Once, Aang was a tall, rather broad-shouldered man hailing from the Northern Air Temple. He had a tangly beard that reached his midriff, billowing robes that he insisted he wore even though they were out of fashion, calloused hands that were skilled in woodworking, and an unrivaled passion for hot tea on a cool autumn day.
The monks had called him Dorjee, a scepter, a representation of spiritual strength. He first wailed out his presence in the Eastern Air Temple, a newborn with a need to tell the world that he existed. He was told the midwives held him high above his birth mother so that he would touch the rays of sun that streaked through the open window, and that his eyes glowed for just a second into a brilliant blue.
“They knew before the Elders did that you were special,” his guardian told him as a child, “for the Mother Superior of the temple could feel your energy through your mother’s womb. She said days before you were born, she felt a familiar energy…one that reminded her of her friend from the Fire Nation.”
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Or, Aang remembers his people through the lives he’s lived as other Air Nomads. He is the story of a lost culture.
When I started my first tumblr blog, one of the very first things I posted was this set of avatar posters. They kind of exploded, racking up 10k notes within a few days. Needless to say it was thrilling for 15 year old me, having barely just started drawing seriously.
Unfortunately they pretty much defined my old blog, which was a big reason for me to let it go and start fresh here. For the most part I was content leaving them behind me. But especially this summer, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t a good example of my current skill as an artist, so naturally I had to remedy that!
I finished the sketches about a month ago, and finally found time to sit down and finish painting all of them, in this final week before school. I also made them available to buy on my society6 store - check it out.
“No,” Kyoshi whispered. Her heart pounded between her ears. Bile surged over her tongue. “No no no no NO!” She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to see her mother’s ghost. What kind of cruel trick of death was being played on her? How had Jesa of the Eastern Air Temple come back to haunt her? Kyoshi scrambled back over the rough stone. She flailed her arms to ward off the tall, beautiful Air Nomad woman, the one who’d abandoned her in Yokoya, never to return. “You’re not here! You’re supposed to be dead!”
The spirit parted her lips and raised her dark brown eyebrows. The act scrunched the blue arrow tattoo lying over her shaved forehead. “I . . . know? Kyoshi, who do you think I am?”
Kyoshi caught her ragged breath. She squeezed her hands under her arms to still their shaking. She forced herself to think rationally about it, instead of panicking over the same slight laugh wrinkles about the eyes that Jesa had, and the deep gray eyes the statues at the Air Temples couldn’t capture. People could resemble each other. No one’s face was as unique as they thought it was.
“Yangchen,” Kyoshi said. “It’s you.”
The Air Avatar gave her a mildly embarrassed smile. Even that she shared with Jesa. It was too much, and Kyoshi burst into tears. “You look just like her,” Kyoshi sobbed. “You look just like my mother.”
Yangchen was surprised. But being the woman of legendary compassion, she knew exactly what to do. She opened her arms and Kyoshi fell into her embrace. The feeling of Air Nomad robes against her face reminded Kyoshi of Kelsang, and her bawling reached a higher pitch.
“Oh, my child,” Yangchen murmured, despite what they’d just established to the contrary. She hugged Kyoshi to her chest and stroked her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you before. But I’m here now. Everything is going to be all right.”
Anyways it would be interesting if lok’s politics/world were a three way split between monarchism, the emerging capitalist system and Amon’s ‘communism’
a lot of Gregory Berrycones in the notes missing the reference to my twelve note magnum opus from several hours prior in which the narrator silently begs an entity that isn’t really God for death and the entity says no
the narrator is operating under the constraint that they can only use words “god” has already spoken, “god” is aware of this and says the ‘Time flies’ sentence on purpose in order to give the narrator the pieces they need to voice their complaint; “god” has constant access to the narrator’s thoughts, and answers them as though they’re having a conversation between equals, but clearly absolutely dictates the terms under which the narrator can speak. it becomes obvious as the scene continues that the narrator is silently screaming and that the request being denied may be a request for death, but is at minimum a request for some acute suffering to be stopped
this could be an interaction between a normal person and an evil telepath with some mind control ability pretending to be the voice of a benevolent god. or it could work as a demon lord speaking to a soul they’ve trapped in a mirror and keep at their side. or it could be an actual god trying to calm down their only believer because they’re trapped in the same prison. the concept amused me so kindly forgive the ugliness of the execution
