To that one guest reviewer, Sponge: That's a fair question, given my track record, but YES, this series is HERE TO STAY!
Notes for Chapter 42:
1. On SOKKA: I'm not really sure what Sokka's process for dealing with death or grief is. We don't see how he reacted to his mother's death immediately after it happened. The most we see was the end of the episode when he's talking to Arnook about how proud he must be, and then in the swamp episode, he mentions he thinks about Yue all the time and still feels guilty for not being able to protect her. Then in the Serpent's Pass episode he tells Suki he doesn't want to lose her the way he lost Yue. That's the most I can remember, besides, of course, the mentions he makes of Yue throughout the rest of the show.
I think Sokka would spend a lot of time alone at first, just trying to think and get his feelings sorted out. He would appreciate his friends whenever he was around them, but Sokka's a thinking guy, not so much an emotional guy - he would want to think everything through and get everything in his head organized, and that includes his grief. He wouldn't want to talk things out, at least not right away. He just needs to get his thoughts in order before he can handle being around his friends for long periods of time. I don't think he would want anyone to walk on eggshells around him or avoid the topic completely, but it's not something he would want to talk in depth about immediately.
2. On the FUNERAL: Everything was made up. I was torn between using actual Inuit funeral customs and making something up, but then I started thinking about how the (northern) water tribe would likely do burials at sea and how that would work when combined with how their city is structured and the whole idea came together and I couldn't stop it. Since the Water Tribe has, in Iroh's words, a strong sense of community, I don't think they would have completely private funerals (except maybe in certain cases), and they would come together to grieve and give the deceased a proper send off. The waterbenders would definitely be involved. I think everyone would get together to help the family members of the deceased through their grief. The after party may not always take place in the palace.
We never really got to see much about what the Southern tribe was like before the war, but I don't think it was structured the same way as the North was. In my interpretation of their culture, they had similar customs as the north, sending the body out to sea and then sending the body to the ocean floor, but without the whole system of canals. Of course, due to the decline in waterbenders in the last hundred years, they had to make do without a waterbender to send them to the bottom of the sea, so the customs changed a bit. They just send the body out, or they find a way to bury them (based on the grave of Sokka and Katara's mother that we see in the comics, but of course it doesn't have to be a grave - it could just be a plaque dedicated to her). They'd probably be able to bury them whenever it gets warm enough, but otherwise they send the body out to sea, adrift on a boat.
(Of course, this is all my interpretation and imagination, and it may be proven wrong in future AtLA/LoK comics, but for now it could be canon.)
Air Nomad funeral customs are based on Tibetan Buddhist monk funeral customs, however, with a few tweaks. In Tibet, they also will leave corpses out for birds to prey on, which is cool. Fire Nation funeral customs (as well as shrines to the dead) are based on what little we saw of them in the show, some pieces are from Chinese customs, and a little bit was made up by me.
3. Originally, Tora's realization in the last chapter was going to be about how she has to kill in order to survive the war. I changed that because I didn't want to be that pessimistic. I mean, in real life, it would be true, but that doesn't mean it has to be true in fiction. Tora freaked out when she realized she had killed people. Changing that and making her kill people would go against that and it's a little too dark. Now she realizes that people are going to die, but she doesn't have to be the one to cause it.
4. It always bothered me how the show never addressed the fact that Aang killed hundreds of people in the north. Of course I get it, because it was a battle and all, but the show frequently allowed Aang to see the destruction the Avatar State brings and how uncomfortable he is with that fact, and they never addressed the north. And then in the finale he's like "The monks taught me all life is sacred!" Which is made invalid by the fact that neither he nor anyone else ever talks about all the people he killed before, albeit unintentionally as he was in the avatar state.
So I wanted to address it. Because Tora would have definitely had issues with it and would not have allowed anyone to ignore it, especially not Aang.
I think Aang would be the sort of person to hold a service, even a small one, for his enemies. He's a kind person, and he loves life. He would want to honour his enemies.
5. Tora's shift in perspective on the Fire Nation army might seem a little rushed, but it's been building for a while. She knew she was wrong in thinking of them as just "people doing their jobs" but she didn't want to admit it to herself because as she's said multiple times, the Fire Nation is her home and she doesn't want to think the same of them as her friends do. The others (with the exception of Aang, probably) think of the Fire Nation as inhumane monsters. Tora knows not all of them are, and that thinking transfers over to the army. Despite all of the horrors she's seen caused by the army and the soldiers, she knows they are apart of her people and they are part of her, in a way, and they are human, and that's why it's hard for her to think of them as purely evil. Which they aren't, of course. But they aren't good, and they aren't "just doing their jobs", they're committing crimes against humanity and taking over the world, and yeah, maybe a lot of them are just following orders, but that doesn't make it right for any of them to do it.
And it takes Yue dying to fix the problems her people made to make Tora realize that. Sometimes it takes a big thing to make someone realize they were wrong, and the realization has been building for awhile. Yue's death was the catalyst for it all.
Notes for the Whole Story:
1. You've probably seen me mention (many times) how much I wish to go through this story and change the things I've started to dislike. Originally I was going to edit it after I finished it.
I'm not doing that anymore. I think if I don't just leave this story the way it is, I'm never going to be able to move on to the second or third book.
Maybe after I finish the third book, I'll come back and rewrite some things. But for now, this story is staying the way it is. I've gotta move on with this series or I'll never finish.
2. The next book may be written in third person POV. I've already mentioned that I may write the third book and some scenes in the second book in third person POV. But, over the past few years, I've written a lot of stuff in 3rd POV, and I've gotten used to it and I prefer it, mostly because it allows for a little bit more freedom in going through character perspectives (if I'm writing in omniscient third person POV at least) without having a breakline and announcing I'm switching the POV. I'll write the first chapter of the next book and I'll decide what's best for me when I've finished it, so you'll find out then. Or just leave a comment on what you think about this. I'll still make the final decision but I'd like some feedback.
3. The second book will be more organized. If there was a benefit to taking so long to write this book, it was giving me a lot of time to think about what I want the next books to be like, so I have a better idea of what I want to be doing. I don't know if that means I'll be posting more frequently, but it does mean that I won't be making it up as I'm writing the story like I did with a lot of this story. Plus, I've gotten better at writing over the years, so overall it will be better!
4. In the Next book: Tora will learn to actually fucking talks about her feelings and problems with her friends (because she's very emotional internally but doesn't actually talk a lot about her problems unless she's feeling backed into a corner).
Some Final Words:
I want to sincerely thank everybody who's read this story. Whether you've been here since the beginning, came in halfway through, or only found it in the past couple months and decided to add it to your fave/follow list despite it not being updated since 2015, you've all helped me somehow.
If you reviewed only once or twice or a handful of times: Love you! Thank you!
If you reviewed frequently: Wow! Love you! Thank you so much! I'm glad to see you're keeping up with this story!
If you faved/followed: I'm happy my story was important enough that you wanted to hold onto it and/or get notifications when it was updated! Love you! Thank you!
Seriously, I mean it - every single one of you helped me get to this point. I don't know if I would have continued writing this story without your support. Whether it was leaving a review telling me you loved it, or giving me your opinions on what happened or what could happen next, whatever, seeing those motivated me. While I was working on the last chapter, I went through old reviews several times to give me the motivation to finish. And if you didn't review, and only faved/followed, that was awesome too! Seeing that people wanted to keep tabs on my story somehow was awesome, especially in the past couple months when I was struggling through the final chapter.
And to those people who reviewed on my author's notes, the ones that explained why I hadn't updated in forever due to school and events in my personal life, the ones who said it was fine and that my life came first, thank you.
Special shoutout to my sister, who read through some parts of this story and was useless beyond telling me it was good, but also helped me write fight scenes by acting out the scenes with me. She keeps telling me she's going to read all of it one day but we just have to wait and see about that.
Shoutout to the all the people who told me that my story made them emotional or that they read it in one sitting. I got a couple people telling me certain moments made them tear up or cry (the gaang reacting to Tora's "death" was a popular one).
Shoutout to everyone who caught on to my references, ie The Princess Bride (the most popular one) and several Studio Ghibli movies, and probably some others I can't remember right now.
Seriously, thank you, all of you. I can't thank you enough for your support.
FINALLY
I'm going to mark this story as Complete. But don't take it off your follow list, because when the next book is posted, I'm going to come back and add a new chapter to this to let you all know the next book is available.
I can't wait! I'm very excited! Hope to see you all there!
Bye!
- Lady of the Spirit