The source of that. At least I'm pretty sure this is the one Ben means, and also moderately sure this is the original artist; tumblr is sort of a rats warren of mis-attributed and stolen art.

>[1075] can't a hatchling get a little sleep -
>Dragons are champion sleepers right from the start; this is one of the
>reasons why a dragon hatchling can work as a human's boon
>companion from infancy, despite being rather more intellectually
>advanced at the beginning. They spend most of the time asleep anyway
>and thus don't get bored that their infant companions can't speak.

Curious: are they also champion eaters? Will Garnet be doing that thing some predators do where she eats her own body weight in food every day until she's finally an enormous winged engined of fear and flame?

>[1178] that's what friends do - In fairness to Kate,
>she's quite right: It's also what lovers do in Corwin's case,
>because Corwin's lovers are his friends. He wouldn't bother
>taking as a lover a woman he wouldn't have as a friend.

He made a really quick call on both of those statuses for Nanami Kiryuu, a woman he'd met about six hours previous, then. :)

(In all fairness, that was probably already a really surreal evening for Corwin in general.)

>There are even Jasmine Dragons on Zipang (mostly
>in Saikyo and Uehara), due to emigration of Diqiu natives there. As
>of yet, there are no Jasmine Dragons in New Avalon or Babylon 6, much
>to Korra's regret.

I yet maintain Korra will first meet Gin Shepard during a colossal and gunplay-filled misunderstanding at the teahouse she tries to start on Babylon 6... Korra's Den.

(Let me have my fantasies, dammit.)

>[1472] ten thousand gold ren - The ren is an
>archaic unit of currency from the Earth Kingdom. They're gold or
>silver bars weighing about five ounces. Utena is wildly exaggerating
>her offer for purposes of being comical: 10,000 gold ren would
>be worth something on the order of 50 million yuans.

This is what Xin Fu and Master Yu were paid in to bring back Toph in this setting, I assume.

I personally would have gone with the tael instead.

>[2007] explain the sparrowkeets and
>the bumbleflies - I just like the imagery prompted by this, that
>Korra had to be the one to give the Facts of Life talks to Minami and
>Ryo.

Minami strikes me as having been the kind of child who figures that out on her own (not from actual experience, mind, because ew) well before a parental until decides to have a very awkward conversation.

>[2015] Tahno - The waterbending
>team leader of the White Falls Wolfbats in the pro-bending
>championship series in 170 ASC. He and his team had a decidedly
>skewed attitude towards the sport, one that would in modern wrestling
>would get him labled a "Heel", save that it wasn't scripted, and
>indicative of the corruption problems in the original pro-bending
>league. He and Korra were natural rivals.

To be fair, in his last actual appearance in the canon they get along okay. But Tahno had just, you know, had his soul violated by a crazy guy. That'll take the edge of most people.

>Mind you, Shespa is on what passes for "good
>terms" with Wan Shi Tong; enough so that she is capable of calling on
>the knowledge seeker fox spirits out in the Material World if she
>needs their assistance. Though that may just be because she knows the
>secrets of how to bribe them with choice trivia factoids and
>information pamphlets.

I hope she verifies any information the spirit foxes bring her before using it. As demonstrated by Wan Shi Tong's ignorance on the subject of radios... you just can't trust fox news.

Not sorry.

>[2832] despite what her mom might want - Azana's
>mother's overbearing desire for grandchildren is more than a little
>odd, given that Azana herself was an unexpected child and, to her
>mother at the time, an unwanted complication. Azera has evidently
>changed her tune over time; or perhaps it's just another way of trying
>to assert control over her annoyingly wayward offspring.

Honestly, as a reader I didn't find it odd at all. As a grandmother, Azera can do all the fun stuff (the meddling, the spoiling, the playing of the affections of the spoiled grandchild against other relatives, etc etc.) without having to fuss around with needing to take responsibility for the actual raising of said grandchild.

Depending on how Fire Nation high society works, Azera might also be hitting an age where she is expected to have grandchildren to show off amongst her peers. Letting your daughter be a spinster for too long was a cause for social opprobrium amongst the upper classes of, say, the British Empire, for example; people would start wondering in whispers what was wrong with the child that you couldn't at least find some Italian willing to marry them.

(I may have watched an awful lot of Downton Abbey.)

>[2902] and Corwin will always be Corwin - Utena
>quotes her husband's literary namesake, Prince Corwin, again from
>Zelazny's The Courts of Chaos. "Her" Corwin gave her a copy of
>the compiled Chronicles of Amber for her 15th birthday (back in A
>Rose for the New Year).

Should a male child ever be produced using Corwin's genetic materiel, one hopes that all involved resist the urge to name him "Merlin."

(Really, Dara? I mean... really?)

>[3218] that whole thing is a scam - Lhakpa is being
>a huge jerk here, but one has to admit she may also have a point. The
>airbender thing about abandoning earthly attachments does ring
>more than a little hollow in the face of, for instance, Aang and
>Katara's mythic-love-affair-for-the-ages deal.

It also possibly reflects the fact that the Air Nomads are probably right in the middle of an awkward transition from "extended family" to "fully-formed culture." One that might have trouble dealing with modernity in ways its isolated, on-the-move antecedents did not. It seems likely (from my perspective, eventually) that you're eventually going to get some Airbenders who go "you know what, fuck this pacifism, vegetarianism, living like monks bullshit. I'm moving to the city, using my awesome air powers to make a living on the mixed martial arts circuits, and buying a flashy suit, a huge apartment, and eating steak every day."

>Chess, meanwhile, is regarded as a cut-rate
>version of pai sho - there's some nice strategy to it, but it
>seems a bit too cutthroat for some people's tastes. Mahjongg, on the
>other hand, has gotten some traction, thanks to its multiple-player
>nature and easier betting schemes.

One also imagines pachinko snuck in there at some point.

>[3269] airball - The game of
>airball, as played by airbenders, involves using airbending to loft a
>slitted ball (looking much like the spinning part of one of those
>whirlybird roof vents) between poles towards a rotating goal target.
>The players also balance on top of those poles, usually using
>airbending to move between them. Nonbenders (and other-element
>benders) are allowed to use their hands to throw and catch the ball,
>but they're on their own for getting from one pole to another.

I bet once she gets a handle on her telekinesis, Juniper might not be half-bad at this.

>[3574] diligently investigating
>Utena's shirt front - I do not know of a single baby I've held who
>was still nursing who has not tried this trick on me. It is very
>amusing. "I'm sure these must work, I just have to ask
>right..."

Ahahaha. Pointless digression time: in the ADRPG campaign that Phil and I played in for five years, one of the other players had cause to need to transport a baby (a baby Nanami Kiryyu, in fact) in their arms for some distance. Our GM was big on verisimilitude when possible, and had said baby begin investigating the PC's shirt front with the requisite amount of diligence.

This caused the player involved to very nearly freak out as he tried to figure out what the significance of these actions were, if it was an indication of hostile intent, of illness, of something bad having been implanted in their chest that magical baby senses could pick up, etc. It was pretty hilarious.

>[3703] respect for the craft - Like many who
>received their advanced training in the armed forces, Ito (a retired
>naval officer) regards bending as a craft, not an art. Art is for
>show; craft is for gettin' stuff done.

Pointless digression the second: I like to imagine that during the Hundred Years War, there was an enormous cultural gap in approaches to bending between the guys on the front lines (people like Lieutenant Jee, for example) who had to do things like ride in tanks shooting fire at earthbenders and try to storm Ba Sing Se, and the officer class, guys like Zhao, who were into all that "bending as a martial art and spiritual expression of how AWESOME we all are for being firebenders" crap.

>[4373] Sokka's book titles - Compiled from a series
>of jokes in a thread about the Avatar characters' lives after
>the series on the EPU Forum. Most were my inventions; To Wang
>Fire, Thanks for Everything! Ty Lee was coined by Forum user
>Mercutio, after the 1995 film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!
>Julie Newmar.

For completeness' sake, said thread may be found here for anyone who missed it the first time. It also features a cameo appearance from Professor Fuzoku.

I can only say that a very good time was had by all in there.

-Merc
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