Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

Title:  Your Treasure Spent
Author:  LizBee
Fandom:  Avatar: the Last Airbender
Characters:  Aang, Azula, Mai; Aang/Katara, Mai/Zuko, Azula/Ty Lee, Azula/OMC, Mai/OMC
Rating:  R, mostly for violence and politics
Warning(s): (highlight to reveal) Major character death; violence; underage arranged marriage; casual sex under the influence of alcohol; psychological abuse; mental illness

Part 1 | Part 2 | ( Part 3 )

Title:  Your Treasure Spent
Author:  LizBee
Fandom:  Avatar: the Last Airbender
Characters:  Aang, Azula, Mai; Aang/Katara, Mai/Zuko, Azula/Ty Lee, Azula/OMC, Mai/OMC
Rating:  R, mostly for violence and politics
Warning(s): (highlight to reveal) Major character death; violence; underage arranged marriage; casual sex under the influence of alcohol; psychological abuse; mental illnessWord Count:  29,500

Summary:

Aang won his battle … but Zuko and Katara lost theirs.  

With Azula controlling the Fire Nation, it seems like the war will never end.  Aang and his friends return to Ba Sing Se to recover and mourn, while Mai escapes Azula and carries Zuko's dying message to Iroh.  

For almost a year, the world holds its breath.  The Fire Nation's resources are spent, and Azula, struggling with her own demons, realises that her father will never truly relinquish his power.  In Ba Sing Se, Mai tries to come to terms with being alive when everyone she has ever cared about has died or abandoned her.  Aang, without hope, travels the world, laying the dead to rest.  Until the answer to his questions becomes clear: Azula has to die.

Notes: This was not an easy fic to write, not least because it turned out that the 5000 words of set-up I'd envisioned turned out to be the entire (nearly) 30,000 words of story.  My eternal thanks go to my betas:  Branwyn, for her work on the early drafts and plotting;  CiderCupcakes, for her plot and character work;  Weaver for the commentary and commas.

I'll be uploading this to AO3 etc in the next few days, but if in the meantime anyone wants to read it in one handy block, an ePub can be downloaded here


Art by biichan

( Part 1 )

Give me a character's name and I will tell you three reasons why it would be terrible to try to date them, have sex with them, or be in a long-term relationship with them.

Avatar meme, day 9: Favorite Book Season

( Apparently this was not a popular choice back in the day? )

SPEAKING OF MY OTP, which I wasn't, but I needed a segue, the Maiko Big Bang fics are being posted! Some look great. Some look ... okay. Either way, I regret that my new Kobo (old Kobo suffered an encounter of the liquid kind) was borked out of the box and has to go back to North America for a replacement. LONG FICS, HURRAH!

And speaking of big bangs, which this time I actually was, here's that awkward moment where no artist has claimed your story. *weeps*

Late on Monday morning I developed a weird obsession with Toph/Azula. Why? Well, I've reached that point in my AU Big Bang where I'm quite close to being done, only there's a big climactic scene to write first. And whenever I reach this stage in a story, my brain starts throwing out completely unrelated ideas that totally have to be written right away. For example, over the weekend I wrote 1000 words of Katara/Zuko fic. And usually that pairing makes me retch.

Anyway, Toph/Azula. Because I was talking about my Big Bang fic with bnharrison last week, and she said something about Toph being almost the only person in the world, other than Katara and possibly Iroh, who is totally a match for Azula. And while any good Azula pairing should start out with "someone she can't kill too easily" I started seeing other ways they work well together, even as their combined ego threatens to destroy the entire world.

So now I'm kind of contemplating a series of ficlets about Toph and Azula fighting crime and letting Zuko pay for the property damage. It needs a better, or at least more appropriate title than "TEAM TOPHZULA, FUCK YEAH!" but I can work on that. I scribbled a 500-word ficlet this afternoon.

( Future-fic, G, no warnings. )

Tonight, feeling a sad lack of River Song in my life, I watched "Silence in the Library" for the first time since it aired. Tennant's accent isn't very good, is it? I spent much of it going, "WHY AREN'T YOU ELEVENTY? BE ELEVENTY AGAIN!" and also feeling that, while I like Donna okay, I feel like she was hyped up into The Greatest Companion Ever, and I don't actually find her that interesting.

Also I wonder, again, at people saying River is smug in her first appearance, because she spends most of the episode either dealing with plot stuff, or being visibly and increasingly distraught that the Doctor doesn't know her. Either she completely changes in the next episode, or fandom thinks that any woman who is capable of walking and breathing at the same time is getting above herself. GUESS WHICH OPTION I SUSPECT!

Here, have a meme that charms me:

Give me two characters I'm familiar with, and I'll tell you about a time that they kissed.

As usual lately, bonus points for AtLA characters.

But firstly, a public service announcement: Korean spirits traditionally drunk in shots? BE WARY OF THESE. Also, karaoke. And plum wine.

In short, I have woken up with a sore throat, covered in glitter.

AU Big Bang progress:

12552 / 15000 words. 84% done!

Water Tribe funerals: one.
Fire Nation betrothal celebrations: one.
Bodies disposed of: countless.

That all looks totally impressive, except that I'm still in the first third, and the pacing is shot to hell. Or, as bnharrison politely said, "This is all quite good to read, but I'm not feeling any momentum." There's going to come a point where I'll have to bite the bullet and admit that actually, I'm aiming for something more like 40,000 words. And who wants to read 40,000 word fic these days? Except, presumably, the readers of legendary DW fic "Terminal Decay", who would no doubt consider 40,000 words refreshingly short after one million.

Really, I've made my old mistake of starting a fic without knowing precisely how it ends. It doesn't matter right away how you get there, as long as you have an end-point to work towards. So I've taken the last few days off writing, and tried to let the story rummage around in my backbrain.

Result so far: plot bunny and initial dialogue for a Zuko/Mai/June fic. Reliable sources tell me I am totally allowed to title it "1800-DIAL-A-NINJA".

Anyway, I really like what I've got so far, but it all seems like a considerable amount of work to get from point A to point Z, especially when I'm only vaguely aware of what point Z looks like. The temptation to put this on the backburner and churn out 15,000 words of girl!Zuko fic is ... pretty strong.

(Girl!Zuko: exactly like boy!Zuko, only people keep trying to hit on her, protect her, or both. Except, obviously, for Uncle, who is all, "I don't know much about girls, but I'm sure I can trust your best judgment. Wait, no, that's a terrible plan. At least try not to get pregnant.")

"Come with us," said Li.

"If you want to live," said Lo.

The best 12 words in my AU Big Bang? Twin old lady Terminators say yes.

(I'm not really writing an Avatar/Terminator fusion where Azula's the only person who knows the machines are going to destroy humanity. But only because I only thought of it right this actual minute.)

Also, because other people are talking about their wordcounts:

2702 / 15000 words. 18% done!

Characters dead so far: two.
Drafts begun in third person and abandoned in favour of first: one.
Work hours spent thinking planny thoughts: MANY.

ETA, 90 minutes later:

3770 / 15000 words. 25% done!

That looks impressive, only I'm barely into the story itself. AWKWARD.