Distant Chanting Is Not Always Ominous

The Gaang and their families/close friends hold most of the world's power.

Aang is the Avatar, a demigod, master of all elements, the most powerful bender in the world. Most people worship him for ending the war. He is the single most influential figure in the world.

Katara is the most powerful waterbender, the world's renowned healer, a city deputy in the Republic City council, the wife of the Avatar and the daughter of the chief of the SWT.

Sokka is SWT's chief son, a famous inventor and warrior, avatar's in-law

Toph and Zuko are Toph and Zuko. Famous noble and the Firelord, also amazing benders.

Now imagine how much quiet HATE would they get from the establishment. In a matter of a YEAR two random villagers, the avatar gone for a hundred years, a banished prince and a unknown noble from the earth kingdom have basically became de facto rulers of the world. Even worse for the establishment, they were a bunch of teenager idealists. I can tell how furious the nobles, especially the Fire Nation's ones were, because imagine thriving off of the war and then comes a 17 y/o Firelord who says "yup no war anymore, it's time for harmony". Watchu gonna do about it? You want to bribe any of them? Yeah they can have whatever they want. You want to scare them into submission? Every single one of them was somehow traumatized and is an elite level fighter. You want to flatter them until they agree on your proposal? Won't work either. The elites couldn't do shit to them and I think it's beautiful. I also love how in the end, if the subtle political games failed, they always could have just resorted to blunt force. The nobles probably also hated the fact that the Gaang was something so utterly out of the system; none of them owned anything to the elites, every success of them owned to either them, their families or their close friends.

Day 24: Deity

And that one desert town where Katara couldn’t find water except in one place, and they still talk about how the Avatar Herself showed up and invented Cabbagebending one day.

Problem Solving: Courage Vs Wisdom - How would you get the Book of Mudora?

Which is a shame, since spinning is really where the "resource provided by the earth" tangibly becomes "object with a use."

Aspects of spinning, such as the amount of twist and the length of the fibers, are impactful upon the thread or yarn created, but lots of fiber crafters don't get to directly play with those variables...

It is so strange how textile production is so utterly dominated by very few fibers, when so many are possible. Industry keeps coming up with new ways to transform bamboo or something into fibers, which is all well and good, but we have yet to run out of easily usable natural fibers that have worked for thousands of years.

For those especially I can't over-recommend the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook or the Field Guide to Fleece (Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius.) An awful lot of excellent fiber breeds and species are now unknown, under-used, and in danger of going extinct; Shave 'Em to Save 'Em and the Livestock Conservancy in general are good resources for finding local people working with those. There's a chiengora (dog wool) group on Ravelry that's great, too, and lots of easily searchable info on raising silkworms at home and spinning from hankies.

Fibershed did a spotlight on dogbane, nettle, and milkweed in comparison to hemp and flax. They talk specifically about Native American techniques and current cultivation of all three, particularly dogbane, and ways to spin yarn and make rope. They aren't super in-depth about processing the fibers, but it seems like it's because they have more tutorials/guides on other pages. Bast fibers all have a similar retting->drying->scutching->hackling->spinning (you also have to ripple flax at the beginning) process, generally speaking.

Of course, flax is a really accessible plant fiber to spin yourself! You can plant it yourself, buy unprocessed flax (locally or online), or buy processed but unspun flax. If you're interested in the whole process, this book is the flax bible: Linen: From Flax Seed to Woven Cloth by Linda Heinrich. There are a lot of youtubers who go through it all, too.

If you're interested in kudzu, then may I suggest Oigawa Kudzu-fu Studio! They're located in Japan, but they have helpfully created an English website, too, where they go over making kudzu-fu (Japanese name for the cloth from kudzu). And if you ever find yourself going to Japan, you can take a class from them.

On Oigawa Studio's info page, they also mention that they work with ramie (plant in the nettle family), linden tree (basswood), and wisteria, so do with that what you will. I assume a lot of those resources are in Japanese.

Respect the Spindle. Anyone looking for the how's & why's of hand spinning will find answers there. Interest in hand spinning has seen a steady growth in the past 15 yrs since this book's release.

*dumps video and runs away*

I have (finally) posted the video to the song I published with the @dpfantasyzine which came out last year to accompany the fic Seafoam Sky by @dp-marvel94. This is one of my favorite pieces I've ever made, and I was super excited to be able to play the flute on it.