I like making races as varied as humans come in. Though I understand that creating unique models for NPCs is a ridiculous time consuming undertaking, that shouldn’t stop our imagination and creativity to have fun with variations!
Cobras are cool, so why not other types of snakes! Vipers with their keen vision, giant constrictor sethraks that brute their way to victory with crushing holds, tree pythons that can scout on canopies of trees beyond the borders of Voldun, cunning lithe vine snakes that offer wisdom and guidance, quirky hognose that are expert rogues and ambushers in tight corners…! Humans come in all shapes and sizes and so should our scalie Azeroth friends!
Elphaba blinks, opens her mouth, closes it. She swallows and tries again. “You came.”
Glinda’s dress is torn and dirty, her pretty blonde curls matter with sweat, but she doesn’t look tired or hesitant; she looks defiant, one fist clutched in the material of her skirt to lift it up off her filthy bare feet, the other tight and white-knuckled around her wand.
“You asked me to come,” she reminds Elphaba haughtily. “I’m only a teensy, weensy, tiny bit late. It was a long walk. Would you mind if I freshen up?”
“Yes, no, of course – come in.”
Glinda seems to be all in, every ounce of propriety cast to the wind; she sashays past Elphaba into the tower, calling casually over her shoulder, “Any chance you’d want to join me in the tub? Or do you still have that ‘allergy’?”
The derisive way she says allergy tells Elphaba everything she needs to know. “You knew that was a lie?”
“I went to school with you, Elphie. If you’d been skipping the showers for all those years, I’d’ve noticed.” Glinda spins dramatically to smirk at her. “And before you start saying ‘oh, Glinda, how could you send a harmless girl here to get captured when you knew she couldn’t defeat me’ – I’ve seen you with baby animals, Elphaba Thropp. I knew you’d set her free.”
Elphaba’s heart clenches, a fist in her chest. “But the shoes, Glinda. Nessa’s shoes!”
“Oh. Yes. Right.” The smile slides off Glinda’s face. She shifts her weight to one foot, then the other. She lifts her wand delicately with two fingers and a thumb, her eyes taking on a faraway look; her lips move silently for a few moments, and then she flicks her wrist, and the ruby slippers clack to the floor in front of her.
For the first time, Glinda looks hesitant, sheepish even.
“I’m so sorry about Nessarose, Elphie,” she says softly. “I didn’t have anything to do with her death, I swear. And Dorothy… it was an accident. She’s just a little girl.” She makes a guilty face at the shoes glinting innocently on the floor. “Little Dotty needed a way home, and I wanted to help her, and… well, we’ve all made bad choices. But I wouldn’t have given away Nessa’s shoes for good. I always planned to bring them back to you.”
The next two Avatars, from water and earth, live without ever knowing who they are.
Zuko still spoke out at the meeting, he still refused to fight his father in the Agni Kai.
Zuko was banished, and in his search to find the Avatar, earth bends.
He is the Avatar and doesn’t know what to do about it.
Okay but consider:
Zuko, punching the air: “I MUST FIND THE AVATAR!”
*rock goes flying*
Zuko, waving his arms for emphasis: “IT IS THE ONLY WAY”
*strong wind knocks over grunt in the background*
Zuko, stomping dramatically: “TO RESTORE MY HONOR!”
*deck behind zuko becomes covered in ice*
Iroh, stroking his beard: “…. hmmmmmm…”
And Iroh just decides to mess with him and just goes “Well, I suppose we should start searching” and Zuko doesn’t find out until later in the episode
Nah man, gimme a whole season of Zuko and Iroh’s hijinks as they search for the avatar and it’s Zuko the whole time. A whole season of Iroh waffling between goofy uncle and “here let me teach you about balance-” “I DON”T NEED BALANCE I NEED TO RESTORE MY HONOUR” “okay cool you do you kid i bet the avatar’s behind that rock please move it for me”
zuko saying he needs to find the avatar, when actually, he just needs to find himself is his original story arc
Ah, but you’re not thinking the two of them got exiled on their own from the Fire Nation, did you?
Prince Iroh and exiled Prince Zuko left with a contingent of sailors and military men. Said military personnel realize what is happening three days into their trip.
When wacky spirit shenanigans happen and Zuko solves it without knowing, the military lieutenant look at the commander like he’s in the office.
When Admiral Zhao takes Zuko’s ship and all his crew, and questions them, all of the crew say the same thing:
“No, Prince Zuko hasn’t found the Avatar yet.”
They say this with varying ability to keep a straight face. There’s one of them who just breaks down in helpless giggles.
“Nope,” he gets out between the giggles. “Not found. Definitely not found.”
Admiral Zhao’s men come to the conclusion that Zuko’s crew have cracked under the stress of being away from the Fire Nation so long, and especially on a mission that pretty much the whole Nation “knows” is impossible.
people think that demon hunters are reclusive and prefer their solitude, but that’s because barely anyone gets to see them during downtime. DHs are actually one of the closest knit groups on Azeroth.
not only do they understand one another’s problems intimately, but they also tend to pool resources. there’s many unique challenges to being a demon hunter, such as how to deal with scales and not go insane, that they sort of found solutions to together.
they tend to sleep in groups, huddles together. both for comfort and out of necessity: typically someone will keep watch over a sleeping group, just in case someone’s demon tries to take over at random.
and they LOVE fresh meat. while they still need other things, fresh meat quickly becomes the main factor in almost every demon hunter’s diet.
the rest of the illidari are basolutely IN on all the social interactions. matron mother always has a raunchy joke and a compliment ready whenever someone is feeling down. battlelord gaardoun keeps telling the same battle stories everyone’s heard a million times, but they still listen.
they also love parties but hardly anyone outside of the illidari has ever witnessed one. they tend to get way too rowdy for anyone who isn’t as sturdy as the demon hunters.
hi i’m kitty i don’t know anything about star wars whoops
“What am I looking at?”
Lando leaned forward and laced his fingers together. “My taxes.” He paused, then gestured to Han. “Our taxes,” he corrected, with an unnecessarily rakish grin.
Leia squinted at the datapad. “Tax fraud.”
“Oh, no no no. Absolutely not. My accounting is impeccable.”
“I don’t see how it could be,” she said. “He’s a smuggler.”
“Hey,” Han began. He shut his mouth when Leia leveled him with a look. He opened it again to persist, but saw that Lando had a shit-eating grin as he watched their argument-in-potentia. Han glowered at Lando, and made him grin wider. Han huffed, hooking his thumbs on his belt.
“Legally, he’s a long-haul transport navigator,” Lando said, and Leia snorted. “Because he has a spouse at home—me—he qualifies for a higher income deduction as well as a few credits unique to the profession.”
“Wait, credits?” Han asked.
“Because he’s my dependent,” Lando continued, ignoring him.
“The hell I am.”
“That puts me in a unique legal position—not many people know about this, but in order to incentivize long-haul transportation, a spouse who claims a long-haul transport navigator as a dependent qualifies as a household caretaker, which is a kind of head of household that’s able to claim significantly more not only for themselves but for any other dependent spouses they may happen to have.”
“But his transport isn’t legal,” Leia said, fascinated. Han was pretending to understand the conversation, which would have been more convincing if he weren’t already fiddling with a kinetic sculpture on one of Lando’s shelves.
“It’s art.”
“What?”
“As far as my taxes are concerned,” Lando said, “Han transports art. They can’t prove that it isn’t. And I’m always careful to get the valuation right.”
“How do you know what I transport?” Han asked, indignant. A piece came off the sculpture in his hands. He looked down at it, then looked at Lando. He made a hasty attempt to reattach the piece. The entire sculpture collapsed. Han took his hands from it, and attempted to lean casually against the shelves with his elbow to block it from view.
“They call me,” Lando said.
“No,” Leia gasped, delighted.
“Yes,” Lando said, grinning again. “They know I’m his partner. They know I can’t be sure I’m getting my fair share unless I know exactly what he’s getting. So they call me.”
“What!” Han stood straighter, his brow furrowed and his face all twisted into an incredulous pout of anger.
“They might have been able to catch him smuggling,” Lando said to Leia, still not addressing Han.
“They would never,” Han sneered.
“But they’re never going to get him on tax evasion. There’s no way he would have been paying taxes on his own.”
“It never even occurred to me that he would,” Leia said.
“I’m right here,” Han reminded them.
“So you can see why I can’t divorce him,” Lando said.
“I don’t follow,” Leia said.
“My household caretaker status is the foundation of all of this,” he said, pointing to the datapad. “I divorce Han and the whole thing collapses.”
“Collapses how?” Leia asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Cloud City goes bankrupt.”
Han choked.
“How many people have you married?” Leia demanded.
“Leia, you know that you’re my favorite wife-in-law,” Lando said, “but I don’t think I’m comfortable discussing that aspect of my personal life.”
The pile of former-sculpture slid from the shelf, and clattered to the floor.
sometimes I think people in the taz fandom don’t realize just how long a century is
like, there’s a reason people celebrate 50 year marriages, that’s a long time to spend with another person. the ipre crew did double that and still liked each other at the end of it. they all know each other to a degree that’s probably terrifying.
Oh this is something I think about A LOT
Like ive read some fics that are like, ‘and this secret came out in cycle 12’ or ‘they finally felt comfortable enough to do whatever thing in cycle 23’ but like…..that’s more than a decade, more than 2 decades. That shit woulda happened within the first 5 years or so, if not the first damn year???
Like by the time they’ve got to 2 decades…think about people celebrating 20 year marriages–it’s A LONG ASS TIME. The degree of comfort they must be at by a century? I can’t even imagine!
I think it’s because we think of the cycles in numbers: 1-100, and ex. 23 or whatever is like, early in that. 23/100. But like……that’s YEARS. Holy FUCK.
I really want to see this explored, at some point, in fic.
thisacelovesheadcanons 