kirby

So far so normal, right? But then:

Like what. And then:

atla au where everything is the same but each of the four nations speak a different language than each other

i mean think about it. it doesn’t really make sense that they would all understand each other. the earth kingdom alone is so big that they’d probably have multiple languages just within it. 

so imagine sokka and katara running into aang. and he speaks a language that no one’s spoken in literally a hundred years…so they just have to communicate with gestures and nods and noises for the longest time and they work out some sort of system. there’s probably a lot of comedic relief to be derived through initially getting a lot of stuff wrong. and not understanding what the other person’s gestures mean. 

then when zuko comes into the picture it’s even more confusing. because there’s this guy who looks super angry and who’s just shouting things at them that they don’t understand. because hello? they don’t speak the same language. 

there’s probably a few words common to all four nations: avatar being one of them. so they sort of figure out that’s what he wants cause he says it A LOT. 

as a prince, zuko did bother to learn how to read and write the language spoken in the earth kingdom. since it would be valuable in statecraft. except his understanding of the language is almost purely academic. since he never spoke it to native speakers. so when he lands in the earth kingdom and starts talking. it’s weirdly formal and poetic. cause he’s only ever read earth kingdom high literature and poetry and doesn’t know how normal people talk. 

adding toph to the group is even more complicated. because not only can they not understand each other verbally. she can’t see them. so their whole intricately worked out gesture system goes out the window. so sokka takes one for the team. and buys a watertribe to earth kingdom two way dictionary and whenever they talk to toph he has to aggressively flip through it to find out how to say stuff. within a few weeks he’s fluent. because boy is smart. 

then later if you wanna make it zukka. zuko asks sokka to “teach him water tribe language”. you know. for strategic purposes. and they have little tutoring session where they teach each other the basic words. totally not falling in love in the process. and sokka purposefully teaches him a couple wrong things as a prank. so that when zuko goes up to katara and proudly says what he thinks is ‘can i have some water’ he’s actually saying ‘can i have an idiot’ or something and sokka is just losing his mind laughing about it

but then katara just replies ‘you already have sokka’ and that’s just not cool

Zuko hugging his friends in the comics has me weak at the knees.