🍃 Happy Earth Day 2023 🍃

Poem for Earth Day. From Matthew Olzmann's book, Constellation Route. (Alice James Books, 2022)

i wish that there was more time between the day of black sun and sozin's comet bc zuko's official desertion from the fire nation would have the most insane ripple effects (and it would be nice to see the gaang interacting a bit more than we got but hey i'll take what i can get)

zuko's desertion would have been essentially impossible for the fire nation to bury since it was such a big deal that he returned at all. so i imagine the smear campaign against zuko would have been craaazy. i think it would have been interesting for the gaang to try and deal with that when navigating the FN. zuko would be very recognisable i think at this point, and it would have made staying hidden much harder. would they still have chosen ember island? maybe the kids didn't recognise zuko and azula during The Beach , but with the prince of the fire nation committing treason would there be more wanted posters? would there be more talk around the island? would zuko have to remain hidden while the rest go out and get food?

i wonder if zuko deserting and very meaningly committing his loyalty to the avatar influenced other soldiers in the FN to also desert? or would it have had the opposite effect and made people feel more patriotic since zuko was banished, returned under the guise of having killed the avatar, and then left when aang announced his survival to world during the failed invasion?

SPEAKING OF THAT!! the rumours around this would be INSANE. we know what really happened, but the public don't. did zuko and the avatar plan this so that there would be an inside man during the invasion and then zuko used that chaos to escape? what really happened in ba sing se if zuko didn't kill aang, but azula thought that he did? (again: we, the audience know the truth, but the general public don't). if zuko and the avatar where working together... for how long? was iroh involved somehow since he also disappeared the same time that zuko did? did iroh get captured on purpose to be close to zuko to possibly help him if needed? did zuko break iroh out of jail or did one of the guards or was iroh alone? you could spiral on this as just an average person in the avatar world for years like. if youtube existed in atla imagine the video essays breaking down all the conspiracies

its a kids show so obviously Nothing Bad Happened BUT in the Boiling Rock, zuko getting found out as not only an imposter (already, a very bad situation), a traitor (extremely bad), AND the traitorous (ex) prince of the fire nation (devastatingly terrible) would have been... incredibly dangerous for zuko. in zuko and iroh's original wanted poster, the official translation says “Permission is granted to kill them on sight” and this was before zuko has gone right ahead and committed Treason On Purpose. the warden is not going to be nice. when the warden visits zuko in his cell he literally tells him "If these criminals found out who you are, the traitor prince who let his nation down, why they'd tear you to shreds." the boiling rock would be hell trying to survive. it also puts a lot more weight on zuko refusing to leave sokka in their first escape attempt. also ozai obviously knew that he has his son was in prison bc he... broke in to the prison bc azula was there but then zuko manages to escape with sokka (another imposter) and suki and hakoda (POWs) and chit sang (a prisoner) and two of azula's trusted friends end up in prison for treason as well i just. that is literally insane for the average person to hear about. again, THE CONSPIRACIES!!

when zuko eventually does take the throne there's a lot of conjecture around what zuko did while he was banished and moreso, what he did the second time he left, this time voluntarily. i think zuko's loyalty would be questioned a lot; by other world leaders who are understandably wary about the fire nation and its motivations, but also by its own people - some who believe that zuko is a traitor to his country and is trying to sabotage it since he helped end the war.

idk these are all just me rambling but it would been so interesting to explore the implications of zuko leaving the fire nation and how that would have impacted the gaang and how they interacted with others in their travels. there are so many fic where zuko joins the gaang early, but neither myself with the aus that I have written, nor many that ive read have explored this very much or at all.

'In A Trance' by Frank Frazetta.

Interior illustration from the 1972 edition of the novel 'At The Earth's Core', Book 1 of the Pellucidar series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

tried my hand at drawing regan

March 12th - Gollum leads Sam and Frodo to Shelob's lair

"Presently they were under the shadow, and here in the midst of it they saw the opening of a cave.

'This is the way in,' said Gollum softly. 'This is the entrance to the tunnel.'

He did not speak its name: Torech Ungol, Shelob's Lair. Out of it came a stench, not the sickly odor of decay in the meads of Morgul, but a foul reek, as if filth unnameable were piled and hoarded in the dark within."

Excerpt from "On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong.

Jet was the instigator of his own doom

Not once: Katara freezing him from the neck down to a tree after he betrayed her, Sokka & Aang's goodwill;

Not twice: Abandoning Smellerbee & Longshot in Ba Sing Se only about a day & a half into their refuge;

Not thrice: Attacking Iroh without clear cut evidence (he saw him & his tea, nothing is stated on paper);

Not four times: Attacking Zuko & trying to get him to firebend. Which Zuko was never going to do in his presence, grasschewer ain't his sister. As well as Jet never having seen Zuko firebend in his life. For all he knew, Zuko could've just been a swordsman;

But five times: Trying to attack the Dai Li. Resulting in him getting handcuffed WITH ROCKS, arrested, eventually brainwashed & ultimately killed (or as Sokka said: it was unclear). Smellerbee & Longshot can only sadly watch on to their friend's fate

He should have thought things through in his plans. He could've been a real threat to Zuko & Iroh, much like Azula & made them sweat a little. But alas, he is too hotheated to be anything like her calculated self

Happy Earth Day, my loves! 🌏🌱🪨

April 30, 2022

When the library has an Earth Day display, I can’t just not check out a book.

📖 Nature Underfoot: Living with Beetles, Crabgrass, Fruit Flies, and Other Tiny Life Around Us by John Hainze

thinking about daneel's "go, and sin no more" today. thinking about how young he was in that book and how that was probably the first time it was left totally up to him how to reprimand someone's behavior (i.e., whether to punish or forgive the crime at hand). do y'all think fastolfe knew that by putting daneel in charge of the murder investigation he'd allow daneel the chance to learn how to show mercy? do you think he could have guessed it would be because daneel met some shaking chihuahua of a man, and that said man permanently changed how daneel saw humanity and emotions? do y'all ever think about how elijah was daneel's first glimpse into a world of spiritual healing, conflicting actions, and trusting someone to do the right thing for the betterment of the people around them? and what that says about the way spacers exist compared to earthen culture, and how for a society that claims to value their robots as equals, it took an agoraphobic, bigoted earther to teach daneel how to forgive? to allow daneel to recognize when someone had wronged him and his family? to acknowledge that daneel would likely be handling the loss of sarton for the rest of his life? and that the most healing action sometimes isn't the obvious choice? cause uh. i'm thinking about it.

Mood of the day : want to ask Tolkien why he decided to ruin my life by creating the remarkable characters *cough* men *cough* of Lord of the rings.

'Gaping Jaws Hydrophidian' by Frank Frazetta.

Interior illustration from the 1972 edition of the novel 'At The Earth's Core', Book 1 of the 'Pellucidar' series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

the columnbs of the dirt

#WorldBeeDay:

Bees, Plate 70 lithograph from an 1820 edition of A History of the Earth and Animated Nature by Oliver Goldsmith (1728/30-1774). ID key printed on bottom: Honey Bee 1 Worker 2 Male 3 Queen / 4,5 Common Humble Bee / Lapidary Bee 6 Male 7 Female / 8 Moss or Carder Bee / 9 Donovan's Humble Bee / 10 Harris Humble Bee / False Humble Bees 11 Apathus Vestalis 12 Apathus Repestris

You once told me that the human eye is god’s loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn’t even know there’s another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.

Ocean Vuong, On Earth we are briefly Gorgeous.