(fic) Four Seasons ATLA NC17

[squirrellysemantics]

My entry into the ATLA Avatar Big Bang.

Title of Fic: Four Seasons
Word Count: Story is complete at just over 10K words.
Rating:NC 17
Genre: general, some angst
Warnings and pairings: sexual situations, Hakoda/Kya, Ozai/Ursa, pre series
Thanks to Avocado Love for big bang beta
Summary:  Two couples.  Two nations.  They are different yet very much the same.  Their lives, loves and loss have the power to change the world. A set of snapshots in time. This story is meant to be nonlinear so each part can be read in any order. The pieces do pair together so for more linear reading, consider Spring then Fall, Summer then Winter.
(Art: "Spring" and "Summer")

The lovely engelen did some fantastic artwork for this piece as well

(Redirects to the googles for size restrictions on lj)

Comments

[andartha.livejournal.com]

Spring

* Promiscous Ozai is HOT. The tinge of bitterness just rounds out the flavour. Love the contrast with Jirou. Both are second born and while his Uncle is a "good little soldier", Ozai so very obviously wants MORE. Here's the seed of ambition that will destroy their family and make the war just that much worse. Also, Ozai has carefully analyzed the situation he's in, taking all the implications into consideration and I'm always a sucker for an intelligent character. Love it.

* I like and understand Ilah, though I hate what she is putting her son through, just because she's afraid to let him go.

* Adore Ursa. She matches Ozai for intelligence and bitterness.


Fall

* very well done "Place and Harvest later" for how Ursa will kill Azulon. Yay for Botany!

* Ozai and Ursa doing it? Or rather, Ozai doing Ursa? *fans herself*...wow.

* there's a lot of ways Ozai could have become the man in the series. The way you chose makes sense and it also leaves room for Ozai to redeem himself, labeling some of the choices he makes later on as "plans of a damaged mind" rather than "he knew what he was doing and did it anyway". Simple and effective.


Summer

* adore the details that bring this part of the story to life and add depth: sledding, eating shanks of Tiger seal, tupiqs... ^_^

* excellent way to show the friendship between Bato and Hakoda without telling: easy banter, knowledge about what moves the best friend's heart.

* "A slightly brain damaged piece of seaweed would have been more coherent " love that sentence! Also, very, very sweet and funny anecdotes of how Hakoda courted Kya.

*I snickered for quite a bit after the Hakoda / octopus match.Also, more snickering at Kya's boldness. That girl's got balls...in this case, Hakoda's. And she's holding on tight but gently!

*"Little goldfish did back flips in his chest at her laugh." Now THERE'S a great alternative to the usual butterflies in the stomach!

*"...he began to feel lightheaded. Oh. Right. Breathing was important." Priceless!

Winter

* yeah. Octopus. *broadest grin ever*

* in the series, I adored the fierce, proud and courageous water tribe warriors. Getting to see more of them and their exploits always makes my day.

* You've got that loving hotness down pat, both sweet and spicy *sighs blissfully*

* "The Tribe moved together, already far too experienced at mourning the loss of one of their own." I suspected this was coming, but damn, it still hurt.

* The way the marriage proposal is made, sorrow and joy all rolled into one, it really drives home the point how terrible and bloody this war is and with which desperation it is being fought.


* the contrast to Ozai and Ursa is very stark. Here we have fun and sweetness, when we have bitterness and frustrated ambition on the other. The contrast ratchets up the intensity of the whole thing quite a notch!

Art

Kudos to the artist. She's done an awesome job, especially on the picture with pregnant Ursa. It takes an accomplished artist to capture emotion so well with just a few strokes and she did so brilliantly!


P.S.: *sigh* I've got bitten by a plot-bunny too and if you feel like taking a peek, you can find the results here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6426882/1/Owned_by_Fire and of course here (which is where I found yours): http://community.livejournal.com/fire_war_room/ (Firelord's war room yet lacks chapter 4...I didn't get around to posting it there yet)

[alexb49.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the kind words! I don't spend too much time over on ff.net anymore but I'll check out your stuff here on lj when I get a chance. You should crosspost to other comms too because fire war room isn't as visible as some of the others

[andartha.livejournal.com]

Crossposting sounds good ^_^

Which other communities would you suggest?

[alexb49.livejournal.com]

I would double check with each one in regards to content warnings (some have rules on explicit materials) but avatarfic, avatarfans are two to start with.

[andartha.livejournal.com]

Avatarfic allows no NC-17 and the NC 17 community to which they link no longer exists.
There's a new one to which I've posted ( mature_avatar), but it's practically dead.
About a week ago, I've asked the moderator of avatarfic to exchange the dead link to maybe the new mature avatar community, but so far, no dice.

The avatarfans account has been deleted and purged.

[alexb49.livejournal.com]

Sorry I meant avatar_fans which is very active. There's also avatar_smut. If you PM the mod for fire war room I'm sure she'd have other suggestions. As I said I don't know any of the various comms requirements or the mature rating of your piece so good luck.

[ambyr.livejournal.com]

I like both of these a lot.

Would it be all right with you if I borrowed your idea of Ozai's training accident as the starting point for a rather different fic? I'd mention where it came from in an author's note, of course!

[alexb49.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And if you give credit, that would be fine. I'd love to see what you come up with!

[ambyr.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I finished it up and posted it:

an ice floe, slowly drifting out to sea (http://archiveofourown.org/works/211602)

(Ursa/Hama, PG-13 more for fucked-upness than anything explicit.)

[alexb49.livejournal.com]

That was lovely! My phone is having cookie setting issues so AO3 won't let me log in to leave it there. Thanks for sharing!