leave your shame at the door

(insp.)

This is what I call, my funeral.

Check out the Fanfic Accompaniment.

| Derdek + Lydia | Nightcall

holy mother of god this took my breath away.  IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL.  SHE NEEDS TO EXIST. 

Part of that Aang-AU I’m working on. Aang and his “graduating class.” I imagine they’re probably mid-20’s and look after the little squirt once the other kids started getting mean about him being the Avatar. These guys, though - they think Aang’s a cool little dude.

I smiled when I first saw this, but then I thought about it, and then...I realized... All of those guys...they're gone, and Aang is all that's left of the Airbender legacy.

Aang probably thinks about all the times they helped him back up after getting teased by the younger kids, how they treated him just like one of the guys. Monk Gyatso was his closest friend, the father Aang never had, but these three young men...they were his older brothers, they were his true example. Aang probably thought "When I'm older, and I'm teaching younger Airbenders, I'm gonna be just like them".  Three Airbenders, three names, three sets of hopes and dreams and flaws, three people who had a crucial impact on Aang's life....just GONE.  Does Aang still think about them? As an adult, as a father, does he sometimes go back to the Southern Air Temple and remember all the good times they had? Does he regret not getting to know them better, does he wish that his own son -- the only Airbender to his father's name, a serious, studious boy who is forced to grow up more quickly than his peers and as such is exactly like Aang himself -- could have met them?  In those moments, I think that Aang is reminded once more that even though he gained friends, knowledge, wisdom and the ability to lead in that year of traveling the world with Katara, Toph, Sokka and Zuko...there's still so much that he lost.  So much that he will never get back, no matter how much time passes and no matter how much the world advances.  The Air Nomads will never be what they once were. Temples have crumbled, scrolls have been washed away by time and the elements, stories and tales told by elders are now no more than dust on the wind. Even as the Avatar, even as the youngest Airbending master...there is no way Aang could recollect or retrieve all that the Air Nomads had to offer the world.  It makes me sad, because now that I've realized all of this, now that I've thought everything through, I realize that even though Tenzin is an Airbender, even though all of his children are Airbenders...it will never be the same. The Airbenders will return, very slowly, but something has been lost that can never be found again. Aang was the final effort, the last bit of the Air Nomads that refused to give up. He was but a piece of the Air Nomad legacy, and when he passed, that small piece was passed on to Korra. But even so, its not the same, its not as strong as it was with Aang. Water is the element of change, after all, and Korra is, at her core, a Waterbender.  The Air Nomad legacy will live on in all of the Avatars to come, but the Avatar is only one person. While the Avatar has access to the memories of all the past Airbender Avatars, the rest of the world does not exist in the same way. The world will move on, and the old Air Nomad way of life will slowly slip farther and father away into the past. It will never TRULY disappear, but it will fade, and will exist almost as a shadow. A dark reminder of what could have been and what will never be.  In that sense, Aang really was, and forever will be, the last Airbender.