Thinking About How The Act Of Bringing Someone Back From The Dead Comes From A Desire Not Just To Bring

Thingol had the Silmaril the whole time he fostered Turin, right? Like, it was probably sitting down in his vaults somewhere and maybe sometimes he or Mablung would go have a peep to make sure it was still there.

But like. Turin. Smol baby. Bad luck charm. Walking doom magnet. Imagine if he’d gotten his hands on the shiny shiny jewel. How much chaos he could have started. The Tale of Turin Turambar and the Seven Sons of Feanor.

I have a lot of Thoughts about the framing of classic fantasy stories that are actual specific published works as Ye Olde Folktales of no particular origin. especially given the most common modern understanding of “original fairytale” as “didactic story intended for children”

(same goes for stories where the most common modern understanding of the story is based on one particular published version)

like. I don’t know. Beauty and the Beast owes a lot of tropes to earlier tales that occupy the nebulous ~folklore~ space we usually assign it to, but the actual story itself is a novel. a full-on fantasy novel intended for adults, with a known author (Gabrielle Suzanne Barbot de Villenueve), published in a definite time and place (1740 France)

the most popular modern version of Cinderella- with the fairy godmother, glass slipper, single ball, and so on -was written in 1697 by Charles Perrault. that’s not the oldest known version of the story, and DEFINITELY not the only one out there, but it’s the one that most informs our cultural ideas about what Cinderella is. in the west and honestly, in most of the world

(luckily most people know by now that The Little Mermaid started life as a story written by a particular author. but it sometimes falls prey to these misconceptions, too)

this is all really hard to articulate, but it just feels weird to say “Beauty and the Beast was meant to teach girls to accept arranged marriage!” when you wouldn’t try to sum up, say, The Fellowship of the Ring so neatly. or “well, in the ORIGINAL Cinderella, birds peck out the stepsisters’ eyes!” when that comes from a version published in 1819- over a century after the version we’re most familiar with today

I think it also takes away important context when analyzing these stories, to completely sever them from the very specific points in history that created them and make them seem the product of a murky, generic Olden Time™ that never existed

Fuck it, posting the glass eye fic I’ve been sitting on for a few months

•••

Katara didn’t trust Zuko as far as she could throw him, and based on past experiences, she couldn’t throw him very far without waterbending. Not that she’d hesitate to waterbend at him if he tried anything- and at this point, she was just waiting for him to slip up.

Which was why she was immediately ready to water whip him off the side of the temple when she heard Sokka’s terrified shriek. Okay, so maybe she didn’t exactly have proof he’d done anything, or even that he was anywhere near Sokka, but she ran towards the noise, water pouch at the ready, planning the best way to toss him out a window anyway-

And it was Zuko! She let herself have the vindication for a moment. Just a moment. Then asked “Sokka, what did you do?”

Look, she hated Zuko’s guts, but he didn’t look like he was actively hurting anyone right now, staring at Sokka in shock and clutching his face (the scarred side, she noted).

For good measure, she repeated the question at Zuko, because Sokka had screamed and he didn’t usually do that for no reason.

“I was just getting dressed!” Zuko protested, halfway between confused and afraid. “And he just came in and started screaming!”

Sokka made a strangled noise and gestured emphatically at Zuko, which cleared up absolutely nothing. “He- he- his- I-“

“Sokka!” She snapped. “What happened?”

Zuko lowered his hand a little and Sokka let out another half yelp. The firebender glared, then winced a little, still not uncovering his face.

“Wait, Sokka, did you hit him?”

Katara was a responsible person, who disapproved of hitting people on principle. She was not frowning at Sokka because she was jealous.

“No!” Sokka managed to get out. “Zuko- he- his eye fell out!”

Oh.

“Sokka...” she sighed. “Are you high again?”

“Wait-“ Zuko cut in, looking a little less confused (Katara would be angry with him for interrupting later, when she was less desperately perplexed). “You were freaking out because I took my eye out?”

“You... you what?” Katara was now matching Sokka’s confused horror. “You took your what out?”

Zuko lowered his hands, and yep, one eye. One eye and one not-eye, because Zuko only had one eye, and an empty eye socket, because what in Tui’s name was-

“What the fuck-“ She wasn’t sure if that was her or Sokka.

One - one - creepy gold eye blinked at them. “It’s a glass eye,” Zuko said slowly. “I kinda have to take it out sometimes.”

That explained everything and nothing at all. “It’s a what?” Sokka demanded.

“Glass eye,” Zuko said, then waved something small and eye-shaped in their general direction. He looked slightly more annoyed than usual, and then it struck Katara that someone screaming when they saw your face probably didn’t do wonders for self-esteem. “An eye. Made of glass.”

Sokka looked outright terrified. “But... how did your eye turn into glass? That happens? Do I have to worry about that?”

Katara did not slam her head into the wall, showing incredible self restraint. “Sokka, you idiot!” she groaned.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, eyes wide. “Katara, why didn’t you tell me this could happen?!”

As a healer, she had a duty to tell him he was being an absolute idiot and that it was clearly a prosthetic.

As a little sister, she had a duty to fuck with him, and that was a far more sacred duty.

“I’m sorry, Sokka,” she managed to sigh. “I didn’t want you to worry, with all the stuff you do that- no, don’t worry. It’s not so bad.”

“What?” His voice was strangled in fear. “Katara, what? Katara what am I doing?! How do I stop it?! Katara?!”

She’d almost forgotten about Zuko until he very sadly said “why do you think Aang doesn’t eat meat? The Avatar needs two eyes, and if one falls out, it could cause problems.”

She did not like Zuko at all, but right then, she loved him.

Ten minutes later, Sokka had sworn off meat, and then the other contributing factors to eyes spontaneously turning into glass and falling out: sarcasm, boomerangs and being an annoying big brother.

“He knows we’re joking, right?” Zuko asked cautiously after Sokka sprinted out to apologise to the spirits for making fun of waterbending.

“Eh, he’ll figure it out.”

———

“So,” Toph said as they settled down for dinner - with Sokka being late for a meal for the first time in his life, “why is Snoozles throwing seal jerky into the canyon?”

“I have a glass eye,” Zuko explained.

The earthbender nodded sagely. “Yeah, makes sense.”

Aang was slowly looking between the three of them like it would make any of this any more sensical. “Uh... what?”

“Long story,” Katara sighed.

Her brother strode up to the campfire with his usual level of theatre, then remembered that being dramatic was also a risk factor and very calmly and slowly sat down. “I think I’m safe.”

“What about your hair?” Zuko asked, completely blank faced.

“... please tell me this isn’t why you had the bald ponytail.”

“You think I did that willingly? No, I needed at least one eye working.”

Sokka sprinted into the temple.

“You’re not actually going to let him shave his hair, are you?” Zuko asked, looking mildly concerned.

Okay, this was perfect and Katara would remember it lovingly for the rest of her life, but even her natural little sister sadism wouldn’t stretch that far. “Toph, please bring him back here.”

———

“Toph, let me out of the rock! I need my eyes!”

———

“Wait... what?”

———

“What do you mean it’s not a medical condition?!”

———

“What do you mean it’s a prosthetic!?!”

———

“YOU LET ME THROW THE SEAL JERKY AWAY!”

———

“Okay,” Sokka said calmly, two hours and a lot of yelling later. “That was a very cruel prank and I’m never forgiving any of you.”

“Shut up, Snoozles,” Toph scoffed.“There are more important things than your dignity. For example,” she turned to Zuko with a huge grin, “can I touch it?”

“It’s been in his head!” Sokka screeched. Apparently the dramatics were back on. “It has head goo on it!”

Katara frowned. “Sokka, how do you think bodies work?”

“Please?” Toph begged, giving very impressive polar-puppy-dog eyes for someone who couldn’t see. “No one ever lets me touch their real eyes.”

“Because you’re a menace,” Katara scoffed.

“Please, Sparky?”

“Ugh, fine,” Zuko sighed. “Give me a second.”

It occurred to everyone a moment too late that, oh yeah, if anyone was going to spontaneously invent glassbending, it would be Toph.

an unstoppable force (hobbit curiosity) meets and immovable object (Gandalf not explaining)

Fëanor: I put the “war” in “Tengwar”

Curufin: I put the “goth” in “Nargothrond”

Elros: I put the “men” in “Numenor”

Galadriel: I put a frog in Fingolfin’s boot once. They don’t even know it was me

This sword was made by the Elves and will glow blue when orcs are around. Green means it's fully charged, red means it needs a recharge. Blinking red means there's a software update.

a librarian’s hoard

[ID: Digital illustration of a red dragon surrounded by their colorful hoard of books. A worn, blue scarf wraps around their neck, and a pair of gold glasses sits on their snout, held in place by a gold chain. The dragon’s lair resembles a huge, airy library with multiple levels of bookcases, tall mountains of books, and floor-to-ceiling windows revealing open sky. Decorative gold chains drape across the space. The dragon smiles as it holds a small book in its mouth, stretching to offer it to a distant human standing atop a book tower. End ID.]

female characters not conforming to gender roles is great, but if they have to sneer at women who do fit into those roles in order to do it, it’s just misogynist.

i notice this in fantasy media and it’s fandoms quite a bit that what a ‘strong woman character’ means is often a woman who rejects things historically associated (in western culture) with women. she doesn’t like clothes or pretty things, she doesn’t want to fall in love, she doesn’t care for how she looks, she doesn’t like or want children, she rejects the domestic sphere entirely, etc.

and, of course, any woman should be allowed to do that, those are all valid things and she shouldn’t be constrained to any role, - but when we write these characters such that what makes them strong and valuable is that the people around them (and they themselves) consider them unlike the other women - all we do is reinforce that what those other women are is weak and without value.

so, of course, let’s write our swashbuckling, cursing, warrior women at home among soldiers ... but let us also write housewives and mothers and ladies in bejeweled gowns whom we respect as characters.

empowering a single kind of woman while putting down all the rest is of use to no one!

Literally obsessed with @damianwaynerocks ‘s post about Zuko meeting Batman, all dialogue is from that. Anyway, here’s Robin!Zuko feat. his blue spirit mask (kind of):