art blog(derogatory)
No title available
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
roma★
No title available
Today's Document
shark vs the universe
dirt enthusiast
styofa doing anything
Claire Keane
Sade Olutola
JVL
Andulka
@theartofmadeline
we're not kids anymore.
⁂
Stranger Things
i don't do bad sauce passes
★
wallacepolsom
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Philippines
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Egypt
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Germany
seen from Netherlands
seen from Canada
@blandatlaheadcanons
i am once again asking atla/lok fans to listen to indigenous people
actually i am no longer asking 🙃 i hate you if you talk over me by claiming that the reason korra, and specifically korra, somehow all the other characters look just fine, is hypersexualized in your art and drawn with red skin is because of your “drawing style” and “the filters added”, so apparently it’s fine. just shut the fuck up if your response to me is anything but “i will change/delete it”
is there any consensus on what flowers Toph and Katara are wearing in Ba Sing Se, and what flower Zuko had on the tea tray in the finale? I'm torn between chrysanthemum, peony, and camellia which are all plausible and listed on the wiki list of flora in the earth kingdom and fire nation.
I want to start A Motif™ in a fic and they all have usable symbologies (East Asian and Western Victorian) for the story I want to tell.
I would say that Toph and Katara were wearing peonies in Ba Sing Se:
Their flowers had that fluffy, slightly frayed look that you get with Chinese peonies. In Chinese culture, the peony is nicknamed "The King of Flowers" and is associated with prosperity and rank. This is primarily because they were a popular motif in art from the Tang Dynasty, widely regarded as a golden age for China. Considering that Toph and Katara were trying to sneak into a party hosted by the Earth King, it's an appropriate flower to wear.
As for Zuko's tea tray in the finale:
I don't think that's a flower. I think that might be osmanthus cake:
Per Wikipedia, osmanthus cake (桂花糕) is a traditional sweet-scented Chinese pastry made with glutinous rice flour, honey, sweet osmanthus and rock sugar. They're usually eaten with tea and associated with the season of autumn, as that's when sweet osmanthus flowers bloom. Since Aang defeated Ozai during the summer solstice, it makes sense that the conclusion of the story would take place in the season following their victory. In Chinese culture, osmanthus flowers are associated with romantic love and fidelity, due to their long-lasting fragrance.
Greatest earthbender in the whole world
(ID in ALT Text)
listen i am here fully admitting that that one, THAT ONE really short moment where zuko activates his fire jets underneath his feet, are like two second that i keep watching on repeat over and over if i stubble upon on youtube edit, for.... well uh... REASON! and yeha adult gaang is hot and snatched, and buff, and attractive, and its all in their cheekbones. (may or may not more doodles in the future).
but my brain is the whole time "gosh none of them drink enough water"
Baby monk
the 13th card
Can't get over how
just like in the real Death card
yeah actually that death can be quite the good thing (for the entire rest of the world) (RIP Lu Ten but your old man kind of sucked until he was forced to realize "oh wait, having one's children die in a war kinda sucks actually")
absolute and immediate regret
It's his little topknot crown that kills me.
For those of you who don’t know, Seven Havens is at risk of being leaked by hackers, with some reported to have already obtained the show’s content. If this happens, we might not get anymore Avatar content in the future!
supporting women's wrongs this pride month <3 marks under cut
don't repost/remove caption!
A bit of flare:]
Aang having the privilege of growing up with airbenders all around him and learning airbending straight from the monks in his temple but having to live the rest of his life as the last air nomad with no one to share his culture with.
Vs
Katara having the privilege of still having her people and culture but not ever being able to learn southern waterbending style because she never met another southern waterbender and only knowing the northern way of fighting and also having to grow up quicker.
Aang wishes he has the community Katara has and Katara wishes she had a childhood Aang had.
So an old man meets an old friend with a new face...
Cultural Practices: Medicine in ATLA
I thought I’d do a quick overview of the medicines and treatments that we see employed in ATLA. This post will be a little different from the usual, as it’ll include a few personal anecdotes from yours truly and a content warning since some medical practices can be a bit gruesome to describe.
Chi Pathways
Also known as the meridian system or jīngluò (經絡), these are the metaphysical “veins” through which chi flows. Although modern science rejects the existence of the meridian system, belief in chi pathways forms the basis for many treatments within Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Cinobufagin
Also known as Huachansu (华蟾素) or “Chinese Toad Essence”, it refers to the practice of using secretions from the skin of Asiatic toads for medicinal purposes. The chemical, cinobufagin, found in these secretions has been known to have many beneficial effects in humans:
Pain Relief
Strengthens Immunity
Cancer Cell Suppression & Reduction
In TCM, cinobufagin is extracted by drying toad skin and steeping it in hot water, essentially using it to brew a medicinal ”tea”. However, thanks to modern science, cinobufagin can now also be taken via pill or injection.
For obvious reasons, Aang couldn’t exactly be shown drying and skinning pond critters to make hot froggy juice. Can’t say how effective sucking on frozen frogs is for curing the cold, but I’m sure someone out there has tried it. I will say, I never related harder to Aang then when the herbalist tells him to go gather frogs for medicine and he just looks bewildered. My grandparents were strong believers in the health benefits of toad skin and used to have me hunt for them during fishing trips.
Fire Cupping
When Zuko takes Iroh to a local Earth Kingdom clinic to cure his uncle’s poisoning, fire cupping or báguàn (拔罐) is briefly shown as another treatment available there. Here is a quick description of the process from the Wikipedia page:
Fire cupping involves soaking a cotton ball in almost pure alcohol. The cotton is clamped by a pair of forceps and lit via match or lighter, and, in one motion, placed into the cup and quickly removed, while the cup is placed on the skin. The fire uses up all the oxygen in the cup which creates a negative pressure inside the cup. The cup is then quickly placed onto the body and the negative pressure “sucks” the skin up.
According to TCM, the purpose of cupping is to dislodge stagnant blood and encourage circulation, thereby improving chi flow to cure common ailments. My headcanon is that this treatment is a specialty of the Fire Nation cause, you know, fire cupping. It also ties into the importance of body heat in firebending and would be a pretty decent treatment for a chi-blocked body; I also headcanon chi-blocking as having roots in firebending.
I have second hand experience with fire cupping. My mother once tried fire cupping on my dad but I think she might have overheated the cups because he ended up getting pretty big blisters on his back. You can imagine what happened when he accidentally rolled over on to his back while sleeping…
Moral of the Story: Please leave all medical treatments, both traditional and modern, to trained professionals.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is probably the most well-known type of TCM in the English-speaking world. It is the practice of inserting very thin metal needles into the skin along the meridian system to improve chi flow. As far as I know, porcupine needles have never been used. ;-) Acupuncture is typically used to treat various types of body pain and stiffness.
Surprisingly, I actually don’t have any real life experience with acupuncture. As far as headcanon goes, I imagine this might be a specialty of the Earth Kingdom once metalbending becomes more commonplace.
In the near future, I’ll probably make a post detailing other traditional Asian and Indigenous medicines that would work well in the Avatar world.
Like what I’m doing? Tips always appreciated, never expected. ^_^
https://ko-fi.com/atlaculture
That ask about SWT place names got me wondering, is there any etymology for Agna Q’ela?
I believe so!
What's in a Name: Agna Qel'a
Agna is a root morpheme for "adult female" in many dialects of Inupiat (the Inuit language spoken in Northern Alaska). This is just a fancy way of saying that many Inupiat words related to women have the sound "agna" in them. For example:
Agnak - Woman
Agnaga - Wife
Agnakatiga - Cousin born to your mother's sister
Agnasalluk - Female animal
Also, for anyone wondering, the morpheme for "adult woman" in other Inuit & Yupik languages is "arna".
Qela is a Proto-Eskimo* root morpheme that is now pronounced as Kila/Qila in modern Inuit and Yupik languages. I've seen all three renderings used in relation to the same concept: Conjuring spirits. The morpheme qela/kila/qila appears in words related to summoning the supernatural, such as a shaman's drum (qilaut/kilaun) or their word for the Christian heaven (qilak/kilak). In Yupik, the qela morpheme does remain in certain words, such as their word for the Holy Spirit (Eprilnguq Qela) or the power to conjure spirits for divination (qelatu).
In other words, Agna Qel'a could roughly mean something like "Woman Who Summons Spirits" or even "Female Conjured Spirit".
From a meta perspective, this is obviously a reference to Yue's ultimate fate. However, this has apparently been the capital's name since at least Kyoshi's era. The "Qel'a" part of the name further emphasizes the ancient nature of the capital. This makes me wonder...
Could it be a long-standing tradition for Tui and La to give away portions of their life essence to babies in the Northern Water Tribe?
Obviously, the Moon Spirit and Ocean Spirit are aware of how fragile their koi bodies are, hence why they're kept hidden in the Spirit Oasis. Maybe another of their precautions is to create "backups" through lending their life essence to sickly babies? In a world before modern medicine, there's certainly no shortage of infants facing mortality. Perhaps Yue's situation wasn't so unique.
And, if that is the case, maybe Tui and La prefer to give their life essence to baby girls, since women don't participate in battles in the Northern Water Tribe. And perhaps that's why the male-dominated NWT calls its capital Agna Qel'a ("Woman Who Summons Spirits") rather than Angu Qel'a ("Man Who Summons Spirits") or Inuk Qel'a ("Human Who Summons Spirits").
*While the word eskimo is a derogatory term in Canada, it is still used in Alaska and linguistics as an umbrella term for "Indigenous Tundra peoples of North America".
Sources:
Project MUSE - Deciphering the Underlying Meanings of Inuit Words (2022)
Iñupiat Eskimo Dictionary (1970)
North Slope Iñupiaq Online Dictionary (2012)
Greenlandic-English Dictionary (2018)
Yup'ik Dictionary Vol. 2 (2012)
Proto-Eskimo Reconstructions - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (1994)
Decided to update the post when I noticed that one of the Yupik words for the Holy Spirit is Eprilnguq Qela. The use of this morpheme for Agna Qel'a implies that the spirits of the Northern Water Tribe are akin to holy beings.
My artwork for the Legend of Korra concert!
Our faces
A quick drawing before starting work this week again in a while…:) after finally finaaalllyy beating pyelonephritis haha
I know, I know, the anatomy is all wrong, but believe me, I’m trying my best
Stay Tuned for more :)
