You could rattle the stars

Fire Lord Zuko passing a law that forbids challenging anyone under the age of majority to Agni Kai

Fire Lord Zuko waiting until the day he reaches the age of majority to pass this law, lest anyone think he is a coward

(No one. Literally no one would have thought that, but it’s generally regarded as a very classy move regardless)

Wait but also, until then, if anyone under the age of majority is challenged

Zuko fights it for them.

Which, especially in more rural towns (where Agni Kais are less of a public event and more of a fast and violent duel) is terrifying because you challenge your neighbor’s kid over a stolen chicken-fish and all of a sudden the Fire Lord is showing up???

But, those few who still challenge those who should be kids learn quickly to regret it.

Okay but this implies that Zuko knows whenever someone challenges a kid to an Agni Kai and is there before the battle takes place.

Firelord Zuko: *wakes up in a cold sweat near midnight*

Firelord Zuko: *running down the palace hallways while still struggling to put in his pants, being chased by his team of bodyguards* I’M GOING TO HING WA ISLAND TO KICK SOMEBODY’S ASS SEE YOU IN A WEEK BITCHES

Random spirit: Why’d you do that to him? Isn’t it kind of a stretch for a mortal to be blessed like that?

Agni himself: I felt like it

@dead-fandom-society @evilkitten3

how dare you leave this gold in the notes

My ancestors, watching me dump an entire stick of cinnamon, two cloves, an allspice berry, and a generous grating of nutmeg into my tea, sweetened with white sugar and loaded with cream, while I sit in my clean warm house surrounded by books, 25+ outfits for different occasions, and 6 pairs of shoes, in a building heated so well I have the windows open in mid-autumn:

Our daughter prospers. We are proud of her. She has never labored in a field but knows riches we could not have imagined.

I like this so much better than the idea that our ancestors would be embarrassed or ashamed of us for being “soft” or some crap like that.

@booksociety’s​ Momento Mori Event: Ninth House

For so long, all I wanted was for you to love me. To accept me. I thought it was my honor that I wanted, but really, I was just trying to please you. You, my father, who banished me just for talking out of turn. My father, who challenged me, a thirteen-year-old boy to an Agni Kai. How can you possibly justify a duel with a child? 

It was to teach you respect. It was cruel and it was wrong! Then you’ve learned nothing. No, I’ve learned everything! And I’ve had to learn it on my own. Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history, and somehow the war was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don’t see our greatness, they hate us! And we deserve it. We’ve created an era of fear in the world, and if we don’t want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace, and kindness. 

Your uncle has gotten to you, hasn’t he? Yes, he has. After I leave here today, I’m gonna free Uncle Iroh from his prison, and I’m gonna beg for his forgiveness. He’s the one who’s been a real father to me. But I’ve come to an even more important decision. I’m going to join The Avatar, and I’m going to help him defeat you. I know my own destiny. Taking you down is The Avatar’s destiny. Goodbye.

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER (2005 - 2008)

There are so many things I love about this show, but most of all its depiction of love. If Hill House was a deep-dive into family trauma, Bly Manor is at its core a queer love story—and a discussion of what does and does not constitute a healthy love. There are so many variants of the love story throughout, but the Dani/Jamie one rings so true to me because of what it specifically refuses to be. Unlike Viola, whose love becomes a bitter, spiteful thing in her desperation to keep her house, her things, her child, their love is not weaponized loneliness. Unlike Peter, whose love is aggressive, abusive, restrictive, their love does not look like ownership.

Thiers is the idea of falling in love all at once with someone you didn’t know was there before, someone you feel right away that you’ve known forever. That, sometimes, finding your forever person means being afraid of losing them, but choosing them anyway, choosing to take it one day at a time, choosing to be there on the bad days, to do the dishes if they can’t anymore. That Jamie went from a woman who didn’t believe people were worth the weight of how exhausting they could be to someone who is willing to lovingly, gently walk through the increasing bad spots for her lover. That Dani is the kind of person who refuses to haunt someone she loves so much, that she chooses instead to guard her with a hand on her sleeping shoulder instead of dragging her down into the depths with her.

The thesis of this show is that possession isn’t love—that to love someone is to know eventual loss, and that it’s worth it, so worth it, just to have those good days before the grief. As someone with such a fear of death, as someone living with depression, the idea that you just keep putting one foot in front of the other is so crucial to keeping going. Dani does that. Jamie does that. From the cautious yearning to the easy intimacy of their domestic relationship, from airing their trauma to making a life around growing beautiful things, even if they can’t last, theirs is such a poignant and wonderful inspection of what love should be. Even down to Jamie telling their story, and insisting that yes, it is worth it. Is it important. All things end, but love anyway. Love anyway. Love anyway. That, above all else in this show, sticks with me.

I’ve discovered a new love of my life...

Amelia Eve❤️

Can we take a moment to appreciate Rebecca's strength? Peter possessed her and promised that he will be with her but at the last moment when she is underwater her leaves her. Her consciousness comes back to her body and she is not in a memory when she is drowning. The physical pain and fear she must have gone through is unimaginable. And yet in the final episode when Viola's ghost is taking Flora with her into the lake she tells Flora to let her in so that Flora will be tucked away in a safe memory with her parents while Rebecca will go through the pain of drowning. She says "You wont have to feel anything because I will feel it for you". Eevn after dying due to drowning here she is telling Flora that she will go through with it so that the little girl isnt scared.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

so i've been thinking about this since i've seen a couple posts regarding queer horror fans and queerphobic tropes in horror, and like

the haunting of bly manor is such a good example of well done queer horror/tragedy.

yes they did kill one of the lesbians off at the end, but they gave us their happy ending, they really did. they gave them the happy domestic romance and longing and yearning and grief all in one, and it absolutely obliterated me, but it was so beautiful.

and the most incredible thing was framing it as the fear of loss, the fear of outliving your partner who you love so deeply and completely that you cant think of anything in the world more terrifying than that.....

to then present us with a kind of acceptance, while still embracing that grief and longing...?

it was so absolutely refreshing and honest, and this series was genuinely so excellent, it really lived up to the high expectations hill house left me with. it really managed to be just as impactful and beautifully crafted, while doing something that was simultaneously so different and so similar.

it was its own unique story, and explored some important themes of its own, but it tied itself thematically to the first series in such a natural, fluid way.......

grief, guilt, loss, desperation, longing, and in a very poignant way, moving on.

this is exactly the kind of horror that i want to see. this is everything i hope for, and im just completely floored. it crushed me completely, and im so grateful for it.

Alright my sexuality is now just purely Jamie from Bly manor. That woman owns me. Thank you, goodnight

some perfectly splendid behind the scenes photos from The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)

mike flanagan will see an abandoned mansion in a rural area and be like “is anybody gonna haunt that with a story about grief and the primal human fear of loneliness” and not wait for an answer

Another thing about bly manor and Dani and Jamie's relationship that broke my heart (yeah it's a long list).

Jamie in all the years after dani's final sacrifice never once saw her even though she kept looking for her in every reflection and she left the door open just a crack hoping Dani would come back. We know from what she narrated that viola kept forgetting more and more about who she was, her sister, her husband and eventually her daughter. We also know it happened quite rapidly because the plague outbreak happened a decade after she became the lady of the lake and she had already forgotten a number of things so I guess in two or three decades at most Viola was already empty, without any clues as to her previous life.

Jamie, knowing this, must have assumed the same happened to Dani. Forgetting her identity, her desires and eventually the love of her life over the course of what I assume are three decades from dani's sacrifice to the wedding. But we know that's not what happened because although Jamie can't see her Dani is there with her meaning she remembers her wife, her best friend and true love. Dani's soul already was fundamental in breaking the curse because she wouldn't trap anyone in bly manor unlike viola so what if she affected the forgetting process too? What if it happens at a much slower rate because viola was consumed with rage while Dani was overwhelmed with love? What if it doesn't happen at all and Dani gets to remember Jamie forever? I don't know what to hope for but I am hopeful.

Maybe someday Dani will be able to go back to Jamie, some may whisper she managed to do so by stubbornness alone

When you rewatch this Scene and realize that they were sharing a cigarette ❤️ they‘re so cute ❤️

i just think that Victoria Pedretti

Victoria Pedretti as Dani Clayton in The Haunting of Bly Manor.

What I love most about the haunting series is it’s always so thematically whole. Like, hill house was like: we’re going to explore familial trauma and grief and how people coping in different ways can drive families apart and childhood trauma really sticks through adulthood—and it did it through bouncing back and forth chronologically, portraying the house of their trauma as a living thing that eats people up and having the family ultimately come together and heal through love

And Bly manor is like: we’re going to explore the trauma of loving someone despite risk of losing them in its many forms and we’re going to do it through ghosts who ‘possess’ rather than love, show multiple levels of love and loss and the haunting is going to come from a person who was forgotten by those she loved rather than the house itself.

And it’s just great. They really center their stories around theme first and that’s what makes it excellent.