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TobuIshi — A:TLA - Losing It...
by-nc-nd
Published: 2008-02-05 15:36:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 1674; Favourites: 53; Downloads: 14
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((Note: This is going in scraps after 24 hours. Too messy/weird.))Incendiary glance
Become and collide in me
Zoom in, enhance, hold
While I go helplessly sky high
I'm losing, I'm losing it....
I must be dreaming...
I must be...
I drew this quite some time ago, just after I'd gotten my tablet, while I was still playing around and seeing what I could do with it. The inspiration was the beautiful, frenetic, elegantly panicky song, "Must Be Dreaming," by Frou Frou. I had been sketching Katara anyway at the time, so...
It turned out to be prophetic. Katara, I think, is at a very bad place right now in the series; and no, I'm not talking about her behavior towards Zuko, the nit that the whole fandom is picking at the moment. I mean she's at a bad place with herself, as a person. She's shutting down, after her first taste of real full-scale merciless war, and after nearly losing her father and seeing him taken away and jailed, and after what Hama did to her by forcing her to bloodbend, and after having to swallow her perfectly reasonable suspicions about Zuko and pray he won't kill them all in their sleep, and...there are just so many stresses on her right now, and it's really starting to break her down at last.
She's gotten so much harder and bitterer, just in the last few episodes. Bad, bad things are happening to the sweet blue-eyed little girl who left home to find a teacher and have an adventure, and I for one am not angry--I'm worried, for her sake...
This is the right turn, wrong universe
You're taking me in full bloom
Fireball, careful with that there
See what you made me do...?
I must be dreaming, or
We're onto something
I must be dreaming, for
I don't fall in love lawlessly
I must be dreaming, or
Pinch me to waking
So undeniably yours
As long as I am losing it so completely...
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Comments: 33
(<_<...I didn't remember whether you said it was okay for me to post this, but I finally did and here's the link 
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Goodness, thank you! It's certainly not a happy picture, but... What did you find heart-breaking about it?
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Just all that Katara was going through, and how well you portrayed that in your drawing.
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I agree with you... I recently counted up and remembered that it's only been 4 episodes since the Hama incident, 5 if you count 3x13. A matter of maybe two weeks in Avatarverse, three at the absolute max. Basing on the timing of episode 9, it was probably about a week or week and a half between the Hama incident and the invasion. It's been at most a week between the invasion and episode 3x13 events. So Katara is still dealing with the Hama thing, even though she hasn't talked about it. But we know it has to come up, because she's been given a metaphorical gun and she has to shoot it before the season/series closes.
Add to that the desperately failed invasion and the idea that her father and tribesmen are being tortured or killed as POWs... its a bad week for her.
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I really like it. 'Cause Katara is in a bad place, and she's got so much going on. I can relate to feeling scribbly rather than kept in the lines.
She's going to break, and I have crazy!awesome! theories about ep 316 The Southern Raiders....
I'm betting we see mental breakdown there. 
It's fun.
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Hm...The Southern Raiders, huh?
At this point, I'm just holding out for some SUKI PLEASE. D: Preferably attached to the rest of her and in reasonable health!
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I love both the song AND the picture very very very much. <3
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Thank you! It's an addictive tune, isn't it?
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You're welcome!
And, yes. Massively. I hope you've heard Imogen Heap's solo work; it's breathtaking. If ever you get a chance, see her live, because the experience is beyond words.
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Oh, don't I wish. Does she ever tour in Japan?
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Actually, I think she has before.
You never know!
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I have to agree with everyone here about the way katara must be feeling, and i must say that this piece captures it perfectly. please dont scrap it, its great.
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Aw, poor Katara just can't catch a break! When you put it that way (listing off all the things that have been piled on her lately) it makes her total hate on for Zuko a lot more reasonable, as annoying as it might seem to all us die-hard Zutarians...
Sooner or later she's just going to explode and wreak havoc with her water tentacle things... Interesting that might be, I hope she catches a break soon!
Sweet mood with the pic, it all matches perfectly! I love the monocromatic pattern you've got going on!
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Well, I dunno, "total hate on" is such a strong way to put it. I think she'll have to get over it eventually, the show's built that way. It leans heavily towards themes of redemption.
I do hope she gets a break soon, too, though! And thanks, I was just playing around with the palette.
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I know we already discussed this, but I'm soooo happy that there's someone else who sees this side of what's happening to poor Katara! She's had to be the grown-up, mommy, peace-maker, and responsible one for a looong time. All her roles and feelings and convictions are kind of tilting and spilling around, because real life keeps shoving her around.
But I agree with Mai-Love, the swirls and scribbles match the feel. Though it might be awesome to see a traditionally colored version, as well.
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*nods* It's hard to hold a group together for so long, and she really is the glue that keeps their ragtag little band from flying apart at the seams. Sooner or later, something's gotta give. Hopefully not at a time when it'll get anybody hurt, traumatized, or bloodbent.
(Argh, there's nothing to traditionally color, it's all just a dozen built-up scrawled layers of blue, no real lineart... >_<
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"or bloodbent." Niiice.
She is so important to the group dynamic. In the fan-fiction that I'm writing, because of the premise upon which I built my story, it's necessary that she's not a part of the gaang at all for a very, very long time (instead, she is raised in the Fire Nation). Even though I'm still nowhere near where the series begins (rather, Katara is still 2-3 years old at this point in the story), I have put a lot of thought into how the group fares without her. As you can imagine, it's very different. They fall apart more easily, they have more difficulty trusting one another, and they really are lost in so many ways. It's so sad to me to see that. Of course, they find other ways to pull together. But Katara's importance is almost tangibly felt in her absence, you know?
I'm still several chapters away from that point, but I have thought through it a lot.
(Yeah, it'd have to be like, using this pic as a "sketch" layer, then redrawing line art and colors over that. Hm, that might be fun. May I try?)
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If you'd like!
(And, as a matter of fact, I happen to be writing a fic at the moment primarily involving Katara being out of the group and the attendant changes in their fates, as well! Great minds think alike?)
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I think I shall!
(Great minds DO think alike! Except yours concerns an older Katara, and mine is baby Katara [well, for now...I plan to follow it through their entire adulthood]. I'm working through the 5th chapter right now. It's been a sludgey, author's block-y one! Would this fic happen to be the one involving her choice to stay with Jet instead? We'd once lightly discussed me beta-ing that for you. So you are going ahead and pursuing that, then? How awesome!)
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As a matter of fact, yes, it is! And I have a tentative prologue hashed out, as of yesterday. How would I go about getting it to you, if you had time to beta it?
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Well, you would send it to me in a note or e-mail! Would you like me to note you my e-mail address?
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Either way! Whatever's most convenient for the beta is usually my rule of thumb, since you're the one doing the work...
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Okay, I'll note you - e-mail is best, with the file sent as an attachment.
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Well, that is the idea, but it's very scribbly because I was still getting used to my tablet...just look at her left forearm, it's like a T Rex stood on it... >_>
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Too bad you're putting this in scraps, I suddenly had a thought that this has a high chance to be put in an art museum.
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Wow. You're kidding, right? XP Thanks, though...I'm glad you like it!
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Isn't it? (Says the lady who got two hours of sleep last night because she was up drawing things like crazy, and now has to teach two classes of elementary school English while totally braindead...I guess this is a textbook case of "Physician, heal thyself," huh?)
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