oohh, just found this avatar fanart i did in 2013 that i still like

Aang and gyatso still melting my heart but this time in colour!

I think I maybe lost Some of aangs expression from the sketch but it’s still cute I think

I love the first season of atla

Tumblr's Favorite Show: Finals!

After several months of fierce fighting, with 256 initial combatants, we have made it to the FINALS

Now, it's time to determine Tumblr's Favorite Show!

Previous rounds can be found below the break:

Role swap au where Zuko was the Avatar who got frozen for a hundred years, so when he’s rescued from the ice instead of a goofy twelve year old Katara catches this mysterious teenager with long hair and a cool scar and a fucking DRAGON

Katara: BOY???? HOT BOY?????? HOT TEENAGE BOY?????????

Zuko: *speaks*

Katara: nevermind I hate him

How does Aang factor into this? I ask because the more I think about it the more I want him to somehow be trying to capture the Avatar.

Aang is 112 years old, decided he was going to be Zuko’s airbending teacher, and refuses to take no for an answer

Aang: Aw, the new Avatar doesn’t want me. Aang: *gets out a weighted net* Time for Plan B then.

JDJSHJABDBFJSH

Look, you know how you keep a net from falling on you? YOU AIRBEND IT, SUCKA. Air comes right after fire in the cycle so it’s not like the guy has any other options. Do you want a flaming net falling on you? No? Then learn to airbend. Or this tiny old man will cart you away like a trussed turkey and lecture you about the power of laughter, going with the flow, opening your chakras, and other hippie shit.

Sokka, slouching against a fence, not moving: Oh nooooooo, that creepy old man stole the Avataaaaaaaaaar. Sokka, sitting down on the ground: We should dooooo something. Sokka, pulling out his lunch: Otherwise he might actually learn something. That would be teeeerrible. Katara, indignant rage coursing through her body: Sokka!!!!!!!! We have to go look for him!!!! Sokka: Might! Actually! Learn! Something! Katara! Katara: *wavers* Katara, also sitting down: We have to go look for him…. *gets out her own sandwich* But, maybe after lunch.

I love that this transforms Aang’s role in the full Team Avatar familial situation from the baby of the family to the Grandpa with weird hobbies

My brain, immediately after the “Aang won’t take no for an answer” post:

Aang: I’m gonna ride him! *jumps on Zuko’s shoulders*

Actually, I thought a bit more about this: If Aang is “grandpa figure who won’t fucking stop teaching Zuko to be a better and more spiritually fulfilled person,” then what is Iroh doing?

And then it hit me.

Iroh: *sitting in a teahouse at a paisho table* Iroh, deadpan: I must capture the last airbender.  Iroh: It is the only way to make sure the powe rof the Avatar won’t be turned on the Fire Nation. Iroh: Only then will I be redeemed in the eyes of the Fire Lord for my failure at Ba Sing Se. Iroh: … Iroh: Anyway, it’s your turn.

About half of the B plots are just Iroh finding new ways to feign incompetence and bad luck so that his political watchdog can’t prove that he’s letting Aang - and by extension Zuko - get away.

@ray10k

Sometimes Iroh plays paisho with Aang, whose entire disguise during these games consists of a painfully fake mustache.

AANG WAS THE OTHER PLAYER IN THAT SCENE OF COURSE IT’S PERFECT (the moustache is just a bit of Appa’s fur tied in a string)

Ok, but now I’m also imagining the whole subplot with Zhao in season one being about him trying to humiliate Iroh. Except he knows pretty well that Iroh would completely destroy him in an actual confrontation so he’s too afraid of provoking him and always ends helping him in the end. And Iroh know it as well and keeps with spectacular failures (like hiring a crew of definitely not pirates that definitely will not steal his ship at the first occasion) just to annoy him.

Iroh: Joke’s on you Admiral Zhao; I don’t care about my reputation! *effortlessly rebuffs all of Zhao’s plots anyway*

Quick question: If Aang’s the weird teaching grandpa, what’s Bumi up to?

@treegona encasing Katara & Sokka in gemnite to force Zuko to stay for airbending practice

Weird thought because that scene has to have completely different energy with Zuko than it did with openly bleeding heart Aang. Is it to make him admit how deeply he cares about Katara and Sokka? Is his role to call Bumi’s bluff in the style of a clever fairy tale protagonist? Is it just played for comedy.

Zuko: Aang, you’re a monk. You wouldn’t kill anybody.

Aang: That’s what Bumi is for.

[a pause as Zuko remembers what Bumi was like as a twelve year old]

Zuko: *sighs* Okay fine. Let’s do this.

I. Wait. Wait wait wait. WERE ZUKO AND AANG FRIENDS 100 YEARS AGO?

skdkkgkakfks

Zuko was sent to train with Monk Gyatso, did not get along with Gyatso’s star pupil (Aang) at all for the one day he was there before running away and getting caught in a storm. Aang is determined to fulfil his duty and take on his teacher’s mantle, if only Zuko would stop being such a baby running away from training all the time.

Where’s Toph in all this?

No one’s sure whether Aang unofficially adopted her or vice versa. Either way, she’s traveling with “Old Man Twinkletoes” and helping him in his Avatar Hunt.

i just can't get over zuko and aang's dynamic. these two tragic foils, these boys who both wear their history on their faces, who both lost their homes to the fire, these born enemies, both bound by big, grand, lonely destinies, the prince and the avatar,,,,,,,, and who, the moment they're able to interact with each other for more than two seconds, both immediately devolve into the pettiest assholes alive

firebending masters was truly EVERYTHING. aang not seeing zuko as a threat AT ALL to the point where he's almost insultingly comfortable going off somewhere w him alone. zuko grumbling about how fast appa is going like an asshole older brother on a road trip. the smug little "where's that upbeat attitude you were talking about :)" aang telling zuko to his FACE that people think he's dumb. aang flipping zuko like a pancake and then bitching that zuko's not helping him. "you just haaaad to go touch the giant egg, didn't you :/" the entire concept of two of the most skilled young benders in the world sitting in goo together for hours in absolute silence until aang opens his mouth to complain. "what do we do now?" "idk think about our place in the universe?" zuko telling aang he's a talented kid. aang trying to steal fire from the hands of a guy who has actively tried to flambe him before. zuko whining about aang trying to cheat off of him. "you still think we can take them?" "shut up i never said that."

honestly what is a foil but a best friend just waiting for you to annoy the shit out of them forever

The Aang/Zuko fight choreography is such a season one highlight and also makes fighting Aang look like literally the most annoying thing imaginable

A fun reminder that Aang was a terrifyingly powerful Avatar.

Most Avatars are informed of their newfound destinies at the age of 16 to begin their training. Because of the approaching war Aang was told of his status at the age of 12. He had already mastered airbending, and in the span of a year he mastered the other three elements, the avatar state, and energybending. He also learned lightning redirection and seismic sense (a technique no previous Avatar had even encountered). In the span of a year.

This child was a terrifying force of nature.

More Avatar stuff! Aang is a very good boy and being the bridge to the spirit world gets crowded sometimes.

For the record while ATLA is an excellent show and Zukos redemption arc was perfectly paced, I would kill to have had Zuko join the Gaang at the end of book two, because the first half of book three would have been the funniest thing on the planet. Like. Just picture it. A bunch of unsupervised teenagers travelling undercover through enemy territory, trying to blend in… and the only people who have even been there before are 1. A guy who hasnt been there in a century, and 2. The former crown prince who has literally never spoken to a fire nation citizen who wasnt nobility, military, or one of his servants.

Like. Neither of them have any idea what they’re doing, or how normal fire nation citizens act, but they’re pretty sure the other one is wrong. Rest of the gaang knows even less. No adults. Zuko and Aang getting into a shouting debate over the finer points of fire nation culture is a nightly event. They are both so wrong, and so, so awkward

Zuko, for the fifth and probably not last time: FOR THE LAST TIME, NOBODY USES THE PHRASE ‘FLAMEO HOTMAN’!

Aang, aware of that fact but in too deep to back out now: OH YEAH? THEN WHAT DO THEY SAY!?

Zuko, clueless and bluffing: …Something about glory to the Fire Lord?

Toph, well aware that both are lying through their teeth and have no idea what they’re talking about, and fucking loving every second of this train wreck: Clearly the only solution is for both of you to go into town tomorrow and test your theories out.

And the side taking, oh my god the side taking from the other three. Katara sides with Aang every single time. Does she honestly believe that the people of the Fire Nation greet each other with ‘Flame on, my em-brother’? Hell no. Would she rather die than say that Zuko’s correct? Yes.

Sokka usually sides with Zuko, unless he comes up with something astoundingly stupid. Zuko’s thoughts, while usually wrong, sound a lot more plausible then Aangs, and fuck it he’s willing to take a gamble.

Toph is the closest thing to a neutral party they have, in that she knows damn well they’re all full of shit, and has chosen to instead egg them on to make it worse. She’s an agent of chaos, and this is free nightly entertainment. She’s having the time of her life right now.

The debate takes a brief pause once they stop going undercover and get to the business of actually saving the world, but holy shit. once things have settled down? it’s back on with a vengeance. Except now Aang and Zuko aren’t the two most wanted people in the Fire Nation, they’re the two most influential people in the world. They are trendsetters. They can make slang become a thing.

When Zuko first hears the phrase ‘flameo, hotman’ being thrown around casually, it takes a lot of deep breathing exercises to not immediately return to his previous occupation of hunting the Avatar.

Iroh: I’m so proud of the way you’ve been ruling, nephew. Flameo, hotman!

Zuko, in tears: How could you say that

Thinking about a modern version of atla but like, modern in the sense of that world, aged, the avatar having never returned. Bending still exists, but more and more people are non benders every year. And the art has kinda been lost or de-popularized due to colonization and industrialization (a la onward??) and the only people who really study and practice it anymore are high ranking nobles (zuko, toph) as a status symbol and indigenous peoples (katara) who never lost sight of their roots in the first place.

And then aang, who was born and lost THOUSANDS of years ago, pops out of the iceberg into the future. Nothing about him has changed. He wears that same outfit and steals momo from the endangered creatures exhibit at the shanghai zoo. He posts bending tutorials on TikTok and people commend him on his special effects.

It’s time for people in the fanbase to finally accept that Aang was in complete control of the avatar state in that battle with Ozai. He was furious and his rage is clear as day, and he had every right to be. It’s tired to see people crediting Aang’s anger to Kyoshi or whatever all the time. The jokes are funny, but not here, not in this battle.

Aang enters the avatar state right after Ozai says this to him: “You’re weak, just like the rest of your people. They did not deserve to exist in this world, in my world. Prepare to join them—prepare to die.”

Aang reaches out from under those rocks and grabs Ozai, and then when Ozai tries to burn his face in the face place he burned his own son, Aang smacks his hand away and then blasts him into a rock pillar with airbending, the first element he uses against him once in the avatar state is the same element Ozai just called weak. There’s a reason Aang surrounds himself with an air bubble, and there’s a reason Aang’s airbending is so violent and unrelenting in this fight. He literally airbends so violently that he erodes a rock pillar all the way through in like 2 seconds. It’s a blatant display of the power airbending actually possesses, a big fuck you to Ozai who starts running away like a coward.

Aang is coming face to face with a man whose family line is directly responsible for wiping out his entire race of people, his entire culture. They took everything from him. He had nothing but Appa and the clothes on his back and his glider. That was it. That was all that was left of their genocide, a genocide justified by the view that Air Nomads were undeserving of life, that they were the weakest of all the nations. Imagine how full of rage he must have been. And still, he does not kill him. Not because he can’t, but because he won’t let the Fire Nation complete their genocide against the Air Nomads, he won’t allow himself to be robbed of his own culture, a culture that exists through him only, now. I feel like people really just don’t understand Aang’s character, and they definitely never give him the credit or praise he deserves.

i love redemption arcs and moments of rage and realistic ups and downs but y’all characters that choose love from the beginning and never stop just over and over choose to be kind and patient and willing every single time even when it’s justified even when they have every reason in the world and the universe is practically begging them to turn and become mean and wretched and angry and still at every turn refuse hate and stick to their compass. yeah.

I know I’ve said this before, but I hate when people interpret aang’s insistence on maintaining his pacifist values in his fight with ozai as an indication that he is otherwise hypermoral, or god forbid, “lawful good.” just because aang firmly believes that killing is never justified, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t believe in causing as much chaos as possible, to everyone around him, everywhere he goes. he lies to resolve conflicts, he lies for fun, he steals, he scams, he lets animals loose to stampede throughout a city, he uses a city’s mail delivery system as a slide, he blows up a factory and then immediately laughs and gushes about how fun it was watching it explode, he throws a secret dance party, he gives sokka concussions for fun, he throws illegal dance parties in the middle of an enemy nation that wants him dead, he destroys public property, he destroys private property, he shamelessly uses his status to get out of trouble—and he is never made to feel bad for any of this, because why would he? the value system he was raised on believes in tolerance, forgiveness, respecting nature, and pacifism. but his mentor/father figure monk gyatso also taught him to use his skills to throw pies directly on the heads of their community elders. his close friend bumi showed him how to wreak havoc across the four nations. yes he has a fixed moral code when it comes to matters such as killing, but he also thinks plenty of actions that others would morally object to are harmless fun. zuko calling aang “guru goody goody” is not only offensive, but it’s also inaccurate. aang is cooler than you.

Somebody might have pointed this out before, but how exactly did Aang & Co. get back to the fire nation with a defeated Ozai in tow?

Awkward bison ride in the saddle listening to him rant about ethnic genocide? Did they strap him to one of Appa’s legs? Dangle him from a basket? Leave him on a cliff for somebody else to come collect??

The bison was already at the Fire Nation! Katara and Zuko flew to the Capital City on Appa. The only option for the gaang to get out of that giant rock pillar forest was for Sokka and Toph to repair any damage to the airship Suki commandeered and fly back.

They probably just let Ozai sit on a chair in the employee lounge for the ride back. Probably didn’t even bother to tie him up, since, as Sokka loudly pointed out, he wasn’t a threat to anyone anymore.

Would Ozai’s introduction to metalbending be when Toph causually reconstructs a fallen airship in front of him while shit talking Sokka and/or Ozai? 

Because talk about a terrifying thing to encounter on the heels of losing your bending. Four children just took down you and your entire fleet and as far as you can tell two of them are borderline gods. 

(I think Toph would need to be talked out of enthusiastically mounting him on the front of the airship like a figurehead on a boat. She would appreciate the symbolism, and the screaming.)

Yes, Ozai’s introduction to this half of the Gaang would be watching a fifteen-year-old walk a lap around and then figure out how to repair the ship that took dozens of his best minds to design, instructing a twelve-year-old how to reshape massive swaths of metal with her bare hands as casually as Ozai would instruct his tailors to lower the hem of his sleeve. The other girl keeps playing with a steel fan in front of him. Is she trying to intimidate him? He’s already intimidated enough. Where did she even get that fan, though?

Okay but Sokka’s leg is super duper broken at this point, right? So he isn’t walking a lap around the airship and then figuring out how to repair it at a glance – The Avatar is like, floating him around on a throne of stone, or airbending him regally around so that his feet never need to touch the ground.

And then this little gremlin of a human, who is displaying the greatest bending prowess Ozai has ever seen outside if another twelve-year-old handing him his own ass a little bit ago, is listening to what this random Water Tribe kid has to say. 

Queue the existential crisis of Ozai’s life over who this all-powerful teen must be, and what kind of bending prowess he has to have that the Avatar is serving him as a palanquin bearer

don’t leave this in the tags, @erisenyo​

the way that the air nomad's lifestyle was so deeply communal and aang is the only one left. the way that he is so fundamentally alienated from the world to the extent that he is literally referred to as a living relic. the way that pragmatism and everyone around him are telling him that the only way to save the world is to betray his nearly extinct culture. the way that he befriends katara so quickly and deeply. the way he goes on to befriend everyone he meets and improve their lives by his very presence. the way he never fully gives up on his identity as the last airbender, even when his identity as the avatar threatens it. the way he saves the world through asserting his cultural values.