Avatar season 2 episode 9: Bitter Work

Still watching Avatar! Here are some thoughts on season 2 episode 9:

( Bitter Work )

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Well, that was an unexpected downer of an ending.

...

I am really not sure what to say. I mean, the episode started out feeling like filler, but then there was serious discussion and character moments and stuff, and the whole Sokka-in-the-crevice sequence was hilarious, and oh, Zuko, break my heart, why don't you???

So yeah. Emotional whiplash up the wazoo. I am going to have to sleep on this one.

4 things: Stories of the Sacred; laundry and dress code fail; Yuletide writing woes

Things I have done today:

1. Taught RE. Today's lesson was (surprise, surprise), Christmas. We only had one kid, so it was me, Celia, and Emily our amazing assistant (plus Celia's husband, who sat in for kicks), essentially talking at Celia's daughter. We did a tiny spiel, and then I freely adapted the text of an Aztec version of the Nativity, translated from the actual Aztec version written by some Aztecs and a Spanish missionary priest back in the 1500s. The text, I think, does not quite work as an American's children's book, but the general gist is interesting, especially the long digression about flowers and jewels as the angels sing to the shepherds, and the illustrations are both gorgeous and fascinating, since they pull the standard trick of illustrating the Holy Land as if it were the illustrator's own homeland -- which, in this case, means Tenochtitlan before it became Mexico City.

Then we made ornaments for all the kids who weren't there, because next week after the lesson (which will be Yule), everyone troops downstairs to decorate the tree in the sanctuary while the adult congregation sings carols. I am not teaching, but I may or may not show up to assist and stuff.

2. Failed to do laundry, on account of freezing rain. Bah. (Did change sheets and towels, though, and now they are in laundry baskets for whenever the weather is decent and I have two and a half hours to spare.)

3. In related failure (because I'd expected to have freshly cleaned pants and was discombobulated when I could not do laundry), forgot to dig out spare pants and went to work still wearing my jeans, which is against the dress code. *headdesk*

4. Wrote 200 words toward Yuletide that are not actually part of the story I am going to write, but are instead a sort of prologue that explains the situation to myself. I am weird and obsessive like that, yes, I know.

Anyway, the problem with Yuletide this year is that my recipient did not specify any characters (ze marked 'any'), but in hir optional details, ze did say it would be great to have a story about one of a few particular characters being awesome in a particular fashion. Unfortunately, when I went back and refamiliarized myself with canon, the character I suddenly, desperately wanted to write about A) was not one of the requested characters, and B) by definition cannot perform that particular action. *sigh*

But! Luckily I have thought of a situation that includes both my new object of fascination and one of my recipient's requested characters (actually two, but one is mostly passive for reasons that shall be obvious the minute I can tell you anything specific), that can be interpreted to satisfy the requested action, and that is also (I think) pretty cool.

Now I just need to find the right entry point and write the damn thing.