AZULA GET BACK HERE-
Any fire siblings concept that gives them this vibe is an automatic favorite
Once Ellie learns what a sleepover is, she regularly bullies Tommy into having them with her (he goes willingly but he makes her work for it nevertheless).
He's not only the cool Uncle tm but also the person she can talk to about stuff she doesn't always want to talk to Joel about, either because it would make him worry a lot or because it would be an incredibly awkward conversation she has no intention of having with him. Tommy knows how to keep a secret and he would never betray Ellie's trust.
They maneuver mattresses onto the living room floor and eat enough sugar to kill a small toddler. Most of the time, their nights consist of Ellie doing weird shit to his hair and painful face masks that she discovers in old magazines, watching movies Joel either deeply dislikes or doesn't want her to watch (trying to protect the last of her innocence, sweet attempt but futile, since nothing of that is left anyway), and gossiping; Tommy is GREAT at gossip.
Joel is a bit jealous that he isn't invited, but when he comes to pick her up in the mornings and sees her curled up with Tommy the exact same way he and Sarah would when he made his brother babysit, the bittersweet surge of affection is worth the comparably lonely night in his bed.
Ellie deserves every bit of family she can get.
been rewatching the scene where Joel finds Ellie after David because im trying to get a good reference photo so I've been rewatching that scene over and over again frame for frame and HOLY FUCK
the way Joel holds her and im not talking about their hug im talking about the way Joel holds her while she's fighting back in his arms with such ease like he doesn't just grab her arm and make her look at him no he at first garbs her arm but when she starts to scream and fight back and her legs give up Joel spins her around and is holding or at least trying to hold her like a new born like he's got one arm on her lower back and one on her upper back
and he's holding her till she has her knees on the ground and only ONLY when he knows she can't fall and hurt herself dose he slowly bring his hands up to her arms and then cups her face in his hands to then make her look at him and tell her "its me. its me"
AND A N D I M N O T D O N E. Joel. Joel Miller that parental motherfucker even has this worried "oh shit im about to drop my child" face while he's holding her like a newborn like OMFG HOW THE FUCK DID I NOT NOTICE THIS
like look at his face that’s a “im about to drop my child shit fuck shit “ face
for info I keep saying that Joel is holding Ellie like a newborn because when you hold a newborn you're supposed to have on arm around them supporting their back and one arm holding their head and he's holding Ellie the same way (obviously he can't hold her head in that moment because it would just make things worse but he still holds her like you would a newborn child) and this could be a parallel to how Anna held Ellie because she held her the same way.
Anna and Joel both held a screaming, fighting, bloody Ellie the same way.
I cannot do this anymore. im going to claw off my walls now and eat my own arm goodbye.
Happy tlou hbo day :-)
"please feed the author don't poke the author"
*Grins in Challenge Accepted*
Okay, so you know how Zuko has this whole honor complex mixed with daddy issues? Well, what if he didn’t…? And in another universe he instead had something WAY STRANGER? Like, if instead of being obsessed with regaining his honor he was obsessed with tracking down unknown spirits because he literally believes the spirits have it out for him personally?
Cuz’ everyone knows Zuko has the worst luck, but what if his whole life he grew up seeing glimpses of spirits no one’s ever heard about before Zuko’s life royally screws up? Zuko’s having a good time firebending? He sees the tail end of some spooky spirits for half a second and suddenly BOOM! The next day Azula starts trashing Zuko around by lighting BLUE FREAKING FIRE! Zuko reading a nice letter from his cousin Lu Ten on the warfront? Next thing you know he hears dwindling laughter, and the following week BAM Lu Ten is DEAD and uncle Iroh has disappeared from the face of the Earth! The few hours before he and Azula present themselves to Fire Lord Azulon in their white robes? Yeah, he could have SWORN he saw something else staring at the mirror behind him smiling like a maniac, and now the Fire Lord’s dead and his mom has mysteriously vanished too!!!
Like he’s totally a diehard, reckless spirit conspiracy nut, and he’s totally obsessed on proving what would amount to be a Spirit world version of the Illuminati set on making his life miserable? And everyone in the Royal Court would be completely embarrassed and blow him off, but to Zuko it just makes perfect SENSE! Everything he tries to do in life goes unreasonably wrong, and if there’s millions of people in the Avatar world, then wouldn’t it be possible there might be BILLIONS/TRILLIONS of Spirit beings they haven’t even discovered yet some of which are DEFINETELY out to get him!?!? RIGHT?!? He just can’t prove it. Yet…
So when Zuko finally does get banished to go find the Avatar and regain his honor he’s like.
Screw it.
Screw the Avatar.
Screw this stupid war.
I’m going to prove this conspiracy ON MY OWN!!!
Next thing you know he’s traveling around the world investigating Spirit tale cases, making frenemies with Wan Shi Tong in his library (cuz’ why wouldn’t a knowledge seeking Spirit Owl not be cynically interested in this human being’s futile quest for knowledge?), and trying really hard NOT to get entangled with this monk kid named Aang and his friends who somehow always end up destroying Zuko’s hard-earned evidence DAMMIT!!!!
At least the cabbage merchant still believes him…
Welcome to the world of Avatar: The Spirit Files, and the regaling tales of Prince Zuko the Spirit Seeker! THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!!!!
*Plays Theme Music*
Sokka Scully finds all this VERY suspicious, are spirits even real?
Aang: I was frozen for 100 years! I survived because a spirit merged with my soul a millennia ago and I've been reincarnating ever since!
Sokka: Allegedly.
Katara: You got kidnapped into the spirit world last week, Sokka.
Sokka: Allegedly.
pov you're Darius
All 12. I just need time to do the actual calendar bit but it’s almost done and will be up on my ko-fi shop as soon as I’m done.
For a prompt could u do one where zuko finds some of his old crew at the boiling rock and they escape with everyone. I've never seen this done before and I thought of it like last night but I think it could be fun
The coolers aren't so bad.
One day in the coolers is enough to crack most of the firebending inmates in Boiling Rock, but most of them haven't been to both Poles. Jee and his crew have a lot of experience in swimming in the polar seas — both of them, and for weeks in the North Pole, with nothing but half-remembered lessons on the Breath of Fire from General Iroh to keep them alive. The cooler is nothing compared to that. He's dry here, for one, and it's not truly isolation if he can still hear Teruko mouthing off at the guards in the cooler right next to his.
“I can take you back to your cell if you’ve learned your lesson,” a guard jeers at the prisoner in the cell on the other side.
The voice that answers is a punch to Jee’s gut. “I have — completely,” Prince Zuko says, sounding sullen and angry and alive, definitely alive.
Teuko suddenly shuts up; that's confirmation enough for Jee.
The brat had managed to survive Zhao's fucking pirates. The wave of relief that hits Jee is short-lived; the prince might be alive, but he's in the cooler next to Jee's. The Fire Nation's prince, thrown into his own country's most secure prison, and locked into the worst torture chamber ever conceived of for firebenders like them.
They need to get that boy out of here. Jee has to round up the old crew tomorrow; figure out where the brat's regular cell is, make an escape plan —
But first, he needs to survive the night in the cooler. Jee takes a deep, fortifying breath, and settles down to wait.
this meme + ATLA ships
what is Herdbalist Zuko's hair like?
YES. Finally, someone asking the IMPORTANT questions!
“Well I would have brought my comb. But you kidnapped me.”
“You are just not gonna let that go, are you,” Sokka said.
“Sokka,” Katara said. “Aang did pull him into the saddle. While he was saying ‘no.’ And then we didn’t ever bring him back.”
“Because there is an evil fire-shooty admiral guy after us! ‘Us’ including him! Which I am still waiting on an explanation for, but I will at least accept a ‘thank you Team Avatar for saving me!’ ”
“Well,” Spirit said.
“Do not–”
“I would have brought my gratitude–”
“–finish that.”
“But you kidnapped me.”
He didn’t even say it accusingly. He said it while scratching the sweet spot at the base of a lemur’s tail, smiling with airy indifference, as Katara sat behind him combing out the bison-flight tangles from his ridiculously luxuriant waves of hair.
“Did you leave your dignity behind, too?” Sokka accused. “What kind of man has hair down to his butt–”
“Longer than that,” Katara reports, running her comb through just a section of that hair because they would probably both have to be standing for her to get a full swipe in.
“–and lets another man’s little sister play hair stylist? Do you not know the danger of surrendering hair control to a little sister?”
“I can think of worse things a little sister could do.” Their demure firebender kidnappee continued to smile. Sokka would have really appreciated if he’d been a surly firebending prisoner instead.
“I’m going to give you hair loops,” Katara said. “Beads or no beads?”
“No beads!” Sokka snapped.
“Just do the opposite of whatever your brother says.”
“Beads!”
“I’m so glad you agree,” his little sister said, sickly-sweet, her smile matching the firebender’s smirk.
It was stupid how good his hair looked when Katara was done. All… loopy, and beady. And every day on the flight north it got more and more complicated because there wasn’t much to do on the back of a bison, until there were tiny braidy loops and swirls intertwining everywhere and a loopy-beady high bun, and still so much hair left to cascade down his back, and it didn’t even get sufficiently ruined when the Northern waterbenders attacked even though Sokka’s hair looked like a hare-possum had died in it.
And one of their warriors offered the guy a hand down from Appa when they got to the city. What was with that?
“She’s pretty,” said warrior sighed, as all that hair went swishing after Aang and Katara.
Sokka squawked.
“Sorry,” the guy said. “Your sister?”
Additional squawking ensued.