Me: Why Do My Intestines Hurt?

my sister said to me that she doesn’t think Azula would’ve killed Aang if not to bring Zuko home, and that made me realize something very interesting.

Azula doesn’t have a reason to want to capture Aang.

Not anymore than the rest of the Fire Nation. She wasn’t ordered to, but she was ordered to bring Zuko (and Iroh) home. Which she does, by killing Aang and giving Zuko the credit.

And you know what’s interesting? During the main four interactions Azula has with Aang during the second season, she sends Mai and Ty Lee away. She leaves them to fight Katara and Sokka, she leaves them to chase the bison she knows doesn’t have the Avatar, she fights him solo on the Drill and she leaves them to guard a bear and an empty throne while she takes on the Avatar in the catacombs.

She separates herself from them to fight Aang four different times.

From anyone else, it could be a pride thing. But Azula has shown on multiple occasions that she does not value pride above all else. She is insanely strategic, and she’s fine with making it look like someone else is winning if it means she has the upperhand. She admits when she needs help, hence having Mai and Ty Lee in the first place and Zuko in Ba Sing Se. She even apologizes to Ty Lee that one time. Azula does not value pride over results.

She doesn’t celebrate prematurely, either— during the Drill episode, she’s practically the only one who isn’t celebrating the victory. Azula doesn’t celebrate a victory until it’s final. Whereas Iroh in his flashback, a prideful man, had been boasting about burning Ba Sing Se to the ground.

Pride. It’s the food of the wise man, but the liquor of the fool.

It’s as if Azula is trying to capture/eliminate Aang specifically just to give Zuko the credit. The lack of witnesses, the way she seems to pursue the mission as a personal one. She intends to bring Zuko back to the Fire Nation as Ozai requested, but she intends to bring him back her way and get him unbanished.

This is a bathrooms during social events appreciation post

Okay, you guys were excited about this so here's how I would have written the Water Tribe characters as an Inupiaq

Note: this is entirely for fun and is based on my cultural experiences as well as my personal taste in media. There's no way I actually expect Nickelodean would let any of the darker content fly, nor am I trying to play script doctor or say any of this should have been canon. I have my own writings for that. I'm also not bothering to assign them Inupiaq names for the sake of simplicity and ease of communication.

Sokka

Sokka would be named after Bato's father who was killed in one of the Fire Nation raids. He would have dismissed the idea he was Bato's reincarnated dad whenever it was used to embarass him (usually courtesy of Katara calling him a grumpy old man) but go along with it when it was a positive thing like Bato calling him "little dad" or people saying he was brave like the one he was named after. He would probably use more Inupiat language than Katara, because he was less interested in works of fiction and poetry that were available from the rest of the world. He reads weather conditions, the process of learning that from his father was his first introduction to science, and respects the animals he hunts.

Katara

Named after her mother's uncle, who showed signs of waterbending skill but kept it hidden so he wouldn't be taken away. A bunch of her and Sokka's little cousins call her Grandpa and she later jokes to Aang they should have called him that because he's the one who's technically over 100 years old. More likely to explain cultural things than Sokka, who prefers to let them observe and figure it out, but knows more of the traditional stories. Even Sokka will admit she's a better storyteller than him. Eventually everyone who travels with them asks her for a story and she gives her best every time

Kanna

Still dumped Pakku for his suffocating ideas of a woman's place but also over some family drama he wouldn't let go of. Her grandchildren make a point that she has sworn to never drum, dance, or sing, and won't even be in the same room as it until the War ends

Bato, Kya, and Hakoda

Bato and Hakoda have labrets now. Hakoda is not just a prankster, but also a skilled dancer. Bato and Kya were both known for the beautul masks they made

Yue

I've already said she's the closest to perfect rep the series has, so all I'd add was scenes of her alone with Sokka's carving. She'd try to find ways to explain to him, holding the carving and talking to it as if it was him, that it wouldn't work out between them, as much as she'd want it too. Stuff like "You've had great adventures and that's exciting, but I don't want that for myself" and "You don't understand, I have a life here and I can't go galavanting off and leave it all behind" and ultimately deciding it would just hurt him more.

Arnook

We'd get to see more of his governing, specifically in the form of figuring out what to do with Fire Nation soldiers taken prisoner. When the Fire Nation says that a few foot soldiers aren't worth calling off the seige, Arnook gives them the choice to live among them and try to assimilate, or take their chances on the tundra. Terrified and abandoned in a strange, dangerous land, two of them agree to stay. The other one decides to take the banishment because he will not live under another nation's rule. Later, when Aang says they can't just leave Zuko behind, we see ravens picking at shreds of a Fire Nation soldier's uniform. This underlines the nature of Arnook's decision to give the soldiers options and shows that he hates senselessly throwing away people's lives.

Pakku

Still unwilling to teach Katara and firmly held to the belief that women shouldn't fight, but specifically as a result of his sister dying after defending against an animal that would have killed her and an unconscious friend. Some bitter part of him thinks the (male) friend should have died instead, even though said friend was Kanna's favorite cousin. Less smug and convinced he's always in the right, more sad and prone to anger, still as unpleasant to be around.

Hahn

His mother was a shaman, or something close to it, with a special connection to the spirit world, who asked the moon to breathe life into Yue. The youngest of three brothers, Hahn was the only one not to go missing on a hunt. Rather than believe they're dead like everyone else, he insists that he will find them someday. He's happened upon various animal spirits before and can painlessly finish off large game with his bare hands. Knowing the spirits are on his side as well as the attention his skills as a hunter have gotten him have made him arrogant. He has the dream of Yue sacrificing herself instead of Arnook, but he mistakes it for Yue sacrificing herself for Sokka, starting the animosity between them.

Hama

Taken from the Southern Water Tribe but after being kept prisoner, a man of minor Fire Nation nobility decides to keep her as a maid, mistreating her and eventually forcing her to marry him. They have a son, who ends up being the first person Hama bloodbends into the underground cave. She accuses the woman on a nearby property of bewitching her son and making him disappear, and the next full moon she bloodbends the unwanted husband into that cave. The people are convinced and the woman is driven away. More people disappear, regardless of class but nevertheless people around her. She plays up the grieving just enough that no one could ever suspect it's her. She's assumed to be cursed and lonely, and so when she leaves this house where her family was taken from her, people understand. When she weeps that the curse must have followed her after the first full moon she lived in that town, the people show her pity. A few suspect her, but they are shut down as being cold and heartless.

kidnap dads pillow/blanket forts !!! 🥺

48. Pillow/Blanket Forts

Maedhros halted abruptly as soon as he crossed the threshold of the boys’ room. “What are you doing?”

Elrond and Elros froze guiltily. Elrond looked down at the ground, while Elros scrunched up his nose.

“Building a blanket fort?” he said.

A blanket fort? Maedhros blinked, re-examining the mass of pillows shoved beneath chairs, blankets draped over them, the cozy little cavern the twins had created for themselves. He’d done similar things as a child, he recalled, though there had been no concept of “forts” in Aman. It stung his heart to think that they had never known peace, had been born and raised in a land where even forts did not stand for long...

But this would would, this blanket fort within a fortress. Maedhros would defend Amon Ereb, so the children could defend their quilted creation.

“A fort should have defenses,” Maedhros said, crouching down to inspect it. “It should be strong enough to withstand enemy attack. I would know—I held Himring for centuries, and hold Amon Ereb even now.”

Elrond looked up, eyes wide. “Will you help us, Atya?” he blurted out. “So if Atar comes we can—defend it from him?”

Maedhros laughed, ruffling his son’s hair. “Of course,” he said. “First—let’s spread these chairs out, and find some poles and books to build with, so we can expand our fort and I can fit inside...”

~

“What are you doing?” Maglor asked, baffled, as his brother and their sons marched past him with arms full of blankets, books, and...stilts?

The twins scampered on ahead, completely oblivious, but Maedhros paused, a cheery sparkle in his eyes that Maglor hadn’t seen there since...before Fingon died.

“I’m instructing them in siege warfare,” he pronounced. “Keep out of their room for an hour or two, alright? You’ll be playing the enemy, eventually. Just like our drills back in the day!”

“Atya!” Elros called. “C’mon!”

Maedhros grinned—grinned!—and all but pranced away, more excited than Maglor could remember him being in a very long time. A little morbid that it was battle tactics that put such a spring in his step, but, well, that was Maedhros...and Maglor saw the truth. His brother was happy to feel useful, instructing the twins on something important, something he knew well, and able to spend time with his sons as well.

He shook his head with a smile, already turning over ideas of how to play the game along with them. If Maedhros had a hand—hah—in the fort they were building, it would take a little more than knocking over a chair to take it down...not that he’d really do that. He’d let the boys take him hostage.

After all, of the four of them that comprised this strange little family, he was the only one who’d never been kidnapped before!

I think one of Turgon's weakness and greatness is that he loves too deeply. He doesn't have many who he deems "close," but once he accepts someone inside his boundaries, they become "his people," someone who he carves a part of his mind for. And when he loses them, his grief is too great; so much that sometimes it will clouds his reasons. (This also applies for inanimate objects)

When Elenwe dies, Turgon forms a great hate towards the Feanorians (totally understandable) - his love for her hurts so much that he has to channel it into another emotion; and I think his hate was the answer. Likewise, when Aredhel was killed by Eol, Turgon executes Eol, ignoring Aredhel's last plea to show him mercy. Losing a loved one to Turgon leaves him... more violent, I should say.

And I think that Turgon's love and guilt towards Aredhel was passed on to her son Maeglin; it was the partial reason as to why in the later years Turgon came to favor his nephew's council more so than his daughter's. This needless to say did not work so well for Gondolin. (you should always listen to Idril) As for Gondolin, he loved it too greatly. He did not heed Ulmo's counsel till late. Thus his love for it drove its destruction.

Of course this is not 100% negative; if you love someone/something like that, they tend to be loyal back to you - so maybe that's why so many followed him to Gondolin; him, a secondborn son under an already existing great king. Think of Glorfindel and Ecthelion, all the mighty names and remember that they followed him into unknown lands for a secret city. And he was not High King then.

i reread the commentary on Finrod Athrabeth and Andreth a while ago and I just “ Elves could die, and did die, by their will; as for example because of great grief  or bereavement, or because of the frustration of their dominant desires and purposes.” 

I see… so that’s why Feanor let Maglor go to music school lmao.

Ok but autistic Tolkien elves.

Elves who get so easily overwhelmed by all they can hear and see and sense.  The Lord Elrond teaches them how to focus themselves on the waterfall of Imladris, and a small number of them go to its base every morning and close their eyes and focus in on just the rushing water.  The Lady Galadriel teaches another approach–to climb the tallest tree in the Golden woods and sit in its high branches and watch wordless Arien or Tilion glide through Varda’s silent realm.

Autistic elves who stim with tree bark, tracing its intricacies and seeing how deep they can sense the textures.  Elves stimming in the rivers and teaching the allistic elves how best to move with the water, and Ulmo blessing their dancing because while the allistic may have a connection to the waters, the autistic elves in their hypersensitivity discover new ways of moving that mimic the musics Ulmo still remembers in the Creation of the World.

Autistic elves finding a special kind of kinship with autistic humans and even dwarves, and wanting to help teach them how to be good and kind to themselves.  Autistic elves whose special interests are language or autism itself writing tomes in human languages for doctors on what they’ve found makes them happiest and healthiest throughout the ages.

Autistic elves with special interests in orc and goblin culture helping travelers learn how to spot the signs that they could be walking into a dangerous area and using their knowledge to help keep travelers safe.  

Autistic elves being a deeply positive part of elven society.

At a certain point, it’s just Feanor and Eol remaining unrepentant in Mandos.

Feanor nods along as Eol goes off about: the Valar; people usurping what is his; a disloyal wife who betrayed him by trying to separate him from his son; how, if he did any wrong, it was because his hand was forced by people stealing from him, and that is what caused his family’s deaths!

Immediately after this, Feanor goes to Namo and is like. “Okay. I see it now. I was a prick, my bad.”

Namo is so shocked that his watch on the doors of night falters and that’s why Feanor’s return heralds the end of the world. Not with a bang, but with Feanor apologizing.

Watch out Dracula he’s got… Academic Credentials