for danger is in words 

“My wife’s name is Mary,” he said, first in English, before he noticed and then again in the Portuguese she would understand. There was a something about her face that told him he perhaps hadn’t needed the translation. “Not so different—”

“You did not call me by her name,” Mariko said, a reassurance he should not have needed, but it had been a long time since he’d tumbled a woman and Mariko had touched him in ways he had not imagined, given him pleasure with hands he would have thought devilish clever except for the look in her dark eyes as she’d stroked him. Tenderness and wonder, as if he were precious, an unexpected marvel, not a scarred sea-pilot with manners too rough, too eager, for the subtle Japans.

“’Tisn’t proper to speak of her now, I warrant. After pillowing,” John said, using the term Mariko had. She was a widow, even if not as merry as widow as one would find in London or Amsterdam, so perhaps she had done nothing untoward by her rights, but it didn’t seem polite to hold a woman in his arms, her bare skin more delicate than her silk robe, the taste of her yet in his mouth, and talk of another.

“Men’s tongues wag after congress,” she said. “Unless they sleep.”

i will never understand when people act like zutara shippers are reaching when we say the crystal catacombs scene is intensely romantically coded because like... ignoring literally all other context (which does have other hallmarks of romantic coding, but literally pretend you don't know anything about the show or scene for a second)... what would you think happened in this picture?

would it .... would it maybe be an interrupted almost-kiss

also if you were watching the show as it aired (me, circa 7th grade) the trailer shorts for the season finale were INSANE. This scene and the baiting was like, off the fucking charts. Also consider that like, Toph had just been introduced as a character and had fantastic chemistry with Aang in addition to being his age…it felt like it was all coming together!! season 2 was quite the time to be alive.

So many of you have read my writing (Strings, Lights in the Shadow, Delicate) over the past several years, across different fandoms. Thank you for being so supportive. All of your encouragement on tumblr and Archive of our Own helped me take the step toward writing an original novel. I'm so excited to share this with you.

Paperbacks are available here and on Amazon. The ebook is also available on Amazon. Unfortunately, Kindle devices are experiencing technical difficulties at the moment, and if you plan on reading on a Kindle device you may want to wait for the next update coming soon. However, the ebook works great on iPads and other browsers. As you can see from the screenshot, the paperback is beautiful and is well worth the wait. :)

Thank you to @chewytriforce for her cover art and design, and @broomchickabroom for her interior design and typesetting!

If you have any questions about purchasing the novel or ebook, please don't hesitate to contact me. ❤️

[Zutara AITA post because it sounds so funny to me]

AITA for getting shot by lightning?

So I (17M) and a group of friends (13M Aang), (13F Toph), (17M Sokka), and (15F Katara) went to war against my tyrannical father in order to save the world from dictatorship. We split into three groups and Katara and I were sent to fight my somewhat tyrannical sister. She challenged me to an Agni Kai which resulted in her throwing lightning at Katara. When I noticed, without thinking, I jumped in front of it to save her. Long story short, I almost died but Katara beat my sister and healed me👍. After Aang beat my father and took away his bending for good, I guess he kind of assumed Katara would date him? Anyways, I guess I cast some sort of love spell (?) when I risked my life to save hers without thinking and she said that she liked me and not him in front of our whole friend group. So he got a little pissed and upset because she was supposed to be his “forever girl” (if someone could let me know what that means too that would be great) and then got pissed at me and said I forced her to fall for me. I was just trying to save her life. Now I feel kind of bad because I took away the romance I guess they had. I mean, I’ll admit that I like her too but I never tried to push it on her! Can someone help me understand this mess? Am I the asshole?

*pretends I didn’t already drew this exact scene years ago*

. 𝕒 𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕖𝕥 𝕞𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 

[ i made some time to finish a new painting ] 

instagram: @winterofherdiscontent 

.𝔀𝓪𝓻𝓶𝓽𝓱.

quick sketch from the other day for a future painting 🎨 🔥+🌊

I literally cannot wait to post the literal hundreds of thousands of words @southsidestory and I have written because I can just tell these are the best damn shippers in this fandom like THESE ARE MY PEOPLE.

Zutara and North Pole, ahah

if zutara would have happened the azulon statue would have been replaced with katara i don’t have proof of this except vibes

felt like drawing adult zutara for some reason!! 🌊❤️‍🔥