well. I see people bashing on Aang's character all the time, and I don't understand that. I get the writing was a little silly sometimes, but at the same time Aang is just a kid. When we were 12, many of us loved like Aang did. There's nothing wrong with that. I also see people bashing others who like Kataang. Let them enjoy their ship!! Once again, there is nothing wrong with loving a different ship than yours.

Lastly I have an issue with the "anti-kataang" and "anti-zutara" tags and how much it upsets people who put the tags in their post that others don't want to see. Don't look at it then! Keep scrolling and move on with your day. It's not that deep yall. If it really is that deep for you, once again take some time to figure out why it's bugging you so much. Do some introspective work, because it seems to run deeper than seeing a ship you dislike.

When I was a kid in this fandom, I didn't see people being this awful to each other. Maybe I wasn't in the spaces where it was so bad, maybe I was lucky. I feel like during that time it was more lighthearted and fun instead of constant undermining and arguing.

All in all, if you love Kataang, that's wonderful for you. Have a great time! If you love Zutara, also wonderful for you and have a great time as well! Stop putting people down for having different views. Put that energy into more important things that actually matter.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #zutara #i just had to get this out after seeing so many mean comments and fights #it's so silly #yall are so silly #unfortunately had to delete the kataang tag because my main point kept getting missed #it is what it is

[the-badger-mole]

14. Unpopular opinion about the ATLA fandom?

People keep acting like shipping is the problem in this fandom. It's not. Shipping is a totally valid and stimulating way to engage in fandom. And it's also a lot of fun. When people go out of their way to announce that they think shipping is shallow or dumb, or that all shippers are a problem just to get some imaginary points for being a deeper thinker than the rest of us, I get so annoyed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about people who genuinely don't care about romance, I'm talking about the ones who jump into ship tags to be condescending about preferring the couple as friends. Or when they say that all shipping is ruining fandom for them, meanwhile, there are plenty of people who agree with them who they could choose to interact with instead.

The actual problem in the ATLA fandom is the people who disagree so violently that they take it on themselves to go into spaces that aren't for them to spread their stupid. I could not care less that Kataang shippers disagree with me. I hope they're having so much fun and making content for their friends and co-shippers. They can do or say whatever they want about my faves, because at the end of the day, they're all fictional characters who don't have feelings. But I won't tolerate some itinerant anti-Zutara nutjob or some toxic Aang stan to come into my house and try that mess here. They are the ones who make fandom feel exhausting, and they have chased off some really cool, talented people with their vitriol. The problem isn't that they are Kataang shippers, or that they like Aang. The problem is they're obnoxious, and they want to make it everyone else's problem.

Send me more asks

#atla #pro shipping #shipping is fun #i'll be answering asks all weekend #zutara #anti-katang #anti kataang #anti-aang #anti aang

[roslynwrites]

Hello! I hope you're doing well. I rejoined the zutara fandom a few weeks ago and let me tell you i am OBSESSED with your fics. I know the atla fandom keeps whining about it but I actually really enjoy the darker aspects of zk & incendiary is simply a masterpiece. So i was wondering do you have any zk fic recs that are darker in nature?

Oh, welcome back! Thank you very much!!

The idea that Zutara is dark has always been blatantly hilarious to me. It's sooo vanilla. It's baby's first ETL. It's quite possibly the purest ETL out there. And yet. Lmao. I'll be real with you anon, if you're wanting fic recs that are darker in nature, I'm not sure if the Zutara fandom is the best place to look. I have found it be an incredibly vanilla fandom, from my perspective anyway, and there seems to be a greater resistance to darkfic or darker fic around here that I haven't noticed in other ships I've poked around in. You look in Reylo or Dramione, for example, and I think there's a clear difference there. To some extent it's also a character thing I think, I believe characters like Draco or Kylo Ren to be more convincingly morally grey or dark than Zuko. Zuko is just such a sweetie, at least to me, so if he behaves too dark it doesn't ring quite true (again, for me) unless it's wildly AU.

(On a side tangent, I've always been a believer that of the two, Katara would be the one to go dark first and Zuko would be the one to follow her, with a lovestruck devotion, into that abyss, and that's what would pull him over...but that might just be me, I love that whole 'love that corrupts' sometimes, it's so delicious) 😄 Anyway. For Zutara I can currently only give meager offerings of fics I have not yet read: there's Salt and Scale, which seems to be well liked and appears to be darker, based on the tags. I'm looking forward to reading that one! I also saw a recent one a while ago that was based on Senlinyu's Manacled, which is quite dark. I thought it was called 'Unbalanced' but I am having trouble finding it; either I'm remembering wrong or it's down? But good luck finding more!! Maybe others have more too.

(I'd be happy for some more suggestions myself).

#answers #fic: incendiary

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Hi do you have a Zutara fic recommendation for someone new to the fandom, I want something that the characters act like their canon counterparts <3

hi anon! I’m a huge fan of the characterization in caroe3725’s refraction (long fic) and cablesscutie’s Katara Alone (shorter fic, start of a series). The personalities of Zuko and Katara are very well fleshed out in these fics and they feel exactly like older versions of themselves. Once Around the Sun by eleventy7 and i’m still here by owedbetter are classics for very good reasons too.

for fics that are more similar in tone to ATLA (more Gaang presence, lighthearted and fun / silly but still emotionally compelling), I love ShamelessLiar’s Simple Misunderstanding (ponytail Zuko kidnaps Katara but it seems like Iroh’s the only one in control here), Boogum’s Zuko’s Tiny Dilemma (ponytail Zuko gets turned into a kid and is adopted by s1 Gaang), Fandomme’s Stormbenders (ZK go on a secret mission), emletish’s The Worst Prisoner (the Gaang accidentally kidnaps ponytail Zuko, note the series is a WIP) and FanPanda13’s Another Word for Alchemy (post war Gaang solves a mystery). I keep my Zutara fic recs in its own tag which I should probably update more. Happy reading!

#Zutara fic recs #zutara #can i ask you a question?

[burst-of-iridescent]

Hello! Zutarians like you are the reason why I am moving further away from Zutara. the way you talk rudely to people who disagree with you is really upsetting. The anon who wrote to you (or several anons) did not show rudeness and spoke quite politely, but you literally immediately started being rude, talking arrogantly and familiarly. the fact that someone does not agree with you does not mean that you need to talk rudely, arrogantly or point out mistakes in English to people (it may come as a shock to you, but a lot of young people do not have the opportunity to get a good education and do not have the opportunity to know English perfectly, especially if it is not their native language). thank you, you completely ruined zutara for me.

do you think it's polite to come into someone's inbox just to mock an edit they spent a lot of time and effort on, which they tagged appropriately for the express purpose of making sure no one who enjoyed kat.aang would see it? do you think it's polite to then follow up with an unasked-for essay in response, one that misappropriates the legitimate issues faced by women of colour to tear down a fictional ship? do you think it's polite to invalidate the racial identity of an actual woman of colour just because she doesn't agree with your opinions? do you think it's polite to keep anonymously bombarding strangers you don't know online with condescending, bad-faith arguments that don't take into account anything they're trying to say?

do you think that perhaps, just perhaps, after dealing with all of that for 24 hours straight, people might not feel inclined to be cheery and pleasant to the person responsible for it?

the fact that someone does not agree with you does not mean that you need to talk rudely, arrogantly or point out mistakes in English to people

i couldn't agree more. that is why i am perfectly willing to engage in polite, civil discussion with people who are actually arguing in good-faith, and who don't harass me online or associate with others who do.

i have no idea why you seem to think i criticized that anon's english by the way; if that is from my "pay attention in english class" remark, i was referring to media literacy skills (a fair point to make, considering that's exactly what they came into my asks about). not once did i ever remark on their grammar, spelling, or anything else about their english, nor do i feel the need to.

but if it's more important to you to blame and tone police me instead of the person who's been harassing me for the last two days, then please know that i'm not the one ruining zutara and zutara fandom for you.

you're doing that just fine on your own.

#the discourse #for anyone in my asks confused about what's been happening: this is your summary #this will be my final word on the discourse and i will not entertain any further asks #whether you're pro or anti

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Zutara: post anti kataang in the kataang tag

Zutara: why are you kataangs so pressed at me? I just posted my opinion..

The worse part unlike how anti zutara ends up in zut tags bec tumblr is dumb at least kataang post anti zutara which means they try to keep it out of zutara space. these guys posted anti kataang ranrs in the kataangs tags on purpose but im sure will see themselves as victim and kataangs as bullies just like always

Would not surprise me.

#anti zutara

[toph-bi-fong]

*pretends to be shocked* Oh wow… zutara shippers are being obnoxious twats again by invading spaces meant for Kataang shippers and adding their rancid takes and unrelated nonsense into the main tag.

TIME TO TAP THE SIGN AGAIN

1) If it’s unrelated to Kataang and is about a different ship- namely Katara and Zuko, DO NOT tag it with #Kataang

2) Keep your anti-ship opinions out of the main tag. The #antikataang tag exists for a reason. USE IT. Posting your take in the main tag makes it visible to the rest of the KA fandom and guarantees that your ass will be met with backlash. Don’t act surprised when that happens.

This is why we can’t stand the lot of y’all.

#antizutara #zeekay fandumb

[brezchez]

To celebrate the release of 1989 - Taylor's Version,

I'm going to be writing fanfics based on each song with some of my favourite ships. Not every song on the album however is going to be paired with a ship, like Shake It Off (cuz it just won't fit 😭).

The list so far is:

Welcome to New York

Blank Space

Style: Rarijack

OOTW: Tenrose

AYHTDWS: Ghostflower (Miles X Gwen)

Shake It Off

I Wish You Would: Ineffable Husbands

Bad Blood

Wildest Dreams: Zutara

HYGTG: Prinxiety

This Love: Zelink (BOTW/TOTK)

I Know Places: Donnie X Jensen

Clean

You Are In Love: Scorbus

Wonderland: Adrienette Love Square

New Romantics

As for the vault tracks, I haven't decided yet as I don't know what the songs are (like their stories/messages). These I might keep as surprises.

All fics can be found under the tag: #1989 song fics

If there are any ships that you think might suit any of the songs I've crossed out, or even replace the ships I already have (and that I know of 😅), let me know!

I'm so excited for this release!! 💙🩵🤍

#taylor swift #1989 taylor's version #1989 tv #miraculous ladybug #adrienette #ladynoir #marichat #ladrien #doctor who #tenrose #across the spiderverse #miles x gwen #good omens #ineffable husbands #avatar the last airbender #zutara #sanders sides #prinxiety #the prince of southland #webtoon #harry potter #scorbus #operation true love #the legend of zelda #zelink #fanfic #1989 #miraculous #1989 song fics

[theowritesfiction]

Thank you for tagging me, @juniperhillpatient! You know how we fic writers always enjoy an opportunity to talk about ourselves and our writing! 😉

20 Questions For Fic Writers

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 15

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 3,355,310

3. What fandoms do you write for? Avatar: The Last Airbender for the past few years, but I have also written for Life Is Strange, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Baldur’s Gate fandoms.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. the burning ring – I guess not surprising because it’s the oldest of my azutara stories, and also it’s set in the canon-verse, which always gets more clicks than any AU. 2. the white lotus gambit – my ATLA Pai Sho modern AU story. I’m actually quite surprised that this story did so well because I expected it to have very niche interest, I mean who really cares about kids playing Pai Sho… but it was about so much more than Pai Sho. 3. Azula’s kitchen nightmares – shockingly my current WIP is already up to third place in this metric, which really blows me away because I haven’t been posting it *that* long. But I’m happy that readers have resonated so well with this kitchen nightmares inspired wild weirdness. 4. The raging maelstrom – one of my zutara stories, but with a very dark katara and rather bittersweet ending. I don’t really think about this story anymore, but like… it’s still there, I guess. 5. The pit of snakes – sequel to the burning ring, enough said 😊

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, almost always, unless someone is just being rude then I will just freeze the thread and ignore them. Or if someone comments on a story that’s like 5 years old and I can’t figure out a way to respond because I have forgotten what the story was about. Also, I don’t plan to ever disable guest comments.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? From fics currently posted on Ao3, I guess that would be the raging maelstrom. Katara sacrifices herself at the end because she sees it as the only way to atone for some of the awful mistakes she’s made, so that’s a bittersweet ending at best. I have a Dragon Age fic of 4 short chapters on ffn that’s way angstier, though. It’s called the price of immortality, and it involves my blood mage Warden sequestering herself away in Warden’s Keep together with her lover and requesting a bunch of prisoners be sent to her from Denerim. It’s all a part of an experiment to attain immortality by brewing a potion from lyrium, Andraste’s ashes and the blood extracted from the prisoners. However, she runs out of prisoners just before attaining her goal. Care to guess what happens to Zevran (her lover)? Yeah, turns out price of immortality is sacrificing your humanity and going batshit insane.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Eh, most of my fics have very happy endings, certainly the Azutara ones. Personally, my favorite is probably the once in a blue moon ending (WLG sequel), because it was from an unexpected POV and set 30 years in the future, and I liked how it allowed me to celebrate the accomplishments of all the main characters. It’s just too bad that not many people saw it.

8. Do you get hate on fics? not really. I got a lot of hate on the raging maelstrom, because there are some zutara fanatics who really hate anyone writing toxic zutara. They see it as secret kataang supporters undermining the validity of their ship. I’m glad that Azutara fandom appears saner, although that’s probably just because we're fewer lmao.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Occasionally. I used to write either F/M or F/F, but if I were to write smut again it would surely be all F/F. I just have very inconsistent mood when it comes to smut. Sometimes I like to include it, but for a while now I just haven’t felt any real urge to write anything smutty.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Yeah, I write fusion fics which is just transplanting the characters of one property into the setting of another property, where they replace the characters of that setting. I’m not sure I have written a proper crossover according to its definition.

11. there is no question 11 apparently 😊

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Someone once started translating my Mass Effect fanfics into French. I thought they were insane to even try, and they gave up after like 3 chapters.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not really, I’m not sure that would suit me well, creatively I work better on my own.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? Well, I can’t really say Azutara because I’ve been writing fanfic for a very long time, and they have been my focus for only the past 3 or so years, but lately, certainly they have been at the center of everything I write.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I don’t have anything like that. If I want to finish something, then I just do it.

16. What are your writing strengths? I have no idea, honestly. I guess I’m good at writing banter? I like to think I’m reasonably versatile and there’s nothing I’m amazingly good at, but also nothing I’m painfully bad with. My stories usually have a little bit of everything.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I know I’m bad at writing action scenes, but it’s just so hard to motivate myself to apply greater effort when action really bores me. Sometimes I also struggle with descriptions and setting the scene, just because English is not my native language and it can sometimes be hard to find words to properly describe what I envision.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Well, I sort of did that for my Mass Effect fic, even if it was just a Russian admiral running around screaming ‘Suka Blyat!’ XD I don’t know, there’s a time and place for it, I guess.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Baldur’s Gate 2. Really showing my age there *cry*

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? oh that’s so hard to choose. Like, the amount of plotting and research that went into White Lotus Gambit was… a lot, and I loved the result. But then again, the effort to make the ATLA characters fit into the Life Is Strange universe, the crazy amount of very detailed outlining done for that fic, and the crazy codependent Azutara… yeah, I would have to say it’s corners of the world our mere prologue

#writing #tag games #thanks this was fun <3 <3

[caelum-in-the-avatarverse]

Hello! I’m trying to collect seminal fanworks for different fandoms, and figured that it would be a good idea to ask you for any for atla since you said that you’ve been involved in writing fanfic for the show for so long. Basically, I’m hoping to find any fics that are widely popular within the fandom and/or have laid the groundwork for certain aspects of fanon. I’ve already got Embers by Vathara down for this since I’ve seen influence from it pop up pretty often, but I’m a bit new to the fic side of the fandom so I wanted to know which other ones were out there. Thank you!

Hmmm. Well, I can probably point you in the right direction, BUT there's a few things about me you'll want to take into account.

I have always had incredibly niche tastes. Even back in 2009 I was way more interested in reading about minor characters than I was reading about the main cast, and I preferred genfic over shipping. So the fics I read didn't tend to get popular, and the fics that did get popular were usually shipfic and thus I didn't read them and wouldn't be able to track their effects on the fandom. I also haven't regularly read ATLA fic in years; I write it, but I'm way more interested in my own OCs and worldbuilding and headcanon sandbox than most fic these days, so I'm not sure what the current trends are or where they came from. Most of the things I point you towards are going to be very old and possibly forgotten.

That said, I think your best bet is going to be figuring out where the hangout spaces were and who the major players were in old ATLA fandom and going from there. @loopy777 and @piandaoist may be able to help us out here too, especially since I only joined the fandom after the finale aired; they were around long before that.

So, where did the original ATLA fandom and its fic live? Well, for the fic, mostly on FanFiction.Net. You're lucky in this regard--I don't think there were any big independent fanfic archives for ATLA. Harry Potter was around at the same time and had several big fic sites, but HP was older than ATLA, so places like Sugar Quill and FictionAlley were founded around 2001. FFdotnet was founded in 1998, but back then it was pretty commonplace to build your own personal place on the internet. By the time ATLA aired, though, I think FFdotnet was becoming the go-to fic place. And old ATLA fandom never seemed to have much of a slash fandom; if it had that would've been more incentive to start up a separate slash-focused archive, since m/m would be especially vulnerable to purges. So as far as I know, no one felt a need to establish an ATLA-focused fic website, and if they did it never got very big. You'll probably have some good luck seeing what was popular if you just go to the FFdotnet ATLA section and sort by number of reviews and check the dates on what you find.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are going to go looking for this stuff, you need to keep in mind that you are looking at a past internet that is very different from what you might be used to today. For all that purity culture wankers like to complain, AO3 is a dream compared to the olden days. Now, you can see a fic's tags and warnings (or that the author chose NOT to warn) before you even open it. That was not possible or expected on many other fic archives. FFdotnet only gave you so many characters to write your fic summary, that was precious real estate. Sometimes people warned for things in author's notes, sometimes they did not. The culture and etiquette around warnings was different; in many fandoms back then, failing to warn for character death was seen as way more upsetting than failing to warn for rape. Check the rating, the summary, the author's notes--and then understand that you might still run into a completely random sex scene halfway through the fic. Was every fic like this? No, of course not. Most of them weren't. But you have to understand that this is an unavoidable risk. If you can't handle the idea of stumbling across some underage Zutara smut, this might not be the project for you.

Oh, and mind the citrus scale--lemons mean sex, limes mean the characters don't go as far as having sex.

And FYI, it's been ages since I've read anything I'm about to go over and I can't remember the details, so yes, this warning applies to anything I recommend here, too.

Other places to check...well, fandom lived on LiveJournal back then. I'm not sure if ATLA fandom was very affected by Strikethrough and Boldthrough; like I said, there didn't seem to be a lot of slash fans back then. But you could probably go trawling through old journals and communities and see if you find anything interesting... Oh, and back then all fanart would've been posted on DeviantArt, that was pretty much where fanart lived back then. LJ didn't have native image hosting, you had to use Photobucket if you wanted to post any images on there, and why do that when DeviantArt was RIGHT THERE for your fanart.

Ooooh, here you go, FanLore has some lists of ATLA fan spaces, lots of which are on LJ and DA!

There was also AvatarSpirit.Net, but they shut down ages ago. I archived a lot of the threads before it went, but I basically skipped the whole fanfic forum--everything in there was probably on FFdotnet, and no one really left comments on the fic threads, so it seemed pointless since I was pressed for time.

I think that pretty much covers the places. So what about the people?

Well, off the top of my head, I think one fan you might find useful is AvocadoLove (haha your names match). She wrote a lot of fic, but her most popular by far was Another Brother, which I believe was the original Zuko Joins The Water Tribe story, so that trope can be traced back to her. AvocadoLove also kept what might've been the fandom's most prestigious fic reclist, which you can still see on both her LiveJournal and her DreamWidth:

LJ 1 | LJ 2 ||| DW 1 | DW 2

There's a lot of popular fics on this list. Be warned, though, that a lot of them have disappeared, especially if they were posted on someone's LJ instead of on FFdotnet. A few years back I went down this list archiving everything I could, and the number of error pages I hit was saddening. It's possible some have been reposted to AO3 so you can go check there.

Going off this list...

Enslaved by sharkflip--This was a popular Zutara fic, Zuko's the one who got enslaved lol. Extremely different worldbuilding from canon, I gave it a read once and it was interesting.

Mai's Ramblings by @loopy777--Oh my GOD I forgot this existed but it's great. Unfortunately ASN is gone and I have no idea if they're posted anywhere else, LOOPY TELL US, but these were just hilariously stupid rambles by Mai on every ATLA ship imaginable. Did they have a big effect on fanon? Unsure. Were they beloved by the ASN community? YES.

Stormbenders by Fandomme--Another super-popular Zutara fic, people loved it, so it's possible it might've affected Zutara fanon?

Water Tribe by Rufftoon on NoSelfControl--Okay, so this is a long webcomic about "what if Zhao survived the Siege of the North, got amnesia, and the NWT begrudgingly took him in?" Very popular with Zhao fans back in the day. The really cool thing about this is that Rufftoon was actually an ATLA storyboard artist, so her artwork looks a LOT like the show. I believe she made Water Tribe as a sort of personal practice for long-term visual storytelling or something. She did lots of other ATLA art too, you should check her out.

Oh, speaking of webcomics...

Plight of the Freedom Fighters by SioUte and PFFbySIO--The first webcomic was a "how to make Jet survive" story, the second followed the Freedom Fighters after the war as adults. SioUte was the Freedom Fighters BNF back in the day.

And while I'm thinking of it, not a webcomic, but sylvacoer had this whole not-really-Zutara story going on that was literally Blue Spirit/Painted Lady.

*thinks* Look, when it comes right down to it, unless there's stuff going on in the shipping subfandoms that I'm not aware of, I don't think you're going to find anything that directly established as much fanon as Embers did. There were plenty of other super-popular fics, sure, but most of them focused on shipping, and worldbuilding wasn't quite as important. Embers put worldbuilding first and foremost, and therefore it was easier for the fandom to pull from as a whole.

Uhhh let's see what else...at this point I'm basically just throwing whatever I can remember being interesting at you, lol, idk how much of an effect any of this really had.

DJNS wrote a bunch of fic with interesting premises, some shippy, some not. The Zuko/Aang roleswap AU was pretty cool.

For me personally, the biggest influences on my writing were Dark Puck and Rebecca Hb, specifically their Dai Li fics. They had a circle of friends on LJ who put out some good stuff.

*thinks* Yeah, I think that's all I've got for now. Hope that gives you a starting point! I'd also recommend, as you trawl through FFdotnet, checking out the authors' favorited fics in their profiles, you could probably find more interesting stuff that way.

Idk, I'll add more later if I think of anything. But if you start with AvocadoLove, I think that's an excellent starting point.

#asks #fandom history #ancient fanfiction #fanfiction #fandom #caelum rambles

[castawavy]

ty for the tag @dorytoss 🥺💖

💓 favourite three ships

omg I have so many but umm let's say 🧍‍♂️!!

keyleth x vax (🥺🥺🥺)

viktor and jace from arcane AHAHAA

zutara (who I will just always love I think, oldest ship AHAHA) ✌

🎧 last song: talk too much, reneé rapp im really resonating with rn

🎬 last movie: oh damn I think the last time I watched a movie it was Twilight, and I was watching it with a very good friend of mine who I saw last night as well, and we talked about needing to watch NM nxt

📖 Currently Reading: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, christopher paolini (he wrote Eragon so needless to say I am enjoying IMMENSELY) 💗

🌶️ Craving: BRUNCH (im so hungover rn 😭 but my dad isnt picking up and I wanted to check if I could join him for food cuz hes out) 😭

👯‍♀️ Relationship Status: Single (questioning everything) BUT happy regardless and very loved by friends so not really feeling a gap there

Last Thing I Googled: the title of the book I was currently reading 🧍‍♂️ AHAHAHA its a long title... but also not a very good one I dont know why he picked that honestly...

💫 Current Obsession: omg theres this cartoon on my tiktok that keeps showing up about this dragon man and his family and I NEVER skip im so immersed, like him and his family are so cute 💀💀💀

gonna tag my beloveds @moodnamars @sojutrait @sadnesshotline @verthu (and anyone else who wants to sorry im mind blank rn) 😭✌

#tag game #TY FOR TAGGING ME this was really fun #tw alcohol mention

[noirapocalypto]

Qᴜᴇꜱᴛɪᴏɴᴀʀᴇ + 5 ꜱᴏɴɢꜱ

Tagged by @katsigian to do this fun little tag game. Thank you! 🖤

5 Songs:

(I'm picking from my own playlist since my oc playlists haven't been updated in a while. 😅)

Genesis - BONES (Salem's voice claim and one of his inspo's)

Skelz - That Mexican OT

Shout - Tears for Fears

A la PM Puse en Alto - Doble ONE Flow Lethal (one of Renato's songs)

Johnny Dang - That Mexican OT

Questions:

Three Ships You Like: I'm gonna keep it real with you folks, I'm not much of a shipper so this took me a while to figure out. But if I had to pick some -- Swerve Strickland x Hangman Adam Page (I don't normally ship wrestlers, but this one has me by the balls), Zuko x Sokka (Avatar the Last Airbender), Sansa Stark x Theon Greyjoy (Game of Thrones--never shipped this actively, but I thought it was cute)

First Ever Ship: Same as above, I don't really remember shipping much in my youth. I'm pretty sure I was a Zutara shipper though at some point (Katara x Zuko from AtLA)

Last Song You Heard: Formaldehypde Footsteps - BertieBanz

Favorite Childhood Book: I read the entire Cirque du Freak series one summer. Really enjoyed it at the time. Never saw the movie, thankfully lmao

Currently Reading: Some book about palmistry I got from the library

Currently Watching: Dark Side of the Ring

Currently Craving: I could kill for an agua de limón.

Tagging (with zero pressure!): @a-pirate @kidomega91 @iamsancho @togepies @valkyrie-of-the-light @cybersteal @cccyberia64 @hazellblogs @venboo @athenapalmer

#sorry if you've already been tagged #or if I’m forgetting to tag folks I normally tag #im kinda late to the party #tagged ⋆ ★