#the air nation

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[queen-morgana91]

Avatar the Last Airbender beautifully told the story of how imperialists lie and have to be called on it and yet somehow certain people missed that message and turned into fire nation apologists

[junotter]

Part 2 of my modern avatar au, The Gaang (part 1)

[demaparbat-hp]

Golden Boy (and Silver Girl) for the Kintsugi AU.

[avatarrdd]

Can we appreciate comics Mai😌

[mal3vol3nt]

saying the information we got on the fire nation and air nomads from any of the chronicles of the avatar novels is “the result of out of touch white guys” is so fucking funny considering both of the authors we’ve had are poc….. like ribay is filipino and a lot of filipino characteristics/themes/and culture was written into the reckoning of roku…. including the way the fire nation was represented coming from a filipino’s perspective

can yall be for real?? 😭 just cause you’re mad your favs and their nation are canonical colonizers doesn’t mean you get to call everything that doesn’t make them look good racist or out-of-touch. the call might be coming from inside the house

[hinamie]

Yuuji: Bye, im going to the fire nation!

Sukuna: Not dressed like you aren't.

Proceeds to give Yuuji a boob window in his clothes

ngl anon i took this bit way too seriously n got carried away thinking abt what yuuji's fire nation alternate fit would look like ,, then after figuring it out I thought well now I /have/ to draw air as well ....

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[multifandom--mess]

fromage will graham is so babygirl princess i need him so bad

[brighteuphony]

I love Chiyo- and I kind of headcanon her as a Witch of the Woods (Sands???) archetype- a bitter old woman who has sacrificed too much, experienced and committed more atrocities than anyone can imagine, and who knows the truth about what lies in the hearts of men to live among the villages anymore.

In my AU she's got a pretty dark backstory. Back in time when Villages were just getting established, women weren't allowed to be shinobi in the same capacity as men. There was too much warring and death among the clans to risk women, so they were only ever allowed to serve as spies or medics. (Chiyo started off as a medic).

And like any military/fascist dictatorship, serving the state was more important than anything else- so women who were kunoichi were given missions to steal and return with powerful bloodlines. Even before villages, this was a common fear among clans (which is why so many of them have protective measures and inbreed/arrange matches very carefully).

Chiyo was one such woman, who took a X-rated mission in her youth because she was told it would 'serve her nation'. There was a powerful bloodline whose Kekkei Genkai could harden sand to something akin to Steel- something Suna very desperately wanted.

Chiyo succeeded in her mission, but despite the veneer of 'serving your nation', when she returned, she was considered, in her words, "Just another whore."

Then when her son didn't manifest the bloodline- it was worse, but Chiyo was happy because that meant her son was HERS. (This is when she met Enji, and he saved her son's life at great cost- so Chiyo owes him a blood/life debt.)

Then the war came, and they needed women to fight so now serving the nation meant something different, and Chiyo became a full fledged 'shinobi' and turned her healing towards poison and death- especially when she had to fight the Salamander.

Then she sealed Gaara and that was the atrocity straw that broke the camel's back and she dipped out Suna and retired to an oasis. She's still a healer, but adamantly refuses to serve shinobi.

Once again, thank you so much for these asks and all the support for this AU?

@youngpeacearbiter

[atlaculture]

Cultural Practices: Pai Sho - The Game

I'm honestly a little embarrassed it took me this long to get to this topic! As always, credit goes to @atla-lore-archive for saving all the neat ATLA tidbits and concept art from the old Nick website.

Pai Sho (牌數), meaning "several game pieces" in Chinese, takes inspiration from a few different table games:

Its most obvious influence is the German game Sternhalma, known in the English-speaking world as Chinese Checkers. Like Chinese Checkers, the game is played on a circular board.

The lines on the board and the circular tiles are reminiscent of Xiàng​qí (象棋), known in the English-speaking world as Chinese Chess. The pieces often being positioned on the intersection of lines is also very similar to Chinese Chess.

The game's four player limit and visually creative tiles are reminiscent of Mahjong (麻将), China's most famous tile game. In particular, the iconic white lotus tile appears to draw heavily from the classic Mahjong one-dot tile.

Finally, the name Pai Sho was likely inspired by Pai Gow (牌九), meaning "nine game pieces" in Cantonese--- which is both a domino game and a style of poker.

Just like ATLA's animals, it seems that Pai Sho is a fusion of different real life sources. In the next posts, I'll be covering the symbolism and cultural significance behind each Pai Sho tile shown in ATLA.

Like what I’m doing? Tips always appreciated, never expected. ^_^

https://ko-fi.com/atlaculture

[lululeighsworld]

it was literally their moment and they just let us watch

(if you need me i'll be marinating in this for the foreseeable future)

[queen-morgana91]

i find something so fascinating about a character remaining so gentle, empathetic and true to himself after going through so much.

Not because he's a monk, but because he knows and understands how destructive pain, vengeance, pure anger and hatred could be

Aang is one of the strongest characters in the series. I would say the strongest actually

[sillybillylulu]

Part 2 of all my atla screenshot redraws

Part 1 here

[goldthorn-archive]

Demons by The National / gif 1 by @appletvdaily / gifs 2-4 by @basilone

[zwoftt]

WEEKLY DORYM MOMOS N OTHER STUFF!!! (in no particular order)))

the chemistry between bells hells and the mighty nein is just so good. i had an absolute blast watching

the settle nod orym gives when jester says dorian is “really handsome” when shaking dorian’s hand

”mr. dorian” cad says when calling over to dorian, who looks a little startled at the professional nickname

dorian nodding in agreement to orym’s plan, as he normally does.

the way dorian tries to show off his abs next to beau after orym asks her what her routine is. the laughter afterwards when he gets embarrassed!!!!

jester winning over braius and getting more backstory than anyone else. so golden.

the jealousy of dorian when he sees how many people are in relationships and [not him] because he’s being a scaredy cat

caleb knocking sense into orym. CALEB KNOCKING SENSE INTO ORYM!!!

anybody else think dorian was trying to set up braius and veth really hard just to get him off of orym??

no thoughts just dorian and yasha bonding over music

the nervous glances robbie and liam share when they’re thinking about what to do with their characters …. especially after robbie tried to knock on orym’s door earlier in the episode but it was drowned out by shenanigans

the frantic inspiration dorian gives to braius when he’s painting orym

everyone getting so silent and so excited when dorian knocks on orym’s door. so is liam! his eyes light up immediately!

the whole confession scene was just so, so, so good. so beautifully well done. it made sense for both characters, and honestly so satisfying to see the moment happen after three years of consecutive pining/yearning. dorian giving orym the chance to make his own choices, and orym curling up in dorian’s embrace immediately just to be there,,, “not wanting to spoil the moment”. some of my favorite lines though, “let me comfort you for once,” from dorian; unaware that he WAS[is] in fact orym’s form of comfort but also implying that dorian finds immense comfort in orym, and orym’s “this is okay.” accepting the fact he is in love with dorian, finally, and truly. INTERLOCKING THEIR FINGERS. sound familiar??? something he couldn’t do with will in the vision???? but he instead does it now with dorian????? uuuuuhghhhhghhhhhh …. dorian fantasizing about them before falling asleep to the sound of orym’s breathing,,, orym staying awake longer to once again watch dorian sleep before passing out too.

also the fact the confession scene wasn’t too dramatic but still surprising and amazingly done just makes that feel so much more REAL. like how REAL LIFE confessions would be with highly traumatized people. not even mad they didn’t kiss yet because boy… just—- ugjjjjhh it was so beautiful, so raw. and it was robbie’s first time doing a romance roleplay too!!!

in the cooldown and [from introspection] robbie says dorian is very inexperienced with love and the feeling of it- since he was sheltered for so long; so orym is basically his first love(but dorian is just also super nervous and respectful towards will and orym’s relationship so that explains why he was so careful about expressing himself too.) and liam mentions orym was too shy to do anything himself so that’s why he had his other character go in there and just slap him on the ass because he wanted orym to talk to dorian somehow. which means that both robbie(dorian) and liam(orym) WANTED to have that exact moment between them, BOTH WANTED them to talk. and also the entire cast was fawning over them, matt getting teary eyed and the girls whispering and laughing to each other, sam getting excited himself and tal just smiling like a dork. everyone was just so proud of them!

DORYM NATION HOW ARE WE FEELING FOR NEXT EPISODES??? IM SO EXCITED TO SEE THE AWKWARD LAUGHTER, LOVESICK FLIRTATION AND EVEN MORE FROM OUR FAVORITE BOYS now time to start the cycle again of waiting years for them to kiss (i hope not please god)

[avatarrdd]

As an only child I'm crying🫡