#north pole kid

[glitterslag]

i ate a ton of fruit and had a sleepytime tea before bed and i had a dream they sentenced rust to eternal karmic punishment by making him be santa claus. walk with me for a second

[transingthoseformers]

oh twitch

Ohhhh twitch oh no

[ibrithir-was-here]

Me, babysitting my little cousins, watching Paw Patrol with them, and deciding to be a facetious adult:

"Who even created this town of hyper intelligent talking dogs and their transformer dog house vehicles?"

Six year old: "I don't know"

Four year old: "Jesus did!"

[fieriframes]

[AND THEN HOW ARE WE GONNA COOK IT? FORM IT INTO PATTIES. SO THOSE ARE READY TO GO? YEP. SUBJECT OF THE OTHER PARABLE IS THE NORTH POLE EXPEDITIONS. ONE OF THESE KIDS IS DOING THEIR OWN THING. YEAH, NICE. WE ALWAYS START WITH THE PEARS FIRST. THEY TAKE LONGER TO COOK. OKAY.]

[borrelia]

woke up from a very horrifying image of a bearded dragon eating itself inside out. 👍 great dream!

[ftvs-cm45]

Happy 20th Anniversary, Polar Express!!

Here are some of my favorite scenes involving the iconic Christmas train!!

[discordiansamba]

see. he remembers to hide it while he's back home at the caldera. it seems really important that he not let anyone in his family know he got cursed while he was gone- if only because he doesn't want to hear azula taunt him about it for the rest of his life.

but then he leaves to join team avatar and it just doesn't occur to him to bring it up at all. like they must have made the connection, right? he'd literally tried to kidnap aang as a wolf at the north pole. there's no way they haven't figured out at some point that was him right?

nope, they definitely had not figured it out.

and now he's running from them, because sokka's convinced he ate himself. and he can't tell him that's not true! he can't talk!! ugh. at least appa recognizes him and lets him hide behind him. his relief is short-lived because toph finds him almost as soon as he lets himself relax and pins him in.

then appa gives him a friendly lick.

everyone looks at appa. looks at him. looks back up at appa. looks at him again except they're staring at the left half of his face. appa gives him another lick. everyone's squinting at him.

"...zuko? you were the weird spirit wolf that tried to kidnap aang???"

of course he was you idiots. who else would it be?

of course, a classic werewolf situation would have the very funny possibility that zuko's just. kept anyone in the gaang from finding out about the whole werewolf thing during the entirety of books one and two and then when he finally joins them in book three just...

...kind of forgets that they don't know?

sokka comes to tell zuko dinner's ready and starts screaming. OH GOD. A GIANT WOLF ATE ZUKO.

zuko just stares at him like. oh. oops. he knew he forgot something.

[limethechef]

We’re coming for you Dyson

[aangular]

I kinda hate when people act like Aang is this naive kid who doesn’t know what’s going on or what he’s doing, especially at the beginning of the series.

For example, in “The Southern Air Temple, " he shows Sokka and Katara around, acting excited and playing around. Do you think that he doesn’t know what’s going on? Do you think that Aang, someone who grew up in that temple doesn’t know what is supposed to look like?

In his timeline, he had been gone for at most one week. Do you really believe that he would think it is normal that the place that was filled with people a few days ago is now completely empty Do you think that he would find it normal that the entire place is run down and poorly kept?

I’m just confused. Since episode one, the narrative has made it obvious that Aang has avoidant coping mechanisms, where he outright ignores what’s happening around him because he cannot deal with it. It’s an integral aspect of his character (since it’s the reason he ran away after finding out he was the avatar, which quite literally sets off the plot). I get it if people don’t necessarily like that aspect of his personality (wrong opinion, btw), but understanding that it’s there and how it affects how he interacts with the world is important to getting ATLA.

Yes, he did know what the being avatar meant to an extent, and he knew he had to learn the three elements, but the reason he didn’t go to the North Pole straight away was because he didn’t want to. He wanted to put it off for as long as possible, going on adventures and “eventually getting to the NP”.

There was literally a 2 part episode (The Winter Solstice) to tell us that Aang couldn’t just mess around that entire season because it introduced a time limit to defeat the Fire Lord. Ever since then, the gaang pretty much beelined for the NP, plus some detours, but that’s the magic of worldbuilding.

I would talk about his reluctance to learn waterbending from Pakku, but that’s a different post altogether.

Obviously, he didn’t understand what it was like growing up in the middle of a war (because he didn’t). Still, no one understood what losing their entire people and being the last of their kind was. And no one calls other characters naive or stupid for their constant insensitivity throughout the series…

The bottom line is that he knew; he always knew. It was just easier to pretend he didn’t.

[icelynodette]

Kids Write Letters To Santa Clause

[thatone-highlighter]

The Santa Clause? I’ve never watched it personally but I just know it because of the kinda insane plot lmao

THE SANTA CLAUSE THATS IT THANK YOU

Somehow the first few times i saw it i always missed this one scene because it always played while the ads were on and they always skipped it and it took being shown it at school on a dvd i think to finally get to see that scene and i was rlly confused

[ladyloveandjustice]

So I have no stake in ships in Avatar the Last Airbender, I do not have any real ships for the show. But when I was looking in Katara's tag for art and stuff, I saw this reoccuring claim that Katara always supported Aang with his problems and feelings, but that Aang never supported her back with hers.

And I don't care about the ships, but I do really like the friendships in Avatar, and that bothers me. It's a slight on Aang, but also on Katara (implying she wouldn't stand up for herself and break it off if a friend was all take and no give, which doesn't fit her personality at all.)

Aang does support Katara whenever he gets the chance, which is unfortunately few and far between because Katara seems to have a hard time leaning on the people she cares about and talking in depth about her own trauma and feelings about it, though she will do so when she literally doesn't care what the person thinks about her (and both times she opened up to Zuko about her Mom initially were her lashing out at him and not caring what he thought about her in return).

This would be something that would need to be addressed for a romantic relationship between them to truly work, and I imagine it would be part of the journey of finding a way to stay together, but it's very much not Aang's fault. And as I said, when he gets a chance to support her she does. Since I just recently rewatched most of the series, have a list of those times!

-His first time being supportive of her is literally a half hour after they first meet. As soon as she tells him about wanting more waterbending experience, he enthusiastically offers to fly all the way to the north pole so they can find her a master. And this very clearly means a lot to her.

-I don't think Aang knew how supportive of her he was being here, but there's the "I haven't done this since I was a kid" "You still are a kid!' exchange. As much as people accuse Aang of seeing Katara as his Mom (he's literally the one character who doesn't express that he does in The Runaway btw and I think that's for a reason) their first interaction establishes that he sees her as a kid, just like him, and think she should have fun like a kid does. This must have been huge for Katara, who'd been forced to take on adult responsibilities at a young age, who resented having to hold the family together, who thought her childhood was over. Aang helped her have fun and be the kid she is, and he'll continue to do so.

-When she lost her mother's necklace (And Zuko subsequently stole it) he was very concerned for her feelings and seemed to immediately understand the weight of that loss, due to his own experiences with loss. Not only did he make her a new necklace to wear as a way to comfort her, as soon as he saw Zuko had it he said "you're giving that back to me" and risked being hit by Zuko in his attempts to grab it. Then he gave it back to her and she was ecstatic!

-He was so supportive of her during the waterbending scroll episode it's actually ridiculous, despite how she lashed out at him. It's unclear if he actually understood she was upset or if this was just his unwavering respect for her coming out, but when she was upset that he learned the first move faster than her he said "well you didn't have such a great teacher!" and it clearly makes her feel better for a bit. He immediately forgives her for lashing out at him, doesn't judge her at all for stealing the waterbending scroll, or for accidentally dragging them into trouble. He, in fact, goes out of the way to reassure her, looking happy at the chance to work together and reminding her they need two waterbenders. And he appreciates her joke at the end (he's just straight up being simp (affectionate) there, and I get it).

-When Pakku won't teach her he immediately denounces him as wrong and unfair and is willing to sacrifice his own education (which he needs to save the world) because he won't stand for it. He remains upset about it even after Katara persuades him, tries to secretly show her what Pakku taught him, and cheers her on when she fights him.

-When she's crying over Jet's death, he's the first one to notice and reach out to her, putting his hand gently on her shoulder and drawing her into a hug (that becomes a group hug). She smiles and clearly feels comforted. They probably talked about it offscreen too (but this cannot be shown as they would need to directly acknowledge his death to do so)

-He's pretty much always praising her as a teacher, and when she grumbles about him not calling her Sifu, he goes out of his way to call her that.

-He notices that she's mad at her Dad and asks her about it, but she deflects

-He looks really sad when he has to remind her she has to take off her mother's necklace for their Fire Nation disguises, again it's something he very much seems to empathize with her about, he understands the weight of what it means to her.

-He not only doesn't judge her for lying during the Painted Lady saga, but praises her and enthusiastically helps her commit ecoterrorism.

-Both he and Sokka move to comfort her when she's crying after the bloodbending fiasco. Most of the comforting of her happens offscreen, which I do think is a shame, and a contrast to how Aang is handled- but it's more of a "he's the main character" thing, since the same happens for Sokka as well (I'm sure Katara and Aang talked to him about Yue's death and at least tried to comfort him, but we don't get to see that).

-He was trying to support her during the Southern Raiders ep, whether you believe he did it well or not, both according to his beliefs and cultural values and by trying to emulate the ways she's talked HIM down from revenge and hatred in the past. He specifically brings up those two incidents- losing his people and losing Appa- where she stepped in to keep him from losing himself to rage. As this post notes, he also specifically echoes her phrasing from when she was urging him not to lose himself to the Avatar state (she says "watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary" and he echoes "you're feeling unbelievable pain and rage" while talking to her in this ep.)

It's not just the air nomads he's trying to emulate here, but her. Just like Katara doesn't want to see him consumed by hatred and pain, he wants the same for her. His concern is not for her mother's killer, but for her, he fears this will hurt her, just like her concern was always for him and how this would hurt him in those times he was raging.

He wants to do for her what she did for him. But, Katara is not him. She is not someone who will be talked down by someone else when she is grieving, angry, and looking for revenge. Nobody can stop her when she sets her mind to it. She needs to wrestle with whether to kill him and she needs to come to her own conclusions, because she's the only one that can stop her. And Aang realizes that. He says it's a journey she'll have to take on her own, that she needs to face him doesn't stand in her way.

(I wonder if it kind of hurt, deep down, that he couldn't reach her the way she always reached him. I wonder if he felt upset that he couldn't find the right words like she did for him. But I don't think there were any right words. She needed him to step back. It was her choice to make. So he did.)

And in the end, he was correct that she didn't want to do it. She did choose that based on her own feelings and values.

His assumption Katara not killing the guy = forgiveness is definitely him just kind of applying his assumptions and values, but when she says she doesn't forgive him, he doesn't like, judge her or anything that we can see.

So yeah, quite a few examples! It can feel lopsided because more attention is paid to Aang and Katara's personality affects things.

Katara is both open about her emotions and not. She's someone who will look after other's feelings but not really discuss her own pain with people she cares about, until it all builds up and bursts out.

And it's not surprising she's most concerned about Aang, if my friend had recently (from his perspective) survived a genocide where he lost everyone he loved and was now tasked with saving the world at twelve years old, I'd be pretty worried about him and want to support him too! Aang goes through a lot by virtue of being the protagonist, he has the most pressure on him, he's routinely in the most danger, he literally dies for a few minutes. It's not surprising Katara has more opportunities to comfort him, but he unfailingly supports her in any of her problems of goals (when they're not murder) when he can.

I do think there's some missed opportunities to explore Katara and develop their relationship, but it doesn't make Aang a bad, unsupportive friend, or Katara his Mom and not his peer.

[tiffanys-nailfile]

Imagine trying to explain Chucky lore to someone who’s never seen it. There’s so much and it’s like “so yeah this serial killer put his soul into a doll so he didn’t get shot, and has had beef with a dude for decades who was six when he met him, oh and the doll has a wife, who is human, then was temporarily a doll, then started living as human again in the body of her celebrity crush while he stayed a doll, then the doll goes back to start beef with a woman who he paralyzed as a baby and puts part of his soul into her body too, but then his wife falls in love with her so she held her hostage, now he’s starting beef with some teenagers who didn’t do anything and now he’s old and tried to launch a missile to the North Pole from the White House then withered away into dust and became a ghost, and he’s STILL not satisfied with his killings and also he has a kid who’s a doll too”

[roseboysstuff]

Imagine the gaang reacting to the fact that reader is pregnant with zuko’s kids😭 I feel like all of them would be shocked but really protective towards reader

Oh god their reactions would be amazing

Aang would be happy, so happy, he's great with kids so he's so excited

Sokka would just make jokes, like really shitty jokes, but it's his way of being supportive

Toph would just say "Can't wait till they get older, so I have sparring opponents"

Katara would hug you, and might even go get some more spirit water from the north pole, just in case something happened

And suki would just put her hand over sokka's mouth to stop the jokes, then hug you as well

[neoplatinum]

north and south poles | minatozaki sana

summary: sana wonders, are we not the two sides of the magnet?

pairing: childhood-friend!sana x fem!reader

themes: extremely angsty, best friends to ?? to ??, internalized homophobia, gender dysphoria, sana's not too great of a friend, reader is a pushover until she isn't, implied sex, original male character, [----] x reader

wc: 3.3k

(side a: we can't be friends - ariana grande)

when sana's seven, her mother explains the cardinal rules in life. that boys and girls are polar opposites, like two sides of the coin, or like left and right. boys and girls are like the north and south poles of a magnet. and for a long time this holds true.

boys like to play rough, kick dirt over each other, chase after poor cats in hopes of catching them, or smack each other in the head. it's all a bit too gruesome for sana. she never did like watching them play, it felt like they were fighting. boys are like boxing matches, competing for a top winner. but girls are different.

girls are gentle, they play with dolls together, creating groups to play house or sliding down slides, and everyone cheers each other on. girls also like sharing cool things they found: cute rocks, rings, and toys. girls are like gentle waves crashing against the beach.

sana makes this distinction very early on, boys are boys and girls are girls. there's no in between for a seven year old sana. and life gets explained to her pretty easily by her mom. be a pretty girl, and you'll marry a good man who'll protect you and your family.

but her mother also told sana that you were a rowdy kid. a girl that played with the boys; you liked kicking dirt at the boys, chasing cats to catch them, or smacking each other in the head. but you were a girl, you also liked playing with dolls, and sliding down slides. you especially liked cute rocks, so you were someone she needed clarification with how to categorize as a kid.

so she asked her mom about you.

"oh her, she has no manners. her parents probably don't have enough time to teach her all that. they're both always so busy at work." her mother's chopping onions as she speaks, not lifting an eye at sana. and little sana rocks herself back and forth in the kitchen, a little confused by her own mom.

she's met your parents, they were nice people. offering royal milk tea to her, even if she wasn't allowed to have it. they always gave sana first pick for dishes they made, always. and like them, you often gave her parts of your lunch whenever sana was given too little.

and when sana enters middle school, this cardinal rule starts to shake a bit. boys are boys and girls are girls, but you are a girl, with boy-ish tendencies.

you liked playing rough with fuji, throwing dirt at each other even if it stained each other's school uniform. you liked shoving bigger boys when they were mean to girls, even if you had a black eye and sana had to rub a hard boiled egg over it.

but you were also as gentle as a girl, you held sana's hand gently whenever she wanted to walk along the rock wall, balancing on the ledge. you also helped blow and wash off sana's cuts whenever she scraped her knee in dance. just like how her mother does it.

you were the in between, and in between's don't exist in her mother's cardinal rule. when her mother and father sit at the dinner table and sana's mother asks her which boy in class she thinks is cute. sana doesn't think of any boy, but she thinks of you. you with your rough exterior with the older boys, but gentle and soft to sana, always.

"fuji?" her mother asks her. and sana thinks about fuji, a dependable friend in her life. a boy that is also gentler, although sometimes she thinks he's too loud during basketball. he shoves harder than you do, when you three play tag together. his hands are more rough, he towers over sana and really she sees him like an older brother.

sana thinks fuji is exactly the guy that her mother would like for her to marry.

"yeah, i think so." but sana really doesn't think so, her mind drifts off to your long hair and your soft shoulders.

--

when sana's twelve and excited to go home with you after the sga meeting, fuji confesses to her at the back of the school. he presents to her a letter. and through it all, the only thing she could gather was that sana was the prettiest girl in their class, and she has the prettiest smile.

all these compliments feel nice, but it doesn't stir her like you do. when you tell her that her hair is pretty today or that the bow she chose to match her shoes makes her look look fashionable. she stands by the wall, hands behind her back and staring at her shoes. all she can afford to do is nod at the words.

she knows this much, fuji is nice enough. he doesn't kick her chair like some other boys in the class; he always lets her walk inside the sidewalk when there are cars. so when he asks for a first date, she agrees, not letting her eyes look up at him. he walks away relieved, but sana can't feel anything other than a weight in her stomach.

another cardinal rule her mother told her is that lying is wrong.

so she asks for your opinion, and as she stands by your desk, watching you peacefully take a nap. she thinks about just ripping up the letter in her hand. she readies herself for the best performance of her life. to ask you a question that's self-indulgent. if you'll be her first kiss. and just like that she broke another cardinal rule, lying to you, but mostly to herself.

she thinks your lips would be soft, smelling like that cherry lipstick you like so much. and when you do kiss, she feels like she's floating. your hands are soft, when they cradle her jaw. moisturized with that cherry hand cream she gifted you. your hands are smaller too, they fit her head nicely. and most of all you're gentle. you pull apart, and sana nearly falls forward, body leaning into the kiss.

you stare at her in expectation, and panic surges through her body. you aren't fuji, you are the girl that's always played rougher than other girls. a girl that'll always give her 100% during class sprints, while all the other girls lightly jog. and the first thing she can think of is that she wishes you were a boy.

so she say's the exact words that tear your heart apart.

“wow yeah, that was good.” sana fiddles with her school skirt, “i wish you were a boy, you’d make a girl very happy kissing her like that.”

sana says that, but she watches as your eyes fall, hand dejected, and she can't help but feel like everything she knows about love is wrong. you don't say anything, so she leaves, closing the sga door behind her.

eyes welling up in tears as she thinks about how wrong this all is. if only you were a boy. she sinks onto the floor and cries into herself. when sana goes on the date, and fuji kisses her at her doorstep, she thinks of you. how he has to bend down to kiss her, and it all feels so wrong. later that night she starts a pros/cons list between you and fuji.

the only thing she has written for fuji is that "mother would like him." she tears the sheet of paper and tosses it into her waste basket.

--

when sana's eighteen and talking to her friends about boyfriends. all they have to say is that sex is amazing. they all talk about their first time and when they ask sana of what she thinks, she confesses that she's never done it.

"doesn't fuji ask you to?" one friend asks.

"no, he doesn't." the girl looks at sana weird but then shakes her head quickly.

"some guys are like that, they might not want to do it yet." she comments and then the conversation shifts on to talk about the latest school gossip.

sana's quiet for the rest of the week. she thinks about it, sex with fuji, and all she can do is groan. it's the natural progression of a relationship, but she feels like it's a weight in her stomach. that same weight she felt when he confessed to her.

so she does what she naturally did next when she was twelve; she finds you. she hasn't visited your house in years, it's still the same, even though there's a new door that she doesn't recognize anymore. and when she rings it, she finally sees you up close after so long.

she thinks about what she came here for in the first place. oh right, sex with fuji. so she comes up with the best excuse she can, that fuji wants to have sex. she knows its absurd, she's lying through her teeth, none of the reasons makes sense.

but the way you look right now, she can't think of anyone else she wants to have sex with. it stirs low in her stomach. her wanting you, so she lets a bit of truth in her lie.

"i need you to be my first, i want you to be. it can't be anyone else." sana is firm, but you look conflicted. eyes flitting all over the room. debating your morals.

she grabs your hands. eyes with want as she stares at you, and then you say yes. and suddenly the weight is lifted. sana feels like she's floating again.

when you pull her into your room, she feels like she's invincible. this room has always been so safe, and the way you stare into her with want, she thinks she wants to stay here forever in your arms.

the way you ask for permission, the way you constantly ask her if this is what she wants. asking if she's feeling good, gentle hands smelling like cherries that slip off her clothes. she thinks she'll stay naked like this forever if you asked her to.

her mind fills with you, shouting your name into the night where only you two exist in this world. she thinks this is right, this is what love is all about. this little bubble lasts only a night.

weeks later, she proposes sex to fuji, and he nods adamantly. like a horny teenager boy, which he is. but it all feels so off, even though she know's that he'll never cross boundaries. his hands feel too rough, he's too fast and he never asks sana how she feels.

sana feels the emptiest when she thinks back to how she thanked you when she left your room, when all she wanted to say was "i love you." and cherish you for the rest of her life.

--

when sana's nineteen on her birthday, all she can think of is how she hates fuji's arms around her shoulder. how you stare at the arm like it's the most offensive thing in the world. and sana agrees too, it is offensive, so she shoves it off, playing it off like she has an itchy shoulder.

she smiles at the way you relax back into your seat, like you staked your claim on her. it makes her feel wanted by you. even if she knows its wrong that you kiss her messily in the bar bathroom five minutes later, she feels like life is right.

--

when sana's twenty, bored out of her mind in her apartment with fuji. she thinks of you, she often does anyways. eyes wide when she comes up with the best plan. she purposely fights with fuji, calls him too suffocating, watching tears roll down his eyes, and she feels bad. she really does, she hates seeing him cry because of her, but she needs to get away.

so she calls you, bags packed and waiting by the door. her heart leaping in her chest when you knock on the door. grabbing her bags and asking her to stay in the car. giving stern words to fuji before finally leaving together. away from fuji.

sana stays with you for weeks, waking up and sleeping next to you. always attached to the hip, just like magnets. she lets herself believe this is her life, living with you, being with each other forever. she fits perfectly in your hold, as well as you in her. she always tells you she loves you, but only after you fallen asleep. she whispers it into your ears like they'll be heard. like a spell she put you under.

she doesn't think about fuji until he texts her much later, asking if it's okay to meet up and make up. so she goes back, feeling awful about letting her boyfriend believe she's mad at him. she avoids you for months to not feel the guilt. but it eats at her every day.

--

when sana's twenty-four and enjoying a stroll in the city with fuji. he proposes to her, with both their families around for the surprise. as she listens to him, one knee up, professing his love for her. she looks at her mother, her mother with happy tears in her eyes and she can't find herself to say no, so she says yes instead.

wedding planning is fun when she thinks about it as a wedding with you, so the best she can do is ask you to be her maid of honor. she presents to you the wedding invitation in your apartment. talking your ear off about how happy she is, watching you get more and more upset.

just waiting for you to tell her you want to run away with her, to elope together. move away and change names and live in europe together. she lists off all the things she can think of that a girl would like in a wedding, but you never ask her to run away. she knows its selfish, to want you to pull her out of her life, she just can't find the courage to pull herself out of it.

you show up to the wedding, in a gorgeous dress that she thinks that she would marry you in right now. you give a speech about how you, fuji, and sana all met. you talk with so much passion in your voice. she thinks that you might actually be happy for them. sana cries tears out of despair, maybe you really do think sana loves fuji. but she's in love with you.

when you make an analogy that fuji and sana are like magnets drawn to each other, the whole crowd awws, and sana feels her heart break. thats how she sees you and her, a perfect match. the rest of the wedding becomes unremarkable to her.

when you disappear, sana searches for you: eyes wide and frantic. calling up all your friends and family, but they all say the same thing, "she said she's going on vacation for a while, soul-searching?"

sana visits your house everyday, waiting for you to show up like hidden treasure. ever since she's found out she's been pregnant, she's been trying to find tell you about it. you should be the first to know, but you don't show up until a month later.

and when sana wakes up to the sight of you, it's like she's whole again. she walks away from that conversation sadder than ever, you don't drown in her eyes anymore. hands shuffling and changing positions often as she explains about her new incoming newborn.

--

when sana's twenty-five you walk out of her life. after the long labor and intense pain she went through, out came her little baby girl. wailing and crying at the introduction of the world, fuji's trying to wipe down sana's sweat and calm her down, but sana's drowsiness leads to her calling out your name instead, fuji think it's strange but doesn't comment on it. she sleeps for a long time.

when she wakes up to fuji excitedly telling sana that you are visiting. she tries her best to smooth out her hair and her heart rate jumps at the news. so she gets ready for you to visit her.

she thinks she'll name her daughter after you, the same girl she's so in love with. when she proposes the idea, you shut her down. she's never heard this tone before, so harsh and so mean. but she deserves it, the same way she knows she deserves all things bad to her when you look so dejected every time she leaves. she needs you by her side, she can't do motherhood alone with fuji, she doesn't think she can do life without you.

but then you say it, words that make her feel like her heart got pulled out of her chest. you pulled it out. you're moving away, a whole different country, a whole life without sana. and you want to, be away from sana. she can hear it in the way you say it, the way you stand up from the visitor's chair, having only sat there for a minute. the way you walk out of the room. you would have kept walking out had fuji not stopped you.

and sana's angry, after all this, you walk away. she can't tell who she's angry at anymore. angry at you, angry at fuji, angry at her mom, angry at the world. and she lands on it, she's angry at herself. with hot tears running down her face, you look back one more time, and you still leave. like you just double checked that it is exactly what you want to do, leave sana all alone.

--

when sana's thirty and thinking, "yeah, i am okay after all this time." she isn't. because her little girl has just run into you. and nearly hit her head, falling back. but with gentle and caring hands, you stand her back up. asking her daughter if she's alright. and as her daughter runs back to sana, sana can see you for the first time in five years.

your hair is longer, you look more tired, more lines on your face. but your eyes are still so wild, familiar eyes that she's found herself dreaming about for years. for five years to be exact, she dreams of you returning. so you walk up to sana and fuji, calm and collected about seeing them after five years.

but sana's panicking, like she's seen a ghost. you basically are a ghost in sana's life, she's been wondering lately if you really have been there in her life, if not for photos she really wonders if this is all a dream.

a dream that comes crashing down, you pick up a small girl, she's younger than sana's daughter. but she's got your wild eyes and cute nose. and sana thinks that she could die here. right now the rug could be pulled out from under her and she wouldn't utter a peep.

you have a daughter, and a wife. a gorgeous wife who smiles at you like how sana used to. and her eye line follows, you look your wife with the same passion of when you were both eighteen and far too stupid to understand anything in the world. you look at this woman like you used to look at sana.

"it's been a while." sana's voice cuts in. she needs to hear your voice after so long.

"yeah, i guess it has." you reply, finally looking at her after so long. sana gulps, willing the tears away. you sound the same, lighter than your last conversation, like you've made peace with it.

"honey, you're crying." fuji says wiping away sana's tear and you smile at that. like you've finally accepted fuji as her husband.

"oh i didn't notice." sana laughs, rapidly wiping her tears away. she's embarrassed, here she is thinking that you still love her, but you don't. not anymore.

sana tries her best to talk with fuji and momo. them talking about their line of work and interests. but sana can only stare at you.

eyes wide open.

--

a/n: i think im actually evil for writing this. like no joke. but anyways!! stay safe and stay healthy everyone!

[muffinlance]

Blindsiding Badgermoles by MuffinLance

Zuko goes blind after the North Pole. Iroh, wishing a simpler life for his nephew than Ba Sing Se’s packed streets, takes them to the quiet city of Gaoling.

Enter the Blind Bandit, who doesn’t need no Fire Nation spies in her town. Especially stumbly princes who make blind kids look bad.

AKA: The Season Two Toph and Zuko blind buddy fic you've always wanted.

With many thanks to the wonderful @blindbeta for sensitivity reading <3