• ~ Welcome to my Tab Talk ~ •

you got me to reblog this

I can't say no to a cute face like that.

Sokkla Saturdays 2024: October 5th to November 30th

Sokkla Community: it's time for our annual event! This year, the prompts will be as follow:

October 5th: MERCURY

Communication, intellect, reasoning, travel.

October 12th: VENUS

Love, beauty, pleasure, relationships.

October 19st: EARTH

Physicality, grounding, stability, practicality.

October 26th: MARS

Action, desire, agression, energy.

November 2nd: JUPITER

Expansion, optimism, growth, abundance.

November 9th: SATURN

Discipline, responsibility, structure, limitations.

November 16th: URANUS

Innovation, originality, rebellion, sudden changes.

November 23th: NEPTUNE

Intuition, dreams, illusions, spirituality

November 30th: PLUTO

Transformation, power, regeneration, the subconscious

On this year, we encourage participation in the form of any fanwork of your choosing. Due to time constraints for many of the habitual participants of the event, we would like to put forward that fanfiction entries this year should be drabbles (between 100 and 1000 words). Nevertheless, each participant is free to create whatever they're inspired to make: you will still be allowed to partake in the event if you break the word count limit.

Due to the time constraints indeed, a proper prompt and poll system was beyond our possibilities this time. That being said, the chosen prompts provide a broad scope of possibilities: you can choose to take any of the prompts associated with the planetary theme assigned for each day, you can work with the planet in question, too: anything is valid within the prompts provided. If you had any particular story or prompt you REALLY wished to explore in Sokkla Saturdays this year? Feel free to find whichever prompt it fits best and build your story around it. Depending on participation levels and interest this year, we may return to the poll format next year.

All this being said, let’s get ready for Sokkla Saturdays!

Please, tag #sokkla saturdays 2024 and/or #sokklasaturdays within the first five tags of your entry. Feel free to message us with links to your entries if we miss them, as some content might not show up even when adequately tagged in Tumblr’s search system. Make sure to tag your entries appropriately if they contain mature content of any nature. We encourage all participants and members of the community to be cordial to others. Please observe this fundamental and critical courtesy so as to create a positive environment for this event.

I admit that, when I started writing Gladiator, there wasn't a single braincell in me that recognized the actual weavings of my personal experiences that I was pouring into that story. It was just a fun story to work on. It was about my favorite ship. I could do whatever I wanted within that space and explore things on my terms.

The longer it went on, the more reality and fiction seemed to blend together. The easier it became to recognize my life's greater villains in the monsters I was creating fictionally.

It may be a melodramatic way to announce that my country has yet again been subjected to an electoral fraud of a scale beyond measure. Where the official count is giving the current president a 51 over 44 lead, the truth is much more likely to be 30 vs. 70, NOT in his favor. He still announced himself the winner. There's no auditing the process because everyone fucking knows they've cheated as cheaply as possible. There's no stopping their frauds because they've already done this a thousand times over and they'll do it a million times again until there's nothing left of the country to sack and destroy with the modern, absolutist dictatorship they've imposed upon us.

What is the connection between this and that? Why... probably the fact that, without my awareness, my chaotic fic became my political power fantasy. Because the characters I write about aren't simply tools at my behest... they're representative of something greater, something that reality continues to deny to me, my family and countless people I love. I went to bed last night with the greatest dread and a spark of hope... woke up after a mere three hours to find the dread had won over, and the hope had been crushed under its heel.

I don't know if my reality will ever change. I don't know if the country I was born to will ever be free. Twenty-five years are not the same as a hundred, sure... but it shouldn't take a hundred. No power should be able to sustain itself on lies, corruption, greed and cruelty for that long. And yet everything in my reality screams that it will happen.

It's so much easier to fight this in fiction. To let your mind wander and imagine outcomes that are profoundly cathartic and blissful instead of the agonizing emptiness that I feel now. I can't sleep again. I can barely eat. I'm terrified of what's coming next. If we fight, the consequences will be as awful as they ever are. If we don't, the same is true. There is no way out. There is no solution. There is no dashing hero with the ability to break the chains of oppresion and change the world. No opening the eyes of the willfully blind supporters of this atrocity: they know what they're supporting. They simply do not give a shit as long as they can pretend they're still winning.

But fiction is a powerful thing.

Think of my work what you will. Think of my efforts to build up a nuanced political conflict what you may. It's speaking of a reality you might be unaware of. Of a pain you're very lucky to never have experienced, if you haven't.

Because, if you have, you long for someone to fix what you know is broken. You long to feel the power to change a reality that refuses to budge. You long to see every corrupt piece of shit thoroughly punished for every misdeed they've inflicted upon you, across the years and years of helplessness.

I don't have the power to do that in real life.

Anyone want some, Zuko's moving Castle AU? (⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠) Young and old Katara from both ATLA seasons as Sophie?

1. Twitter

2. Tumblr, mobile

3. Tumblr, desktop

Here's a vertical one for close up pic

Her looks are from the last agni kai (hairstyle and lipstick smudge)(shown below)+pose is from reference pics

Sokkla Saturdays 2023: October 7th to November 25th

Our poll is officially closed! The winning and assigned prompts of this event will be as follows:

October 7th: Water // Azula escapes the asylum and Sokka hides her from Zuko's search parties

October 14th: Spring // Azula joins Team Avatar

October 21st: Earth // Sokka overhears the Ember Island Players' audience saying that Sokka and Azula should have ended up together

October 28th: Summer // Azula gets lost in the South Pole and ends up becoming a prisoner of the Southern Water Tribe

November 4th: Fire // Azula is dragged into a redemption arc in the Boiling Rock

November 11th: Fall // Sokka finds out about the inhumane conditions in the asylum, helps Azula escape and recover

November 18th: Air // Azula protects Sokka from Hakoda because she doesn't know how fathers are supposed to be/that Hakoda won't hurt Sokka

November 25th: Winter // Free Day

With all dates and prompts assigned, let’s get ready for Sokkla Saturdays!

Feel free to integrate both prompts in one entry, should you wish to, or to create a full-scale fic based on a single prompt, should that strike your inspiration better. We aim to be flexible, and whatever stirs your creativity best will always be welcome.

Please, tag #sokkla saturdays 2023 and/or #sokklasaturdays within the first five tags of your entry. Feel free to message us with links to your entries if we miss them, as some content might not show up even when adequately tagged in Tumblr’s search system. Make sure to tag your entries appropriately if they contain mature content of any nature. We encourage all participants and members of the community to be cordial to others. Please observe this fundamental and critical courtesy so as to create a positive environment for this event.