imagine a cat walking over deep snow

Hugh Harriss made some of my favorites.

I especially love that last image from the first post:

I have it saved to most of my computers so I can use it as a desktop occasionally. This tiny human figure standing back in awe of this cityscape view that absolutely dwarfs them, this mass of concrete and light that looks like a dawn beyond them. 

And, yes, this is from an early 20th century dream of a future that would have been incredibly bad for us, but the imagery. This is the city as a mass, as an entity, as a pillar to the heavens, as a radiance, as a dawn. The solidity of it. These are cities as the epitome of humanity’s ability to say ‘I built this’. I made this mountain, and I made it radiant. I put this thing here and it is so solid that no wrath of any god could strike this babel down.

(They wouldn’t have needed to. We’d never have gotten them up, and if we had they’d have slowly killed us in and of themselves. But damn they look good)

Now the city has its butchers

and its gentlemen in black

and a quiet one walks softly

with the night bound to his back

Others bark and bare their molars

strike the table, call it pride

Thorn says little, pays for coffee

lets the noisy wolves decide

He has cuffs as clean as Sunday

hands as harmless as a prayer

that is how the worst ones take you

not with thunder

kyoshi: sometimes some murder is OK

kuruk: just punch people that disagree with you

Roku regretted not killing Sozin specifically because it gave him the opportunity to come back and kill him, then the Air Nomads. His lack of decisive action led to a lot of tragedy, and so his advice was to make sure whatever he did, make sure it was permanent, or Ozai would come back.

Kyoshi regretted not moving sooner on the threat of Shin the Conqueror and waiting until he was at the very edge of Kyoshi Peninsula before actually doing anything. She allowed a lot of destruction on the continent because she didn't move fast enough. Her advice is to move swiftly instead of allowing Ozai more time to act.

Kuruk basically did nothing as Avatar by his own admission and basically just said that Aang had to do something, and not to back off of his responsibilities because it was hard.

Yangchen is complicated because, well, she isn't talking about one of her own regrets. She's the one trying to give the 'Violence is sometimes necessary' talk to Aang, because she's the best person to tell him his duties as Avatar have to outweigh his duties as an Airbender. Arguably she is the one telling him to murder Ozai, but personally I read that as more 'you need to do what's right for the world, and I am giving you permission to break our cultural rules to do that. Because I am the only person you can ask for absolution.'

he did not disregard any of the advice he got. in the end, Aang met the challenge head on instead of avoiding it, he acted with confidence and resolve instead of hedging his bets or being wishy washy, and he succeeded in finding a way to defeat Ozai that safeguarded the world and its peoples, gave them all the best possible chance for peace moving forward, AND did not compromise his own morals or the ethical teachings of the culture that he is the last remaining practitioner of.

because that's the part a lot of people, the other avatars included tbh, don't take into consideration enough. that Aang is not just an airbender and a monk, but the last airbender, the last monk, the last person alive who practices the culture that he was raised in. the culture that Ozai and his line intentionally wiped out, the one that Ozai continues to malign throughout their fight. Ozai says that Aang's beliefs make him weak and that weakness like that doesn't deserve to exist. to have betrayed those beliefs by killing Ozai would have served to finish Ozai's work for him.

Aang had an extra responsibility, as the survivor of a genocide and the carrier of his people's memory and legacy, that the other avatars never had. that was an experience about which that they could never advise him. they gave him advice from their own perspectives, and Aang heard that advice, took it into consideration, synthesized it with the reality of his own unique experience and position, and came to a conclusion that respected all of them at once.

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you see one on the street,

For decorum is essential when a lobster you must greet.

You may comment on the weather, compliment his choice of hat,

But crustaceans like their space if one should stop them for a chat.

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you’re strolling down the coast,

Simply nod and give a greeting, or a handshake at the most,

For a lobster’s first priority is formal social graces,

And one seemes over-familiar if a lobster one embraces.

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you meet one in the sea,

For a lobster’s spines and chitin make it difficult, you see,

And he might become self-conscious if you bring that fact to light,