Bruhhhhhhh, I KNOW you’re not about to kill off Suluk too JUST when I started to get slightly attached to him, what the fuckkkk, calm down Satan, jesusssss. You’re worse than George RR Martin :’( I have to believe he’ll be coming back, but idk how sure I can be given that you’ve killed off so many other beloved OC’s before this (rip Uncle Bo, #neverforget). Tbh though given how Kurozuka has been stealing those children to eat them, it’s likely Suluk’s sister is also dead, so maybeee less painful for him to not ever have to come to terms with that. Ughhhh, seriously what the fuckkkkk.
Also can I just say, seeing old members of Kei’s team make an appearance in the next avatar’s story is kind of like seeing Toph, Katara, and Zuko pop up in Korra, like I was so excited to see Himiko make an appearance and see how she’s only become even MORE of a badass with age. No choice left but to stan.
Sadly looks like I’ve caught up to everything you’ve posted so far, but truly can’t wait for whatever you come up with next. Hope you’re safe, sane, and healthy with everything going on, and looking forward to following this in the future!

Ahhh I think we’re gonna see Mela again next chapter, which is exciting! Definitely liking the direction you seem to be taking Dorjee’s character.
Also was “Aunt Daiyu” a reference to “Dreaming of the Red Chamber” by any chance?

I was really struggling to put my finger on exactly why Kei and Jiro’s relationship bothered me so much other than what I noted in my review in a previous chapter, and what you had Kei/Jinhai say to him this chapter about how they regretted not being able to get to know the real them or something like that really made it click. They both got to know the versions of each other that existed in that world of captivity but those selves didn’t represent their actual identities. Jiro had to act as a captor, and Kei was the captive, and both of those roles had implications for the ways they constructed their senses of self when they interacted with each other. Tragically, they never got to know each other’s real self, but it would’ve been even more tragic potentially because it would’ve been very real that the people they were outside the captive/captor dynamic wouldn’t have been compatible. So as sadly as their relationship ended, I think I’m, not glad, but maybe satisfied that it ended that way.
The rest of this chapter was great, but let me just state the obvious—Ahn’s a piece of shit, so is his father, death to the Chens. Tbh I’m not sure how I feel about Dorjee as a character. I obviously sympathize with her story and I’m looking forward to seeing what she’s like outside of the oppression of captivity. But as it is right now, she seems a little cliche? Extremely beautiful, tragic backstory, ignored by everyone around her, secret superpower waiting to be explored. She’s not a bad character by any means, but I hope she becomes as complicated as the rest of the characters you’ve written, and given how high quality the rest of the story has been, I have no doubt I’ll end up liking her more later, this is just my current perception.

Glad to see Kyoshi being recognized as the absolute paragon of badassery that she is continually. I’m glad Jinhai’s bisexuality was acknowledged as a potential problem because in a lot of stories, both fanfiction and not, it’s swept under the rug as soon as the character comes out to their friends, who miraculously instantly accept them and that’s just...not reflective of real life. Also love how you’re exploring the potential racism of this world as well—the sandbenders were clearly ethnically distinct from other parts of the Earth Kingdom in canon, so I’m glad to see how that plays out when a generated figure like the Avatar comes from a group that seemed to be traditionally looked down upon (really, love the fact that both of the avatars you’ve created so far can’t from groups that seemed to be shit on/the butt of a joke in canon). Really looking forward to seeing how you explore all of that since this avatar’s story seems to be much more focused internally on what it means to be the avatar rather than being the avatar in a world confronted by a massive, urgent external problem.
Reading about the airbender’s treatment (sorry, can’t remember her name at the moment!) was pretty nauseating and definitely relate to Jinhai’s anger. On a sidenote, I thought it was an interesting choice to have Jinhai pick up airbending, even if it was just the very basics, so quickly since it’s the opposite of his element of origin and it comes after the next element in the cycle. Not saying it’s not a valid choice at all! Just will be interesting to see if there’s any consequences from that, since Aang ended up having an aversion to firebending when he tried learning it out of order.

Very cool how Kei was from a place that was kinda mixed in its bending style, blending earth and water as part of their traditions, and Jinhai sort of mirrors that, being of mixed origin himself. This chapter was really interesting and can see how it might be setting things up for future chapters. Looking forward to seeing what Jiro and Jinhai’s interactions look like especially!

We LOVE the bi/pan representation, but he seems a littleeeee like a douche lmao. This is going to be a much more complicated avatar than Kei was for sure—it was easy to love her since she was all about light and peace and goodness since the beginning. She fit the bill of what most people think of when they think of an avatar. This one grew up poor and the way that many more people in the world live, in an area of gray morality. He’s more a human, where Kei was a demigod. Definitely see what you meant by this taking a different tone than Kei’s story, but excited to see where this goes! Especially since he’s an Earth Kingdom avatar, which means he’s least likely to be spiritually attuned compared to avatars from other origins, but will have to deal with the same (or at least similar) spiritual stuff that Korra had to, except without the spirituality associated with a Water Tribe upbringing.
Also! Forgot to mention last chapter, but TY Jiro? Makes total sense, love to see it, made me like the character even more. Hope that wasn’t the last time we see him now that we know he’s alive and firmly a Good Guy️.

“Statues erect across the world. There are some of the old Avatars but most of them are of Avatar Kei. They call her the Great Liberator. The Painted Warrior.”
AS. THEY. SHOULD. Pour one out for a true queen, rip.
Also, the new avatar seems to be hinted at being queer in this chapter, and pretty excited to see that as well. We know queer identity is not widely accepted in the Earth Kingdom from the post-Korra stuff, so it’ll be super interesting to see how the world handles a queer avatar, especially after Kei’s been raised up as essentially this deified figure after her death.
Also, on a pettier note, can I just say how gratifying it was to not see Roku’s name on that list of venerated avatars? Glad the whole world realized he was actually a bag of garbage given life :’)

If Kei had to die, this was it. This was the way to do it. This was such a whirlwind of amazing that it’s hard to pick out specific points which I enjoyed because, really, I enjoyed every single sentence of it. Highlights have to include MY GIRL KYOSHI DOIN IT TO EM FROM BEYOND THE M’FING GRAVE, we have zero choice but to stan even harder. I love how the similarities between her and Kei really were thrown into sharp relief over the course of this chapter as Kei grew into the role of “warrior and conqueror” as Jiro (which !) noted. On a sidenote, I definitely viewed her as more of a liberator than a conqueror since she spared anyone who wasn’t an active combatant and offered mercy, but I wonder if Jiro’s view of her as a conqueror stemmed from his unconscious mind since he was raised as a Fire Nation citizen, even if he viewed her actions positively. Anyway, though, I also love the completion of Kei’s character arc being her taking on traits similar to Hama. Not only did she gain the same bloodbending abilities, but it was so interesting to see the internal, psychological transformations that have to occur in order to give rise to an ability like that created wholesale from scratch. That gave us greater insight into Kei’s psyche, but also tangential into Hama’s. I always thought Hama was treated pretty unfairly in the show tbh, so was really fascinated to see Hama’s own character exploration being implicated here.
Poor Ryuu though being left all alone, and rip to Kei, a true real OG.

Ohhhhh fuck, if I thought LAST chapter was hard to read...WHEW. I was crying through pretty much this whole chapter ngl. It started out pretty agonizing and just got WORSE as it went on, and jesusssss. The amount of tears I shed reading this? I’m fucking dehydrated now, thanks.
I just kept thinking about how an entire culture, an entire way of living was basically totally lost. That part where Bumi picked up that doll and reading about Uncle Bo’s little misadventure before it took a sharp left turn both pretty much had me feeling like my heart was clenched in someone’s fist. The sheer human impact of a genocide like that is beyond heartbreaking, and to know it was only to get back at you in response to your very existence must be incredibly hard to deal with.
The interactions with the past avatars was such a good sequence of scenes also. Fuck Roku. For real, FUCK Roku. The audacity of this man to completely abandon her for a bullshit reason—that she had to learn “how to be alone” when she is the literal avatar meaning that she is connected to her past lives at /all times/, which means she can NEVER truly be alone. Just because HE never grew up surrounded by manifestations of his past lives, he wasn’t able to comprehend the implications of what kind of positive impact that might have on his current incarnation. The least he could’ve done was explained his reasoning to her before abandoning her in the prison—even if she disagreed with his decision, she would’ve at least understood what was happening and wouldn’t have had to cope with being abandoned by her own past lives (who had up until this point literally been around her /entire life) on top of being in captivity. He’s supposed to be all wise and filled with the knowledge of all the past avatars right? Well did he stop to think of how traumatizing it might be for someone who had literally never been alone her /entire life/ to be deserted by EVERYONE all at once with zero explanation? There is value in providing someone with companionship and a sense of hope in a seemingly hopeless situation, which does nothing to rob them of the agency to claim ownership over their own thoughts and actions, and Roku understands none of that, coming from his privileged ass background. Truly fuck Roku, ol “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” sounding ass piece of literal feces, ughhhhhh.
Kyoshi has always been and continues to be a motherfuckin QUEEN though! She really said no justice, no peace and I am 1000% here for it. I LOVE the advice you had her give and really hope she shows up more in the coming chapters, because Roku is CANCELLED!
Loved the interactions, advice, and depth of empathy and understanding between Kei and Mela in this chapter as well. Really looking forward to seeing more of Mela in the future!
Also super happy to see the return of Ryuu! So glad he wasn’t left to think he was abandoned without explanation. I thought it was interesting how his situation really mirrored Kei’s—both abandoned by their constant companions for the same amount of time without it ever being explained until after their isolation was over. I feel like the reclamation of their relationship maybe symbolizes Kei reclaiming some of her old, pre-prison identity, which is why her seeking him out again is so significant (but might be reading too much into this lol).
Seems like Kei’s last chapter is next chapter according to the author’s note at the beginning of this chapter? Really not ready to grieve for yet another character in this story, but onwards I suppose :/

This was a really difficult read tbh. I’m really, really glad you decided not to include rape as a method of torture that was inflicted upon her, though. While it is something that happens during war, I just feel like some authors use it indiscriminately as a way of showing suffering even though there are plenty of other ways of writing that that aren’t quite so triggering for so many people.
I had pretty complicated feelings about Jiro. I appreciate the kindness he showed her and I thought that the way you used him to show how people in the Fire Nation have ALSO suffered in a way due to their country’s newfound nationalistic, fascist regime. It really helps complicate the narrative of the big bad Fire Nation vs the rest of the world. The fact that he only was able to believe in the necessity of balance and the avatar of an agent of balance after seeing the horrors of war himself is also realistic; as someone who grew up in the States, I’m also used to living in a country that portrays this narrative of bringing prosperity and civilization to the unwashed masses of the rest of the world, and I know firsthand several friends who only realized the type of nationalistic propaganda they unquestioningly accepted when they began to travel outside of their home country, and the portrayal of Jiro here really reflected that. The only part of Jiro and Kei’s relationship that felt kind of icky to me was the romantic undertones it took on. Not because of any kind of failing in the writing—I do think that’s a realistic portrayal of what might happen in circumstances where someone faces extreme brutality regularly and then has someone begin to show them genuine kindness. I just wasn’t sure whether Kei’s feelings were genuine or a sort of Stockholm Syndrome; Jiro seems like a genuinely really kind character, but I’m not sure Kei would be able to give consent while being in the captivity of her oppressor (or at the very least, someone who worked for her oppressor). Ultimately, while it was pretty heartbreaking to read about how Jiro had to be left behind (and fully intended to be sacrificed from the very beginning seems like :( ), I think this makes Kei’s romantic life a lot less complicated and ultimately a lot more healthy in the long-run, since she doesn’t have to necessarily deal with the fallout of having these kinds of feelings for someone who was complicit in her abuse for so long. To be clear, though, I fully support the choices you made narratively here! I don’t disagree with the decision to have Kei have feelings for Jiro—I’m just trying to work through what the implications of having those sort of feelings for him would be.
How long that romantic life, or any sort of life, will be for Kei, though, is unclear. I’m really, really not looking forward to when she dies (my breath was deadass held this entire chapter) :(

Tbh I’m reallyyyyy dreading moving onto the next chapter, because you’ve made me become pretty attached to this avatar just over the course of one chapter. Given the summary that it takes a full cycle before balance is restored and your note at the beginning of this chapter that this was HALF of her life...I take it that next chapter isn’t going to see Kei surviving it (oh fuck, Ryuu’s going to be all alone forever, this is so mean).
Needless to say, I love the way you’ve ran with this premise, but damn it’s cruel to make a character so likable and then kill them off :’( Really speaks to your talent as a writer how much of a pit I had in my stomach reading how she was treated at the end of this chapter and how I know she’s going to be treated next chapter. Also! The bit about the airbenders being lured into traps really shows how you really DID go out of your way to do your research well, and I just want to acknowledge that. Definitely going to try my best to leave at least a few sentences each chapter as a review when I have time in return!

Again very good introspection and atmosphere, can't wait for nexts chapters and hoping the next Avatar won't be from the royal family.

Oh I forgot to mention how beautiful the return to the air temple is! The way that Dorjee and Jinhai are moved is a reflection of the whole reason we have this ficAang giving up his life to save the Air Nomads from extinction. That scene was lovely.

Ahhhhh! Okay, we’ll you’ve certainly left us on a terrible cliff-hanger!

Does this mean Sully’s sister is dead? Chi-eaten or whatever?So brilliant to use a sister of a previous avatar. And a non-bender. I’m very excited to see where you take this! I can’t imagine how it would be if she gets a hold of Jinhai’s bodywould she be able to use his bending? Even worse for me would be what she would do with the people he has surrounded himself with.

Man, this is intriguing! Write more, write more!

What a great chapter! Your writing always paints such vivid pictures.

I especially like Dorjee getting a sky bison. This is also the first chapter that I’ve felt any special connection with Sullybut I like him! He’s playful but legit.

Well done. It’s not easy to give real depth to so many characters, but you’re doing well. Keep up the good work!