I'm bored, frankly, and my muse decided to go on vacation so I am left with three chapters, each at least a hundred words long, waiting for the almighty update. Which is why I'm going to rant today. Not one of those righteous rants where I belittle some issue nobody really cares about...

Anyway, I'm going to tell you all today the sad sad truth. Yes. I'm going to talk about how my Avatarfic came to have its Toph/Azula pairing.

It all started when I was thinking of pairings. Having grown tired of the controversies between Zutara and Kataang (I was once a Zutara shipper but after season three, I'm beginning to have my doubts...and Mai had nothing to do with it.), I focused on the other characters. One of the people I really wanted to ship was Toph and it was a bit hard because I could never think of anyone suitable.

Before I continue, I'd just like to say that I wanted to talk about the other pairings as well but, the argument felt weak. I might talk about it another day but right now, this is all you're getting out of me.

Toph/Azula first formed in my mind when I was thinking of shipping names. There's Zutara, Taang, Kataang, Katoph, Tokka, Toko...and the endless list continues. So I thought, what about Longka, Somai, (both which sound like food...XD) Zuru (Zorro)...and Tozula (Godzilla). There's more, but I can't find the list.

Anyway, their ship was unintentional. I was just thinking up funny ship names when that came to me and the longer I thought of it, the more the ship made sense. Which is why after watching that Beach ep, I couldn't help myself and wrote the first chapter. This is why the first few chapters were simply scenes. Nothing new was happening...It felt like they were caught in some time spell where everything that happened was post-Puppetmaster and pre-Nightmares and Daydreams.

The storyline I planned to write before suddenly presented itself to me. Make Azula Aang's firebending teacher. I was in a daze. In my head, the alternate universe which became Azula's dreams screamed to me. It wanted meat. It wanted flesh. It wanted a backstory.

So Aang died and Katara became a monster. Sokka fell in love with Ty Lee and Toph became the leader of the White Lotus. It felt like enlightenment had washed over me. I was ablaze. I was on fire. I wanted to write the fic so badly. And then the subplots came and destroyed my plan for a twenty chapter fic. Behind the Mask became much more to me than just a fic. It became an obsession. I couldn't sleep without first thinking about it.

It scared the crap out of me.

And now I don't even know what I'm trying to say anymore. Oh well. I have to go somewhere anyway. Might as well change.