Ok, so, bottom surgery recovery is going ~splendidly~ tbh, I’ve been off opioids basically all week, she’s healing well, she even looks pretty which at under the one-month mark is making me feel pretty optimistic. The only problems it’s giving me are that sometimes if I see something really gross it makes my body feel like it’s trying to suck itself inward from my vagina, like a black hole generated by the power of “ew ew ew,” and that healing is really tiring so I’m like…always sleepy. But tbh most of bottom surgery recovery has been peaceful, I’ve had a lot of time to do some self-reflection (which I hate, doing my own therapy as a patient suuuuuucks), BUT, I do have one funny story:

Right as I wake up there’s a nurse there who hustles over and says he’s glad he saw me wake up and tells me he’s giving me some pain meds and then he gives me IV Fentanyl and so I go from like “Ow ow ow ow awake awake awake” to “ooooooh fuck I’m floating on clouds made of rainbows” in like 6 seconds and so I was pretty out of it. The hospital had all the recently-post op patients all in one big-ass room, and they see patients for ALL sorts of surgeries, so I was next to an old guy who got his knee replaced on one side and some young 30-something dude with some kind of mechanism on his leg. So I asked him what happened since I was high as fuck and feeling kind as a result, and he said he broke his leg hiking off-trail when his leg went down a literal rabbit hole and snapped his shinbone. I say something like “damn dude that blowssssss” while giggling because I’m high as FUCK on actual fentanyl and he’s like “Yeah, for real, I’m feeling great right now though! What about you? What are you in here for?”

And I fully was not thinking like a person, I was thinking like a fentanyl-addled tgirl so I just go “Oh, haha, they cut my dick off!”

And he just kinda stops and is like “Hah-WAIT what? Why?” and I was trying to think of an acceptable answer to tell this cis guy because it’s dawning on me through my drug-induced haze that not everybody wants their penis gone and before I can think of a response two nurses just came up and…wheeled him away. Idk where to, and I don’t think he did either, because he kept looking back at me and frantically asking the nurses where they were taking him and I never gave him an adequate response so he probably thought he was gonna get that “Transgender for Everyone” shit before he was probably actually delivered to whoever his ride home was.

All the emotions coming out from the cloud babies, guilt, anger, stress and anxiety.

Tenzin wants to be a great air bender but feels like he won’t live up to his dads expectations, is terrified of being the only one like his dad, wants to participate in his mother’s culture more, and is secretly jealous of his siblings freedom and is ashamed that his temperament is more of his mother’s because hes supposed to be in control. To be untethered, to be free. Nearly untouchable.

But he’ll push those things aside and he’ll focus, he’ll get better. He will be a great air bender. He will not let it all die out. Even if that means sacrificing himself over and over again. Even if it means letting the water tribe fade away from him.

Kya ii feels guilty, she did not sacrifice anything. She is master Katara’s daughter, yet she is not fearless like her. She is a true free spirit, much like an air nomad. She avoids confrontation when she can.

She accepts her role as a middle child, sometimes a cool mediator for her brother’s complicated relationship. She understands the strain of being a bender and having impossible expectations but she also understands what it’s like to not be quite enough for anyone. She loves her brothers, but she pity’s them for they do not see how similar they are. And sometimes when no one’s around she too feels the sting of jealousy like Bumi does.

If she cannot please anyone, then she will not. She moves through the world lighter than air. And no one can say they saw her, cause who knows her name? It’ll be like she was never there.

Bumi is air. He is light, joyful and energetic. He has a great thirst to prove himself in everything he does. He loves his family very much. He jokes around with his cousins and friends. He tries to guide his younger siblings in a way that makes them feel more at ease.

He is not blind he sees tenzin exactly for what he is. So he doesn’t push he sees the weight of world on his shoulders. It’s a terrible odd feeling being an older brother. To love another so much and yet hate to see what they have. He’s felt it around Kya too. He swallows it. He continues to be that joyful boy who jokes, but as he gets older he feels the bitterness spreading through his body.

It’s probably childish. And he looks at his father and his mother, how hard they work. Who’s he to complain? And he hates a part of himself. The part that desperately wants to ease his parents burdens. If only he were a bender. And he’s angry at his father and solemn with his mother.

He knows the three of them weren’t enough for Aang, she knows it too. Aang loves them. And They are not enough. Tenzin could be enough, but he’s hanging on by a thread. No matter how happy they make him, they can’t ever make him as happy as he was when he had them.

he still cant believe he's married to the love of his life.. day 6: cloudbabies but tbh... its can also be considered for domestic life

I finished watching the Avatar Aang movie a few hours ago. (I super enjoyed it, even though I have some issues it it, they are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.)

But it really makes me want an animated movie that follows Tenzin, Kya, and, Bumi in their like early 20s - late teens sort of age. The three of them essentially going of on their own little adventure, for some reason.

Like Tenzin finding some trail to possible more Air Nomad relics or something generally important. And wanting to go after it, but Aang not super having time for it because of Avatar duties, and the acolytes can't get a group together to go with him. So Tenzin sneaks off on his own to find it (which is kind of a big deal, as he's not really allowed to go too far on his own because like technically he is the only one of two airbenders) without really knowing. Only Kya and Bumi discover their little brother gone with no one the wiser, and are sort of like 'we got to find him' and go to do that without telling Katara or anyone why they are leaving. Then they track down Tenzin (it's not hard he's not exactly the best at covering his tracks or blending in anywhere) and fully intending to drag him back, but he's so fixated on finding something and like half convinces them to help him because it would make their dad happy, (that and Tenzin's excitement at having traveled alone does it too). So the three of them all go to find whatever Tenzin possibly found. The three of them just having like a sibling adventure. It's the first time it's really just the three of them traveling. And like Aang and Katara really only show up at the end trying to find them.

I don't know. I just want it.

My favorite thing about Aang and Katara’s kids is how none of them are carbon copies of their parents. This is especially clear for Kya and Tenzin, and I actually love that Kya has so much of Aang’s personality in her, while Tenzin has so so so much of Katara in him. 

It would have been a bit bland to have two clones of their parents, but rather we get the compelling concept of a man with a fierce temper, protective spirit, and family-based focus trying to leading the Air Nation, and a woman with an adventurous spirit, playful heart, and thirst for freedom being a Waterbender.

And Bumi is just such a wonderful combination of Aang and Katara AND Sokka. Wild, free-spirited, protective, intelligent, and fearless regardless of if he has bending or not.

Sometimes it’s hard to find like actually well written portrayals of Kya, Tenzin, and Bumi that don’t turn into bashing of one of them, or such a drastic disdain for eachother. But mannnn, when you find good content that shows the complicated yet loving relationship between the three of them, as well as their relationships with their mom and dad, ahhhh chef kiss. I just know Aang and Katara loved them all so so so so much.

The wok incident

Just a little crack about Pema and Bumi inspired by @novaae and I's unhinged dms >2k words Read it on AO3

Pema's hands stung around the long handle of the wok. The vibrations from hitting her target jolted up her fingertips and through her arms, stopping at the elbow. Frozen in place and now mortified after a familiar voice groaned from the floor of the kitchen, she stood there for nearly a minute waiting for her brain to catch up to what she had just done.

Just realized this morning that this is my 100th work on AO3. What a delight.

First day of Spring 🌿

I’m a sucker for dad mode Aang 🙂‍↕️ Bumi is in his special SWT clothes that Grangran and Hakoda had made for him. My headcanon is that Katara made Aang a betrothal necklace in the shape of his arrow and carved her own necklace design into it bc I think that’s cute af (and also really wanted to draw Aang with jewellery heh)

I’ve been playing around with linework and colouring — trying out a more minimalist style — highly inspired by some comic illustrators. I want to try more stuff like this. What other avatar art do folks wanna see???

Waiting for Tenzin

On Thin Ice

#FFF363 On Thin Ice

Fandom: Avatar, the Legend of Korra

450 words

The bathing chamber was an entire mess when he returned to check on the children. Bumi and Kya were splashing each other as if they were down on the beach instead of inside the house.

Katara’s going to make me sleep on the roof if we don’t get this cleaned up!

But he could not pull their attention away from each other with the calm, gentle words Sister Yutung had recommended.

Learning parenting techniques from the former teacher accustomed to earth bending children had been an interesting adjustment. After all this time, his own memories of his own childhood were admittedly useless. He remembered playing with the other children, Gyatso telling him stories until he fell asleep, and precious little else. Yangchen’s childhood had been very difficult, and she had never had children of her own. The one or two times he had consulted with older air avatars, he had found their experiences to be too different from his own. Kyoshi had had a child, but she revealed little about that part of her life, now over three hundred years gone.

The splash from Bumi’s slide into the tub splashed absolutely everywhere, including the ceiling.

“Bumi!” Aang shouted.

The giggling from his first two children was infectious, and he had to wipe a hand down his face to muster a stern expression.

“You’re on thin ice with me, my little boomerang,” he tried.

“Kya! Make some ice!”

Aang managed to swallow his groan when Kya stood up and struck the form her mother had been teaching her recently.

Rather than interrupt the spontaneous practice, Aang just watched.

Kya snapped her right hand forward, and a wave of ice surged across the tub, catching Bumi around the waist. He cackled in excitement.

And then he tried to move.

With a few jerks, he wiggled his hips and pressed down against the frozen surface. Suddenly, he was not happy, at all.

“Dad! She froze my…”

The finger snap came from behind him, and all of the water in the room leapt up into the air. Aang and the children looked up to see a sparkling blanket of tiny droplets suffused across the room.

“Out,” came his wife’s controlled, but very angry, voice.

Bumi and Kya shared a glance before clambering out of the tub, rushing past their parents and disappearing into their bedroom.

Aang turned around and tried to wear an expression to tell her that he had been trying to keep things under control.

But above her very late-term pregnancy, her face was stormy.

“You’re on thin ice with me, Avatar. Get this cleaned up.”

He hadn’t finished gulping before she had turned, releasing all of the water with a splash.

and the house learns to laugh again

echoes of a full house