avatarinspirations

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Avatar Kyoshi 🪭 in Japanese late Sengoku era Samurai armor cuz im watching Shōgun

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:)

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EXERCISE THIRST TRAP TIME WITH XIAO ZHAN 💪🏼

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The only advice Aang doesn’t take is Yangchen’s

Something that struck my while re-watching Aang’s discussions with the four past Avatar’s is that when he take’s Ozai’s bending away he is technically following all of their last words of advice except, ironically, his fellow Air Nomad Avatar.  

Roku: You must be decisive.  Aang is so firmly committed to not kill Ozai in cold blood that he pulls himself out of the Avatar State.  The Lion Turtle also warns him that in order to successfully bend another’s energy “your own spirit must be unbendable.”  Aang was firm and committed to his decision to find another way.

Kyoshi: Only justice will bring peace.  Justice isn’t inherently a death sentence.  Justice means consequences for one’s action in a punishment proportional to the crime.  Ozai did need to be punished after all of the pain and suffering he inflicted on countless people and threatening the balance of the world itself.  And he was.  All things considered, what is a more fitting punishment for someone as self-absorbed and power hungry as Ozai:  Dying in battle, going down in history as such a powerful warrior that it took the Avatar (channeling every past Avatar) to best him or having to live out the rest of his natural life without his status and bending (the two things he valued most) and watching as all that his cruelty and imperialism created was systematically dismantled?  Also a point I can’t take credit for this interpretation and don’t remember where I read it from but fully agree with: making the choice he does Aang proves that the Air Nomad culture and values were not destroyed.  Going back to the crimes of Ozai’s forefathers, Sozin’s legacy is proven to have failed to truly eradicate the Air Nomads and ultimately it is their philosophy of peace that wins the day over rage and violence.

Kuruk: You must actively shape your own destiny and the destiny of the world.  Similar to the point about decisiveness- Aang makes his own choice.  He doesn’t passively accept what literally everyone is telling him the only possible outcome is.  Instead, even as he seeks advice he insists on his own autonomy, recognizing that whatever action he takes will change the course of the world and its destiny.  He very much took an active role in deciding how that battle ended and what came after.

Now finally we have Yangchen.  While, in context, yes all of the Avatars felt they were telling Aang to kill Ozai they all choose phasing that as illustrated above is actually open to wider interpretation and still holds true with what Aang actually does.  Yang Chen is perhaps the most direct in her advice:  Selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs and do whatever it takes to protect the world.  The one thing Aang does not do is compromise his own spiritual beliefs and identity.  He finds a way that upholds his responsibility as Avatar to restore the balance, prevents the destruction of the Earth Kingdom, and mete out justice for past crimes all while still honoring the beliefs he was raised on and holds so dear.

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Kyoshi treats Rangi like a princess!😍💕

Kyoshi calling Rangi “her girl” 🥹 I need to be put down!

I get emotional when I see the way Kyoshi treats Rangi, She is so big (7'0 ft tall), and she has this reputation of being a savage, ignorant and murderous, (as some people who lived in Kyoshi's Era spoke), and that she can't be delicate with small things, (because she has impressive brute strength and she is too clumsy due to her very large hands, with big and thick fingers), but she always manages to be very affectionate and loving with Rangi.

She treats Rangi so gently that it looks like her girl could break down at any moment lol. She is always doing what Rangi wants. And Kyoshi is the softest part of their relationship, as Rangi will always be her Avatar Kyoshi's sexy and bossy girl.

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The reason why Yun and Kyoshi would never have worked romantically is because Yun loved the Kyoshi who made herself seem small. He preferred the Kyoshi who kept her shoulders hunched and deferred to him. At the end, he rejected her growth, implored her to shrink. He loved his idea of Kyoshi, not Kyoshi herself.

From the start, Rangi has always pushed Kyoshi to stand up for herself, to stand tall. She never understood why Kyoshi hid, because Kyoshi is amazing; the world should know that Kyoshi is amazing; Kyoshi should know that Kyoshi is amazing. This didn’t change when it was revealed that Kyoshi was the Avatar. If anything, it confirmed what Rangi already knew. With each step Kyoshi took, Rangi supported her, even when she didn’t agree, because Rangi trusts Kyoshi. She doesn’t want to control her. She wants to be with her through all the changes. She wants to watch as the woman she loves grows into herself.

That’s why one relationship ends and another lasts.

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Avatar Kyoshi’s, Rangi’s, and Yun’s Finishers in Avatar Generations!!

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Avatar: The Last Airbender + AO3 tags

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THIS IS NOT A DRILL! Check out the latest official illustration of Rangi and Kyoshi from Avatar Generations!!!

I can die happily now… We’re FINALLY seeing these two come to life in official Avatar visual content. It’s been almost 4 years since The Rise of Kyoshi released. Can you believe it??

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Avatar: The Last Airbender—QUEST FOR BALANCE video game official trailer!

Coming in 2023 to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.

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First look at Avatar: The Last Airbender, coming 2024

Check out the first look at the main cast of Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series revealed at the Tudum Global Fan Event today!

Gordon Cormier - Aang

Kiawentiio - Katara

Ian Ousley - Sokka

Dallas Liu - Zuko

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Full first look presentation!

FULL Avatar: The Last Airbender first look presentation at Netflix's Tudum Global Fan Event, presented by the cast live from Sao Paulo, Brazil!

Thank you to Never Have I Ever's Maitreyi Ramakrishnan for hyping and hosting our cast and show so well! :)

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Read The Legacy of Yangchen Chapter One: Depths now!

Courtesy of Polygon, you can now read F. C. Yee’s Yangchen Book 2 Chapter 1 for free ahead of the novel’s release on July 18th!

In it, the main villain Chaisee gets some backstory…

Check it out below:

Chapter One: Depths

Chaisee understood from an early age that to be successful, you needed to be willing to go further than others thought possible.

To wit—the villagers of her little unnamed island dove for prized cucumber-sponges far below the glistening surface of the waters, where sunlight faded and ears threatened to burst. No one in the Mo Ce considered such a feat viable or worth the risk.

But Chaisee’s people ignored the prevailing wisdom. Without the aid of waterbending, they trained their bodies to accept the pressure, their minds to embrace the signals that they were dying. Dive after dive, they forced their way farther into the depths and scraped their hands raw against the slimy spikes of the reef to come up with little puffballs of a creature that, once carefully killed and dried, would fetch a generous string of coins on the open market.

She and her fellow villagers willingly took on the often-fatal endeavor again and again so they might eat for another season. And faraway nobles washed their faces with the cured exteriors of cucumber-sponges, the softest touch known in the Four Nations. A mutually beneficial agreement based on one party’s willingness to torture themselves and the other side’s complete distaste for the slightest physical discomfort.

As Chaisee grew older, she began to manage the village’s books. She took over from her father the negotiations with haulers who came to collect the sponges, pearls, dried shellfish meat—the secret was to spy on other suppliers while using uncharted islands as stashes to control market prices. She had no reason to suspect her future would contain any disturbances to this arrangement other than the occasional monsoon.

The ship that broke the cycle arrived with battened sails and swooping foredecks. Strangely, it bore flags of both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. The party that came ashore in longboats was led by junior ambassadors from both countries. In front of Chaisee’s assembled village, they read a proclamation decreeing that the inhabitants of this island would no longer be allowed to produce certain goods of the sea. By a vanishingly rare agreement between Earth King and Fire Lord, the exclusive rights had been granted to some merchant they’d never heard of in a faraway city that was completely landlocked.

This can’t be, Chaisee’s father had said, hushing her with a raised hand. Suddenly the negotiator again. We protest this decision. You must at least give us the chance to formulate a response. To buy time, he resorted to their island’s customs of hospitality. Let us entertain you tonight as honored guests. We can talk of bargains in the morning.

The officials agreed. They needed to reprovision and take on fresh water anyway. While the ship’s quartermaster negotiated the purchase and loading of supplies, a feast was quickly put together for the important visitors and their crew.

The general nervousness among the villagers ebbed as they shared good food and drink with the sailors around the burning fire in the square. The meal would remind these strangers that the island was home to families like theirs and that a measure of humanity should prevail over dictums sent from afar.

Chaisee did not partake wholeheartedly. She stayed removed and observed, as was her habit, which meant she saw in full when one of the sailors picked up a torch and flung it into the largest hut. Like one might offer a bone to a guard animal. She wasn’t fast enough to stop him or speak out.

The building was the one used to store the drying cucumber-sponges, and in their raw state the dusty, porous bodies of the sea creatures were better than the best tinder. The roof blew out with a roar, spewing heat and flame and embers over the adjacent huts. The fire spread so fast that half the village was ablaze before the screaming started.

Chaisee remembered the reactions of the ambassadors who had obviously given the order, their faces lit by the blooming, dancing flames. They rolled their eyes, snorted in contempt, and departed as calmly as they came. Annoyed with the whole affair at best. Her father was too distraught, occupied with fighting the fire, to prevent the outsiders from reaching their longboats and leaving the shore unimpeded.

She watched the delegation go, understanding that a confrontation would have achieved nothing. The letters they bore granted them the power and voice of their rulers. There were no criminals here; her livelihood burning away was the law enacted. She might as well have tried to exact justice from the leaders of the Four Nations themselves. What fool could aspire to that?

We weren’t strong enough to keep this from happening, she thought as her neighbors desperately tried to carry water to the fire in buckets, gourds, cupped hands, wailing as their futures dissolved into smoke. We didn’t have the right friends.

Working yourself to the brink of oblivion was pointless if you couldn’t defend the life you made. Maneuvers, deals, negotiations were simply dance steps. Pageantry. The true arbiter waiting at the end of the performance was violence.

Chaisee’s ruined village was a kiln that baked the lesson into shape. She kept it in mind as she sought work on islands closer to the official Fire Nation archipelago. The form held hard and without cracks as she made her name in trade, mastering the codes of business spoken in every country while accumulating leverage over her partners and rivals alike. When the Platinum Affair clamped across the world, she was quick to see opportunity and predicted correctly how it would condense power even further into a few hands.

By the time she became eligible for the role of Zongdu in Jonduri, the war had already been fought and won. In the minds of the shangs, there were no rational choices other than Chaisee to lead the city. Her selection was unanimous.

In many ways, Zongdu Henshe, her counterpart in Bin-Er, was of a similar mindset as Chaisee. Though he was a fool who squandered information and resources with no regard for strategy or long-term consequences, he had successfully ground her plans to a halt by threatening to turn over everything he knew to the Earth King. He’d stolen the fruits of her labor, her means of becoming immune to harm in all the ways her little childhood village was not.

Henshe’s waywardness had posed a greater threat than any of the brilliant men and women whom Chaisee had tangled with in the past. The wise could be counted on to do what was wise; there was no predicting the actions of a buffoon. But now Henshe was gone, and with him her assets. Chaisee had been left without a move. She could only sit and wait.

“Mistress.” Chaisee’s newest attendant announced herself, pausing on the warped floorboard by the door of the nursery. Each shift of the girl’s socked feet produced a squeak like a pained bird. “Mistress, you have a—”

The baby woke. A scorching wail rose from the teak crib in the corner.

Chaisee rubbed her forehead, taking care not to cover her face completely. “I just got him to sleep!” She had to raise her voice, something she never used to do, in order to be heard.

“I’m sorry, Mistress, but you have a letter and—”

“Leave it and get out!” The attendant scurried over, laid the envelope on the desk in the nursery, and fled for her life.

She didn’t see Chaisee drop her snarl as soon as she was gone. The girl would report back to Fire Lord Gonryu that her mistress was cracking under the strain, uncharacteristically showing more emotion. Perhaps frustrated by her child. Distracted, and therefore less of a threat.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Chaisee’s son was a sharp reminder for her to stay focused. And his cries were a perfect deterrent to eavesdroppers. Taking her time, as calm as if she were listening to the serenade of a babbling brook, Chaisee opened the letter. She drew a chair over to the crib and rocked it gently while she read.

The message was nonsense. But it was written in a hand she recognized and contained hidden signals that let her know exactly where to find the person who’d sent it.

Her son quieted down, but she knew he would start howling again if she stopped rocking. Perhaps his skin was prone to rashes. A frustrating prospect, when she already bathed him with cucumber-sponges, which were much more expensive these days than back when she was a girl. She went through an amount that would have made her younger self gasp, but there was no softer touch she could resort to.

Chaisee folded the paper back up with one hand and looked around. The nursery she’d constructed in the mountaintop estate was dark and cool, a respite from the sweltering heat outside. But the entire house would pass to the next Zongdu of Jonduri once her term ended.

She’d have to leave this place behind soon and start over again. Those were the rules laid out by the heads of state, who never had to worry about moving on from what they’d built while they were still alive. The Avatar, young Yangchen, was like that too. She would be the bridge between humans and spirits for her own little eternity before she passed and a new Avatar was born.

There were a lot of powerful people in the way of Chaisee’s ambitions, laying exclusive claim to permanence. They’d be sovereigns of their domains until the very day they died, never having to fear their status being stripped away, never knowing what it was like to be naked and vulnerable.

Chaisee could be the last person standing among them, if she chose the right path, proved herself willing to go to depths beyond reckoning, and remained a step ahead of the other players in a game that could reshape the Four Nations themselves. An outrageous folly, but one she had the means for. And the will.

She looked at the letter again and smiled. With the right incentives, anything was possible.

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Live-action ATLA first look guide

Here’s your guide to live-action ATLA’s first look(s?!) this weekend at Netflix’s Tudum Global Fan Event, coming to you live from São Paulo, Brazil!

NEW: First, there will be a “SURPRISE ON STAGE WITH AVATAR” on the central stage of the Bienal Pavilion on FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH from 1:15-1:45pm, one day before the main event!

Then the big day: The first look will be at some point during the global livestream event on SATURDAY, JUNE 17TH, which takes place from 5:30-7:30pm. Main castmembers Gordon Cormier (Aang), Kiawentiio (Katara), Ian Ousley (Sokka), and Dallas Liu (Zuko) will present live from the main stage in Brazil.

ATLA has its own whole half-hour slot for the special surprise on Friday, but for the main event on Saturday it’s one of many shows and movies that will be featured, so only expect a few minutes from that. But, also expect that to be where the biggest reveals happen.

Avatar News will be covering the news from afar (with a special surprise of our own 👀) while our friends at Avatar’s long-running Brazilian fansite Mundo Avatar will be reporting live from the event in person!

All times listed here are in São Paulo’s local time for the event location. You can convert to your time zone by Googling “5:30pm Sao Paulo to [your city here]”!

No word yet on whether the special surprise on Friday will be available online, but you can watch the main global livestream event on Saturday LIVE at Netflix’s official YouTube stream, already pre-available here:

➡️ TUDUM LIVESTREAM ⬅️

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hopefully

@pscentral​ event 11: 2023 releases

The Avatar Returns This Year (hopefully)

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  I was thinking about the parallel of Zuko and Katara saving each other at the beginning of “The Southern Raiders,” before they’ve even made peace with each other.

And the difference between these two scenes.

 And the way that they show, in particular, Zuko’s character growth, but also how they show Katara struggling to accept that Zuko has changed.

In the first scene, Katara stands under falling rocks, seemingly paralyzed, and is saved by Zuko, but resents being saved by someone she doesn’t trust.

In comparison, Zuko, later in the episode, is freefalling but looks much more calm and confident (especially compared to Azula, who you can see in the screenshot above is falling in a much less controlled manner until she catches herself. Zuko lets himself fall, leans into the fall, and then reaches out his hand for Katara to pull him onto Appa.

This shows how much Zuko has grown since the catacombs, when Katara offered to help him and he remained reluctant and uncertain, and ended up making the wrong choice. This Zuko is confident and trusting, willing to put his trust in relying on others even when it’s uncertain, even relying on someone who he knows doesn’t have the best opinion of him.

Katara, meanwhile, has also changed from the person who was willing to aid others at the expense of herself and got her heart broken again and again. She doesn’t trust Zuko and that’s because she knows what he’s capable of and he let her down before. She still offers a hand to him when he falls, though, because she’s a good person, but also, I think, this is part of Katara’s character growth. Katara learns to accept the flaws in others and is able to accept Zuko when he finally shows genuine desire to make amends. She’s not there yet, but I think seeing him put his trust in her and the others like this was step towards realizing tha the really has matured from the person who broke her trust before. Which irritated her at first, because she didn’t want to accept that he had changed, but by the end of the episode, she’s finally ready to accept and trust him again.

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I want to be excited about a new Avatar but they really teased me with Kyoshi and Korra movies and then went ahead with this instead and we have no idea if they’re still doing those two. Why did they only drop the sapphic Avatars come on. I want animated Korrasami and Rangshi after literal years of having the ships confined to comics and books. I want to expand on characters we already know and love. Can’t they wait to do a new Avatar until they get through some of the other stuff they were talking about doing? Also I’m not ready for Korra to be dead.