Green Trickster's Library

do you think any of the patrons looked at zukos scarred face - obviously done by a firebender - and immediately think jet was an asshole? like

jet: hes a firebender!!!!

patrons, thinking about the backstory they concocted for zuko and iroh where their home was invaded by firebenders and they barely survived with their lifes so they could come and have a peaceful life selling tea in a city the war doesnt touch:

I know that it was mentioned earlier that the Lords are more so seen as beasts compared to Miranda, but do you think the villagers would see them having domains? (not like literal lands)

Because I can see Ethan’s ‘Domain’ being something along the lines of Lost Love, being a Widower and all that.

(world building goes brrrrrrrrr)

ooo um kiiiind of, i had to think about this one. maybe less domains and more like themes for cautionary tales? like they'd be perceived as having their own folktales gimmicks. his theme would be something about going to your grave with a guilty conscience.

i think the villagers would understand ethan as something close to a revenant, which is a fairly broad category of undead folktale creature. you can boil them down to reanimated corpses who drain energy from the living tho. the reason they come back goes from anything to demonic possession, unfinished business or revenge, but from what i understand the general rule of thumb is the person died with unrepented sins.

i'll be honest, how to include rosemary without changing the original concept too much has been a big question mark for a while, the storybook included. i'd probably revise things later on but figuring this out helped inspire me to do some concept sketches!

i also have a playlist for the story now! admittedly very bare bones but it’s here anyway

Because Zuko started as a good person, before he got the scar.

And Zuko has an extremely stable platform of support for most of the show.

Zuko couldn't have done it without Iroh's unflinching, unwavering belief that he could become a good person again. I've rarely seen any criticism of Iroh aimed at his unconditional support of Zuko- for good reason. It's a selfless act.

Similarly, I've rarely seen any criticism of Zuko saying that he didn't deserve Iroh's support. Maybe a few comments here and there about how ungrateful he is at times, or how he should have "suffered more"(?), but never anything outright saying that Zuko should stay exactly where he is in his misery because he doesn't deserve Iroh's helping hand out of it. And this is for a very specific reason- because A:TLA goes out of it's way to show very early on that Zuko was a good person and can be so again.

So Zuko's arc isn't really even a straight redemption arc. It's a recovery arc wearing a large redemption trenchcoat.

This is an important distinction because a raw, straight redemption arc is often unpalatable to the audience, because it starts with someone who isn't a good person receiving a helping hand out of their misery anyway. A redemption arc starts by looking like someone is forgiving an abuser. It starts by having sympathy for the bad people. It starts by engaging with them and listening to them and empathizing with their struggles.

"But they're a bad person, they don't deserve that kindness!" that's the point.

Certainly not to say that it's the job of the victim to be that understanding, helping hand- of course not. And extending kindness does not mean abandoning moral principles and not holding the person accountable for their actions, a la certain flavors of Harley Quinn-Joker romance nonsense.

But someone has to treat the bad person like they're a person if the bad person is ever going to stand a chance of getting better. Regardless of what the bad person "deserves". The bad person has to accept that help, of course, but there needs to be help (and more importantly, kindness) offered in the first place.

and there’s a lot more of it than I heard as a kid, including a considerable amount of stuff that’s considered non-canon now

Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, and Billy Dee Williams were the only movie actors to participate, although Williams was only Lando in The Empire Strikes Back. David Alan Grier is in there somewhere too. Warning that John Lithgow was Yoda, and he has recently shown himself to be too willing to align himself with hate.

I have still not figured out who he’s playing, but there have been more and more background voices once they reached the rebel base, so I’m guessing he’s probably in there somewhere

I remembered that Vader has more personality in this, because they added hours of content to the story and so gave Vader more lines, and I thought I remembered that he seemed almost Anakin-like, even though the character of Anakin Skywalker wouldn’t exist until the Prequels

He just called Tattooine a miserable dustball of a planet, and then a miserable speck of a planet

Now, somehow, their entire mental health is based on the continued life and happiness of this fairground goldfish that they picked up.

Neither of you know the first thing about how to care for even a healthy fish. This fish has been poorly cared for, has multiple diseases and the person who handed it over explicitly didn't expect it to live nearly as long as it already has.

You're frantically googling how to set up a fish tank, where to buy fish food, can you even take a fish to the vet? Your partner wants you to know that they're happy they made it home and survived their horrific ordeal, but also that if anything happens to the fish then they're going to kill everyone on this planet and then themself.

You're honestly wondering if you're even helping the fish, or just prolonging its suffering, but your partner will only accept medical help for their many injuries or engage in basic self-care once they're confident that the fish is being looked after.

So you get a tank. You set up a filter and all that stuff. You learn way more than you ever wanted to know about water temperature and ph and nitrate levels. The fish is safe. You start to develop some affection for the little guy. Your partner begins to recover. The fish begins to recover.

Which is when you learn that in its 'healthy' state, the fish regularly refuses to sleep when tired, keeps begging for food that is obviously unhealthy for it (and struggling to eat the food that you do provide because “it tastes gross”), and continually tries to persuade your partner to take it out of its nice safe tank so it can go explore the wonderful world of Outside, where the slightest mishap will kill it instantly.