My real-life blood donation experiences as related to Zuko's:

1. Needle violently yanked out of my arm: summer 2014. The technician definitely had it worse than me, kept asking me if I was okay when she sounded like she was about to cry. I was pretty calm; shocked, but I knew they would take care of me and I wasn't going to bleed out, so why panic?

2. Hemoglobin deferral: it's happened a few times, so I've developed the habit of cooking a steak or hamburger the night before. Most recently, last November my count was too low because I didn't have time to cook, and I was so pissed that I started writing this story and didn't stop until I finished three days later.

3. Temperature deferral: the first time I tried to donate in New York, summer 2016, my temperature was 100 F (37.8 C), but I was not sick. It was really hot that day, so maybe that's why. I should have drunk water.

4. Blacking out on the subway: the whole reason this is set in NY. I spent a year between college and med school living in the Bronx teaching high school math. We had a week off in January so I went to donate blood, and afterwards, I ran up the stairs at Grand Concourse and blacked out on the train. I was conscious the whole time but couldn't see anything, and I felt like I was suffocating. I actually regained my vision at one point, but the train didn't stop, and it went away again. The whole time I was thinking, oh gods, I can't die right now, people will see, how embarrassing... I feel like I'm giving NYers a bad rap when they're already considered to be some of the most callous, self-absorbed urbanites in the world. They really aren't. I believe that if I'd collapsed to the floor, someone would have helped, or at least shielded me from being trampled until they pulled up in a station and got EMS. But if you're like me or Zuko in the middle of a panic attack, of course you're going to think omg, omg this is so mortifying, how could anyone possibly want to help me—

5. Car accident: this is the one part that didn't happen :D I've never been in an MVA, and I haven't shadowed/rotated through ER before, so I just fudged some stuff up for Aang's injuries.

6. Heart rate deferral: I did nearly get deferred once for fast heartbeat in NY because I powerwalked from the station. They let me sit quietly for a while to calm down.

Music, Med School, and Career Aspirations:

Music librarian was my dream job in high school when I saw a documentary about it in music class—I'd get to read a lot of sheet music, drink coffee wearing a snazzy autumnal sweater, and become the musicians' best friend when they lost their sheet music minutes before the concert. It was very much an aesthetic dream, especially if I ended up working for a major orchestra like NY Phil. In this AU, Azula is probably a prodigy concert pianist. Zuko also played piano when he was younger but wasn't as good and found himself more suited to the behind-the-scenes of concerts.

I was the flutist who lost her sheet music onstage when she was 14. My conductor didn't even panic; he gave me his own score to use and conducted the piece from memory. Later he told me he found it on the stage, but I just didn't see it in my panic. I think he was probably disappointed in me, though he didn't show it.

Zuko's sad thing with not being recognized for his work was very much me projecting onto him. I tend to feel that I'm not cut out to be a great leader or innovator; I don't like the spotlight, and in college I tended to work as a treasurer for many student organizations, so I'd be sitting in the back figuring how to pay for events rather than making grandiose speeches about our mission or whatnot. Sometimes I felt underappreciated, though at the same time, I felt like I had a very good sense of the value of my contributions, which is more than some of my classmates with nominal titles could say. I still like to get appreciated, though :D

Tbh, Aang's struggles in med school don't even begin to cover half of the shit that's wrong with the system, in my experience. There are good things about our healthcare, but they tend to only benefit people who can pay for it. A not-insignificant portion of my classmates have dropped out or taken leaves of absence because it's just not for everyone to endure. But I'm still here, and I don't know any better than Aang about how to fix it. Just keep swimming, I guess. *shrugs* It was a bit angsty, I'm sorry, but I hope that Aang's rationale was understandable.

Random Stuff:

Aang's tattoos: I couldn't find anything about what real-life practices the airbender tattoos are based on, so I made it purely artistic rather than spiritual. I originally thought that the arm and leg ones join the back, but looking back at some episodes, the arm tattoos taper off in the axilla, and the leg tattoos look like they might end in the groin or the butt. Regardless, I decided to make them interconnected.

Yulan magnolia: there were two yulan trees in my neighborhood growing up; Mom and I always used to take walks and smell them. Yùlán (玉蘭）means jade lily/orchid.

The sad thing is if Aang and Zuko were in a relationship and started having sex, then Zuko wouldn't be able to donate blood anymore because of a stupid FDA rule: if you are a man who has sex with men, you can only donate if you haven't had sex with another man for 12 months. If you're a woman who has had sex with an MSM, you're also deferred for 12 months. I'm not sure what other countries' policies are on this, but I imagine there's a similar stigma.

It's a kind of homophobic rule leftover from the AIDS crisis when people thought AIDS was a disease of gay men only, but that's kind of bullshit because now we know that 1) HIV can be transmitted through many ways, not just gay sex, including: straight sex! Sharing needles. Vertical transmission (mother to infant). And others. 2) All blood products are screened for HIV before being given to recipients anyways. 3) HIV is not a death sentence these days. If you go undiagnosed without treatment for years, then yes, you can develop AIDS and die, but if you are diagnosed, you can still live a normal lifespan if you take your meds. It's a chronic condition, not unlike high blood pressure, that should not be stigmatized and wrongly associated with "immoral" behavior. So anyways, it sucks because a lot of gay men would otherwise be eligible to donate. Kudos, FDA, for all your efforts to worsen the constant shortage of blood supply. *sips tea*