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swan-swan — Uncle's New Assistant
Published: 2008-08-26 00:23:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 12480; Favourites: 296; Downloads: 96
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Description
"The world of tea is like the universe itself--boundless, full of possibilities, with so many concoctions and brews that you could go an entire lifetime without trying them all, that new discoveries are being made after thousands of years of brewing, failures and successes all blending together to create flavors so rich in color and flavor, it makes entire nations sit in silent wonder! Together, you and I will unlock the secrets and form a brew the likes of which THE WORLD HAS NEVER KNOWN!!!"....
What, you can't see Iroh getting completely carried away when he finds out that his nephew's girlfriend brews tea, too? [link] Even more so if Mai is not that adventurous when it comes to it, but capable?
Now, I doubt he'll go THIS enthusiastic, but...she likes Pai Sho, too. Put them together, and, well, there you go.
But you KNOW that Mai would probably work at the Jasmine Dragon, too, whenever Zuko chooses to stop by; she doesn't like to sit around and do nothing, and I'm sure that Uncle would be more than happy to welcome the help. It would give him a chance to tell her embarassing stories about Zuko, too...I mean, hey, why else would he want Zuko to bring home a lady friend? XD
There's a bit of a Ratatouille flavor to this piece...subliminal, really, it wasn't exactly what I based this on. Heh.
As for the art...there are a few minor details I have issues with, but on the whole....I blew myself away. There's actually some depth, people interacting, expressions, faces that work, folds, action, a background...not bad for 95% Paint. The other five came from IrfanView, which let me resize constantly to check up on the progress and blur the background. It was definitely a hard piece to do--at 3200 x 2400 drawing size, I had to do some parts in sections and mix them later. Took me about eight hours total. It also gobbled up the last of my computer's hard drive space--I'm going to be deleting files for quite a while tonight.
I don't think I have anything else to say, really...this is my Iroh/Mai bonding pic. I still need an Appa one...I have some ideas, I'll see what I can go with. And this one was originally supposed to be a little deeper and more serious...but then I decided to just cut loose.
Comments? Criticisms? Compliments? Complaints? Lemme have 'em.
Iroh and Mai belong to Bryke.
The pic belongs to me.
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Comments: 129
I've had a lot of people say that. It must be true!
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Iroh: OMG LIEK TEA IS TEH BEST
Mai: WTFudge?
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She agrees, of course, but just not in such an uncomfortable manner....
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aww, that's so cute! I can actually see Iroh being this enthusastic, and that's the sad part.
Side note, finally wrote that fic up for you: [link] Do tell if it's not up to par.
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I'll check it soon. Not much time at the moment.
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That's fine. Just thought I'd let you know I did it.
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Mai looks like she's wondering how somebody ike this could be Grand Lotus, or a member of Zuko's super seriosu family.
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Or when she's going to be able to breathe again...XD
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During the finale, I was just waiting for Mai interaction. I love Mai, she's my favourite female character. And this was just the Mai/Iroh lulz I had been wanting but was denied. Thank you. And I love Mai's expression. Victory lap.
But didn't Mai get a little screwed over in the finale? I wanted her to break out of prison with Ty Lee and go 'Die Hard' on everybody. And I seriously believe that Katara and Mai would be awesome together. Friendship lulz.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant. I really love Iroh's so-in-character dynamic pose and Mai's overall look in the picture.
My only comment is more shading on Iroh's face, other than that this is a victory on your part.
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Actually, I don't think she got shafted at all in the end. I think her reunion was perfectly done--she'd played her part by helping Zuko escape and taking down all the guards. Her work done, she could only wait for the end. And in the end...she returned to him in a scene that was no doubt deliberately reminiscient of Arwen's reunion with Aragorn at the end of Return of the King--and it bookended the whole happy ending and took us back into the feel of things. She didn't get much time, but it was all worth it...
And then she went and was playing Pai Sho against Suki while being helped by Katara, and then she commented on Sokka's artwork and listened to Momo and then laughed at Toph's joke...she crammed quite a bit of interaction in. XD But yeah, there's always room for more, hence my little series here. ^_^
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Personally, I think Mai deserved better. She's a brillant character who I have always related too on a personal level.
Anyway, I'm writing a fanfic which retells A:TLA with the 'what ifs'. And I'm also writing a story about the amazingly lulzy adventures of Mai and Ty Lee escaping from prison, helping save a dying town, getting makeovers, pretending to be one another, and experimenting with various teas.
And I'm so glad you do these little interactions, there is always room for moar Mai.
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You can't overdose, though. 
But the show leans toward the more "realistic," and allows some situations to come in that don't normally take place between characters.
Mai being in prison was one of the stakes that was raised for the ultimate ending. Her fate was being decided. I don't think she had any plans of breaking out before the battle was fought--she knew that she was in, as did Ty Lee, and all they could do was sit back and wait to see how things went. If Zuko failed, they might have to break out, or Mai might have given up, or--most likely--she would have been executed for her treason. A clean slate, no enemies left for the Fire Lord. Fortunately, that's not what happened.
There's also the issue that Mai and Ty Lee probably had their own story running the whole time--it just didn't intersect with that of the Gaang's. That is, Mai dealing with Zuko's departure, choosing her destiny and which side she was going to be on ultimately, talking with her uncle over the issue, learning of her parents' imprisonment in Omashu (I doubt that they would have had time to escape in the minutes before Bumi broke the bridge), dealing with the fact that Omashu was going to become a blackened cinder when the airships started moving, and probably having her relationship with Ty Lee and Azula begin to unravel.
A lot had to happen to her...
Mai's an amazing character, but then again, so is Iroh. We didn't learn about a lot of things concerning him; he only appeared in the finale, too, and a lot of it was side-battling away from the central points of combat. Ursa never returned in the show, Ty Lee only had three episodic appearances in the third season, Ozai never had that much expansion, and we haven't seen Gran-Gran since the first two episodes and her flashback form in the Puppetmaster.
There's only room for so much, and a character can only do so much before it becomes "too much."
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Great points. That's why I'm happy with fans doing fanart and fanfiction. However, if Avatar had had more episodes, I would have introduced more villians, reintroduced Koh (I believed at first Koh was the giant lion turtle and had used the imbalance in the earth because of the comet to sneak into this world), gone into Azula a little more, had more Zuko/gaang Zuko/Katara interaction (Forgiveness = awesome), and would have done more with Katara and other characters, Mai included.
But Avatar did end in a shorter number of episodes making pretty much everything above mentioned 'too much' as you put it. So, for what we got, we have fanon as well.
But from what you said about Mai and Ty Lee's side story, I'll take those things into consideration when I'm writing.
As for the whole 'any other show would have ended with Zutara' I disagree. There are a fair amount of shows that end with the 'hero gets the girl' idea, but more recently shows lean towards the 'anti-hero gets the girl' subplot. And personally I like it when the anti-hero gets the girl (I'm a Zutara shipper). But yes, Avatar had some points that were wonderfully human and realistic. That's probably why so many people related to the characters.
Nice comment, you stay classy.
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See, I never really expected Koh to make a reappearance in the series until the fandom sort of pushed me into it...I always took his "We'll meet again..." line in reference to a future life. there were a lot of villains, too...
Zuko had a lot of Gaang IA, too, I'm not complaining there, really...I think they did everything pretty well. Too many episodes and too many plots leads to clutter...
But there are rumors of mini webisodes of Avatar being created--perhaps using scrapped material and covering bonus situations. Who knows what will come?
Avatar stuck to the classic aspects of stories--legends and myths. Before people became critical of "cliche." As far as plots in stories go, jumping in front of a lightning bolt basically says "I love you." Fortunately, in Avatar, it just said, "My bad, guess I have to play the hero now and keep innocents alive."
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I always wanted Koh to reappear again. I just wanted him to fight Aang just cause. And I felt that the Zuko gaang interaction was somewhat rushed. And is there really going to be extra episodes? That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.
As for clutter, I agree. With that many episodes, too many plots would be counter productive. But if they had more episodes I would have loved these things explained and done. And Avatar was a very healthy mix of traditonal and modern. Personally, cliche is good sometimes, why would so many people use it?
Anyway, I was cool with somethings not happening because most of the things I really wanted would have seriously messed some little kids up. I really wanted more into Azula's mind as a psychopath (I study a lot in mental health) but that would have totally screwed kids up (I used to steal some of my mother's files from the mental hospital where she worked when I was little and read them. Totally made me crazy). I would have also liked the guy who killed Sokka and Katara's mom to be this depressed guy who was really talented at so many things before, but was too traumatized to continue them. But of course, more screwed up kiddies. I think of the children. And I can always do fanfiction.
I've always been theatrical, and this translates in my tastes of plots and shipping (Hence my love for Zutara and Maiko, almost too legendary).
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Love Mai's expression
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Thank you!
And yeah, that took some work....
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Well, thank you. Heh.
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HAHAHAH YES
yes yes yes this is epic <3
Oh Iroh, oh Mai XD
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you're really improving on drawing hands swan! good job
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Polar opposites, man.... Which means they'd make a great comedy duo. Larrel and Hardy. Abbot and Costello. Spade and Farley. Iroh and Mai! It even has the right ring to it...
Anyways, great work on the expressions. 'Specially Mai's.
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Now I've got Iroh telling Mai Who's on first....
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You mean, besides Mai's "Uhhh?" expression (on her squished face XD) Iroh's dramatic pose of drama ("WE SHALL RULE THE WORLD SIDE-BY-SIDE" lol,) the tea leaves fluttering dramatically in the background, and the totally awesome dragon teapot?
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Yeah, I think you covered pretty much everything.
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Mai's smoosh face amuses me far more than it should. 
Didn't Zuko make the gaang tea once?
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Yes, in The Boiling Rock...and completely squashed my theory of "Mai was making Zuko tea in that scene because the last time he made HER tea, he almost killed her."
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Maybe your theory can still hold?
He nearly killed her, so she taught him how to make it properly. Uncle had tried to teach him, but for some reason he was much more willing to learn from his girlfriend.
Then, by BR, voila! He R teamaster. (But joke failure.)
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But he directly referenced Uncle, and I'm not about to let my love for Mai interfere with Uncle's tea teachings.
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*glompz fer yer awesomeness*
Oh gawd, their expressions practically define 'for the lulz'! BFF!Mairoh FTW!
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Poor Mai! xD She's like, "What the crap?" It's sooo cool! I'm learning how to do this stuff on my computer...on my own! which isn't easy for me! soo.. If you don't mind me asking, what programs did you use? I do have MS Paint.
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MS Paint....and IrfanView. It's pretty much the most basic art program in existence, besides Paint.
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