[23] Piandao Academy - My mental image of the Academy does not conform exactly to the location seen in "Sokka's Master" (episode 304 of Avatar: The Last Airbender), but then, it is 180 years later. Presumably some things have changed. The idea behind it is something like the way public schools in the UK (where that phrase means the opposite of what it does in, e.g., the US) were in the 1900s, when most of the best ones were still rambling country houses operated on a very small scale by families.

[83] musical instrument - Like many members of the Fire Nation royal family, Prince Shinzen plays the tsungi horn.

[94] the numbers on the doors - The rooms in Piandao House are, in fact, numbered randomly, so that finding one's way around becomes an exercise in deduction and memory.

[180] Senna - Avatar Korra's hometown was called Aujuittuk (literally the place that never thaws) when she was born there in 153 ASC. It was renamed Senna in honor of her mother in 181 ASC, as part of the Southern Water Tribe's general celebration of the world not having ended ten years previous, and after Korra insisted that they were not going to name it after her.

[223] not in line for the throne - Well, not directly, anyway. If the current Fire Lord and his heir(s) died, then his younger brother would become Fire Lord, at which point Shinzen would be crown prince - but that's not likely to happen. Shinzen is rather hoping it doesn't happen, come to that. Not only is he not at all sure he wants that job, he's rather fond of his cousin Katara, who is at this time crown princess.

[273] my grandfather - She means Ito, her mother's father. Her father's father died long before she was born. General Izuno and Ito are roughly contemporaries, in fact.

[296] through all seven years - Students' lodgings don't change throughout their time at Piandao Academy either, nor does each form's designated instructor (though as they advance and the subjects they study get more specialized, the incidence of guest lecturers naturally increases).

[333] seal eyeballs - If Karana wasn't busy dealing with other things right now, she might point out that the eyeball is the best part. (This is a real thing with the Inuit, who reserve the eyeballs for their most honored dinner guests. Really. I'm not making that up.)

[352] Nanisivik - Capital of the Southern Water Tribe. Literally means "the place where people find things", a reference to the city's status as the South Pole's principal trading port.

[352] Sanirajak - Capital of the Northern Water Tribe. Somewhat unimaginatively, it means "the shoreline".

[433] Azera - Azana's mother did not have a name when she first appeared in Honeymoon by the Sea. I'd thought about that off and on, but since it didn't seem like she'd be appearing in person anytime soon, it wasn't a high priority.

Then, the other day, I was waiting at the traffic signal on the corner of College and Stillwater in Orono, on my way home from school, when I noticed that the car in front of me was something called a "Hyundai Azera". Most amusingly, the Azera is Hyundai's take on a luxury car, so it's absurdly pretentious and blingy, yet a bit cheap. In its home market it's even called "the Grandeur". Well, I thought, there we are then.

[455] not following instructions - "I said keep your knees loose!"

[475] Shespa - Phil Moyer's creation, Master Shespa is Rohan's granddaughter and the person principally responsible for maintaining the Air Temples' libraries.

She is also a noted Spirits researcher, spending part of her nomad time in the Spirit World, combining her great-grandfather Tenzin's spiritual knowledge with her Great-Aunt Jinora's innate spiritual skills. She has many contacts within the spirit community, which includes quite a number of Wan Shi Tong's knowledge spirits, who help her in her research. (Wan Shi Tong is noted to 'tolerate' the Master Airbender, since she always dusts after herself with her airbending and doesn't appear inclined towards increasing any sort of conflict with the knowledge she learns.)

As an aside, she looks a lot like a taller, leaner Pema, with less stress lines (from having had to raise four children) and no forehead tuft of hair, so that her arrow can be seen.

[486] a lot of fun at parties - This is true! Uncle Iroh quite rightly praised them for their senses of humor.

[602] Mother isn't... your biggest fan - There are those, in the late third century ASC, who believe that Avatar Korra has lived too long. These people are generally not inclined toward proactive "correction" of this perceived problem, they're not psychos, but there's a certain... disapproval. Basically, they think she's rather rudely holding up the Avatar Cycle. ("Dude, don't bogart the Avatar Spirit!") Most people who think this way are in the Earth Kingdom, where her replacement would be from, but there are some all over the world.

[636] we all play hockey together - Yes, including the spirits. Becomes awkward some years, when the whale spirits decide they want to play.

[684] Chameleon Bay - In the far eastern Earth Kingdom. Colloquially equivalent to Timbuktu or Siberia in this usage.

[821] with her father... - Karana's parents reverse the "traditional" roles of a Water Tribe husband and wife - she goes out to hunt and fish and generally do that one-with-the-tundra thing; he stays home to practice a sedentary trade, medicine, and keep a nice house for her to come back to. They've always rather enjoyed quietly confounding the Received Expectations. When he was younger, some of the other young men in town used to razz Nanuruq for being fat and lazy and letting his wife do the hunting, but he shut them down fairly effectively by pointing out with a satisfied smile that he was getting fat because his wife was a better hunter than they were.

[935] formal folded knot - The full Princess Azula, as it were.

[996] Azera... said nothing - In fairness, for all their differences, Azera was fond of the general, in her way, and sad to see him go, particularly so suddenly. She didn't love him, but then, there's very little room in Tupolev's heart for anyone but Tupolev.

I should note, in that regard, that Azera's callous treatment of Azana - for instance, not intending to inform her of her father's death until the fall interval - is usually not predicated on active malice so much as a nigh-unto-complete inability to empathize with anyone but herself. She may even have thought she was doing the girl a favor by not distracting her from her studies unnecessarily. After all, the old man wasn't going to get any more dead.

[1111] "Li'l Naga" - Plush representations of Korra's first animal guide are quite popular with the children of the Water Tribes, and elsewhere in Diqiu. The majority of the profit from them goes towards Arctic Wildlife Preservation efforts. Similarly, the various "Li'l Appa" plushes contribute towards sky bison conservation and mountain habitat preservation.

[1143] the state school - Public schools in the Fire Nation (another of Fire Lord Zuko's reforms, one suspects) are excellent, but the minimum dropout age is quite low by modern standards. Part of the reason for that is that it's still possible to join the armed forces at 15, and the truancy law is structured to take that into account.

[1202] Chief Hakoda International Airport - Named in honor of Hakoda, war chief of the Southern Water Tribe at the end of the Hundred Year War (and incidentally, father of both the famous swordsman-poet Sokka and Grandmaster Katara, still regarded by many as the greatest waterbender who ever lived).

[1224] Nanuruq - Karana's father's name literally means "bearskin rug". Family lorekeepers are divided as to whether that means he was born on one, or just conceived on one.

[1236] angakkuk - An Inuit word (and social role) usually translated by Euro-Canadian scholars as "shaman". Rather less mystical in the third-century Southern Water Tribe, though he probably is still the village's main liaison with the spirits. One might think of him as the mayor.

[1302] a thing like a square donut - Compare the famous New Orleans beignet.

[1310] farming - Karana refers primarily to aquaculture and animal husbandry, not growing crops, though there are a few patchy regions in the South Pole (coastal regions near a couple of relatively warm currents, that kind of thing) where a few hardy tubers and the like can be grown without the aid of greenhouses.

[1336] fur-trimmed trousers - In the third century ASC, pants in this style are commonly called "Avatar Korra trousers"; she didn't invent them, but they are indelibly associated with her image in the popular consciousness.

[1388] a simple choker - It's a Water Tribe betrothal necklace, like the one Katara used to wear back in the day. Azana is not aware of its significance; Karana knows that, but chooses not to raise the issue at this time. (At 12, she probably isn't thinking much about the details either, but she enjoys the idea of being engaged to Azana, in an abstract and fanciful sort of way. She's reasonably sure by that point that they are life mates, of a kind that makes the sexual component - not exactly at the forefront of either's thinking at that age anyway - effectively irrelevant.)

[1444] Karana's parents' house was quite small - It has occasionally been put to one or the other of them that, as one of the village's most prosperous couples (he's the town doctor and effectively the mayor, she's Senna's most renowned hunter and the village constable on the rare occasions when it needs one), they could afford a larger place. Nanuruq's usual reaction to that is to look puzzled and ask, "What would you suggest we do with more rooms?"

[1474] occasional elements from other cultures - As we have previously seen, the Avatar Suite at the Phoenix House Hotel in Republic City is decorated in an internationalist style resembling Korra's house in Senna.

[1489] a blue, giant Gran-gran - Plush versions of Cosmic Korra were popular for several years after Harmonic Convergence in 171 ASC, though not many of them were made 'to scale', as it were. Most of them are now family heirlooms or in museums, though you can still find a few here and there in the Water Tribes and Republic City still being used for their original purpose of happy cuddling.

[1533] if you have the right guide... - Although the geographic formation that is the taijatu which holds the Spirit Portals and the Tree of Time is pretty stable, the landscape around the formation is still subject to Spirit World rules. It's generally advised to have a guide to keep from getting distracted and pulled off the path if you're not experienced in Spirit World matters.

[1541] Chief Aariak - The current Chief of the Southern Water Tribe is named for Inuit politician Eva Aariak, former premier of Nunavut.

[1552] a complete tool - Karana's statistical sampling here is too small for her assessment to be really fair, but in her defense, she's only 12.

Northerners are tools, though.
The above is a personal opinion and does not represent the aggregate opinion of Eyrie Productions as a whole.
I knew he wouldn't let me get away with that.

[1568] Kejna and Nanuruq - Karana's parents are one of those cases where I end up devising far more backstory for a couple of characters than I actually needed for their appearance on-screen. They bear a passing physical resemblance to Korra's late parents, Senna and Tonraq, albeit not in a way that would strike anyone within the story as eerie or suggestive of anything - rather, in the way that all Water Tribespeople resemble each other a bit, plus the general disparity in their statures is very similar. (By this point Nanuruq is rather more portly than Tonraq was at that age.) Kejna wears her hair in much the same way as Senna, as well, though again, that's not too unusual - it's been a popular hairstyle among Water Tribe women, particularly in the south, since the venerable hair loopy tragically went out of fashion around 180 ASC.

[1638] Kazana - Why does the Avatar fandom do this?

Because many fandoms that have the possibility of romantic entanglements do it. If you're looking for somebody to blame, portmanteau couple names came in from the general anime fandom. Given that the Avatars and their lives are part of the social background hum in Diqiu, it probably happens there too.

[1650] Falling Dark - This seasonal celebration has elements of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival and other such fall/harvest festivals (Oktoberfest et al.), although the "harvest" aspect is much reduced in places like Senna, where there are no farms.

[1661] Avatar Korra's birthday - Mid-April is a weird time for a waterbender to have been born; they're usually born in winter, the Water Tribes' strongest season (which is why Karana and Azana have birthdays within a few days of each other - one is a waterbender from the Southern Hemisphere, the other a firebender from the Northern). Just another example of how Korra's gotta be Korra, one supposes. (It doesn't have anything to do with her being the Avatar; that's determined at birth, not conception.)

[1667] sincere fanboy - Compare to suburban white kids who say they're otaku.

This does get pretty silly pretty fast, especially in cases like in the Touhou fandom where two completely unrelated characters have been paired up just to make the low-brow "69" joke.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I resemble that remark!

(Well, except for the "kid" part. ;) )

[821] with her father... - Karana's parents reverse the "traditional" roles of a Water Tribe husband and wife - she goes out to hunt and fish and generally do that one-with-the-tundra thing; he stays home to practice a sedentary trade, medicine, and keep a nice house for her to come back to. They've always rather enjoyed quietly confounding the Received Expectations. When he was younger, some of the other young men in town used to razz Nanuruq for being fat and lazy and letting his wife do the hunting, but he shut them down fairly effectively by pointing out with a satisfied smile that he was getting fat because his wife was a better hunter than they were.

[1302] a thing like a square donut - Compare the famous New Orleans beignet.

[1310] farming - Karana refers primarily to aquaculture and animal husbandry, not growing crops, though there are a few patchy regions in the South Pole (coastal regions near a couple of relatively warm currents, that kind of thing) where a few hardy tubers and the like can be grown without the aid of greenhouses.

[1444] Karana's parents' house was quite small - It has occasionally been put to one or the other of them that, as one of the village's most prosperous couples (he's the town doctor and effectively the mayor, she's Senna's most renowned hunter and the village constable on the rare occasions when it needs one), they could afford a larger place. Nanuruq's usual reaction to that is to look puzzled and ask, "What would you suggest we do with more rooms?"

[1474] occasional elements from other cultures - As we have previously seen, the Avatar Suite at the Phoenix House Hotel in Republic City is decorated in an internationalist style resembling Korra's house in Senna.

[1568] Kejna and Nanuruq - Karana's parents are one of those cases where I end up devising far more backstory for a couple of characters than I actually needed for their appearance on-screen. They bear a passing physical resemblance to Korra's late parents, Senna and Tonraq, albeit not in a way that would strike anyone within the story as eerie or suggestive of anything - rather, in the way that all Water Tribespeople resemble each other a bit, plus the general disparity in their statures is very similar. (By this point Nanuruq is rather more portly than Tonraq was at that age.) Kejna wears her hair in much the same way as Senna, as well, though again, that's not too unusual - it's been a popular hairstyle among Water Tribe women, particularly in the south, since the venerable hair loopy tragically went out of fashion around 180 ASC.

[1661] Avatar Korra's birthday - Mid-April is a weird time for a waterbender to have been born; they're usually born in winter, the Water Tribes' strongest season (which is why Karana and Azana have birthdays within a few days of each other - one is a waterbender from the Southern Hemisphere, the other a firebender from the Northern). Just another example of how Korra's gotta be Korra, one supposes. (It doesn't have anything to do with her being the Avatar; that's determined at birth, not conception.)