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firelxdykatara · 4 years ago

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If you interpret Katara’s aggression towards Zuko as romantic affection, then you have some serious issues of your own. Is a very dangerous message for teenage girls indeed. People who ship Zutara have to seriously analyze how unhealthy the message of the pairing would be. Katara hated Zuko for a valid reason, and to twist it into something it’s not is massively disrespectful to both the character. The outdated and ridiculous notion that a girl who acts like she doesn’t like a guy is simply “confused” and “denying her feelings” is so sexist and degrading. Take her emotions at face value. It's never been

Yawn. Boring. This is the same old tired argument I’ve heard a million times before--the one that proves a) you don’t actually understand how relationships work, and b) you’ve never read a single zutara meta in your life, because that’s the only way you could seriously get the ‘good girl is secretly in love with the bad boy and hopes to fix him’ read of a relationship that bares absolutely no resemblance to that particular collection of tropes either in the show or in our fandom.

But ok! I’ll bite, since you clearly want so badly to be educated and evidently don’t have the time to watch the show yourself, nor the reading comprehension necessary to understand the sort of media analysis that goes on in a lot of atla and zutara-focused meta in this fandom.

Which probably means that anything I write here will fly right over your head, but oh well, what can you do?

At any rate, the first mistake you’ve made here is assuming that I (or zutara shippers in general, but since you came into my inbox, I’m going to be taking this just as personally as you clearly intended me to) interpret Katara’s aggression towards Zuko as romantic at any point in the series prior to their reconciliation (after which point, there is no aggression from Katara aimed at Zuko for anyone, me included, to interpret romantically in the first place). I don’t, and I never have, and neither does a vast majority of the zutara fandom in the spaces I frequent (which encompasses tumblr, occasionally twitter, and the very large zutara discord server I’ve been an active part of for two years now). Pointing out oddly suggestive tension in early parts of the series (such as the “I’ll save you from the pirates” and “you rise with the moon, I rise with the sun” lines, or the fact that Zuko wore Katara’s necklace around his wrist for like nine episodes when there was absolutely no need for it) is just that--pointing out tension.

There doesn’t need to be feelings for there to be tension, antagonistic or otherwise, but that tension is the foundation from which their relationship arc throughout the series grew, developed, and eventually evolved. This is what is generally known as relationship development, and it occurs when two characters go from having one kind of relationship to another within the course of the story.

For example, enemies, who become friends, who become lovers.

Now, your mileage may vary on this next part (although I really hope not, cause Y I K E S), but I, personally, think that ‘if a boy kisses you without your consent, but he really really loves you, then you owe it to him to love him back, especially if he just saved the world, and you should never expect an apology because since you suddenly decided you return those feelings, that means the violation of your boundaries was ok since clearly you really liked him all along’ is a much more damaging message to send to young girls--and boys, to be frank, especially since learning about consent is hugely important at young ages--than ‘if a boy who was your enemy goes to great lengths to better himself, to the point where you forgive him for when he hurt you and become close friends with him, then it’s normal for those feelings to grow and change, even to the point of becoming romantic, and it’s ok to explore them’.

And guess which one of those is canon to the AtLA finale?

Next, you say ‘Katara hated Zuko for a valid reason’ as if that was ever in dispute. It wasn’t--certainly not on my blog. I know there are some people who hate Katara because she was ‘too mean’ to Zuko, but I don’t agree with them, nor do I associate with them, since I have no time, energy, or room in my life for Katara slander. However, do you know what the operative word is in that sentence? Hated. As in past tense. As in, ‘Katara used to hate Zuko, but by the end of the show that is no longer the case, and they are extremely close friends with a deep bond and multiple life-debts between them’.

Why are you so insistent on not only denying Zuko’s hard-earned and bitterly fought for redemption, but also Katara’s emotions and feelings, which you end this weirdly disjointed ask by insisting they be taken at face value?

And it’s actually really funny (ironic funny, not so much ‘ha ha’ funny) that you use the word ‘confused’ there, followed by the phrase ‘denying her real feelings’, and then call that ‘sexist and degrading’, as if that isn’t exactly what happened in Katara’s canon endgame in the show.

She said point blank that she was confused, she showed with her words, tone, and body language that she was not open to Aang’s romantic advances, she had completely forgotten about the last time he’d kissed her without her consent, rather than reflecting on her romantic feelings as one would expect of a girl who’d been kissed by someone we’re supposed to believe she’s had feelings for since book 1, and was completely taken aback by Aang’s reaction to the play and his weird believe that they ‘were gonna be together’, when she had never once indicated that she wanted to be with him in any romantic sense. And yet, he kissed her--and while she got angry about it and stormed off in the moment, he never apologized for crossing her boundaries, and they also didn’t have a single significant scene together between that moment and the epilogue.

What happened to taking Katara’s emotions at face value? What happened to how ‘sexist and degrading’ it is to assume that if a girl says she’s confused, that must mean she’s ‘denying her feelings’? What happened to caring about Katara’s agency, even a little bit?

Anyway, I’m gonna wrap this up by saying: I do not believe Zuko and Katara should’ve been making out in the finale instead. I actually hate the fact that the final shot of AtLA was a romantic kiss (particularly for such a poorly written pairing), rather than a shot of the gaang together like it should have been to show what the series was meant to be about. I think that focusing on the romantic relationships in the finale undercut an already weak ending to an otherwise great (not perfect, but certainly good enough that it deserved much better closure) show.

That said, I also think a Zutara kiss would have been more earned, at that point in both of their narratives. Because Katara’s feelings had been the focus of their relationship throughout its entirety. Zuko’s feelings mattered, too, of course, (in stark contrast to how they were treated during his relationship with Mai), but Katara was the one who got to choose when and why and what she felt about him. She got to choose when to forgive him. She got to choose to help him, and to save his life, and her emotions were frequently the focus in a way they never were during her relationship with Aang, so nudging those into a more romantic light not only would have fit better with her character arc, it also would have been far less jarring to see that as the culmination of their respective storylines, rather than a romantic kiss coming out of nowhere when her very last scene with him was being kissed without her consent and storming off about it because it upset her.

My most fervent hope, anon, is that some day you actually watch the show, Avatar: the Last Airbender. Because Katara and Zuko are amazing characters, they have amazing storylines both separately and together, and it’s really a crime whenever someone misunderstands both of them so badly. I hope that when you do watch the show, you pay attention. You may see something amazing.

#atla #zutara #katara #zuko #kataang salt #not a ton but yk it's there so #salt for ts #asked #try harder next time anon #this doesn't even rank a 'you tried' star #Anonymous

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transdemigod · 3 years ago

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The Final Ritual and the other 13 Entities

So I’ve been thinking, since the only ritual to succeed in bringing in all the fears was still controlled by the Eye, what would it have looked like if it were one of the others in charge? The end result would have to be the same, since all 14 have to come into the world or else none of them will stay, but there are a lot of elements to the ritual itself and even how the new world works that seemed to be exclusive to the Eye. Here’s what I think would have to be the same: obviously the Archivist position is important, so I think each of the Entities would have to come up with their own “center”. A person, or something else, who has in some way been marked or touched by all the other fears, but still embodies their main patron. Also, since the original Watcher’s Crown was still present in the main ritual with the Panopticon being another center of power, I think the Final Ritual would still be based on the original ritual attempt, or at least take some ideas from it. The whole thing would probably vary based on who does it, but those are the elements that I think are important. So here’s my ideas of what that might look like for the other Entities.

The Buried’s ritual was the Sunken Sky, and they basically just threw a whole town into a pit. Gertrude’s idea to counteract it by throwing in someone touched by void could actually be used to enhance the power of the ritual, I think. Instead of just the Vast, the person thrown in could be marked by every fear, and would have a role in the new world as the center of power. The new world would be completely underground, with maybe only Vast domains in the sky above, and the center of power would stay in a chamber at the center of the Earth, roots reaching out to pockets of space where other domains exist and drawing in sustenance. The Center might even be a good name for the role, evoking the image of them being surrounded and crushed.

The Corruption didn’t really have a ritual, but it’s implied that it was trying to crawl through a door made by Prentiss’ worms. Maybe it would instead crawl in through a person? The focus of power, marked as usual by every fear, would spend some time festering in rot and preparing themselves to be a perfect home for the Corruption, until it bursts out of them. The new world would probably be covered in bugs and mold and other agents of the Corruption that go around feeding on the fear harvested by the others. The focus of power could maybe function a bit like a Hive, connected to every being of Filth that lives in and feeds them.

The Dark attempted to make a world of the Extinguished Sun, using a literal dark sun they made in space. I think it would be present in the new world, but probably not the main focus of power since it doesn’t have a way to include all the others. This one would probably be similar to the Eye’s, with someone marked by all the fears performing a simple ritual to bring darkness and fear to the world. Instead of the sky being covered in eyes, there would be no light anywhere except for the domains, where people need to see what they’re afraid of. The world might even change to be like the empty darkness of space, with the dark sun and the focus in the center and the domains orbiting around it. I think the focus of power would end up blind, maybe even performing the act as part of the ritual, and be able to sense and feed on fear without their sight.

The Desolation’s cult probably had the right idea making a Messiah for their version of the Scorched Earth. That is essentially what the Archivist was for the Eye, except they didn’t know that she had to be marked by all the fears. So, Agnes Montague would be the focus. It’s implied that the goal was to eventually destroy Agnes and release her power, since she prevented the ritual in canon by dying in a less destructive way. I think this would probably still happen in the main ritual, using the power of Desolation to destroy her body and release the power of all the fears. She would probably still rule the new world as a form of energy, like a massive flame that burns with the force of all the fear being fed to her. Like a flame, I think the world ruled by Desolation would burn out quickly. Sure, all the fears would be there for a while doing their thing, but Desolation would want to consume faster and faster and would likely run out of living beings fairly quickly, leaving them all to starve.

The End doesn’t need a ritual, since it eventually gets everything. I think it wouldn’t bother trying to bring in all the fears, but let’s say for the sake of argument that it wants more, and decides to kill its siblings. That would probably be the whole ritual, just ending everything in the world. It would feed for a little while as everything dies, then fade away like the rest of them. A world ruled by the End would be nothing, essentially, but it’s nature as an eldritch being means it would have to have something to feed on, so those two things don’t really work together. It would probably create a kind of Death God, marked by all the fears, to bring them all together only to be killed. Which is probably why it doesn’t want a ritual at all, it wouldn’t be very interesting.

The Eye, of course, had the Watcher’s Crown, brought by the Archivist who was marked by all 14, and drinking in fear from all the others through its Panopticon. It’s possible that since the Archivist wasn’t originally the one in the center watching everything, there could be more than one center of power. But he also said that the Eye wanted him there in the Panopticon, so I think it’s natural for the one who is marked to also end up in the center.

The Flesh had The Last Feast, a ritual where they just threw a bunch of meat in a pit. Not very creative, but I think the pit was supposed to represent a mouth. Maybe it was supposed to end with the Flesh consuming it all and coming into power, but it never got to finish since Gertrude blew it up. In order to work and bring together all the fears, the pit would have to consume some element of all of them. The simplest way to do this would probably be to prepare sacrifices that have been marked by all the fears; throw in someone that was consumed by bugs, someone who fell off a building, someone who anticipated their death their whole life, etc. The pit itself would probably be the focus in the new world, perhaps coming into being as some sort of creature. Or else the ritual could be altered and a person or animal consumes the flesh marked by fear, and that one would be the ruler of the new world. Whatever form it takes, the being of flesh would be fed fear in its physical form, consuming until it all runs out.

The Hunt was never able to complete the Everchase, because they didn’t want the hunt to end. Simply catching its prey probably wouldn’t be enough power for the ritual anyway, so the hunt would have to involve all the fears and coalesce into some great event that changes the world, then starts the chase all over again in the new world. The focus of power could be someone who is hunted by some aspect of each fear, then in turn hunts them. Maybe it takes the form of an arena of some kind, where 14 avatars are thrown in to kill each other, with the goal of the Hunter winning the fight. It would probably take a few tries, but the victor of the hunt would get to continue their chase once every fear enters the world. They could have their pick of victims, much like Daisy who traveled between domains, killing whoever she pleased.

The Lonely ritual involved isolating a bunch of people, with the goal of eventually cutting them off completely and leaving them the stew in their own fear. I think whoever the focus of power is, they would have to be alone right from the beginning of the ritual. They would go around and face each of the fears, being marked by them, all without any human contact except the avatars who hurt them. This would be difficult to orchestrate unless the person was willing, but their isolation would bring the fears together with the Lonely in charge. They would rule over the new world by themselves, of course, never interacting directly with any of their victims but still benefiting from their fear. The world itself would probably be very spread out, with most of the people being fed on having to face their fears alone, except for where being around others is involved in their fear.

The Slaughter ritual began and ended with World War II, called the Risen War. It’s implied that it failed because the ship it took place on wasn’t blown up in the end, but I think people deciding to end the war had something to do with it as well. I think the ritual could only succeed if the people involved fully commit to the fighting, and of course if it is able to involve the other fears as well. This would probably involve something similar to my idea for the Hunt; a massive fight involving avatars of all 14 fears. The Hunt’s fighting would play out a little differently, with the main focus being tracking down and killing their prey, but the Slaughter’s ritual would just be an all out bloodbath. The focus of the ritual, which will be called the Soldier, would have to fight and be injured by all 14 fears, but emerge victorious and bring them all into the world. The Soldier would have the power to kill anyone with ease, although the domains would probably bring back its victims to be killed over and over again. The new world could even be structured like a war, with the Soldier leading the fight against anyone and everyone, fears fighting amongst themselves for more power.

The Spiral attempted to create a world that didn’t make sense in the Great Twisting. I think the construction itself could have included all the other fears, like 14 monuments to each of them. I can’t imagine marking a single person to be very powerful, because to be closely affiliated with the Spiral, their mind would be changed in a way that would probably make them process fear differently. It could work, but I think focusing the power on the ritual itself would be more effective. Maybe the sacrifices they brought could be avatars of other fears, each thrown into the Distortion’s hallways and absorbed into its being. The ruler of the new world would be something not quite a person, not quite a structure. Victims would be thrown around different domains to disorient them, and the laws of physics probably wouldn’t work right. Imagine a scary funhouse with different fears there to scare you, and that’s probably what being in the fearpocalypse ruled by the Spiral is like.

The Stranger would have a bigger version of the Unknowing. The original idea had only a dancer, a choir, and a powerful skin artifact. I think if they wanted to include all the fears, the performance would have to be expanded to include something that represents all of them. They could have a puppet act for the Web, some kind of shooting display for the Slaughter, maybe a gross animal show for the Flesh. I’m imagining a whole carnival of fear, maybe one that goes on for a few days to build up power. Since the dancer is the center of power for that ritual, I think she would have to be the one marked by all the fears as well. Or maybe just their presence in the ritual would be enough, I don’t know. The final result, instead of having an eye watching everything, maybe would have the Dancer in charge, drawing power from every being that feeds on fear.

The Vast tried to throw a bunch of people in a submarine, but even Fairchild said that was probably not well thought out. I usually have this one mirror the Buried though, so let's say the ritual is to throw someone marked by the fears into some kind of vast space. It could be the ocean, the sky, space, whatever is scariest for that person. The new world would probably be very open and not have a lot of ground, but enough for other fear domains to exist.

Finally, the Web also avoids a ritual because it likes the world how it is, but that's not entirely true based on what we learn by the end of the series. It has a hand in completing the Eye's ritual not because it wants all the fears in this world, but because it wants all the fears bound together so it can escape into another world. It knows that in a world with the fears, at least the way the Eye designed it, life and fear is finite, so it wants somewhere that it can always survive. I think if it took the time to plan, it could figure out a ritual that would bring the fears and make it a renewable source of energy. It must be possible, Annabelle even said that she thought the Eye was a bit simple, which makes me wonder why the Web wouldn't just do the ritual itself. It was likely missing some information, or it just wasn't in it's nature to take over like that. But for the sake of this argument, let's say the Web did figure out how to bring the fears into this world and not run out of people. Maybe just let them age and have babies. They would need someone marked by the fears, and would probably be able to do it the fastest if it decided to directly interfere. I could see the ritual itself involving weaving a sort of web, like connecting the strands of consequences together. The focus of power, the Weaver in charge, could pull the strands of the world and keep things running smoothly and efficiently, so that no one goes hungry.

#tma #tma entities #tma analysis #the buried #the corruption #the dark #the desolation #the end #the eye #the hunt #the lonely #the slaughter #the spiral #the stranger #the vast #the web #the flesh

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paranoid-throwaway · 2 years ago

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The Navi were openly based on native Americans, and the new population shown in avatar 2 based on the Māori and other Polynesian cultures, but to a further extent their depiction is heavily influenced by the idea of the noble savage and that hunter-gatherer societies are idyllic and in tune with nature. This concept is taken to the extreme with the Navi, who are literally in communion with nature, and famine, disease, resource scarcity or internecine conflict are seemingly non-existent.

In reality, idealizing the indigenous experience is disrespectful. It ignores the struggle to survive, and the superhuman feats of cooperation and sacrifice that hunter gatherers undergo for the good of the larger band. It also does nothing to make up for or correct the fact that most indigenous groups are unable to pursue their more traditional modes of living, or the infinitely more complex and important ways colonization actually affects indigenous groups.

I am also reminded of what a wise gorilla once said. The vast majority of the people who began agricultural societies and essentially locked their descendants, us, into a cycle of population increase and and concurrent expansions in resource extraction, basically made a trade off( although the much smaller amount of people who became the king, priest and warrior classes unilaterally benefited) between having that hunter gatherer life and living free of society, complex responsibilities, or literal work quotas, and living a really precarious existence fundamentally vulnerable to famine and subject to sudden massive population decreases in response to the rest of the ecosystem. My point is that the Navi don’t make that trade off. Their societies are super stable and seemingly unaccustomed to sudden and large scale loss of life. They are shown hunting and gathering, but the details and scale of their food supply are never shown. In my onion it is much more compelling if this is revealed to be because the ancestors of the Navi made the decision to abandon complex civilization, society and its conflicts, but also engineered a perfect ecosystem before giving everything up, an ecosystem that clearly favors the Navi and essentially treats them as sacred. I have so many ideas for this. The trees of life are essentially massive processors, designed to monitor the Navi and make changes in ecosystem to favor them. Im even thinking it selectively turns the fertility of certain Navi on and off to make sure there are never population crises, like a clan overexpands and is forced to scale up hunting and become a strain on the ecosystem. This is also why there was a huge deposit of unobtabium beneath the tree of life, that’s actually a massive processor core created for the ecosystem network by the ancient Navi. I also headcanon that like the trees of life and the weird ancestral memory thing it does was originally intended as a means to store scientific knowledge in case the navi ever needed it after they adopted their new idyllic tribal lifestyle(ie an alien invasion, though they still engineered safeguards into the ecosystem), but some hardline anprim navis were able to corrupt the network and the Navi lost all the history and came to fully identify with nature and adopt an autocthonic worldview. Or maybe the ancestor civ was always spiritualist and decided to embody their beliefs.

I know the writers absolutely did not take it as seriously as I do. There’s a throwaway detail early on where the bring in the recombinants to scout the jungle because the animals automatically attack anything not indigenous to pandora. The implications of this are insane. Why the fuck does every life form have the ability to distinguish this. Why do they automatically attack, that makes no sense from the evolutionary standpoint where attacking is a heavy risk only outweighed by the high liklihood of gaining food. This one detail, if you actually think about it, suggests two possible patterns of pandoran evolution. Pandora has been invaded countless times, and over millions of years pandoran life evolved extreme cooperation and symbiosis in order to fight off aliens. Or the pandoran ecosystem was deliberately engineered.

I have another overthought about pandora. The day night cycle appears to be based on when gas giant pandora orbits passes in front of the sun. This implies pandora might be tidally locked and not rotate. If it is, at least half of pandora is a frozen wasteland, or at least sunless. Radiation from the gas giant and heat from the core could be enough to sustain atmosphere. In the licensed novel prequel to the movies I will never write, there’s a bunch of ruins from the ancient Navi civ buried under the ice on this side.

One last thing. The fact that the whale things have nerve links inside their mouths is odd. Do they commune with the prey they eat? During the whale festival the sea Navi don’t go in their mouths. Why did the whales need to be sentient. There’s plenty of basis for the Navi having deep, familial bonds with animals and having a deep, tacit understanding between them.

Like this post, the movie kind of felt all over the place. Is beach head city not a massive threat. What are the humans doing to the forest Navi. Spider has basically no reaction to Neytiri openly intending to kill him. Feels like a lot of stuff was cut. Throwaway line from the general about needing to prepare pandora for full scale colonization by humanity that never comes up again. At least cgi domes in the background of beach head city that are full of earth life, with the implication the humans want to replace the pandoran ecosystem with one more conducive, which would increase the urgency of the threat the humans pose to the navi

Way of water. Definitely a pretty cool visual spectacle. As a scuba diver I loved the speculative biology stuff they clearly put into the background animals. But still, feels like such a crazy missed opportunity. I know it’s because I love hard sci fi too much, but I can’t believe they never question just how perfect the ecosystem is for the na’vi. My headcanon is that the Navi are the descendants of a much more technologically advanced civilization that mastered genetic engineering and decided to totally reengineer their planets ecosystem. I basically wanted a movie with less action scenes and more philosophical debates between humans and na’vi. I would have really loved a scene where like a faceless human grunt who are killed by the boatloads has a vicious meltdown and screams at a Navi about how they have no idea what it’s like on earth, to not have a planet and ecosystem perfectly engineered to fit us. That earth is dying, and the Navi are selfishly keeping their idyllic way of life to themselves. The grunt who goes on the rant would never show up again to emphasize how dehumanized the human workers are

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imreallyhereforkataang · 4 years ago

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On The Southern Raiders

Several months ago, a fellow ATLA-consumer asked me the following in reference to TSR:

I came across a post (on tumblr, what a surprise!) the other day saying that Aang never seemed to care about Katara’s feelings revolving around her mom. […] Do you think people genuinely interpreted Aang’s actions like that? Simply by watching? Or are they purposely misconstruing it?

I responded with the vast majority of what follows. It was a while afterwards that I rejoined the fandom for long enough to see the massive spectrum of takes on The Southern Raiders that continues to be put out on the daily.

There seems to be this recurring idea that Aang’s actions in TSR demonstrate that, not only did Aang “never care about Katara’s pain” regarding her mother, but also that he was “forcing his morals on her,” etc. On the topic of whether people honestly believe this to be in Aang’s character or see him this way deliberately, I think sometimes they jump to the conclusion that Aang didn’t care because it stems from a misconstrued interpretation of Aang and Katara as individuals and their dynamic as presented in the show, which may extend to the belief that Aang doesn’t give back what Katara gives to him. In general, I can see how someone might form that impression, but they’re missing some key contextual pieces.

Just a quick disclaimer: This is (obviously) a look into TSR and dives into Katara and Aang, both as individuals and together. I try to make this fairly objective while relaying my own opinions, but this will subsequently hold pro-Kataang rhetoric, platonic or no. Additionally, because this is TSR we’re talking about, I do allude to elements here that mold into what I see as ‘specific common misconceptions about Z*tara’s romantic compatibility based off this one particular episode.’ Why are these relevant? Because there is a clear trend where the people trying to put Aang down or even demonize him for this episode are often pro-canon!Z*tara advocates. To be clear, I don’t have an issue with people who ship them for fun outside of canon, so if you like romantic Z*tara but also appreciate Aang, any perceived digs are not directed towards you! But I think some of these things are worth mentioning here in the interest of examining TSR and Aang-bashing.

(Also fair warning that this is nearing 7k words.)

So, with that out of the way:

I briefly mentioned how people can misinterpret Katara and Aang’s back-and-forths in terms of emotional support, and I feel like that starts with Katara.

Katara is a naturally caring person and earnestly reaches outward to empathize with people. She’s extremely perceptive when someone is hurting (the only one to look concerned when Aang showed gripes about killing Ozai in The Phoenix King) and is often seen as the nurturing character who will coax others to talk about their inner struggles (she does this with Toph in The Runaway and Zuko in The Old Masters, for instance).

Time and time again, when Aang has struggled on his Avatar journey, Katara has been the one to get him to open up and articulate his turmoil, ultimately supporting him or convincing him that there is still hope for better days. She’s been there for him at all times, from The Storm to The Avatar State to Bitter Work to The Serpent’s Pass to The Awakening and beyond, exercising patience and care. It’s a role she undertakes, and as Aang is our main character and undergoing, arguably (I guess? But to me inarguably), the most of everyone in the gaang, it makes sense that Katara, given her empathetic nature and their strong bond, will often be the one expressing true concern for Aang.

So we know that when Aang struggles, which we understandably see a lot of, Katara is his rock. But what about giving back when Katara struggles?

When it comes to Katara’s share of turmoil, the death of her mother and how it continues to impact her is one of her greatest sources of pain. Honestly, it might be one of the only times we actually watch her struggle on her own, as Katara tends to be a powerful self-advocate (see: The Waterbending Master). The thing is, even though Katara has mentioned losing her mother several times throughout the series, and of course she always sounds regretful when it’s brought up, she tends to keep the rawness of her associated sorrow bottled up. Almost every time Katara mentions the death of her mother, it’s been, in very Katara-like fashion, to express understanding towards others. With the exception of @Zuko in the crystal catacombs and TSR, she only brings up her own grief to empathize (@Aang in The Southern Air Temple to prepare him for the genocide and show understanding when he grieves, @Haru in Imprisoned when Haru talks about connecting with his father, @Jet in Jet when he talks about losing his own parents to the Fire Nation, and @Hama in The Puppetmaster when talking about losing members of the Southern Water Tribe). Really, The Crossroads of Destiny and TSR are the only times Katara actually brings up her own pain for the sake of bringing up her own pain, and it’s not often that we see her physically break down over it like we do in the former.

Katara isn’t the sort of person to bring up her turmoil simply for her own needs, or because she realizes it’s weighing on her heavily in that moment. It’s a sore spot that’s changed her behavior (as Sokka explains in The Runaway), making her grow up faster, and that she’s continued to carry for years and years. And yet, again, before The Southern Raiders, we never watched her actively cry over her mother except for when she was alone in The Swamp and with Zuko in The Crossroads of Destiny (and also perhaps when she was alone in The Runaway).

Thus, The Southern Raiders is an interesting episode because it’s where those feelings Katara has been harboring are fully brought to the surface and, in extent, it’s the episode where we see Katara at her lowest point. All of that pain is made fresh and present, the murder no longer feeling like something that happened long ago with, as she believed, no available ends to tie (“Now that I know he’s out there, now that I know we can find him, I feel like I have no choice”), and it causes her to lose sight of herself. That’s not only starkly reflected in her decision to bloodbend, but also in how she doubts that anyone understands her pain.

Katara undermines Sokka’s hurt at the same loss she’s experienced and forgets all the struggle that Aang has had to endure from the start. Not only does he know how it feels to lose a parental figure (Gyatso) to the Fire Nation and not have been able to help (“My people needed me and I wasn’t there to help”; “I’m not the helpless little girl I was when they came”), but he also knows how it feels to lose an entire culture (something only Katara and Hama have similar experience with). And Katara knows this – she’s the one he’s expressed the most of his grief to, and yet here she forgets that. So we can already see how this opportunity Zuko has given Katara, the chance to find her mother’s killer and the anticipation that she feels from it, is bringing out a darker side of her that, unlike the Katara we know and that she wants to be, does not empathize or pause to understand. She’s so engrossed in her own pain, for the first time in so long, that she can’t see beyond it.

In consequence to this episode being about Katara’s emotional journey, I think The Southern Raiders is the most opportune time to observe who will give Katara what she has always displayed towards others. When a character undergoes the level of hurt Katara expresses here, it’s usually she who reaches out to that person, but now it’s her turn to be emotionally compromised. Now we get to see who steps up to the plate.

A lot of people conclude that this person is Zuko. That he’s the one who will reach out to her and connect with her emotionally to help her deal with that pain. I do agree that Zuko played a vital role in Katara’s emotional journey here – he was the catalyst for it. He had an established motivation to get off her bad side and onto her good side, a possible solution alluded to him, and knowledge that comes with hailing from the Fire Nation to go forth with his idea. And he does, and he’s physically there to help Katara through its execution.

However, Zuko making the effort to give Katara this opportunity does not reflect a lack of effort on Aang’s part. Firstly, because, as explained, Aang didn’t see how raw this pain still was to Katara. At this point, Zuko had been on the receiving end of two beratements where Katara angrily mentioned her mother’s death. Aang was not, nor did he witness these incidents. Aang understood the significance of her necklace (Bato of the Water Tribe) and looked concerned for her when she mentioned her vision (The Swamp), but Katara never seemed to express to Aang just how raw her mother’s death still felt, just as Sokka never did. She mentions it in The Southern Air Temple, but their topic of discussion was the Fire Nation killing the airbenders, and Aang was trying to fend off the idea that they might have committed genocide against his people. Considering context, there’s no reason to fault Aang for any of the things he did on this issue, or a lack thereof.

Just as Katara and Sokka thought, Aang probably believed it was a concluded topic in terms of active response. It was something that happened years ago, Aang was in an iceberg at the time, and neither Katara nor Sokka nor Aang thought it was something to go back on and revisit. When Katara yelled at Zuko, she never suggested looking for the killer. And again with that quote, “Now that I know he’s out there,” I don’t think hunting for the man was on anyone’s mind. As a viewer, it was never on my mind, either.

What Zuko had that the rest of Team Avatar did not was direction and knowledge on how they could potentially track down this specific Fire Nation military official. Even Sokka, who could remember the emblem of the Southern Raiders and underwent the same loss Katara did, not only seemed to have no intention of tracking his mother’s murderer, but also took Aang’s side when Zuko and Katara explained what they were planning to do.

Which supports the next point – regarding how Aang responded to the idea once it was out there.

Quick tangent, but it’s a scene like this that shows how Aang’s feelings for Katara have matured. The way he reacts to Katara in The Southern Raiders conveys how he knows she’s not perfect, he knows she can make mistakes, and even if, to some, he comes off as trying to hinder her on this sensitive topic, he overtly wants what’s best for her.

Aang recognizes the change in Katara’s demeanor when she approaches him about borrowing Appa. He seems to notice that something is off about her energy, probably to this extent for the first time, just as for the audience, and his instinct is not to step out of her way and “stay on her good side,” but to try and assess the situation before he lets her go in the condition she’s in. Katara is undeniably not thinking clearly during this scene, nor for much of the episode’s proceedings, given her tone, expressions, words, and intent. She’s undergoing, just as Aang says, “unbelievable pain and rage” (callback to The Avatar State; “for the people who love you, watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary”). Aang understands where Katara is coming from, and he offers her his two cents, but he doesn’t “force” them on her, either.

Watching how Aang’s expression changes between looking at Zuko and Katara, he appears intent and almost stern towards the former. But for Katara, he’s first treading the waters, then concerned and earnest. Aang doesn’t shame Katara for her dark rhetoric or tell her what she should or shouldn’t do, but tries to help her regain some control of her emotions (“Katara, you sound like Jet” – he knows this side of Katara isn’t truly her, or who she wants to be, and this comment might serve to give her insight as to how she sounds) and then offers Katara a choice. Aang makes light of an option that she’s overlooked upon having this opportunity, and he tries to explain why the road she’s going down, the way she’s choosing to handle the situation, is self-destructive. All in all, he’s looking out for her. In his own way, he’s doing for Katara what Katara would have done for him.

I think it’s made fairly clear that, had Katara killed Yon Rha, (who, while, yes, is vile and got away with murder, was also defenseless against Katara by the time she caught up with him), she would’ve regretted her decision. The frightening thing is that I don’t believe she would have accepted that regret from herself, either. It would always remain a blemish in her energy (mind you, not because murder will inherently do this to everyone in ATLA, but it would to Katara specifically given her nature), something that would make her forever carry a bit of that darkness we so rarely see from her, much heavier and more permanent than withholding forgiveness, instead of following “Let your anger out, and then let it go.”

Here’s the thing people seem to forget about TSR: Canon shows us that Aang’s method for handling the situation is beneficial to Katara. It’s true that Zuko was the catalyst for this journey and he was there to help Katara see it through, but it isn’t true to say that Aang didn’t do her a favor by reaching out and being honest with her before they left. Remember the ultimate note on this side story: “You were right about what Katara needed. Violence wasn’t the answer.” The narrative teaches us that Aang was correct on this front – maybe not for everyone, but he wasn’t trying to nudge everyone. He was trying to nudge Katara.

I recently acquired the official DVD commentary for The Southern Raiders. I’ve transcribed relevant points on the end of this post if you’d like to read them in full, but Bryan and Andrea Romano (voice director) talk about how “even though Aang is sort of not in this story very much, to me his presence is in all of these scenes ‘cause you know he’s like, the little angel on her shoulder”; “I agree with you, he is with her through this entire journey she goes through.”

The fact that what Aang said resonated with Katara when it mattered – Katara, who becomes stubborn when she feels strongly about something, who doesn’t let anyone stop her when she disagrees with them, who is going through the most raw, emotional turbulence we have seen her in throughout the show –, the fact that Katara ultimately agreed with Aang’s words, that his words were the aid she needed in realizing there was a decision in either killing Yon Rha or sparing him, hugely states that Aang was there for Katara. Aang helped her see she had a choice for her own sake when her mind was clouded by pain and rage. You don’t need supplementary commentary to see that – Katara was seriously considering revenge, Zuko was leaning towards punishing Yon Rha but, for the most part, staying out of the decision (though based on the two back-and-forths he had with Aang before they left and his reaction to Katara walking away from bloodbending the wrong man, he didn’t realize how detrimental to Katara killing Yon Rha would be – his intention when giving Katara this opportunity was ultimately to gain some ground with her, and while he shares a sense of her pain, he doesn’t foresee what the nature of this journey will do to impact Katara specifically, which I get since he hardly knows her), and so it was ultimately Aang who helped Katara find her path even when he wasn’t there with her physically.

People can argue that Aang was forcing his morals on Katara, but he wasn’t. He was offering valid wisdom, yet pressing enough to hope that she’d actually listen and maybe react, as she did, rather than Aang simply standing back. It would’ve been easy for Aang to do nothing (like he said) and not risk coming off as unconcerned about her feelings, like he did to some viewers, because we know how Aang feels about Katara and that he doesn’t want to create rifts between them. But he risked stirring them, in her volatile state, in order to get his point across, if it meant that in consequence there would be a better chance Katara wouldn’t make the mistake that he knows would haunt her after this foreign mood of hers has passed. Aang isn’t about to let her go without trying to help her, even when she seems to not want help. It’s not in Katara’s nature to seek emotional support, and the audience has never seen her like this, but Aang recognizes that she needs the nudge (which, had her mind been clearer, she’d apparently agree with over her idea of revenge) and gives it openly and hopefully, even when she isn’t in a receptive state (or so it seemed). Again, Aang’s “morals” in this case of murder turned out to be, as he suspected, compatible with Katara’s as well as Sokka’s, so clearly he did a good thing there.

I think some people believe that Aang “forces his morals” on Katara because they’re under the impression that Aang’s concern is the general idea that she will kill somebody, the persons involved being irrelevant. That he’s acting selfishly and, in the interest of aligning with his own ideals, doesn’t want the girl he loves to be “corrupted.” This sort of mindset that “he’s against killing, so he won’t let Katara have this” leads to the conclusion that he’s not giving her the free reign to make her own choice.

However, this idea is debunked again and again in the episode. Aang says, clear as day, “I wasn’t planning to [try and stop you]. This is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man. But when you do, please don’t choose revenge” as Katara turns away from him to go, and Aang stands back and watches with concern. He’s not being “forceful” – he’s being honest, like Katara’s been for him, and even supportive. If Aang really wanted to ensure that Katara followed his own morals, if he were actually not giving her free reign, he would’ve either disallowed Katara and Zuko from taking Appa or gone along with them. Aang could’ve justified joining the mission – it is his bison and that would split up the gaang evenly. He could’ve forced himself on this journey and used the time before meeting Yon Rha to monitor Katara like a chaperone, believing he’s just trying to help and making sure she doesn’t get hurt.

And yet he doesn’t. He lets Katara do this, and his parting words continue to be what he hopes she’ll choose. But his final action, letting her set off with Appa and leaving him behind, means that he’s leaving the decision up to her.

I feel like people completely forget some segments of the episode. Like how Sokka says “I think Aang might be right” and doesn’t go on the journey that he has as much reason to embark on as Katara does. Or how Katara literally says right before departing, “Thanks for understanding, Aang.”

Aang’s stance on Katara getting revenge goes beyond Aang just being against killing – he’s not voicing his opinion out of defense of Yon Rha or because he doesn’t want to love someone who went against his morals. He’s doing it because he knows what Katara’s going through and he doesn’t want her to have to face the consequences of letting the pain get the better of her. He’s trying to help her from going down a dark road, not for himself, but for her, because he knows her and knows this is something she would regret.

So when Katara tells him later that she didn’t forgive Yon Rha, Aang doesn’t push her or ask questions. He’s glad – and proud – that she didn’t do something that would’ve permanently hurt her, and beyond that, she could dissent from his morals as she liked. When Aang saw Katara after her trip, the first thing he did was run to her purely to ask if she was okay, not to discover whether she killed; he already knew from Zuko.

Bottom line is that Aang cared about her feelings. Particularly the feelings of the Katara she normally is, the Katara she means to be, the Katara who doesn’t bloodbend or unempathize, the Katara who’s hurting and whose pain is getting the better of her. Aang saw what was happening and did what he could to help, nudging her on the path she needed when her vision was clouded (sounds like Katara helping Aang when he’s in the Avatar State. Again, The Southern Raiders provides an instance of Aang giving back to Katara what she’s given to him, like with The Desert/The Serpent’s Pass, his pain from which Aang pointed out in “How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa?”).

Overall, people might honestly interpret Aang as being unsympathetic this episode, and I can see how from a superficial standpoint. But by doing so, they’re missing the significance of Aang’s choice to reach out and the importance it played in helping Katara conserve her own image of herself. She bloodbends someone – not even confirming that it’s the right person, first – in a rush of pain and rage after practically swearing it off less than ten episodes ago, so she clearly loses some semblance of herself during this episode, and it’s Aang who makes the most effort to help her find balance without getting in the way of her search. Ultimately, Aang’s role in TSR demonstrates how well he understands her personally, as well as his ability to step back and let her make her own decisions while still offering a viewpoint that her pain prevents her from seeing.

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Okay, big breath. Halfway through. I’d like to talk in more depth about how Aang understands Katara’s position.

I was thinking once again about Aang saying, “I do understand. You’re feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?” As presented to us, those two incidents had several things in common.

Aang went into the Avatar State due to intense emotion, as opposed to a life/death situation, and caused mass destruction that risked placing harm on others. And both of these times, Katara was the one to pull him out of that state. An important thing to note is that there’s one other moment very similar, but not identical, to these, which took place in The Avatar State. Just like in The Southern Air Temple and The Desert, Aang entered the Avatar State due to intense emotion, out of anguish when losing Katara. But the difference here was the amount of destruction caused. When Aang lost control of himself, he went through with hurting the people in his vicinity, and when he came out of that state, he hated to see what he’d done. Aang told Katara that he hoped she’d never have to see him like that again, and he hoped it for himself, too (but, of course, she did see him like that again in The Desert).

What I’m trying to show here is that Katara losing herself to her “pain and rage” in The Southern Raiders parallels Aang losing himself to his “rage and pain” in The Avatar State, not just in The Southern Air Temple and The Desert, as he directly references. But why am I so adamant about The Avatar State as opposed to those other two episodes?

Because we saw the lasting effect that The Avatar State had on Aang. There are many analyses out there that explain how Aang has had to struggle with control over his vast power, oftentimes depicting it as something he’s afraid of. For so long, Aang fears the Avatar State, what he’s capable of while in it, and how he can’t regulate his actions when it occurs. This conflict comes up time and time again, and a huge part of his character arc is involved with that struggle.

But again, for the significance of The Avatar State episode specifically, I was thinking about chakras in The Guru. From his Earth Chakra, we see that Aang continues to fear himself in the Avatar State, and from his Water Chakra, we see that one of his two greatest sources of guilt is that he lost control of himself in The Avatar State due to his rage and pain, lamenting that he “hurt all of those people” (the other being that he ran away, which, as mentioned before, is tied with his guilt at not being there to help and isn’t unlike the anguish Katara must feel now at not having been able to help her mother, get her father’s help fast enough, etc.). Pathik tells him that, in order to open his Water Chakra, to absolve the guilt and let the pleasure flow, “you need to forgive yourself.”

So here we have this idea that forgiveness is the key step to opening a person’s Water Chakra. Water, symbolizing pleasure and healing. “It’s easy to do nothing, but it’s hard to forgive.” “Forgiveness is the first step you have to take to begin healing.” These things Aang says in The Southern Raiders reflect what Pathik taught him about the Water Chakra.

Forgiving oneself is (obviously) different from forgiving your mother’s killer, but with this insight it’s clear that Aang personally understands how it feels to let your pain and rage get the better of you, and how it hurts deeply to face the consequences of your actions once the moment has passed. He recognizes that Katara is in a state not unlike the one he’s in when he loses control (“I do understand”) and he doesn’t want that for her. He wants Katara to be able to regain control of her actions and navigate out of her clouded vision so that she can make the choice that’s right for her. Aang is trying to help Katara see the pieces she’s missing, like how Katara does for Aang when he’s in the Avatar State.

Forgiveness is a necessary step in order to heal, and maybe it wasn’t a choice Katara ultimately made, but that was a decision Aang accepted. She didn’t kill Yon Rha, she didn’t have to now struggle with guilt or having to admit to that guilt, and she didn’t have to be faced with the strenuous task of forgiving herself for something she definitely would not have wanted to admit needed forgiving for. She saved herself from the pain that could have resulted from her own actions, because Aang helped her see she had a choice. When it mattered, when she was about to deliver the final blow, Aang’s words helped her pull out of that emotion-induced near-equivalent of an “Avatar State.”

To me it’s really fascinating to see the connections between these incidents – The Southern Raiders plus the three episodes where Aang enters the Avatar State out of emotion/rage (almost four if you count The Storm, but he manages to contain it when Katara calls out). The way these arcs parallel each other (“I went through the same thing when I lost my mom”; “How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation?”; “Watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary…I can’t watch you do this to yourself”; “As you watch your enemy go down, you’re being poisoned yourself”) and ultimately culminate in acts of mercy. It’s incredible how Aang and Katara are able to reach each other when they’re in their emotional states, and know what the other needs and who they are when they lose themselves.

In addition, I also think Andrea’s point about how Aang “teaches” Katara is further reflective of the impact Aang has on the people around him. I’ve seen many circulating posts about how Aang hailing from the time before the war and being raised by the Air Nomads allows him to bring a unique, positive influence to those around him who, in contrast, grew up in war-time and were most likely (Bumi is an exception) never alive in the time of the Air Nomads. However, along with the lightheartedness and fun (see: The Avatar Returns and The Headband), this also includes the specific wisdom and peacekeeping ways of the airbenders that became lost in the war, and that Aang symbolically ends the war with: An act of mercy, thus showcasing the survival and triumph of the Air Nomads as well as the Avatar. In TSR, Aang shares this wisdom with Katara – that the choice exists, and there is strength in not choosing revenge and electing forgiveness if she so resonated with it.

[Click here]

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Back to the original question –

It may be possible that if someone were to overlook some characterizations and watch The Southern Raiders episodically, as opposed to as part of a whole arc, then they might genuinely form the impression that Aang is in the wrong here. I think I myself might’ve been a bit surprised by his approach when I was younger (though Katara’s attitude was also very surprising and even unsettling), but that was also at an age where I didn’t really understand the severity of the situation and just how much Katara was drifting from herself, or what killing Yon Rha could do to her, or, simply, in that volatile state, what she needed to hear.

I’ll be honest (drawing from personal experience, not sure if others relate) – I think as a child, one may not see the episode as intended because, unlike many other episodes, the takeaway lessons in The Southern Raiders are either expressed through words or an instance of not doing something (the instant where Katara doesn’t kill Yon Rha, since not doing something is less stark to a child than doing something). It’s a gray story in terms of right/wrong, and when you’re young, I can see why those lessons are misinterpreted because the viewer gets so caught up in the adrenaline rush of the action in this episode, the stealth, the bloodbending, the frightening amount of anger in Katara. It consumes most of the viewing experience, and within all that, the ultimate big lesson that “Violence wasn’t the answer” might get missed because violence or violent intent constituted almost all of the runtime. I see people who don’t remember this episode as a commentary on vengeance/forgiveness/the middle ground, but as “the one where Katara and Zuko got super badass."

Getting older, The Southern Raiders is such a gruesome episode. I now see the crucial, ‘quieter’ points that I overlooked as a child. Things like Sokka siding with Aang, Katara thanking Aang for his understanding, Zuko ultimately agreeing with Aang’s assessment of what Katara needed. Sad thing is that some people don’t appear to see this episode the way it was intended in time. TSR requests a perceptive mind from its audience, and some people don’t seem open to that.

I feel that this episode is often treated as shedding light on canon romantic Z*tara for similar reasons as to why people might miss the lessons – Zuko and Katara look cool and badass, on their way to kill a man. It’s exciting to see them working together, the nature of the mission is intriguing, but understanding subtext means acknowledging the tragic underlining of the episode, that it’s painful, that it’s Katara’s journey. It’s disappointing to me when some people chalk up Zuko and Katara’s relationship to being “badass” and “sexy” as a result of The Southern Raiders. It feels out-of-context, caught up in the “coolness” of this episode and misinterpreting physical synchrony as emotional, especially since their dynamic changes anyhow after Katara forgives him.

The episode presents very clearly that Zuko wasn’t right in his assumption about what Katara needed. Again, not necessarily his fault, although his comments about "Air Temple preschool,” “Guru Goody-Goody,” and forgiveness being “the same as doing nothing” display his skepticism of going the peaceful route (though this is curious to me given how often he showed mercy towards Zhao). He honestly didn’t realize the implications this journey would have on Katara, but by the end of the episode, I think it’s safe to say Zuko learned that Aang knew what he was talking about. Aang, whose whole nation and father figure were killed, and yet was able to forgive. Who could see how Katara was responding to the information Zuko gave her.

That’s not to discount Zuko’s role here. Maybe Katara did need closure, and Aang did say “This is a journey you need to take” (although, I do wonder, as Aang asked originally, what it ultimately accomplished. I get that Katara felt like she needed to take the opportunity once Zuko handed it to her, “Now that I know we can find him,” but if Zuko had never brought it up, would things be different? I hope it accomplished something in regards to Katara’s turmoil – perhaps she was able to forgive herself in that she could finally confront the man who did this, when all those years ago she came back with help “too late” – but at least she forgave Zuko in consequence), but this journey was so emotionally turbulent for Katara, heavy to the point where she wasn’t even herself anymore (as said in The Avatar State, “I saw you get so upset that you weren’t even you”).

Therefore, I personally find that simplifying TSR into “Katara and Zuko being cool” to the point where people glorify the way Katara acts in this episode insulting to her character, simply because I don’t enjoy watching deep pain morph Katara into becoming something she dislikes (see: Bloodbending and how it’s often glamorized in fandom). To me, it’s not as if she’s honing something akin to her inner strength. Katara is an extremely powerful character, which is shown time and time again, and her power comes from her physical capabilities as well as her inner strength. “Hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.” Bam, Katara right there. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m too weak to do it or if it’s because I’m strong enough not to.” As is a theme in this show, there is a strength in restraint.

In her right mind, Katara would be horrified by her actions in The Southern Raiders, or at least what her ultimate intention was, and if people more closely understood Katara as she is, then I feel like they’d agree. As Aang did.

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Do I think there are people out there who deliberately reimagine TSR as ‘the episode where Aang was a “self-righteous prick” to Katara’? Yes, absolutely. As for motivation, I can’t really think of any reason for trying to make Aang look bad besides trying to make him look bad in comparison to another character (i.e. Zuko here), or maybe people have their own personal reasons for disagreeing with Aang’s sentiment while forgetting that Katara ultimately does not (in regards to the killing). Or maybe people just dislike main characters who manage to uphold their morals and it goes in-hand with those who think Aang should’ve killed Ozai.

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Honestly, there’s a lot more that can be said on the topic in regards to what Katara learned about herself in TSR, as such might be reflected in her active choice to spare Azula in Avatar Aang (which Bryan notes in his commentary: “Katara also finding a peaceful means” in reference to Aang), but frankly I’m kind of exhausted so I’m gonna leave this half-baked copy-and-paste from something I wrote earlier this month:

I feel like the only people Katara has harbored legitimately murderous thoughts towards have been Yon Rha (her mother’s killer) and Zuko and Azula (Aang’s killers, indirectly and directly), indicated by that unique energy she’s carried around those three that we don’t see a lot from her, where her voice becomes lower and the weight of her words more threatening (also the fact that she issued clear death threats to the first two).

For the final Agni Kai, Zuko planned on ending Azula. He goaded her into using lightning and intended to redirect it at her (he didn’t want to, of course, as Bryke noted, but that was the decision). So it’s striking to me when Katara, despite having a very opportune chance to end Azula and knowing Zuko wouldn’t have judged her for it since he was about to do the same, makes the active choice to keep her alive. Katara could have unfrozen herself and gotten to Zuko immediately, but instead she took the time to restrain Azula and allow her to live. And I do believe that a part of the decision was made clearer to her after the events of TSR. Katara realized, subconsciously or no, what she isn’t, and that she’d try to preserve Azula if she could despite how much she might hate her for what she did last season.

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DVD Commentary for The Southern Raiders

[…]

Andrea Romano: This is where she does bloodbending, right? So scary!

Bryan Konietzko: It’s this dark skill that she reluctantly learned in episode 3x08. And there’s another important lesson – it’s like, once you have power over someone, are you strong enough not to use it? Or, use restraint in life?

Dante Basco: […] The thought of bloodbending is an idea that – it’s just crazy! Like, the average television or Nickelodeon show […] is not thinking about bloodbending. But yet it’s a very possible situation in this world, and I think that’s what makes it so exciting for people who watch the show.

Michael Dante DiMartino: Yeah and it’s not a skill that they take very – or certainly that Katara takes – lightly. It’s a very serious proposition to do that on somebody.

AR: And it’s not treated lightly. Here she is, she’s so close to being out of control. And that’s what adds so much to the drama of it, is, we think, she could really lose it here and really do something that she regrets for the rest of her life. But she manages to hold herself.

[…]

BK: We see that she’s unbalanced emotionally, and so that’s what’s coming out.

AR: […] But we can only hope she’ll make the right choice. (Imploringly) Use your powers for good!

BK: I love that, even though Aang is sort of not in this story very much, to me his presence is in all of these scenes ‘cause you know he’s like, the little angel on her shoulder-

AR: Absolutely, yeah.

BK: -y'know, that she’s ignoring at this time. And so, to me it really is a story about Aang because it’s like, it’s just about him trying to have influence over her actions from afar – just, by not telling her what she has to do, but just by gently suggesting what she try to achieve with this journey.

AR: It really is a juxtaposition there, where the young Aang sort of tells her, like a parent, go ahead, go out and do what you have to do, but please, I hope that you choose forgiveness rather than revenge. And here he is the young one, and she is the older one who should be, sort of, teaching him and in fact they switch and he teaches her. So I agree with you, he is with her through this entire journey she goes through.

BK: I think it’s also interesting that, if you look on paper, Aang has lost a lot more than Katara has, and he sort of gently reminds her of this. He’s like, 'Hey, my whole culture was wiped out. Everyone I’ve ever known was wiped out.’ And uh, but as we all know in real life, you can’t really quantify suffering. It’s really a personal thing and everybody…everybody’s situation, when your own world kinda crumbles, it seems like the whole world’s falling apart. You can’t really equate these things. And so, we just see Katara lost in a very human moment in this episode.

AR: I love that scene. So dramatic. You just go 'Oh no – don’t do it! Don’t do it!’

[…]

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DVD Commentary for Avatar Aang

[…]

Bryke: It’s sort of like a multi-stage thing. He releases his emotions, these raw feelings of anger and wrath, and then learns to control them and rise above them. […] We obviously wanted a cool moment of Aang in the Avatar State, and it was kinda finding that right story beat for him. And in this case it was him being the totally wrathful, vengeful version of the Avatar […] But it’s really not Aang. It’s really this energy that has kinda taken over him. He’s not in control at this point. […]

So, can kind of recognize this Kung Fu move he’s doing. It’s what he was having nightmares about in 2x01, as he feared being this sort of wrathful, y'know, Hand of the Avatar. That was that same kind of […] chopping motion in those 2x01 nightmare scenes. […]

I feel like that’s his defining moment. That’s why we call this episode Avatar Aang. […] He’s finally learned to control the energy. […] He’s controlling it, he’s not letting it control him. […]

#atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #the southern raiders #aang #aanglove #katara #kataang #kataangtag #sorry for reposting #anti zutara #i hope it's not that bad but this way you can filter if you want

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desertdragon · 3 years ago

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has there ever been a time where they feared for their life? why?

This is difficult for me to answer because I don't think Vaste so much fears for her life, as she fears the consequences of her loss on those around her, as well as dying having lived honoring her spiritual beliefs- there's a big difference since one implies importance on the Self while the other suggests importance on Others/Culture

So it's hard for me to answer the question and feel as if...I answered the question lol

To make Vaste fear for her life you'd have to put her in an ultimatum, in a situation where the risk is complete oblivion from existence, and even then if she has a level of choice over it the fear is alleviated- but to have no choice in permanently ending her existence would be frightening

So for example, all the fuckery she does fighting in a soul form against Hydaelyn and Zodiark? Risky, death there would mean she's gone forever having not accomplished her goals- the same with one of my apocalyptic What Ifs where Lewena can't control her connection to the Primals and simply becomes a monstrosity that kills the universe, there's no coming back from that that Vaste can control either, it's the complete destruction of life with nothing her powers can do since Lewena would be far stronger than even her, Ms. Cheese going bad is something everyone wants to avoid

And for fun, any characters who are Reality Writers would also pose a massive threat given that they can just decide they prefer a reality without her in it, then boom, gone from existence

There's the Cosmic Horror aspect as well, any cosmic level entity that by default she can't defy would create a genuine dread

In essence, utter annihilation from existence especially before achieving satisfaction over her life is the one way she truly fears for herself, rather than an Other

@lettersnorth I have an addendum as I'm heading home from work:

I think a further example of Vaste fearing for her life under Cosmic Horror also applies in the sense of being taken over by such an entity, especially since she can't understand what it is or entirely what it wants because it Is unknowable- I know I listed that she can't be mind controlled in her powers/abilities on the carrd, but I think a Cosmic being surpasses that restriction just as much as a Reality Writer does, just because mind control I feel is one being forcing its Will on another, it's not a part of nature as it's a choice, a power dynamic created consciously or subconsciously, and Hydaelyn protects the WoL from that

A Cosmic being however Is nature personified, it Is a piece of the law which constructs the universe, it Is the primordial fabric all matter requires to exist- gravity, physics, entropy, creation etc. we can attempt to quantify these Principles with formulas, but I don't think we'll ever truly understand them nor fully comprehend all their potential, as they've existed since before the first living thing drew breath- they will outlive all life by the very same virtue of their existence

(As a side note this is why I don't fully follow the Heat Death of the Universe theory, I'm a fan of the Cyclical Universe Theory instead; I think it's extremely arrogant of humanity to presume it Knows something so vast and ancient and fundamental as the universe down to the date and method of death, and that it can only exist Once- especially when we more than likely will never be there to verify it actually Dies and doesn't just restart the Big Bang, even if we achieve cellular immortality on schedule or sooner)

Because a Cosmic being/aspect simply Exists then it has no Will to force, no agendas, it just Is- and you can't fight what just Is, in the same way you can't fight those cosmic principles I listed, or the fact that you need air to breathe, that you are subject to natural forces, that you are made of cells etc.

This is how The Slaughter from TMA would take her over into becoming an Avatar because the more you reach for a cosmic being like the Concept of violence and fearing violence, at a point you have allowed that cosmic force inside, you are under its microscope- and I think that would make her fear for what life she has as a living thing, until the pull of the Entity strips that away, too

#hc #I call Lewena by Ms Cheese sometimes bc bitch loves cheese hashtag Token White Girl fjdjdj #I love her tho #I think it's funny that she feels this way considering she becomes more Buddhist later on and accepts oblivion instead #reality writing characters are some of my favs though bc they're so busted broken there's a lot of ways you can take them esp mentally #I did that to Nozomi Tojo in my JJBA LL AU for her Stand's Requiem form- years of fun w that Vaste would shit her pants if they met #love me a busted broken bitch- anyway this has nothing to do w the ask fjdjd

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fyeahwildfire · 4 years ago

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Spirit Bound

Chapter 10

Pairing: Mortal Kombat x reader; Bucky x reader; Fujin x reader

After seeing the destruction you had caused in the Coliseum, Raiden didn’t know who else to turn to. The only person who could give him advice was also the person he had tried to keep hidden from you.

In a flash of lightning, Raiden teleported to the Wind temple located high above the Himalayas. There he came across his brother Fujin, who had been pacing back and forth.

“Does something trouble you, Brother.” Raiden asked as he noticed Fujin under distress.

Fujin seemed to have not heard him as he was rather preoccupied. Through the psychic link you both shared, he had sensed your rage and grief. This concerned him as he was not used to feeling another’s emotions. In fact, this was all very new to him.

“Fujin.”

Fujin turned his head to face Raiden as he did a gust of wind blew his white hair. It was then in that moment that Raiden really took note of how much his younger brother was in distress. Fujin’s face was lined with grief and concern.

Immediately Raiden walks to him, “What troubles you?” He rested his hand on his shoulder.

“Y/n.” Fujin looks at his soulmate tattoo on his forearm and then looks up into Raiden’s eyes.

Raiden sighs heavily and removes his hand.

“You knew she was alive.” Fujin narrowed his eyes. “I have spent years searching for her and yet you did not tell me.”

“It is rather complicated, brother. The Elder Gods sent her back in time to save Earthrealm from Shao Kahn.” Raiden looked into Fujin’s white glowing eyes. It was not only that he was trying to hide you from him. It was also the fear that sentiment would impede Fujin’s duties. A life with you will only end in heartbreak and despair. “However, after what I have seen I fear she will endanger Earthrealm.”

Fujin stared at him with confusion and anger. He knew you were participating in Kombat, in fact through the psychic link he encouraged you to continue fighting against Goro. You had even won your challenge against Shang Tsung. How could you endanger Earthrealm when you were trying to save it? Furthermore, how could Raiden reward your valor by insulting and doubting you?

“The Elder Gods told her ‘The Grand Champion shall be Earthrealms salvation or the cause of its destruction.’ She has defeated Shang Tsung and now with the death of her half brother and kidnapping of her other brother. I fear she is not in the right state of mind to defend Earthrealm.” Raiden explained.

Fujin now understood why you felt so much rage and grief. You had defeated and won Mortal Kombat only to lose the ones you loved. He tried desperately to reach you through your psychic link, however you had blocked him.

He felt a twinge of pain stabbing his heart. “Take me to her.”

Raiden shook his head.

Fujin narrowed his eyes, “She is grieving and alone. All the rage and pain she feels it’s all coming out at once.”

Raiden turns his back on Fujin, he remembers all the fights that transpired between them. All of them because of Fujin’s desire to be close to mortals. To be close to you, his soulmate. “Forgive me, Fujin. I cannot.”

“Why not?” Fujin’s asked, his voice laced with anger.

Raiden whirls around, anger transparent on his face. “Because you are a god, Fujin.”

“I do not care about that…”

“You should,” Raiden cut Fujin off. “You are immortal, and she is not. Eventually, she will grow old and die. You will do neither. One day, she will die in your arms and you will watch the life you love fade away and you will do nothing because for all your power, for all of your desire…there is nothing you can do except watch her die. So, I ask you brother to forget about her.”

Fujin’s glowing white eyes were moist with tears he refused to let fall. “You ask the impossible. To forget about her, is to deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, brother. I refuse to fear to love.”

Raiden sighs, “She has another soulmate, who she is spiritually bounded too.”

“What?” Fujin blinked with disbelief, his voice filled with confusion.

“I’ve seen it on her forearm. Lady Y/n, has even describe the bond to me.”

“Has…has she encountered him.” Fujin inquired.

“No, she can only feel his presence within her mind. She saved him from death.”

Fujin remained silent for a moment, before asking, “Did you see my name or a symbol indicating that I am also her soulmate?”

Raiden nodded. “It was concealed underneath a sheer dress, but I could make out your name of her left rib.”

Fujin sighs with relief, “Then it does not matter. I will….”

Raiden looked over to his younger brother and wondered why he unexpectedly stopped speaking. Fujin clutched his head as he felt an overwhelming pressure inside his mind. Fear lined his face as he was unable to sense you.

“What is it brother?”

“Something has happened to Y/n.” Fujin replied with worry. “Brother take me to her. I need to know she is alright.”

You were no stranger to loss, pain, and grief. You lost your mother, father, stepmother, Bi-Han, and now Kuai Liang. All you had left was your brother Tony who was not exactly on speaking terms with you. You were utterly alone. Left to save the past from a mad man who wanted to conquer your world.

You stumbled through the dark forest, tears still trickling down your face. All the painful memories just flooded back into your mind and no matter how hard you tried to repress your feelings you could not stop them.

Falling to your knees, more tears were falling faster and you felt your lungs constricting, making it harder for you to breathe. There was so much pain. So much loss. So much anger. You could not take it anymore. For so long you had managed to keep your anger under wraps, but that is the problem when you keep it contained for so long it does one of two things. It explodes like a nuclear bomb or it comes out in waves.

Your head perks up as you sensed something coming for you. Rising on your feet, you look around to find an incoming threat. However, you do not see a threat instead you can only make out the orange and red flames as they engulf the dark forest.

The hot, bright flames jump higher than the trees and spread quicker like wildfire. Loud crackling fills the air as the flames continue to move closer to you.

You run through the forest in hopes to escape the blazing flames. However, each turn you make you are met with a wall of fire. Soon you are trapped by the raging flames and you are left with no other choice but to use your telekinetic powers to shield yourself from the flames.

Before you even know it, you come face to face with something not of this world and yet had a familiar presence. The raging flames was shaped like the immortal bird of mythology and lore. It called itself the Phoenix.

With a loud cry, the fiery bird descended towards you. At last, it had found its mortal vessel one that would bring it peace it sorely craved.

Watching in the background Scorpion with tears forming in his eyes had seen the blazing fire consume you. He could not believe this was happening. Not you. You had endured so much only for it to end like this. He rushes through the burning forest as he hears your pained cries.

Scorpion tries desperately to get to you, only to be thrown backwards and forced to teleport away as a massive wave of flames and telekinetic energy destroy the surrounding area.

When Scorpion teleports back, he expected to see nothing but your ashes. However, aside from the destruction he sees your unconscious body floating a few feet off the ground. As he steps closer, he notices how the orange and red flames radiate around you like a shield.

In the depths of your mind, you could feel yourself struggling to get away from the overwhelming cosmic force. The fiery bird chases after you as you continue to try and shield yourself from it.

“Y/N LN -Stark. Come! Embrace me! Become one with me. You are my vessel! My avatar! Child of light and darkness. Embrace me! Embrace the power of the PHOENIX!”

Up ahead you notice a red head casually walking towards you. Just as you are about to run past her, she grabs onto your arm and prevents you from running away. You look over your shoulder to see the fiery bird had disappeared.

“What is happening?” You gasped heavily.

“Fate.” She releases your arm, hoping you won’t run away again.

“My name is Jean Grey.” She extends her hand to shake.

You raise your brow and look at her with confusion. “Fate? What…Who are you?”

You look down at her hand and then into her eyes.

“You don’t have to be afraid. You’re safe.”

“Safe? Did you not see that thing chasing after me?” You pointed in the direction you had just come from. However, everything looked the same in your mind. Dark and gloomy.

“That would be the Phoenix.” Jean says with a wry smile. “It won’t hurt you. Believe me I have been where you are now. “

“Then what does it want?” You asked as you slowly started to relax.

Jean extends her hand to show you images of the phoenix traveling through the universe searching for an equal. Its vessel. “The Phoenix is a child of the universe and one of the oldest known cosmic entities. It represents life that has not yet been born, as well as the forces of creation and destruction.”

Jean then shows you the destruction of the previous universe. “In the dying moments of the previous universe, the Phoenix saved all existence from eternal damnation. The Phoenix was later reborn from the cosmic fires of the Big Bang. This would affect us and every other form of life both large and small. The phoenix is a force that guides creation, laying the seeds of life in a primordial universe with its holy flames. From Ancient Egypt to the founding fathers, this cosmic entity has evoked a great deal of influence on our civilization.”

Jean then shows you the Phoenix being drawn to Earth. “After eons of traveling the vast of nothingness of space, the phoenix found its way to Earth. And it is here where you come in.”

“How so?” You asked drawn to the story of Phoenix’s origin.

“The phoenix itself is an immortal entity, yet because it is connected so deeply to life, it can manifest in mortal beings. As a bringer of creation and destruction, it requires a mortal conscious in order to balance its cosmic powers. But I am not just talking about anyone. The phoenix carefully selects it avatars, but none have been able to fulfill its deepest primal needs for balance and order. Not even me.”

“So, what you are trying to say is it wants me?” You asked with uncertainty.

Jean nods her head with confirmation, “I have seen what the Phoenix desires. It desires not only an avatar, but an equal. You reached out to it and it reached out to you. It’s a part of you.”

For so long, you had always wondered why you felt as though something had been calling to you. Not in this timeline but after your mother’s death. You notice Jean looking over your shoulder, you whirl around to see what had caught her attention. Heading towards you the fiery bird shaped itself into a new form. Jean Grey, her former avatar and the one who calmed you.

“Embrace your destiny! Embrace me! Become one with me.” Phoenix stood before you, looking into your eyes searching for signs of fear and hesitation, yet found none. The Phoenix grabs ahold of your arm and pulls you into a kiss.

Your eyes widen when its fiery lips crushed against yours, you half expected to feel a burning sensation. However, you were surprised when you felt none. It was definitely…different from any kiss you had ever had before. The Phoenix’s hand moved to your waist and pulled your body to hers. Slowly but surely you had absorbed the Phoenix within you.

You cleared your throat and turned around to see Jean with a grin on her face. “Does that normally happen? Did that happen to you?”

“Nope.” Jean replies and begins to casually walk away.

“What?” You follow her. “Then why?”

“Because it chose you. You are its equal.”

You come to a stop, “Then what about you? If I am its equal, then what does that mean for you?”

Before you can even get a response back, Jean vanishes before your eyes.

You did not know what was going on. You did not even know where you were. Why were you lying on a rock-hard surface? Why did it smell like blood and death?

“Sister.” One of the women had spoken near you. “So pretty, so far…so sad and alone…Come. Let us be family!”

Slowly you opened your eyes and had to blink a few times for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. You tilt your head in the direction of a women with short black hair who barely had bandages covering her naked body.

“You are not my family. You are a monstrosity!” Kitana replies with disgust.

“’Farewell, sister!” Kitana says angrily, as she is about to deliver the finishing blow.

Your vision swam in and out of focus as Kitana and the other women fought. You groaned as you tried to push yourself up from the uncomfortable table. You wondered how you got here? Well where was here?

You looked around trying to find an exit. How you were going to escape? It was clear the battle between the two women was coming to an end. You look over to see Kitana defeat the almost naked women.

“That is no way to treat your sibling.” Shang Tsung says as he steps out of the shadows.

“Despicable swine! Do you think my father will stand for this…these…abominations you have created here?” Kitana takes a few steps forward.

“I am merely perfecting you, princess. As difficult as that might be.” Shang Tsung notices from the corner of his eyes that you have woken. You slide off the table and place your hand against your head. “Ah, my dear you have awoken.”

“Silence!” Kitana commands. “You will leave her be or I will drag you before Shao Kahn by your pointed beard!”

Shang Tsung smirks, “Is that so?”

Shang Tsung finds out the hard way that it is not ok to underestimate Kitana, her weapons and fighting skills alone prove she is a fighter not to be messed with.

“You will stand before my father and confess your deeds.” She turns him around and pushes him to walk forward, leaving you alone with the women dressed in bandages.

Speaking of the women she begins to stir. She looks around and quickly takes notice of you.

She rises on her feet and approaches you. “What do we have here?”

You take a step backwards and brush against the table behind you. You had never seen anyone like her and yet you knew she was a clone of Kitana. She bore resemblance to Kitana, yet there were certain features that made her look different. Her lips lent her a human-like appearance, but her mouth was lined with large, razor sharp teeth like the Tarkatan named Baraka.

“Are you afraid of me?” She raised her hand up and hooked her finger under your chin. She lifted your chin up so that you were looking at her.

You grabbed her wrist and moved her hand away from you. “No.”

“You’re not?” She tilts her head to the side and looks at your lips. She then looks into your eyes to see if she can find any trace of you lying. Yet she found nothing.

It was not her features that made you tense and ready to fight, it was the fact she was Shao Kahn’s daughter. Glimpsing into her mind you knew of her desire to kill Kitana and claim her existence for her own. You knew of her cruel, sadistic and hot-tempered nature.

This woman that stood before you was anything but an ally and yet you felt sympathy for her. It was not her fault that she was created to be this way. It was Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung. From this moment on, you somehow knew that her life would be rather difficult as everyone will compare her to Kitana.

Through telepathy you immediately sense Kitana was in danger to be executed by her stepfather. “Forgive me, but I must go.”

The women grabs your left arm as you try to leave. “Why in a hurry? Don’t you want to play?”

You unwrap her hand from your arm, “Sorry, but I got to save a friend. Perhaps under better circumstance we can see each other again.”

You looked into her gleeful yellow eyes seeing hope and lust behind them. Little did she know was that the two of you were fighting on opposite sides and were more likely to fight each other to the death.

As you leave the flesh pits, Mileena watches you with interest. She now knows what she desires and that is you. In her eyes, you are perfect. Nothing can change her opinion of you. She needs you in her life. She will even claim you as hers and will kill anyone who will interfere or take you away from her.

#mortal kombat x reader #fujin x reader #phoenix x reader #mileena x reader #jean grey x reader #marvel #bucky x reader #soulmates #scorpion x reader #bi-han x reader #kuai liang x reader #phoenix force

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Pinky and the Brain: A Pinky And the Brain Christmas Review or I Just Think Schotzie’s Neat

Christmas Continues on this blog... and getting away from one set of Christmas commissions and into another, I offered my friend Blahdiddy three commissions as a present. The other two we’ll get to eventually, but with Animaniacs on the brain, heh, due to the reboot, he selected two Pinky and the Brains and one Animaniacs for me to cover. And while I intended to cover this one sometime this month anyway, my friend’s recent and sad covid diagnosis meant i’m bumping this one all the way up to the front of the line so he has some christmas cheer during this rough time. So with that in mind let’s talk about pinky, pinky and the brain brain brain brain brain shall we? Of course we can’t really talk about pinky and the brain without talking about Animaniacs. I absolutely love the series, I grew up with it as a kid and reconnected with it as an adult when it ended up on netflix. It was smart, well animated and most importantly really fucking funny. I highly recommend checking both the original and reboot of it out some time if you have Hulu. Speaking of the reboot while I might go on in full about it at some point it’s pretty good, with some creatvie jokes, some nice updates, with Rita Anita Anrita being a great new addition to the warner side of things. It’s only real flaw is it gets a bit reptitious as for the most part there’s only really the warners and pinky and the brain with a few exceptions one of which DAMN well deserved at least two segments and we all know which one that is.

Bring.. this.. to series. The warners and pinky and the brain segments weren’t bad, but as is inevitible in a screwball comedy some just weren’t as good as others and those fell harder when you’ve already seen 2 or 3 better versions of this sort of skit in the season. They did really find their groove towards the end and if you like both Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, or even just one or the other, it’s worth checking out. But enough about the reboot let’s talk about those labratory mice whose genes have been spliced. Thanks to wikipedia, I now know the duo were based on Eddie Fitzgerald and Tom Minton, who worked with Tom Rutgeter on Tiny Toon adventures, with menton being the one who came up with Narf, even saying it in one episode of Tiny Tunes. During the creation of animaniacs, Bruce Timm, yes THE Bruce Timm, sketched the two, and Ruetger added mouse ears and the rest was history. Maurice LaMarche was the one who added the Orson Welles to the character, as LaMarche saw the Orson Welles in Brain, ran with it and got the part and a long and storied career in voice acting as a result. In a nice and fitting bit of contrast, Rob Paulsen got the part.. because he was already on the show. Not to downplay Paulsen’s clear talent, I just find it hilarious.

That’s about what I could dig up on the behind the scenes of the show. From what I can tell it was greenlit because Animaniacs was a massive it, and Pinky and the Brain was the most popular segment, so it just made sense. The show would likewise be a massive sucess with both adults and kids, and go on for three seasons and what should legally be considered a war crime.

For those of you blissfully unaware yeah, that happened, no no one people actually LIKED from Tiny Toons was in it. And yeah if you want me to talk about it commission it otherwise not going near this one. While I do need to tackle more bad animation... I’ve successfully avoided watching an episode of this show for 22 years next wedsday, I’m not breaking the streak for free.

But some.. things aside I remembered liking the series as a kid but just never got around to seeking it out as an adult. I had nothing against the animaniacs segments and I even still have a stuffed brain doll I got at a garage sale.. the pinky is sadly missing and persumed dead. I just wasn’t as bit into it as I was the slappy bits rewatching animaniacs and didin’t really see reason to watch the show. Watching this though made me realize I was wrong and I probably watch more of it in the future This special is damn good, i’m pleased ot review it and to revive and old childhood memory. So with all the exposition out of the way let’s talk Pinky, PInky and the brain brain brain brain christmas edition after the cut.

This was indeed a special: while it was presumably produced with season one of the show and is packaged with it both on DVD and on Hulu, where I watched it, the special was aired in prime time and even put on it’s own VHS.. which I found out and of course, like with my review of the Darkwing Duck Pilot, had to use as the art for old VHS’ tapes for cartoons.. was really fucking beautiful and it’s a nice break from my traditional screencaps. So we open with a clever Christmas rendition of the theme, frequently sprinkling in bits of other christmas stuff, utterly fantastic. The intro animation is less impressive as it’s literally just the regular intro but with a stock snow effect over everything. In case you thought Ducktales doing that was a new thing. I do not blame the team however, as apparently they only had a week to get the scripts out, so I highly doubt warner was forking out more cash for the animation than they had to. They still forked out enough to make it LOOK really good mind you, something I wish they’d do more often with their DTV Movies but do do with their animated shows still with certain exceptions so good on them, i’m just saying they clearly cared more about money than having a memorable christmas opening. Given a budget to actually make one, i’m sure the animators would’ve come up with something lovely, and i’m sure the same is true of Ducktales and other shows and like i’ve said, i’m highly in favor of shows actuallly doing unique openings for the holidays, especially since Holiday episodes tend to get reaired every year as long as the show is in circulation on the network. Sometimes even if it isn’t. So it’s fully worth the effort to fork out a little extra for this as while you’ll most likely only use it once, you’ll be using the special for years. You can afford to treat yourself networks come on. It’s...

Just like Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain. But onto the episode itself after 80 years. We find Pinky writing his Christmas list to santa, complete with Narf, a gag I like. As usual for a comedy show, I will try to gloss over as much of the gags as possible, to avoid repetttion but yeah this episode is really damn funny and reminded me just how good these characters are. Maurice and Rob just have perfect chemistry. It’s like Tom and Jerry: It’s a very simple premise, that one being “Cat chases mouse and Mouse beats shit out of mouse”, and pinky and the brain of course being “Super genuis mouse and dimwitted but loveable sidekick try and takeover the world eveyr night”. But a simple premise can be used just about anywhere and adapated for anything. To me a cartoon’s premise only has to be as complicated as it needs to be to work. Sometimes you have a vast complex tapestry behind the world like She Ra, Steven Universe or Avatar with lots of planning and ins and outs and deep character stuff.. and sometimes you just have two mice who get into shenanigans because one is a would be dictator who sounds like orson welles and the other’s a loveable british weirdo/moron. Sometimes simple just works.

Anyways, Brain, noticing Pinky’s distracted and replaces himself with a horrifying poorly made doll of himself called Noodle Noggin, which is both an excellent name and not the only time they’d use the name either, as there was an animaniacs short about Brain making himself a fad to endear himself to the children of the future with the same name. It’s just an inherently funny set of words, but also shows Brain’s genius in a subtle and clever way as he never spells it out, but despite sounding kind of ridiculous for such a buttoned up intellectual like brain... he knows that’s the kind of name kids will eat up. His schemes may often fail, but he’s an objectively brilliant schemer and i’ts often either PInky’s incompetence or his own miscalculation of humanity, either over or underestimating them, that undoes Brain. Back to the plot, so Brain’s plan is to distribute noodle noggins around the world, make it the hot new toy, and as always, take over the world. Problem is naturally two Mice simply don’t have the resources to make the billions of dolls. But PInky stumbles upon the solution in the paper: a want ad for elves! Everything about that sentence except “pinky stumbles upon the solution” has not aged paticuarlly well, but point is they have a plan and we have our christmas special. This does bring me to my one problem with the special.. Brain’s weird inconsistency towards Santa. What I mean is he spends the portion doubting Santa can do anything he’s claimed to despite being proven frequently he can. That part is not all that annoying as it’s in character with him and while yes, he is a talking mouse, he’s also a man of science and reason and Santa is the opposite of that. That would be fine... IF it wasn’t for the fact that said magical bollocks weren’t constantly part of his plans. Despite Brain constantly throughought the special doubting Santa... his plans FREQUENTLY rely on everything we’ve heard about him being right. His initial plan here ENTIRELY runs on the fact Santa has a massive workforce to make the toys yet even if that’s true by Brain’s own logic, he wouldn’t be able to deliver them. Later when the boys need to escape, They hide with the Reindeer despite Brain just saying santa can’t be everywhere in one night.. which if he can’t then the odds are slim he’ll wind up at Acme Labs isn’t it? It would be fine if the special acknowledged any of this outside of one bit we’ll get to, but other than that one bit.. they don’t. IT’s just really frustrating and really sticks out since the rest of the special is perfection, so this one failing bit really grates. That being said, it dosen’t last long enough to really drag the episode down as a whole, just to annoy me a bit every so often. It speaks to the episodes quality that the bad part ONLY drags so much because everything else is so well put together. So our boys head to the north pole with the help of a kooky pilot and a santa dummy, this pilot is voiced by Tress MacNeile and is easily one of the best parts of the special. And naturally given their luck, she asks them to take the wheel so the plane instead jerks and causes them to fall out. Luckily they end up near Santa’s workshop and soon apply for temp work with local head of things and gruff type Shotzie, played by Jeff Bennett. And yes that is his name. I like Shotzie: he’s a goateed elf and Bennett just plays him well.. hard to explain honestly I may just like his name and Bennett’s voice for him, one he used before in animanaics for various bit parts and in shows after this, it’s just a voice i’ve always liked.

They get put to work in the mail room, which is the bit I mentioned: Brain earlier scoffed at Santa answering all the letters with Pinky simply suggesting that Santa had his elves go through all of them. Turns out Pinky was right... while he may be a BIT stupid, one intresting thing i’ve found about Pinky after watching the reboot that ironically the friend who comissioned this and I discussed is that he’s not ENTIRELY stupid, it’s just , much like Dan from Dan Vs his knowledge is just random.. he can not know how a lot of things work, but sometimes like in this instance Pinky generally just GETS something. It’s part of why he and Brain are such a good team despite their failures: Brain is all about planning and thought and research, Pinky is about intuition and gut instinct. He just does things and it often works out. This also makes their recently added backstories all the more brilliant as they explain this well: Pinky started life just being told to find the diffrence in cheeses and thus was taught form childhood to trust in himself and his weird brain. Brain was cruelly torturued with an experiment on learned behaviors via electroshock, and was taught to never give up control again, to always know what’s going on and to always control it. It perfectly sums up who the two are and why they are that way. Brain however quickly pivots, as the mail room ends up being the perfect location to start his plans. Since their job is to file away what each person wants Brain simply adds Noodle Noggin to it and plans to put his plans into the workshop. While Santa and Schotzie are suprised and baffled, Santa quickly adds it to the list. However things hit a snag when Schotzie gets supscious when the two try to sneak into the blueprint room to drop theirs off and he accidently yanks off their disguises leading to a REALLY fun chase scene, as the boys end up in a toy wherehouse and thus try out various toy cars: a barbie dream car that dosen’t have a working motor, a toy truck that dosen’t go very fast, and finally an rc car that while fast naturally just means Schotzie can grab it and capture them. It’s easily my faviorite scene of the episode just for how clever it is and as someone whow as a kid around the time this came out, I applaud the accuracy.. granted I didn’t have any of those personally but I had lots of friends so yeah.

So our heroes are interrogated.. and again Brain brilliantly pivots. Schotzie assumes since they have the blueprints their spies for the easter bunny or the tooth fairy or Herschel, the Hanukah Goblin. Why Herschel never got his own Hannukah special trying to stop Pinky and the Brain from using it to take over the world, I genuinely do not know and that’s something the reboot really needs to adress in the future. Seriously Hannukah needs a mascot and it’s either Herschel or the Hannukah Zombie. Kwanza already has Kwanzabot. I want to see more of Herschel the Hannukah Goblin dammit!. I love goblins. Especially this one.

And this one

And most of all this one

I likes goblins. It’s a thing. So anyway, point is Schotize has the blueprints taken in while our boys slip out and sucessfully make their way outside, though they have to find a way home to turn on the mind control device. They see Santa and brain being a dick refuses to let pinky hand in his letter.. but does as mentioned earlier have them pose as reindeer. So our heroes make their way home and in time to be able to activate the device once santa’s route’s finished!

And.. then land directly on the mind control device thing, meaning they now have to scramble to repair it. Oh and Pinky is inconsolable after realizing Santa didn’t get his letter and Brain is a HUGE dick about it. Easily the worst i’ve seen him just far more focused on his machine than his friend’s wel lbeing especially since ALL he needs from pinky is for him to throw one lousy switch.

But we then get easily the best part of the entire special. As Brain scrambles to rebuild his device while abusing his best friend we get a really nice tense sequence as Brain rebuilds while kids all over the world warmly receive noodle noggin. I mean.. it’s not the creepiest doll I’ve seen a kid enjoy.

Also Bill Clinton gets one because the series apparently really likes “Bill Clinton is stupid jokes” Oh you poor innocent dears who haven’t had to suffer through the president being revealed to be a sexual predator, the one after him being even dumber if not a predator, the one after that being easily one of the best people around, and the outgoing one being a waking nightmare whose both a preadator and dumb beyond all comprehension ina dangerous and soul crushing way.

But yeah onto the good part, Brain, for whatever reason, reads the letter.. and finds Pinky asked for nothing. He just wanted to give Brain the world at long last, recognizing his friend really and genuinely means well for it and that he’s worked hard to conquer it. And with that goal in reach, with the very thing he’s always wanted his... Brain instead uses the device to wish a merry christmas. He sees through his friend’s kindess and selflessness that he himself.. has been selfish once again turning something into a world destroying plot and being cruel to his best friend... when all his best friend wanted was to selflessly make sure he finally got what he wanted. It’s then that Brain, for all his cold and cynical logic and superiority complex, realized the true meaning of christmas, which i’ve said before and i’ll say again: it’s about giving, about giving someone something with your heart and soul just to be nice with no expectation of something in return. It’s about being selfless for once instead of selfish. I’ts about love. And Brain loves his friend too much to destroy his faviorite holiday. For once the world can wait.. and for once they all join in saying merry christmas to one another and in love and camradire. And I know not everyone celebrates christmas, there are other winter holidays and not everyone in the world would willingly do this. I know all that.. but the special has such a well meaning message, I really can’t be mad at that or get into the weeds too much> This isn’t some jackass making an entire movie, of which there have been several, saying “There’s a war on christmas” which instead equates to them just bitching about not everyone celebrating HIS holiday. It’s about a mouse for one moment truly being selfless and putting ihs loyal and faithful friend over his greatest want to give him a nice christmas and to do something nice for the world instead of trying to take it. And that.. that’s really damn heartmelting. So we end on the two exchanging presents, with it being a little extra heartwarming as Brain likely already got Pinky something meaning even before his big revelation, he really does care beneath all the dope slaps. Pinky got him a keychain of the world and rather than be frustrated like you’d think.. Brain just takes it in stride. It is christmas after all.. the world.. it can wait. For now it’s just the two of them having one moment in time, this merry christmas. Final Thoughts: If it wasn’t obvious, I loved this freaking special. It’s funny, clever and has one hell of an ending. There isn’t much more to say other than go watch it if you have Hulu.. you will not regret it and a sepcial thanks to Blah for comissioning this. it was an amazing time and is now a competitor for a spot on my best christmas special list. For now though it’s just really good and I say go check it out. Merry christmas, happy holidays and later days.

#animaniacs #pinky and the brain #warner brothers #pinky #the brain #santa claus #christmas #blahdiddy #christmas specials #reviews #animation #kids wb

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bcanetwork · 3 years ago

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BCA NFTalk Vol.3｜Art Blocks NFTs’ Imagination

Guest Speakers：Host ArthurLou BCA Co-Founder丨Vulcan DAO GP（简称A）

Zero Chen NFT Consultant of FTChinese.com（简称C）

Ting Song AI and Blockchain Artist丨IOAC Asia Ambassador（简称S）

Hesiod 「Theogo NFT Observer」Chief Editor （简称H）

Nico Yang VulcanDAO GP（简称Y）

Background: It's been a few months of a mini-bull market for NFT collectibles, which the frenzied sales of CryptoPunks have pushed up in recent days. In addition, Art Blocks, as a generative art segment, topped the 7-day trading volume list strongly, ranking first with The Art Blocks segment was ranked fifth overall with $498 million. These three segments - avatars, generative art, and solo editions - make up a solid JPEG Summer. In this context, we invite four guests to chat about the NFT imagination beyond Punk.

Host A: What do you think of the macro reasons for this 2021 Summer rampage? Share some of the recent Punk-like replica disc projects and NFT collecting tips that you've been following.

C: It's not very surprising that Punk is on fire; its holders or investors/collectors who are bullish think it should be higher priced. Its broken circle has become more apparent, and this mini-bull market is a spurt of an accumulation from the entire NFT market that preceded it. Social subcultures and aesthetic psychology drive NFT and trendy fashion, so its rise and fall may be very different from how technology has evolved and popularised. Compared to traditional art and traditional collecting, this wave in the crypto world should be just beginning. If CryptoPunks do become digital antiques, I believe they will be worth much more than that in the future.

Y: Until 2021, it will be difficult for digital content creators to get their work recognized by the market and to cash in without relying on big institutions with a centralized approach. The breaking of the circle in media and the entrance of money brought by the wealth creation effect have greatly refreshed the perception of digital content. Echoing what Che Guevara once said, "After we leave, they build you schools and hospitals, not because they have shown great mercy, but because we came."

The identity that comes with NFT is only really felt when it is held. The purpose is different, and the logic of buying and collecting can be very different. A scarce NFT is a status symbol in itself.

S: Compared to the art market, which is repeatedly tested and scrutinized by connoisseurs from different perspectives, there is a sizeable speculative bubble in the English-speaking community on Ethereum. A lot of this bubble is in cultural content and projects that lack culture can be short-lived. The works that I want to keep inside my wallet for a long time are the ones that I will be happy to look at even ten years from now.

In this JPEG Summer, I strongly feel that it is similar to 1CO at the end of 17, where all aspects of blockchain project parties were active, but the market turned cold after 18 years. A successful crypto art series is also a successful cultural product that combines technology and art.

Punk is Punk in the same way that an asteroid hitting the earth is hard to replicate, and special times happen like this. How do you ambush the next Punk? 1. Is there innovation? 2. Is the seed community very geeky? 3. Is it a historical level under the megatrend? 4. Can the team continue to do it? 5. are the institutional holders coming in at the middle stage good enough to drive the project forward? 6. can it create a cultural resonance in the circle? These are all worth exploring.

Regarding collection investment strategies, I am very much focused on niche artists from developing countries, especially those with a pure art background or a very pioneering sense of creativity in the contemporary art field and those who respect the blockchain spirit of the blockchain community.

Moderator A: Each Trader (trader) has a different investment strategy, and each person has limited energy to focus on one vertical track. Suppose one is easily influenced by the market and forcibly changes his investment strategy. In that case, it is scary for a Trader, which is equivalent to the whole cognitive system having to be reconstructed.

H: The cost of a physical painting is not high, but it can be sold for hundreds of millions. Therefore, the value of a work does not lie in its materials or cost. Its physical price does not determine the value of Jpeg. In the structure of the blockchain market, Crypto Punks, Art Blocks, and BAYC represent the three dimensions that can be found in the NFT market. Crypto Punks starts from a programmer and is driven by technology; the monkey BAYC is community-driven. The blockchain community may be The base for the survival of the future blockchain; Art Blocks enter from artistic creativity.

From the perspective of social governance, Token is an institutional symbol. Mature NFT projects must create a field and a way of existence, and a variety of hobbies professional life corresponds to the current needs of various communities. I don't see it as a speculative target but rather as a script for building a kind of Metaverse called the respective Metaverse, whose development depends on the evolution of the community.

Moderator A: The more successful 10K projects have a cultural tribe behind them, and the ethos can be very different from project to project. How do you see Art Blocks as a clear stream with awe-inspiring numbers? How do you see it breaking out and the appreciation and valuation insights into generative art as a discipline?

S: The group of projects in NFT that are particularly speculative and not culturally good enough are like passing clouds and won't be in the prosperous state they are today when the market is in a bad mood. But two things are sure to go a long way: firstly, good cultural content is never speculative. But anything that has an innovative aesthetic or interest that strikes a chord is not entirely speculative and has its own commercial identity quite typically. The second point, the trend towards avatars and social identities, is unstoppable.

I am very bullish on generative art. Behind it is a respect and exploration of the mathematical logic behind information technology. The methods used are engineering in nature and reflect the cultural identity of a group of people.

C: Generative art started with computer technology and continued until this wave of artificial intelligence, more precisely the application of convolutional neural networks, entered the aesthetic vision of the masses, with a low correlation to the market price of generative artworks. In the past, the general aesthetics of popular art did not break through the traditional class texture (strong mediated aesthetic vision), the blockchain market changed this law, and the same thing is now entering the NFT art collectibles market.

H: NFT is a fuse to the art market, not a monopoly on art history. When the financial operation goes to an extreme, it is decoupled from the actual value creator. Although Art Blocks has a centralized organizer, it is isomorphic with the state-of-the-art community. Generative art will present different visual effects depending on the materials used. With the rapid development of technology and speculation, it is possible to join the first-line NFT.

Y: Art Blocks is the same thing as the explosion of CryptoPunks. Looking at the top 20 Crypto Punks holdings, the most intuitive data is that there is a very high degree of overlap with the big Art Blocks accounts, with the smallest of these holdings holding more than 50 Art Block NFTs.

More generally, a large percentage of the first blockchain explorers to make a large fortune were programmers. The culture that Art Blocks carries is precisely an aesthetically pleasing phenomenon from a programmer's perspective.

Any art form first evolved from technology, and the value of NFT relies on the programmer-led blockchain revolution to provide sufficient wealth to support it. Crypto Punks represent a new class of people, the last piece of the puzzle in internet development.

A: The bigger the wave, the further back you look; what should be the kind of work that can be called classic or digital antiques? What is the view on the future of NFT?

C: If we look at this from a long-term perspective, three points need to be considered. Firstly, there is a characteristic of any cultural investment product that performs more similarly to financial assets in a bull market and can be less liquid than financial assets in a bear market, with a liquidity black hole. Classic core assets can find counterparties no matter when they are traded. Broad consensus and acceptance are the hallmarks of traditional investments, and a sense of scarcity and value is formed over a long period.

Secondly, whether crypto art or generative art, continuing to move forward requires special attention to fit in with other cultural and sub-cultural trends, the spirit of the times.

Thirdly, the artist is a profession, not an inoffensive one. One might as well consider the NFT market giving artists such opportunities as a form of nourishment. If it does not produce investment returns, it is still making its contribution to the art market.

H: I encourage artists to get involved in art that may not be very romantic because there is a massive demand for essential art waiting there. A good NFT project is hardly successful without the creation of artists, and NFT offers a vast blue ocean for artists. Calmness is always within one's heart, maintaining a sense of rationality in the course of a bear or bull market, no matter how noisy it may be.

Host's summary: Since I entered this track myself, there are still times of anxiety and confusion, but things are still in the making. I hope that I can do something genuinely long-term like the four excellent teachers.

#nftart #cryptoart #nftcollector #nft marketplace #nonfungibletokens #nftcommunity #MetaOpus

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b-else-writes · 4 years ago

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the tiger shark and the sun

New chapter posted for my Star Wars/Avatar the Last Airbender RebelCaptain fusion AU! Eadu time! Dagobah time! Shit absolutely hitting the fan time!

Read on AO3 | Read from the start

Pairings: Jyn/Cassian, minor Han/Leia and Baze/Chirrut, random minor background pairings

Rating: T

Summary: Star Wars/Avatar the Last Airbender fusion AU. When exiled firebender Jyn Erso lands on his doorstep the day Cassian, last southern waterbender, meets the Avatar, she seems just another obstacle in ending the War against the Fire Nation. An obstacle he would willingly remove. But as their paths keep crossing, and the twins discover that destiny and balance are more than they expect, Jyn and Cassian find that they are more alike than they ever thought possible.

Snippet under the cut!

Far away, the twins clambered over the rocks and roots of Dagobah. The entire island, in the green-blue waters of the Southeastern archipelago, was covered in mangrove forests, trailing upwards into high cliffs. He could hear apes and monkeys swinging in the trees, mouse-deer trekking through trails, snakes and crabs scuttling between the roots and sand. Before them was tiniest old man Luke had ever seen. He was covered in wrinkles, with wisps of white hair on his head and sprouting from his large ears. His skin was mottled with a green fungus, but his eyes were bright and luminous. “Found someone, you have,” he chortled, clutching his cane, made from a gnarled branch. “Help you, I can.”

“Well...whoever you are, we’re looking for a great warrior,” Luke said, stepping closer to the strange little man.

The old man chucked to himself. “*War? Wars not make one great*.”

The twins looked at each other. Luke didn’t need to touch his twin’s mind to read what she was broadcasting. In the midst of their silent conversation, the little man began poking and prodding Artoo and Threepio. Snickering, he pulled open their packs, enthusiastically chewing on some of their food. “Hey, put that down!” Leia cried, as he dug out her poncho.

Artoo, growling, grabbed one end with his mouth. Leia gasped, seeing the cloth and fur starting to pull. “Artoo, let him have it!” Luke yelled.

The old man whacked Artoo over the head. “Bad dog! Mine! Or I will help you not!”

Finally, Luke managed to get Artoo to relinquish his hold. With a firm glare from Luke, the old man handed over the poncho to Leia, not even concealing his huff. Artoo looked over at Luke, asking, can I eat him? Please?

“No, Artoo,” Luke said, though he was sorely tempted. Artoo sighed.

“Now leave us alone, we're here to find Yoda,” Leia snapped.

“Yoda?” The old man hopped onto a root to look at them in the face. “Hmm, know him, I do! But first, a snack.”

From his dirty robes, the old man pulled out two coconut shells tied together with twine. He opened them. A putrid smell emerged. “Banana and frog soup – eat, eat! Or I will help you not.”

"We don't -"

"Yes, yes, know him I do. Great Sage, of the Jedi..."

Luke pursed his lips, throwing his sister a beseeching look. Patience. With extreme reluctance, Luke accepted a shell and swallowed a mouthful. Instantly, he began to gag. “Oh, this is not worth it at all,” Leia murmured.

“Ugh, we’re wasting our time!” Luke snapped. “You’re just an old hermit trying to trick us!”

The old man’s head slumped. His ears drooped as he looked out distantly, speaking to someone. “Teach them, I cannot. Too angry, too impatient.”

“Ben?” he asked. Luke could not see or hear, and yet… Something, older than him, carried on from his past lives, knew. "You're Yoda..." Rapidly, “No, no, we can learn!”

“Hmph,” Yoda said with a shake of his head, “Bridge between the Spirit World and ours, the Avatar is. Yet see Spirits in the physical world, you cannot. And worse, this one -” He rapped Leia on the head with his cane, “Sense it not! Spirituality of a rock!”

“We can learn to be more spiritual, to open ourselves,” Leia insisted, rubbing her head. Leia’s voice was tense. She flexed her hands, trying to leash the anger simmering under the surface. “And then we can open the Avatar State and beat -”

The old man shook his head in dismay, wandering away. “Beat? Beat?”

They chased after him. Yoda had found a wide sinkhole. It plunged deep into the island, so massive that trees were growing all over its sides. “But you brought us here to learn how to enter the Avatar State at will! You believe in the Jedi religion, you’re a powerful bender, you should know -”

“Bender? Bender, I am not, Skywalker,” Yoda said.

They drew back, startled. The air seemed to shift, grow thinner. “*Always looking to the horizon, Skywalker… Adventure, pah! Excitement, pah! Avatar crave them not,*” he said. “Organa, always looking inwards. Know nothing of the deep ocean, does the frog in the well. Avatar to all Four, bender and non-bender, you must be.”

The twins scowled. Leia snapped, “That's easy for you to say, living in your swamp!”

Yoda shook his cane emphatically. “Four Nations – think too much of it, you do. Transcend these rigged boundaries, the Jedi tried to be.”

Tried… the word echoed in the charged atmosphere of this strange, breathing swamp. It was darker, sadder than Yavin. “Feel it, do you?” Yoda murmured, closing his rheumy eyes. “Old Air Nomad sky burial ground, this is. Studied with the great sages of the Air Nomads, eight-hundred years before I did. A spiritual place.”

Luke could see her biting back a retort. “Judge me, do you? Great Sage, this cannot be,” Yoda tutted.

Leia’s cheeks were flushed, eyes narrowed. Luke could feel his own ears burning. Patience. Patience. We need to let him teach us. They exhaled slowly. As one, they bowed, and if Leia's was a little shallower, Yoda did not comment on it. “Please, teach us, Master Yoda.”

The old Sage cocked his head. At last, he spoke, eyes closed. “Teach you, I will. But unlearn what you have learned, you must.”

After drinking more of Yoda’s disgusting banana-and-frog soup – “essential to the Spiritual journey!” he cackled – Yoda directed them to the sinkhole. “In there, we must go,” Yoda said, “No weapons. Leave them with the animals.”

They shrugged off their water-skins, securing them alongside their Air Nomad staffs to Artoo’s saddle. Luke stroked his stalwart companion, assuring him and Threepio they'd be back soon. Yoda perched himself on Luke’s shoulder. The old man's claw-like hands dug into his skin. “What’s down there?”

“Only what you take with you.”

There’s no such thing as ghosts, Luke reminded himself. Linking with Leia, they began to bend. From deep within the sinkhole, water from hidden pools inside spiralled skyward. A shimmering water-spout crested up in front of them. “How do you get in there, if you can’t bend?” Luke asked, as the water curled around their feet, slowly lowering them into the cave.

Yoda laughed to himself, but did not answer. They dropped further and further down, clearing the vast greenery of the sinkhole. Stone swallowed them as they entered a further crack in the earth. His breath caught in his throat, almost dropping them.

The crack opened up into a great cave. This chamber alone must have been at least two-hundred feet high. The black walls were slick with water and lichen. They landed on a rock. The cave dropped further and further down into the underground water, its surface black and glass-like. Huge boulders, moss-covered, rolled all around them, a series of hills concealed underground, disappearing into further passageways. Stalagmites the size of towers rose up in the distance.

“Know nothing of the deep ocean, the frog does,” Yoda repeated, his luminous eyes lamp-like in the darkness.

He indicated for them to assume poses for meditation. They sat facing each other, legs folded in Lotus Pose, hands pressed together. “Magic power-up, Avatar State is not. Memory of a thousand lifetimes, it is. Live inside you, all past Avatars do. Mace, T’ra, Revan, Nomi…”

“It’s the beauty of the human experience,” Luke said, open his eyes with a start.

Yoda thumped his cane meaningfully. “Good, good. Now, listen. Feel. Beyond what you see and know, stretch out. See beyond the thick stone of the cave.”

Luke breathed slowly. His mind cleared. The sun passed through the sky above, shadows lengthening. Wind stirred the trees. The underground water bubbled, the ocean hummed, cutting through the stone. Bird song. He and Leia, their energies intermingling, rising from the ground like two stone statues. And…something. Half-memory, half-dream, whispering… The Spirits of Enfys’ people, Enfys, who was gone…

He gasped, opening his eyes. Yoda’s disappointed gaze fell upon them. “Hear you nothing that I say?”

“Meditating, reaching enlightenment – you can’t expect results at once!”

Yoda wagged his cane. “No. There is no difference. What is the role of the Avatar?”

“To keep the world in balance, and act as the bridge between the Spirits and humans,” Leia repeated, resting her chin on her hand.

“Great conceit we have. Are we not part of nature? You, girl, understand this.”

“Well, I, yes,” Leia said, “Because the Water Tribes live in such a difficult place, we understand that our fortunes are part of theirs, and they us. Our hunting keeps the populations in check to flourish in the next cycle.”

Yoda nodded. “Yes, yes. Listen: life, beating around us. Growing, dying, over and over. Energy surrounds us. Binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter,” he said, pinching Luke’s exposed shoulder, “You must feel it around you. Between you, me, the tree, the rock. Even between us, and the Spirits.”

Luke winced, rubbing the skin. Leia made a small grin. “That’s what you get for wearing shirts without sleeves.”

He very subtly earthbent to shift her out of her Lotus Pose. Leia squawked, flailing before she got her balance. Yoda sighed, handing them more banana-and-frog soup. “Truly, their father’s children they are, Obi Wan,” he said, though he sounded almost amused, watching them choke down the drink with revulsion. “Now, listen.”

It was almost night. His stomach rolled. His skin was hot and sticky and uncomfortable. But the twins returned to their stances, breathing in time together.

Reach out. Just as Luminara had said – every breathing thing, every animal and sapling and great old swamp tree… He heard the soft musical voices of the Air Nomads in the air, allowed them to wash over him. Time, time was illusion, Luminara had said… They were gone and yet they were here, a story that was already over and yet was happening right now…

Something blue shone beyond his vision. Slowly, forming and re-shaping itself. Obi Wan Kenobi. A Fire Nation man, here in an Air Nomad site, in the Earth Kingdom, shaped by Water Tribe philosophy. Yoda raised his wizened head and nodded. Obi Wan smiled. “I don’t believe it,” they whispered.

“That is why you fail,” Yoda told them.

continue reading on AO3

#star wars #rogue one #rebelcaptain #dailyrebelcaptain #jyn x cassian #jyn erso #cassian andor #luke skywalker #leia organa #my fic #writing #au: atla

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teacupfulofstarshine · 5 years ago

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the crossroad of our destinies book three: air

cw: mild angst, cartoon violence, manipulation/betrayal, detailed fight scene including minor character death, blood, injury, weapons, sedatives, and manipulation, swearing, nightmare mention, references to past child abuse, mention of potential genocide

to skip the fight scene, skip the section that starts “There’s no need to be difficult, Roman.”

wordcount: 6926

book one: earth // book two: fire // read it on ao3!

“I’m hardly a master of air bending,” Patton says nervously, fidgeting with his hands.

“You’re the only air bender that we know,” Thomas says, pressing his hands together and bowing his head. “Please, Pat, you have to teach me! Who else will do it?”

“There are plenty of air benders in the temples where we live, Thomas, much more skilled than myself. I still think you’d be better off going there and seeking out one of the monks to train you.” Patton fidgets nervously with his hands. “I’m . . . not exactly a master airbender. I’m just a kid.”

“We’re all just kids,” Thomas argues. “None of us chose to be thrown into this war, but we’re here now. Please, Patton. The sooner I learn air bending, the closer I’ll be to ending this war.”

“And what happens when you do end the war?” Virgil asks.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re all from different nations, different histories, different cultures. We never would have met without this war. What will happen when it ends? Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than ready for peace, but are we just . . . never going to see each other again?”

“That’s stupid,” Roman says. “I’m not going to just stop being friends with you all once the war’s over. If anything, with my bitchass dad dead -”

“Language.”

“- I won’t have to worry about getting murdered for having friends. You’re all my friends, and I fully expect all of you to be at my wedding ceremony when I marry Dolos.”

“Really?” Logan asks softly. “You would want us to come to your wedding?”

“Of course I would,” Roman says. He reaches out and gently touches Logan’s shoulder. Logan smiles, and Virgil feels something tight in his chest begin to uncoil. “Somebody has to walk me down the aisle, after all.”

“I volunteer as tribute!” Patton chirps eagerly. “And - and Thomas, I’m not an air bending teacher, by any stretch of the imagination, but if you’re willing to put up with me, I can try and teach you what I know.”

*~*~*~*~*

“How many times have they done this now?” Roman asks.

“Counting this? Sevent - nope, eighteen,” Virgil says. Thomas tries to copy what Patton is showing him, and he falls flat on his face. “I think the problem is that earth and air are on opposite ends of the bending spectrum, so their movements are the antithesis of each other. Earth bending is all solid movements and grounded footing, and air bending is about being light and detached.”

“So what are you saying? Thomas won’t be able to learn how to do it?”

“No, he’ll be able to learn. Every Avatar before him has mastered all four elements, there’s no reason that he can’t do it too. It’s just gonna be particularly difficult to do this stage.”

Thomas falls for the nineteenth time, screams in frustration, and punches a massive fireball into the sky. “Impressive size, poor technique!” Roman calls.

“I’m not working on fire bending right now, criticism is unwarranted!”

“This isn’t going to work, is it,” Logan says dryly.

“Have some confidence in your brother,” Virgil says. “But no, I don’t think it is. We might need to try a different approach.”

“Such as what? Patton’s the only air bender that we’ve got.”

“Technically, we have Remy, too.”

“What in the fresh hell are you smoking?” Roman says. Virgil ignores him, reaching out to gently pat Remy’s nose. The flying bison huffs out a puff of warm air that nearly knocks Roman over and gently pushes his nose into Virgil’s hand.

“Fire benders learned to bend from the dragons, earth benders learned to bend from the badger moles, water benders learned to bend from the moon, and air benders learned to bend from the flying bison. I’m not saying that Remy has the temperament to be a bending master, mind you, I’m just saying that he could be a teacher.” Remy makes a disgruntled noise and shuffles off to flop down and sleep a few yards away.

“He might have better luck than Patton is currently having,” Logan says. “I am sure he is trying his best, but Thomas is not showing promising results.”

“Yeah, but think about how long it took for him to first make a flame when I was training him,” Roman argues.

“We no longer have that kind of time,” Logan says. “The reports from your brother are getting more dire every day. Your father is speeding up his plans of conquest, and we cannot let him harm any more innocent civilians. We must stop him in his tracks, and that may necessitate accelerating my brother’s training schedule.”

Thomas hits the ground again. Virgil winces at the noise. “We should have a team meeting about this.”

*~*~*~*~*

The team meeting takes several days.

This is mostly because people (namely Logan, Thomas, both of them, and occasionally Patton) get fed up and storm away to blow off steam without taking it out directly on other people. Virgil does his best to maintain a neutral voice-of-reason position, but no one in their group has ever been particularly inclined to neutrality. (Logan claims that he is, but he is also the most prone to losing his temper.)

Eventually, they come to a collective consensus that while Patton is doing his best to teach Thomas the ways of air bending, it may not be enough for the time frame they’re working with. “I’m doing my best,” Patton says, staring firmly into the campfire, “and I know that Thomas is doing his best, too. But I don’t think our bests are moving fast enough, given the timeline of the Fire Nation’s attacks.”

“According to Remus, my father is moving up the attack schedules every day,” Roman comments. “The faster Thomas can master air bending, the better.”

“I agree,” Thomas says. Logan makes a face, rocks trembling at his feet, but Thomas reaches out and squeezes his wrist. “Hey, Lo, stop it. It’s not a personal attack on me. I’m not mad, he’s right.” Logan huffs, but lets himself calm down. “We have to find someone qualified to teach air bending and hope that they can help me.”

“We should see which Air Nomad temple we’re closest to,” Patton says. “I think that’s our best bet. The monks there spend their whole lives training acolytes to bend air, they’ll be able to help you.”

“Are we sure that’s the safest option?” Roman counters. “Remus said that Air Nomad dignitaries were meeting with Father, and if that’s true then -”

“We’re pacifists,” Patton says stubbornly. “We only fight if absolutely necessary. We would never side with a tyrant who’s trying to take over the entire world.” The fire flares a little, and Patton winces and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I - I didn’t mean to insult your dad, Roman. I just -"

“It’s okay,” Roman says. He lets out a long, slow, controlled breath, and Virgil watches as the fire returns to its original size. “It’s okay, you - you’re right. You’re right, Patton, you don’t have to apologize for that. My dad is a tyrant and he is an abusive asshole and he is trying to take over the entire world. You don’t have to apologize.”

“But he’s still your father,” Patton says. “It only makes sense that you would have an emotional attachment to him.”

“I don’t want to have an emotional attachment to him,” Roman pouts. “I barely want to have a genetic attachment to him! He’s a dumbass and he’s useless and - and I don’t need him or his validation!” He pushes to his feet angrily and throws a fireball towards the surrounding trees. Patton swiftly bends a vortex around the fire to suction out its oxygen before it can cause any significant damage.

“We know,” Logan says softly. “You are more than your father’s son, Roman. You have grown to be more than he could ever be.” Roman’s shoulder shake, chest heaving as he turns away. Virgil reaches out and touches his shoulder; Roman flinches, but when Virgil starts to pull his hand away, he whimpers and leans back towards the touch.

“We know you’re not him,” Virgil says quietly. “I know you’re not him.”

“He’s hurt all of you so much,” Roman whispers. “He’s the reason you lost your father, Virgil. He’s the reason Thomas and Logan’s village was razed to the ground, he’s the reason that Dolos had half of his face burnt off, he’s the reason my mother abandoned Remus and me and - and he did so much bad shit and - and I have to fix it, I have to -”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Thomas says. “I’m the Avatar, Roman, and it’s my job to restore balance to the world. I know that you have your own reasons for wanting to dethrone your father, but you are not responsible for what he did.” He grips Roman’s hands and gives what Virgil can only describe as his best “I’m-the-Avatar-and-everything-is-okay-now” smile.

Virgil has trouble pulling comfort from it, but Roman seems to. “Thanks, Thomas.” He squeezes Thomas’s hands back, and he smiles. Virgil is still uneasy about pretty much every aspect of their situation, but he can at least relax in the knowledge that their little group’s uneven edges have settled comfortably against each other again.

*~*~*~*~*

You are in more danger than you realize.

Virgil lifts his head, and suddenly he’s not curled around the campfire sleeping with the rest of his friends. He stands in the middle of a vast expanse of black nothingness. Wisps of smoke curl around his ankles, creeping up towards his knees. He swats them away hurriedly, whirling around and watching a puff of water vapor appear where he’d just breathed out.

“Who are you?! Where am I?!”

You are safe, little water bender. I am a friend, one you have rescued before.

The mist stirs in front of him, forming a small dragon shape coiled in front of him. “You’re . . . the dragon I saved from the Fire Nation temple?”

The very same. Your fire bender friend is right to be suspicious. The Air Nomads are acting strangely. There are disturbances in the Spirit World. Proceed with caution and make sure that you protect those close to you.

“Disturbances? Isn’t it Thomas’s job to balance the natural and spirit worlds as the Avatar? Should I tell him about it?”

This is not a disturbance he can heal, not yet. You must keep him safe until he matures enough to help us. Protect him, little water bender, and keep your eyes peeled. If the Avatar falls, the world is doomed.

The darkness surges up around Virgil, and he wakes up screaming.

*~*~*~*~*

“And you’re sure that you’re okay?” Patton asks, gently touching his shoulder. Virgil rubs his arms, shaking softly. “You were screaming so loudly . . . you were so scared . . .”

“It was just a nightmare,” Virgil says. Patton wraps an arm around Virgil’s shoulders, hesitantly, as though he’s going to push it away. Normally he would, but Virgil is still shaken, and he leans into the soft touch. Patton makes a soft noise and pulls him closer.

“I know it was,” Patton says. “But it’s okay. You’re awake now, and we’re here. It’ll be alright. We’ll be at the Western Air Temple in a couple days, and then we’ll be totally safe.”

Virgil doesn’t know how to tell him that they won’t be safe, that they’d be safer in the Fire Nation’s outlying villages than in the temple, because he’s seen the way Patton gets more excited the closer they get. So he stays silent, pressing close to his friend.

*~*~*~*~*

Remy swishes his tail irritably as they glide closer to the mountains. “Is he okay?” Virgil asks. “He seems kinda . . . upset.”

“He doesn’t like flying close to the mountains,” Patton says. “The winds are a lot stronger, and it takes more effort for him to course correct. He has to do it a lot more frequently, too.”

Remy makes an exasperated huffing noise and veers sharply to the left. “It’s so pretty up here,” Roman wonders, leaning over the side of the saddle. “Isn’t it beautiful, Logan?”

“Beautiful,” Logan deadpans. “There are so many different shades of black to see up here.”

Roman winces, but Logan is smirking, so Virgil pats his shoulder reassuringly and turns his gaze to the mountains. There’s a large, elaborate structure built into the crevasses of the largest mountain, spires and peaks and buildings, some of which blend so seamlessly into the mountain they’re difficult to see. If he squints, he can just barely make out tiny figures flitting around the mountain.

Remy lands at the base, rather than taking them all the way up to the top. “The head monks take turns bending the air currents around the Temple itself, so we can’t approach unannounced. We’re just gonna have to hike up there.”

“Why would we hike when Thomas and I can bend us up the mountain?” Logan says. He hops off of Remy’s saddle and wiggles his toes, happy to be back on the ground. “It will not take long at all.”

“But I don’t just want to leave Remy alone down here . . .”

Logan squares his shoulders and leans into an earthbending stance. Within five minutes, he’s created a cave in the side of the mountain for Remy to settle into. “I promise we’ll come back for you,” Patton says, pressing his forehead against Remy’s nose. The bison huffs, but licks Patton back anyway.

“I don’t like this,” Virgil says. “What if something goes wrong? We’ll be all the way up there, with no quick escape, I . . .”

“Are you expecting something to go wrong?” Patton asks softly. He looks upset, Virgil realizes, like he was expecting pushback.

“Of course not, Pat,” Virgil says, reassuring. “I didn’t mean to say that I don’t trust your people. That’s not what I’m tryin’a say at all. I’m always nervous that something will go wrong. Anxiety, remember? It’s kind of my job to worry about stuff like this.”

“I know,” Patton sighs, reaching over and patting at Virgil’s shoulder. “I appreciate you, Vee. But you know you don’t have to be worried, right? These are my people. They may not be the temple I grew up in, but they’re still my people. They won’t hurt us.”

Virgil smiles, and wishes he believed Patton.

*~*~*~*~*

Even with a master earth bender (not that he’d ever call Logan one to his face) and the Avatar himself, it takes them a good while to get up the mountain. Virgil gets more and more anxious the farther up the mountain they get, and Roman looks pretty antsy himself. He’d ditched his more traditional Fire Nation clothing for some of Thomas’s spares and he’d let Virgil style his hair to obscure his face.

“How much farther?” he asks. Patton is bouncing eagerly on the tips of his toes.

“Not long now!”

When they finally crest over a ridge and into the temple, they’re greeted by a group of school-age children. They all stare at the strangers with expressions ranging from confusion to wariness to outright terror, and then Patton steps forward. He says something in a language Virgil doesn’t speak, but it must be some kind of Air Nomad greeting because all of the children parrot back in unison.

Patton pushes his bangs off his face, showing them the arrow tattooed on his forehead. “My friends and I have come to seek sanctuary,” he says. “We do not mean to cause alarm.”

“What temple are you from?” one of the children asks. The others cluster behind her.

“I am from the Eastern Air Temple,” Patton says. “My friends are not air benders, but we come seeking sanctuary.”

“You have to come with us,” she says. “You have to speak to the Head Monk about that.”

“Of course,” Patton says. “If you would be so kind as to lead the way?”

One of the children tugs on Patton’s flowy skirt. “Why do you have hair, mister? Is that a Eastern Air Temple thing?”

“It’s not an Eastern Air Temple thing, dummy,” the leader says. “All Air Nomads shave their heads. I dunno why he’s weird.” Patton doesn’t flinch at the insinuation, but it’s a very close thing.

“It’s because I have not been in a temple for quite a while, little one,” Patton says instead. “We’ve been traveling for many months, and I haven’t been able to take care of all this.”

“Well, we can cut all your hair off here, mister,” the leader says. “C’mon, the Head Monk is gonna be interested to see you.”

Virgil looks at Roman, who looks exactly as nervous as Virgil feels, and swallows. Logan looks normal, but he’s also pressing closer to Thomas than he normally does (probably unintentionally).

Yeah. Virgil has a bad feeling about this.

*~*~*~*~*

The children take them to a large hallway. A single woman sits inside, eyes closed, meditating. Virgil is about to suggest that they come back later, so as not to bother her, but she speaks without opening her eyes. “Hiroshi. Kanna. What are you doing here?”

The girl, apparently named Kanna, recites a greeting and performs a strange bow. The boy, who must be Hiroshi, copies her quickly; the rest of the children had scattered long before they reached this hall. “Visitors, Head Monk. We brought them to you.”

The woman opens her eyes, standing up and sweeping her robes around her. “I see. Thank you. You are now dismissed.”

“Yes, Head Monk,” the children say, bowing again before scuttling out of the hall. The woman approaches them slowly, letting the anxiety in Virgil’s stomach rise to a rolling boil.

“I am Kya, Head Monk of the Eastern Air Temple. We welcome you, visitors, seekers of sanctuary.” Her words are kind, but her voice disturbs Virgil. It’s too calm, too devoid of emotion. “What brings you here today?”

Patton reveals his tattoo to her as well before performing the same strange bow Kanna and Hiroshi had. “I am Patton, of the Western Air Temple. These are my friends, they -”

Thomas steps forward, brown eyes gleaming slightly. “Head Monk Kya, my name is Thomas, and I am -”

“The Avatar,” she breathes.

“I’ve been trying to teach him air bending,” Patton says, “but -”

“You could not. I am unsurprised. You have clearly fallen out of practice.” There’s something strange in her eyes, and Patton seems to wilt away from her. “Allowing your hair to grow over your tattoos? Shameful. It is any wonder you can connect with the element which breathes life into your body. I am disappointed.” Her voice is like frost, and Patton grows smaller with every piercing word.

“Hey, that’s not fair to Patton,” Virgil says, stepping in front of him. “We’ve undergone a lot of challenging circumstances, it’s not like shaving was a priority compared to staying alive.”

Kya turns her gaze on him, but Virgil doesn’t falter. He’s faced winters colder than her gaze.

“Who are you to tell an air bender what is proper?” she says. “Do you even bend?”

“I do not bend,” Virgil grits.

“Then you have no place speaking here.” Kya turns back to the Avatar. “I am surprised that one of your station would travel with those who are not in touch with the elements, but I suppose I cannot make your choices for you. If you wish to spend the night here, you may, and we will make arrangements for your training to begin in the morning.”

Virgil glances around the hall while Thomas and Kya speak, frowning when he catches sight of someone lurking behind a pillar. “Who’s that?” he says loudly. Kya frowns at him, but she turns to look at the figure.

“No one of your concern,” she says. “You are dismissed. Leave my presence.”

Thomas turns around and walks out. Roman presses close to Patton, who’s clearly trying very hard not to cry, and Logan turns his face in Kya’s direction. If he could see with his eyes, Virgil would suspect he was glaring at her.

As they reach the doors, Virgil lifts one hand up deceptively, as though he’s going to stretch or scratch his face. The knife hidden in his sleeve gleams against his inner wrist as he angles it to spy on what’s going on behind him.

The figure steps out from behind the pillar, dressed in the blazing crimson colors of the Fire Nation, and begins to speak in a low voice to Kya. She nods, face still impassive and stony. Virgil feels his heart drop straight through his stomach and tumble right off the mountain.

*~*~*~*~*

“Are you sure?” Roman asks, for the sixth time in as many minutes.

“I know what I saw!” Virgil snaps. “I travel with a Fire Nation prince, Roman, do you think I don’t know what fucking Fire Nation clothes look like?”

“Kya . . . she sold us out?” Patton says. He’s curled into a ball on one of the beds in the little tower room they’ve been allowed to inhabit. “I - I don’t -”

“Remus said that Father was trying to broker some kind of peace with the Air Nomads,” Roman says, “and this temple is closest to Fire Nation territory. What if . . . what if he wasn’t looking for peace at all?”

“You think he’s colluding with the Air Nomads?”

“We have no proof of that,” Logan says, running his hands along the stone wall. “I’ll tell you this, though. They locked the door behind us, and there’s two guards at the bottom of the stairs.”

“But we don’t have guards! We’re pacifists!”

“They do not read like Air Nomads to me,” Logan says. “They appear to be Fire Nation, judged on their stances and breathing patterns.”

Before anyone can say anything further, Thomas makes an aggressive “shhhhh!” and beckons them over to the window. The moon, newly full, is only a few days into its waning gibbous phase, and the courtyard below them is illuminated enough to see Kya and the Fire Nation man Virgil had seen earlier.

“Can you bend their words to us?” Thomas mouths at Patton. Even though he looks miserable, Patton nods, stepping forward lightly. Kya opens her mouth, and Patton begins to bend.

“Are you sure this is what the Fire Lord requires?” Kya says. “We do not wish to participate in this war, Ruon-Jian. We would ask that he leave us be, in peace.��

“The Fire Lord wishes nothing more than to accommodate the wishes of his most trusted neighbors and trading partners,” Ruon-Jian says. His voice is silky smooth and oily, and Virgil hates him immediately. “He of course understands your cultural traditions, and he had nothing but the utmost respect for you and your people. He admires that you share a goal with him, to protect your people and promote their interests and well-being.”

“However?” Kya says, tiredly.

“However,” Ruon-Jian says, “there have been rumors of a plot to overthrow our most gracious Fire Lord. Conspiracies against him, originating from his own people. The traitorous Prince Roman has, of course, been exiled, as has his betrothed, and the cursed Prince Remus has been sent on a fool’s errand with the disgraced General Emile, but you can never be too careful. You can understand why the Fire Lord might wish to keep tabs on those he suspects may be involved in such . . . foolishness.”

“What do you want from me, Ruon-Jian? What will it take for you to leave us?”

“The Fire Lord requires a sign, Head Monk Kya. A token of goodwill, as it were. In order to spare you and your people, he must know that you are not conspiring against him. You are currently harboring traitors to the crown, including the Fire Lord’s most reviled offspring and the Avatar. These are dangerous insurgents.”

“I can handle them.”

“We do not doubt your capacities, but the Fire Lord would hate to foist the responsibility of punishing and detaining his fugitives onto our most honored neighbors.”

“They are children, Ruon-Jian. How much damage can they possibly do?”

“Enough,” Ruon-Jian says, and his voice drops sharply. “Do not underestimate the Avatar. Do not underestimate the Fire Lord. The terms of the agreement stand before you, Head Monk Kya. Turn over the fugitives to me, and the Fire Lord will spare your temple. Otherwise, you will be engulfed in flames like your Southern brethren. We wouldn’t want that, would -”

Patton drops to the ground as though his legs have given out from under him, tears spilling down his face. “No,” he whispers. “No, they - he - they can’t have - they - the Southern Air Temple? They can’t have -”

“I am so sorry,” Roman says softly. “I know my father, and I know that guy down there. He’s the most ruthless of Father’s generals. He brags about things like that, he wouldn’t lie. He - he probably did, Patton.”

Patton bites back a sob. “They . . .”

“Kya is going to sell us out in order to protect this temple,” Virgil says. “We can’t stay here and get captured, but we can’t let the Fire Nation attack this temple, either. We need a plan.”

“What kind of plan?”

“We’re going to have to draw the Fire Nation away from the temple. If we escape, they won’t blame Kya, especially since there are Fire Nation soldiers guarding us, and they’ll have to give chase.”

“We’ll need a plan,” Logan says. Virgil grins, sharp and wolfish.

*~*~*~*~*

Predictably, things rapidly go downhill.

They make it out of the Temple, but they’re pursued so tightly by Fire Nation soldiers that they can’t immediately circle back to Remy for fear of getting him captured. Instead, they divert into the forest, splitting up to avoid detection.

Virgil ends up pulling Thomas along, gripping the Avatar’s wrist and tearing through the trees. He’s not accustomed to forests, but he’s travelled glaciers and snowdrifts before. Dangerous terrain is no stranger to him. Thomas stumbles along blindly, tripping every few steps, but Virgil just pushes forward.

They stop dead in their tracks when they hear someone scream. It’s high and frantic, and it sounds an awful lot like -

“Logan,” Thomas says. His voice rumbles deep in his chest like an earthquake, and his eyes begin to glow blue.

“No!” Virgil hisses, slapping Thomas to snap him out of the Avatar state. “Sorry, sorry - but you can’t do that, you can’t! You’ll draw attention, and you don’t have control of that state yet! You won’t be able to survive, you’ll get captured and we’ll never get you back!”

“That’s my brother,” Thomas says plaintively. “That’s Logan, I - I have to protect him, I -”

“I know, Thomas. But we have to protect you, too. Come on, come on, I -”

Virgil pulls Thomas after him, tearing through the forest. He stops a good distance away from his best estimate of Logan’s location and instead begins to pull Thomas after him into a tree. “You stay here.”

“Wh -”

Virgil slams his hand over Thomas’s mouth, pointing to the ground. There’s a heavy thudding noise, like booted feet, and Fire Nation soldiers rush past the tree. Once he’s sure they’re gone, Virgil uncovers Thomas’s mouth. “Stay here. If they catch you, it’s all over. I’m gonna go after Lo and the others.”

“And what if they capture you?” Thomas says.

“They killed my father, Thomas. They took the only family I had left. It’s taken me this long to build another one, I’m not going to let them take it away again.” He hugs Thomas tightly, quickly, before he can change his mind. Thomas is surprised, but he squeezes back just as tightly.

“Save them,” Thomas whispers, voice wavering. “Please, Virge.”

“I will. I promise.”

*~*~*~*~*

“There’s no need to be difficult, Roman.”

Roman stands, frozen, staring at a man he thought he left behind. Ruon-Jian has the clearing surrounded with his men; his tone is level and soothing, like he’s speaking to a frightened animal or a rambunctious child, like he’s presenting the only logical option. His face gives him away.

One of his goons stands behind him, holding Logan tightly. His massive arm is like a vice grip around Logan’s fragile torso, and he has a controlled flame-knife pointed at Logan’s throat. He’s holding Logan up so that he can’t touch the earth, and they managed to tie him up somehow. Without his bending, he looks like a blind, scared kid, struggling weakly. Patton is on his back on the ground, a spear point pressed against his throat, arms and legs bound with ropes.

“Come with us, and I promise I will be lenient towards your friends. Why you choose to travel with children is beyond me, quite honestly. Then again, most of your choices are . . . beyond me.”

“How did you find me?” Roman asks. He knows he should be fighting, knows he should be bending right now, but he can’t. The fire inside him has turned to ice as he stares at his captured friends.

“Your brother is not known for his subtlety, Roman. It was no secret that he was sending messages on your hawk. All I had to do was track it, and the stupid bird led me right to you.”

This is all Roman’s fault. He’s gotten his new friends captured, and he’s going to get his brother killed. “What did you do to Remus?”

“Nothing, yet. For all his lunacy, he’s popular with the crew. But once I bring you and your friend the Avatar back as proof of his treachery, I will have enough support to stage a mutiny. Your brother will die at sea in a tragic accident, and I will be the Fire Lord’s right-hand general.”

“Never,” Roman croaks, but it’s a weak protest and Ruon-Jian knows it.

“You are no threat to me, princeling. I will end you and your brother, and your father does not care enough to stop it.” Roman knows that it’s true. He knows he has to get them out of this situation before they all get killed, but there’s nothing he can do. He makes eye contact with Patton, trying to convey his apologies through his eyes alone.

Patton shakes his head, mouths It’s okay before the soldier holding a spear to his throat kicks him, and Roman hates himself just a little more. Ruon-Jian holds up a rope, and Roman starts to lift his hands to be tied up, and then -

Creak.

There’s a rustling noise around them, too pronounced to be normal forest noises, and Ruon-Jian frowns. “Did you capture the Avatar and the Water Tribe brat yet?”

Two soldiers stumble into the clearing, carrying a third between them. Both of the standing soldiers have a knife sticking out of them somewhere, and the sagging soldier looks barely conscious.

“What happened?” Ruon-Jian snaps.

“It - out of nowhere, the trees -” one of them pants.

“Before we knew what hit us, there were knives, and - and they attacked Shoji with some kinda weird punches and he couldn’t bend anymore! He collapsed, we’re lucky we got outta there alive!”

“There’s no such thing!” Ruon-Jian protests. “You can’t take away someone’s bending!”

There’s a sharp whistling noise, and one of the Fire Nation soldiers cries out in alarm. A slender blade sticks out of his arm, and his eyes roll up in his head as he collapses. “Poison?!” Ruon-Jian hisses. More sharp whistles, and four more Fire Nation soldiers fall. Ruon-Jian snarls and thrusts his fist forward, vaporizing the blade that hurtles towards him.

“Show yourself!” he roars. “Do not hide in the trees like a coward!”

“Who are you calling a coward?” a voice snarks back; familiar, but also lower than Roman is accustomed to. “After all, I’m not the one who felt the need to attack children in the woods. You have, what, a teenager and a pre-teen tied up like prisoners of war? Did you really think you couldn’t handle them? God, you’re pathetic.”

“Come down here and fight me like a man, then!” Ruon-Jian challenges.

“If I can defeat your minions so easily, what makes me think you’re any more of a challenge?” the voice taunts. “You’re not so bad.”

“Prove it!”

The trees all rustle at once. If Roman strains, he can faintly hear the lightest of footsteps and grunts as something leaps from tree to tree. Knives appear out of nowhere, and a soldier screams as one pierces clean through his hand. There’s a gleaming ribbon attached to the hilt, and it gets yanked back before anyone can process what’s happened.

“No match for me,” the voice lilts. “Too bad, so sad.”

Ruon-Jian screams and thrusts his arms out, creating a fireball that he hurls at the nearest tree. He keeps screaming as he burns all the trees surrounding the clearing, and Roman cowers down to avoid a serious burn.

“Where are you now, without your precious tree shelter to protect you?!” Ruon-Jian shrieks. “You’re nothing!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” the voice says. A shadow steps forward from the wreck of the forest, knife glinting in the moonlight as they hold it between two fingers.

Virgil steps into the clearing, and Roman gasps a little. He can’t help himself. Ruon-Jian stares at him, and then he laughs.

“Another child? Pathetic.”

“I’ve taken down too many soldiers for you to call me that,” Virgil says coolly. “Also, destroying the forest? Not cool, asshat. The spirits are gonna beat your ass.”

“Spirits?!” Ruon-Jian snarls. “What can a spirit do to me?”

“Count yourself lucky that you won’t find out tonight,” Virgil says, “because I’m dishing out justice on their behalf tonight.”

“Where is the Avatar?”

“Safe from people like you,” Virgil says. “I disabled your soldier’s bending, and you think I’m not the biggest threat in this clearing?”

“You are a child!”

“So are the benders you have tied like dogs,” Virgil says. He looks angrier than Roman has ever seen him. “Let them go, and let Roman go too. Don’t think I won’t fuck you up.”

“What can you possibly do to me?”

Virgil spins a cord rapidly, and the knife on the end gleams. “You sound scared. Fine by me. Send your minions to fight me if you’re so scared. I’ll take them down and then I’ll come for your pansy ass.”

Ruon-Jian snaps his fingers and three Fire Nation soldiers step in front of him. He retreats to the edge of the clearing with the soldiers holding Logan and Patton, and Roman steps back as well. Virgil’s eyes gleam as he steps forward.

Roman sees the cord wrapped tightly around Virgil’s wrist as he throws one of the knives. It sticks in the shoulder of a soldier, who cries out in pain. Another soldier throws a burst of fire at the cord while it’s still stretched out across the clearing, and Roman winces, sure that Virgil is about to lose a weapon.

Instead, he smirks, yanking the cord and pulling the knife free. “What, did you think that I was going to fight a crew of Fire Nation soldiers and not use my fireproof weapons? Morons.”

Roman quickly realizes that Virgil has far more of an upper hand than he thought. He has a knife-on-a-string in each hand, and he wields them with terrifying efficacy. He spins the knives and uses them to keep the soldiers a good distance from his body. They retaliate with fire, but Virgil just evades them almost effortlessly with an impressive display of gymnastics.

“Stop playing around and kill him!” Ruon-Jian shrieks, presumably to his own men. Virgil rolls his shoulders back and grins.

“Great idea, idiot. I should stop playing, shouldn’t I?”

His knives disappear into his clothes and he runs straight towards the nearest soldier. They shout in surprise, and Virgil shifts to a stance that’s strangely similar to earth bending. He narrows his eyes and tilts his head slightly to the left and lays out a series of jabs, one-two-three-four-five, quick and staccato like Roman’s terrified heartbeat. The soldier wheezes in shock and collapses to the ground in front of Virgil.

“Use your fire bending! Set him ablaze!”

“I - I can’t,” the soldier says, “My bending - something happened, I can’t - I - it’s gone!”

Virgil grins, cracks his knuckles, and bares his teeth.

“Who’s next, motherfuckers?”

*~*~*~*~*

It’s short work after that, disposing of the soldiers.

The leader, that slimy Ruon-Jian, gets away, but Virgil does manage to disarm the rest of his men. He does his best to only use non-lethal combat tactics, but when he gets to the men that had tied up and hurt Logan and Patton . . .

Well, it’s not his fault if a knife ends up in their exposed throats.

It’s short work to slice through Patton’s binds, and he hugs Virgil fiercely the second he’s free. “That was so scary,” Patton breathes. “I thought they were gonna kill us - I thought they were gonna kill you -”

“Am I forgiven for swearing?” Virgil teases. Something wet seeps into his shoulder.

“Yeah, Virge, you’re forgiven.”

Logan is practically mummified in ropes on the ground, but he hasn’t made a single move to free himself. He just lays there, catatonic, and for a moment Virgil worries he’s been injured. “Lo?” Logan flinches, tears spilling down his face. “Hey, buddy, it’s me. It’s Virgil. Can I cut you free?”

Logan nods. “T - Thomas?” he rasps.

“I hid him before I came,” Virgil says. “We’ll go back and get him, Lo, I promise. Let me get you out of these . . .”

Logan stands up once he’s been cut free, stumbling forward one, two, three steps before collapsing. Virgil catches him, quickly sweeping him up into his arms. “Whoa! Are your legs sore from the ropes?”

“Y . . . yes.”

“Okay. I gotcha. Come on, I got you, you’re safe. I’ll take you to Thomas, okay?”

Logan tucks his head into Virgil’s shoulder, breathing shakily. Virgil presses his face into Logan’s hair reassuringly and politely ignores the way his shirt becomes damp.

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas throws himself out of the tree the minute he hears Virgil call to him. “Where’s my brother?! Logan, what happened?!”

Logan has been still and silent since Virgil cut him free, but now he shifts and reaches for Thomas, hands opening and closing rapidly in a childish gesture he would normally never use. Thomas pulls him into a tight hug, and Logan’s breath hitches as he sobs into Thomas’s neck. Patton presses his face against Thomas’s shoulder, and Virgil smiles.

“I’m sorry,” Roman murmurs. Virgil turns, confused.

“What? Why?”

“I froze. If I’d fought back, if I’d done - something, maybe - maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Ruon-Jian was right. I am a coward. I couldn’t stand up to my father for Dee and Remus, I couldn’t stand up to Ruon-Jian to save Logan and Patton, I . . .”

“You are not a coward,” Virgil says firmly. “You’re a victim of shitty circumstances and a shitty upbringing. Doesn’t make you any less of a person. It’s not your fault you were conditioned into this.”

“That would have been me,” Roman says. “If Father hadn’t threatened Remus and Dee . . . It would have been me.”

“But it wasn’t,” Virgil says. “And I refuse to believe that you would have stepped onto a battlefield full of innocents and decided to kill them. You’ve got a conscience, Princey, and you’ve got a good heart. You’ll be okay.”

Roman smiles, just a little, and touches Virgil’s shoulder. “Thanks, Vee.”

“No problem, Roman. What are friends for?”

“Are you finally admitting we’re friends?” Roman probably meant to be teasing, but his voice quivers. Virgil smiles softly, leaning forward and bumping his head against Roman’s cheek.

“Yeah, Ro. We’re friends.”

*~*~*~*~*

They make it back to Remy, waiting in his cave with Dragon. Roman writes a quick letter filling Remus and Dolos in on what happened, telling them not to reply and begging them to take care of Dragon, before sending the hawk off. Patton climbs onto Remy’s head, and they fly away.

Logan is huddled up against Thomas’s side, face blank. “Lo,” Thomas coos, “are you okay?”

Logan doesn’t speak, tucking himself more closely against Thomas. “Go to sleep, okay? I’ll keep you safe.” Eventually, Logan’s eyes slide shut, and Thomas exhales heavily.

“Has he ever done that before?”

“Once. After we escaped our home village, when it was on fire. He just . . . shut down. He’s never been good at dealing with emotions, so he doesn’t deal with them at all.”

“Not healthy,” Patton says from Remy’s head.

“You’re telling me. But I can’t force him to talk about his feelings. He deserves to work through things at his own pace.”

“I can respect that,” Virgil interjects, “but that kinda implies that he’s dealing with his feelings, doesn’t it?”

Thomas pulls Logan into his lap and shifts so his brother is cuddled against his chest. Logan exhales softly, mouth open in a little “O” as he breathes. He’s never looked younger than he does right now, except for maybe when he’d been tied up by Fire Nation soldiers.

“I have to take care of him. It’s my job. He’s the only family I have left.”

“The only blood you have left,” Virgil says. “Don’t think for a second that he’s your only family.”

“Who else do we have?” Thomas whispers.

“Me, obviously. And Ro, and Pat. You have us now.”

“He’s tellin’ th’tr’th,” Logan mumbles sleepily. “Don’eed bendin’ f’r that.” Thomas smiles at Virgil, watery and honest, and Virgil smiles back. It might be ragtag, but it’s his family, and anyone who threatens it has him to answer to.

#starshinewrites #avatar!au #thomas sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders

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aflyingcontradiction · 3 years ago

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The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 129 - Submerged

The faces I knew and recognized gradually being outnumbered by young, trendy white people in artfully shabby clothes, who thought they were blending in… - Statement of Kulbir Shakya

Dumping on gentrifying hipsters isn't exactly WITTY but I still kinda snorted at this line. And the one about microbreweries.

I couldn’t afford a storage unit, so much of what I owned, a lot of which had once belonged to my grandfather, had to be thrown away. We actually got into a blazing row over his old khukuri.

I'm not entirely sure why that would cause a blazing row. I mean. It's a knife. It's a LARGE knife but still, there's only so much space it takes up and it's a family heirloom so surely Kulbir's sister could find a nook in the house to store it.

When would you start to worry about the rain? I don’t mean about it ruining your day or wrecking an event you’re planning, but at what point does it stop being normal and start to alarm you?

Given the massive flooding that recently happened in Germany (not where I live, fortunately, but some people I know got to see it first-hand), this is actually literally a question I've been asking myself rather a lot in the past weeks. At what point do you go from "Shite weather" to "RUN FOR THE HILLS!"

I was left with pretty much two options: sit doing nothing and listen to the rain, or head out into it. I opened the door for about three seconds before I decided that sitting and waiting was the better choice.

To be honest, I think the most "Oh god, that would be mind-breaking" part of this statement is that, not only is he being buried by rain, but also he literally just has to sit there, experiencing all the terror and boredom (and the terror of boredom!) without anything to keep his mind off it.

No more than I wanted to see how Gertrude stopped the Buried, and their ritual, but that came to me as well. They called it “the Sunken Sky,” and she calculated, correctly, that casting a Void-touched body down the pit at the right time would be enough to disrupt it. Something she found, in Jan Kilbride. But Gertrude also realized that the body need not be alive. Or in one piece. She thought it was a mercy. It wasn’t. - Jon

On this relisten I may have realised that I find Gertrude more terrifying than even the recurring avatars...

I need an anchor. I – I could go in myself – I could find her, and – then I’d just need to get out. - Jon

So ... anchors: When I first listened to the statement I thought that the knife worked as an anchor because of the family connection, but there's really no particular reason why the Buried should be defeated by ... well ... love, alone? I mean, the Lonely, yeah, but why the Buried? But listening to this again, I wonder if perhaps that knife has not been marked by the Slaughter. It's not a full-on artefact, for sure, because otherwise it would've wreaked some havoc on its own, but if it's Slaughter-adjacent enough then it might have an effect against other powers. We've seen powers successfully fighting each other, after all. Maybe that's why it worked.

My impression of this episode

This episode starts out strong with the Martin-Jon conversation, which is very character-driven but also contains some hints to future plot. The statement is eerie and interesting. I think the most memorable thing about it for me was that I just never considered the Buried arriving in the guise of WATER, even though it makes perfect sense. I'd always just associated water with the Vast. Drowning in an endless ocean. But water exerts so much pressure...

#tma relisten #the magnus archives

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plasticnightmaredoll · 4 years ago

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The full-length trailer for "Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part 2" DLC has been released and

AHHDBGHGAHGFFF!!!!!!

😍😍😍🤩🤩🤩😲😲😲😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺😁😁😁

id Software, why are you giving the fans what they want?!

Why does this look SO DAMN GOOD? 😫😫😫😫

I don't know if anything should be this epic?

But "The Ancient Gods Part 2" looks like iconic af already.

And with that, I have some thoughts!

My experience with "The Ancient Gods" and Doom's reboot game series

While I have played "Doom Eternal" and "Doom" 2016 a few times each, I haven't played "The Ancient Gods Part 1" yet. I do know some of the key plot points, though, namely the Dark Lord regaining his body so the Doom Slayer can kill him once and for all. I just haven't had the time, energy, or patience to play the DLC, mostly because my current job is kicking my ass, I'm super stressed, and I feel like I'm rushed on my days off. I don't have much time after work to do anything save for exercise (on a couple days), showering, and eating. It's not prime time for gaming. At all.

Also, I have been kind of hooked on survival horror games as that is technically my favorite genre of games.

I'll play "The Ancient Gods," both parts, at some point in the near future, but not sure exactly when.

The end?

Something I noticed in the trailer is it seems to indicate that "The Ancient Gods" is the conclusion to the Doom reboot story.

But that can't be right, can it? As far as I know, the Doom reboot games have done very well, and, also as far as I know, id Software hasn't pissed off a good chunk of their fanbase by doing dumb shit (like NRS and MK11)

I'm guessing this isn't truly the end. I mean, at the end of "Doom Eternal," it was said that the Doom Slayer's fight is well....eternal. And can you really destroy hell? Banish it for good? I have my doubts 🤔

They could do spin-offs, too, I suppose, since they have created a Doom Universe for the first time ever. It's a thought 🤷‍♀️

And, uh, id Software may respect their fans and their creation, but they in business to make money, and if Doom is bringing in the cash then the logical thing to do is...make more Doom. 💲💲💲💲

The Dark Lord is here!

Why the hell is this bitch hiding inside a robotic armored suit???

Get the fuck out of there and fight me like a (demon) man!

But seriously, this is the Dark Lord of Hell, so why is he not fighting the Slayer one on one WITHOUT the robotic armored suit????

HE SCARED OF THE SLAYER?

HE WEENIE?

I can't say I'm very intimidated by the guy....not after seeing this. Doesn't mean I think the game is going to be bad. I think it's hilarious that the Dark Lord is appearing in battle like this.

Lord of the Rings?!

I can't be the only one who thought of "Lord of the Rings" here.

Asgard?

This reminds me of the Bifrost Bridge and Asgard in general. I mean, it's a place that seems to be floating somewhere with waterfalls running over the edge into the air below.

I am MCU Trash and ...

The final battle for "The Ancient Gods Part 2" reminds me of the final battle in "Avengers: Endgame."

I MEAN, AM I WRONG?

Now, I know what some might be thinking:

"But this is so derivative! id Software just copied 'Endgame's' epic battle instead of making up their own 😑"

Well, here's how I see it:

Marvel hasn't placed a copyright/trademark on "Endgame's" final battle, so if anyone wants to style a fight/battle based on it, it's not illegal.

People copy each other's works all the time. Well, it's not like people copy stuff ALL the time. Sometimes, a creative idea references a previous creative idea. Writings inspired by other writings, art inspired by other art, movies inspired by other movies, songs inspired by other songs...So, this is nothing new.

If id Software wanted to have an epic final battle against the forces of Hell, it makes sense that, instead of making the Doom Slayer do EVERYTHING, there would be forces coming to fight alongside him. I'm sure plenty of beings have beef with Hell, and when someone stands up to fight against it, then it would be time to rally the troops to join the guy and kick some goddamn ass. I can't think of any vastly different ways to style/choreograph this fight. I mean, yeah, id Software could have been a little less obvious with their references/inspiration, but, I don't think it's a big deal.

If you're going to make a fictional epic battle modeled after another fictional epic battle, then "Avengers: Endgame's" final battle IS that battle.

I know some people see the MCU as trash, but I strongly disagree. I have enjoyed the vast majority of it so far, and am excited to see more.

Some people think "Endgame" is overrated and doesn't deserve to be in the top 5 highest-grossing films. Well, that's just your opinion, Guys, and I disagree with you. 🤷‍♀️ It's a 3-hour movie that feels more like 2-2.5 hours, which is an accomplishment in and of itself! I have seen movies 2 hours long that felt 10 hours long -- and not in a good way. I have seen movies 3 hours long that felt like 3 fucking hours. So, I think "Endgame" deserves some credit here.

Some think "Avatar" and "Titanic" are more worthy, especially since they have won various awards, including Oscars, and "Endgame" didn't win much. Ok, so, the Oscars are fucking bullshit anymore, just political garbage and barely anything to do with quality or talent. Winning awards doesn't always mean the world, either. "Avatar" and "Titanic" are both HIGHLY overrated in my opinion. Amazing visual effects, terrible stories. I won't go into detail because y'all wouldn't like my thoughts anyway.

"The Ancient Gods Part 2" has a fucking amazing final battle and I don't care what anyone says! It's DOOM all the way to the max! I mean, we're taking part in a massive assault on Hell for the first time in the Doom franchise. How is that NOT awesome?

The release date is what?!

As far as I know, id Software didn't advertise the release date for "The Ancient Gods Part 2" until the official full-length trailer was released on March 17th.

And we find out in said trailer that this DLC is coming out TOMORROW.

MARCH 18th.

WHAT OMG AJJHSAHAahgAHFAF?! 😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲

How....is id Software allowed to be this fucking LEGENDARY?

Final Thoughts

I really hope this isn't the end for the Doom reboot series. I mean, they took the time to build a little universe in Doom Eternal, so it seems like a real shame to end the story now.

I can't get over the final battle between Hell and... The Forces of Good? Not sure what else to call them. But it's pretty much what I would expect of such a thing in a Doom game. It's grand, epic, cinematic, awesome, incredible, insane, brutal, chaotic, and pure carnage.

I seriously wonder how "The Ancient Gods Part 2" will end.....will there be a teaser/hint at future installments?

#doom #doom eternal #id software #bethesda #the ancient gods #doom 2016 #doom slayer #doom marine #the ancient gods part 2 #doom dlc #fps games #first person shooters

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gloves94 · 5 years ago

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Sunburn [Prince Zuko] 4

Warnings: None Rating: PG-13 Pairings: Zuko/OC Summary: “You have everything you’ve ever wanted.” “No.” He said softly. “Not everything…” His golden eyes looked at her with a melting intensity she had never witnessed before. “I guess not.” She responded with glassy eyes as tears welled up threatening to break the dam of her eyes.

My fanfiction: M A S T E R L I S T

'Dear Mom and Dad,' Her letter began.

'I truly wish there had been a moment to say goodbye, but alas, it is not a goodbye, but a see you later. I was persuaded by the spirit of adventure to embark on this journey with General Iroh and Prince Zuko. I promise you I will be home before you know it. I'll even send gifts home!

I hope you do not miss me as much as I do. What I meant to say is, I miss you already, terribly. Be strong.

Sending my love,

Your daughter Tsai.'

The girl sighed as she lowered her ink brush and sighed waiting for the scroll to dry. Little did she know that her mother would faint upon reading her message. Her father would have to lay down and have some wine brought to his chambers, and Mecha would be the proudest brother in the Fire Nation.

Xxx

Iroh had been delighted at Tsai's change of heart. He had embraced her like the daughter he never had and welcomed her aboard the ship with more than open arms. The entire cabin and crew had been instructed that she was here as an honored royal guest and because of that should be esteemed and treated as such. Prince Zuko on the other hand fumed at the sight of a woman on his ship- not only a woman, but this one in particular. He didn't know what it was about her that irritated him so much. He didn't know if it was her hair color, or the fact that she was now burdening him with her presence. As far as he knew she wasn't even a bender. She would only get in the way. But what bothered him the most-

He glared at his Uncle from across the deck of the ship. He had never looked happier on board. He sat on a small table with the girl. Both of them sipping tea and enjoying a heated game of Pai Sho. The prince seethed. He had watched his uncle play that stupid game hundreds of times and judging from the looks this one was probably the funniest most hilarious game he had ever played. He gritted his teeth.

"You're distracting my Uncle!" Zuko growled as he approached them. Both of his fists were clenched at his sides as he glowered at the girl. "Uncle, come watch me train!" He demanded like the spoiled prince he was.

"You're Uncle doesn't want to watch you practice ballet Zuko," she stuck her tongue out with an irked expression. What was it about her that just got under his skin? "You will address me as Your Highness or by my Royal title! Let me remind you that you are his guest. Not mine."

"If you insist, Your Highness." She said sarcastically. "Prince of being a pain in my ass," she grumbled under her breath. "What did you say?!" He shot back.

"There is a storm coming," Iroh suddenly interrupted inhaling a deep breath of air from the ocean. Tsai still wasn't used to the scent of the ocean surrounding them. It felt strange to be away from home for the first time. Specially one a ship in the middle of the vast ocean.

"A big one."

"You're out of your mind, Uncle," Zuko commented dryly. "The weather is perfect. Not a single cloud in sight," he raised his head looking at the endless blue sky above them. "Storm is approaching from the North," Iroh said firmly as he turned to look at his hard headed nephew. "I suggest we alter out course and head southwest."

"We know the Avatar is traveling northward," the other retorted pointing north. "So we'll do the same."

Tsai didn't know anything about navigation, or about climate conditions for a matter of fact. She had always been more a fan of tea, flora and fauna. Right now, the only thing she knew was that her purpose of being on board was persuade the prince that seeing the citizens of the Earth Kingdom as equals would be pivotal for the future of the Fire Nation empire.

"Such a lovely day," She said gazing at the sunny skies above. "You should listen to your Uncle. I'm sure with his experience as General he knows a thing or two about these types of circumstances," she said sipping her cup wisely not bothering to spare him a glance.

"Stay out of this! The only reason you're even here is for entertainment purposes," he spat harshly ignoring the unamused expression on her face. "What does it say about you when your Uncle would rather spend his afternoon with a perfect stranger than with his own nephew!" She challenged rising to her feet. "Please!" Iroh said loudly making both hot-headed teenagers turn to him.

'Perhaps this had not been the best of ideas...'

"Price Zuko, consider the safety of the crew, of our royal guest," he signaled to the red-head standing next to him. "The safety of the crew doesn't matter!" He snapped angrily. "Neither does hers. She should've known what she was getting into before deciding to stowaway on my ship!"

'Why you-' She wanted to strangle him. Just as Zuko said that a Lieutenant walked on the deck and raised an eyebrow at the prince with a frown on his features.

Zuko's expression hardened. "Finding the Avatar is more important than any individual's safety," he said before stalking off and slamming the door to the command tower behind him.

"He doesn't mean that," Iroh stated in an attempt to soothe the anger of Tsai and every other crew member that had heard him. She shook her head at Iroh's attempt to once again redeem his nephew. His words had not just been mean, they had been cruel. Tsai figured that maybe he really was just as cruel as she had heard his father.

Sometime later the ship's crew was gathered at the deck as they together observed a massive dark cloud that loomed over the horizon and was rapidly approaching. It was then that Zuko returned, the girl could sense the anger almost radiating off him.

"Huh, what do you know," she commented innocently. "Looks like Uncle Iroh was right about the storm after all," she crossed her arms over her chest and taunted the banished prince with a smirk on her face. "Lucky guess," Iroh responded in a pleasant tone.

"Listen here you colonial pest!" Zuko barked as he marked towards the girl. Her eyes shot wide at the insult. "You'd better learn some respect if you're going to be aboard my ship!" She looked at him smugly. Not breaking eye contact she rose to her feet and stood as tall as possible, she raised her neck as tall as possible in her best attempt to appear intimidating. "Oh, yeah?"

"Or I'll teach it you," he threatened before jabbing her chest hard. Her eyes were angry but the sneer on her lips was almost one of humor. Instinctively she reached for her arm ready to-

"You can't go around talking to your girlfriend like that!" One of the crew members shouted. "That's fucked up," one murmured under his breath.

"She's not my girlfriend!" "He wishes!"

Both retorted bitterly at the same time.

Iroh sighed and rubbed his temples. Nobody seemed to be noticing the way he was making silencing motions with his hands.

"What do you know about respect?" The Lieutenant demanded harshly. "The way you talk to everyone around, from your hard-working crew to your girlfriend and your esteemed uncle. It shows you know nothing about respect!"

"I'm not his-" She sighed and shook her head. "Never mind," she mumbled defeated.

This argument was pointless. It was obvious that Zuko didn't care about anybody but himself. Then again, what else was to be expected from a spoiled bratty prince. Beyond annoyed, Tsai decided to find something to do in the ship. She spent some time in the Commander's towers simply looking around. There were many maps and other important documents and placements on the walls which were pinned with Avatar sightings as well as his hot trail on a map of the world.

'Wow..', she let out a low whistle. It seemed like the prince had been searching for a while. He really was obsessed. She couldn't help but wonder just what they would do with the Avatar once they captured him. If they made off with him, he would just be reborn into his next life cycle. So would they just keep him around? Weaponize him for the benefit of the fire nation? It was a smart plan.

Some of the crew returned after a moment and growing bored she made a pit stop in the kitchen. The kitchen was unbearably hot and crowded which made her feel claustrophobic. She had never been allowed in the royal palace's back in You Dao. She took her time to find a snack and found some cherries to snack on. She stopped for a moment to listen to the booming thunder which signaled the arrival of the storm. Taking a bowl full of cherries she made her way back to her room, and figured she would attempting to read away the coming storm or maybe even nap.

She opened the door to her room mindlessly.

Her room was dimly lit with candles and in the center sat the prince in a meditating pose. Having been disturbed he snapped his eyes opened and scowled at her.

"What is your problem?!" She shouted angrily throwing the cherries at him.

She hated it when people were in her room, specially men. This was a complete invasion of privacy! What was so hard about just staying out? She knew she had this problem back at home with Mecha, but with him?

The fire behind him grew until it licked the ceiling.

"Come for your lesson, have you?" He rose to his feel, stomping on a discarded cherry as he approached her. Regardless, standing tall with her back erect Tsai stood her ground. She looked at his illuminated palm in which flames of fire only grew hotter. Her hand twitched slightly, ready to attack if provoked. He came close, very, close, much to close for comfort and stood inches away from her. The only sound in the room was the slight shaking of the ship and the angry rapping of the storm outside. It was then that he raised his hand and she involuntarily flinched away losing her proud ground, giving a step back her body meeting the metal wall behind. She expected to see a smug expression on his face, but instead there was hurting in his eyes. The bowl with fruit slipped from her fingers and crashed against the floor shattering.

"W-Were you going to hurt me?" She asked in a small voice.

He looked at her, like really looked at her. She had attempted to stand up to him, yet he could see the fear in her eyes. He felt horrible. He had just been meditating about that fateful day- the days before he was branded as the "Banished Prince", before his monstrous father had done the unthinkable to him and to think he was capable of such cruelty. His blood ran cold at the realization that the apple did not fall far from the tree.

He was silent. The flames in the room dyed as he lowered his head with shame and stepped away from her.

"Were you?" She repeated louder, her voice harsher.

"No," he responded quietly taking a seat on her bed. He sat in the dim darkness and lowered his head. Tsai had a feeling that Zuko wasn't the kind of person to apologize, yet he looked disturbed, his shoulder's bearing a loaded weight of regret.

Cautiously, as if dealing with an injured animal she moved in careful steps towards him. Stepping on some of the fruits that were in the ground, careful not to directly step on any shards from the broken bowl.

"Hey," She said in a soft tone as she sat next to him. He still hadn't looked up, yet could feel her weight sinking the mattress next to him. "Are-Are you O.K?" She placed a careful hand on his shoulder just like she would've done with her brother. He stiffened at the gesture. Taking note that she should avoid all physical contact with him she retreated. He remained mute. Feeling the air growing heavy with awkwardness around them she decided to be the one to break the ice.

"You know- I know you're going to find him," she began. "Nobody had even seen the Avatar in the past one hundred years until you came along. That's got to count for something right? Although I do think you might need some serious counseling aid with your obsession. Your rage too. And the way you treat others, specially your Uncle."

"You don't understand," he muttered sharply under his breath. "My honor depends on it," he finally turned to face her, a hard look on his eyes.

"A virtuous man is content with himself without doubt or lacking of self: be it honor, courage or strength." She said wisely.

"You sound like Uncle," He scoffed lightly. "I sound like my grandfather," she exhaled a long breath before laying back on the mattress. "Now, I'd really appreciate it if you could leave my room."

"Your room? This is mine."

Confused she slowly sat up. The room had been so dark she hadn't even seen the massive Fire Nation banner on the wall, or the dual twin swords hung on the other wall. "Oh," was all she could manage. She looked at the mess she had made, the smashed fruits on the floor, the broken bowl. She felt a little smaller having been consumed by her embarrassment at the realization that she had been the one intruding.

"I'll be on my way then," she peeped.

They both stood up and the loud sound of thunder suddenly resounded as the ship was struck. A sudden wave violently rocked the ship violently. The fire in the room died. What if the ship flipped?

"Holy catgators! We're going to die!" She panicked not realizing she had reached for his arm despite her mental note of not touching the prince. "I'm going to see what happened," he said walking away, shrugging her grip off. "Stay here," he ordered. "No way! I don't want to drown!"

Both rushed to the deck where the rest of the crew as well was Iroh stood. "Where were we hit?" The prince demanded. The ship rocked dangerously and water seemed to be coming from everywhere. Tsai kept her hands raised above her eyes to keep her sight clear from the prickling rain.

"I don't know!" The Lieutenant cried out as he attempted to keep his balance. "Look!" Tsai suddenly pointed out at the sight of dark cloud of smoke rising from the top of the command tower. "The helmsman!" Zuko shouted when he realized the man was hanging precariously by one hand from the ruined observation deck. Without any hesitation Zuko rushed towards the service ladder and began rapidly climbing, his Lieutenant tailing behind him. It was then that the helmsman dropped. Tsai brought a horrified hand to her face her mouth gaping as the man fell to his death. It was then that somehow Zuko managed to catch the man's wrist mid air saving the man's life.

"Tsai! Watch out!" The girl was pushed to the deck's ground before she could react. She turned to see Iroh standing where she had been and a bolt of lightning struck him. Her eyes widened as it hit him and redirected it to the ocean. His shoulders, hair and hands smoking. She starred in shock having never seen anything like it. "I am....fine," he practically squeaked. The ship was once again rocked violently.

The lieutenant and helmsman were not on deck. Tsai approached Iroh and helped him regain his composure.

"The Avatar!" Zuko suddenly shouted in surprise.

Tsai turned to see the most unbelievable things. A flying bison soaring through the storm. "B-But I thought all flying bisons were extinct." She said more to herself.

"What do you want to do, sir?" The Lieutenant asked with his back straight as he awaited for the prince's command. He hesitated for a moment. "Let him go. We need to get this ship to safety." "Then we must head directly into the eye of the storm," Iroh stated sagely.

Sometime later light shyly peeked in through gaps in the clouds as they reached the eye of the hurricane.

"So what did you think of your first day abroad Tsai?" Iroh asked as they both stood by the decks' railing gazing off into the now peaceful ocean. Light drizzling drain continued to pepper their at their skin. "It's certainly more exciting than anything that's happening back home," she grinned. Today had been scary, it had been a emotional rollercoaster, yet she was happy to be here. To have struggled through the day. Her mind had been taken off her grandfather's passing and she couldn't help but wonder what chaotic anecdote they would encounter tomorrow.

"I still can't believe you redirected that thunderbolt! And then we saw a flying bison! I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!" "Patience my dear, patience," Iroh laughed whole heartedly. "We should focus on what we are having for dinner tonight. All of this commotion has made me realized how hungry I am."

Zuko once again found himself glaring at his Uncle Iroh and the girl.

"Uncle," he interrupted. Approaching the two of them quietly. Both turned to look at him. "I'm sorry," he genuinely apologized and slightly bowed his head. Iroh smiled faintly and placed a hand on his nephew's shoulder, "Your apology is accepted," he smiled. "Now I'm going to go get tonight's tea ready," he smiled at the two teenagers before leaving.

Zuko didn't leave, instead his gaze shifted to the calm ocean before him. She drank up his presence.

Perhaps Iroh was right and his nephew did possess some redeeming qualities. She hadn't even realized she had been genuinely smiling at him.

"What are you looking so smug about," He barked avoiding her gaze. Tsai wouldn't have bet on it but she could've sworn she noted the slightest of blushes dust his face.

Maybe, just maybe he wasn't all that bad.

xxx

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CHAPTER MASTERLIST

#zuko #prince Zuko x oc #prince zuko #prince Zuko fanfic #atla fanfic #atla #avatar #avatar fanfic #aang #katara #sokka #fanfic #wattbad #reader insert #x reader

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