la-styles

The hiatuses! New fans don’t know about the hiatuses!

So, remember the episode where Aang dies? Katara brings him back a few minutes later, but it’s definitely implied that he was dead? The very last episode of Book Two? The Crossroads of Destiny? They somberly ride out of Ba Sing Se while Kuei remarks, “The Earth Kingdom…has fallen”? Remember that? Good times!

The thing is, if you didn’t watch Avatar when it was released weekly on Nickelodeon, back in the mid-2000s, you might not realize that there was an extremely long hiatus after that episode. Okay, 9 months, but up until this point, every other hiatus was fairly short, usually 2-3 months. 9 months was a good chunk of our childhood lives spent waiting to see if Aang was okay. The only thing we really knew was that he was Probably Not Dead, Zuko had betrayed Iroh, and Azula had captured Ba Sing Se. We had to wait nine months before The Awakening premiered.

Of course, we were still given some content, during that time. Among the other games on nick.com, an interactive comic called Escape From The Spirit World came out. I don’t have the link to the game but someone put together all of the panels:

I highly recommend watching it. It’s the first time that we, as the fandom, were exposed to Kuruk and Yangchen. It also dives into more of Roku and Kyoshi’s backstories, including Kyoshi’s connection with the Dai Li. I also love the final message on why the Avatar must be human…

So, we had that going for us. We also had some other games, some bumpers and commercials, the first video game, some content in the Nick magazine, etc. We weren’t completely blind, but we also didn’t know when Avatar was going to come back on or what was going to happen.

Then, this epic trailer dropped over the summer:

Still one of my favorite Avatar scores. If you want to listen to just the music alone, here’s a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l4rZG8skjo

Aang was alive but Aang was in the Fire Nation, Aang had hair?! Iroh was in prison, everyone had new outfits, Appa had armor, Aang’s glider was destroyed, and we didn’t know what was going on.

Then, in September, 2007, Nickelodeon started premiering weekly episodes of the first half of Book Three. This continued all the way up until the end of Day of Black Sun. The last thing we saw was Zuko sailing in the Fire Nation balloon. Then, another hiatus. This one went from November - July. 

Again, we weren’t left with nothing. The Burning Earth video game was released. We were getting a few updates about the new live-action movie which surely had to be good, right? Right? ……Right? Fans were making Zuko - Linkin Park AMVS left and right. Kornersphere started The Last Puppet Bender series (link). There were still some really cool games on nick.com. AvatarSpirit, DistantHorizon, and Piandao were much visited websites. I know there were a lot of message boards (I personally didn’t visit many). It was well on its way to become the cartoon with the most fanfictions. We didn’t have tumblr, back then (I don’t think), but we did have a fandom.

And…ah…when the second trailer was released….that fandom reacted. Here’s a video someone posted of the New York Comic Con 2008. I remember watching it from the comfort of my own home (one day, I will go to a comic con), both blown away by the trailer and by the intensity of the fandom’s reactions). Warning: Screaming. A lot of screaming.

Also, here’s a link to the clean version of the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5avd9_8rXH0

And that’s the story of how a bunch of children/teenagers collectively lost their minds, twice, because streaming services had yet to be invented, so we were completely reliant on the weekly schedule (and the hiatuses in between) to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender.

When I was a child, from the time I was about four and could understand things, my mom told me and my brother that we should have a secret word. That way, if we were ever in trouble or felt unsafe and we didn’t want the people around us to know we needed her to come get us, we could let her know. So she let us pick the word and my brother and I chose the phrase “peanut butter cups.” (I’m happy to share the phrase now since both my brother and I are adults now). 

I used the phrase twice in my life. Once, I was at a friends house when I eight years old. Her dad got really drunk and was throwing things against the wall. I was really scared and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself on the phone when I called my mom to come get me because I didn’t know if he would get more violent if I asked her to come get me. So I called her and was calm and after a couple minutes I asked “Hey mommy, did you get me those peanut butter cups from the store?” And she said “I’ll be right there.” And she came and got me within minutes. 

Second, I was a teenager spending the night at a friends house. Her brother and dad were drinking and they started talking about things that made me uncomfortable - ie: what they liked to do to women. My friend didn’t seem perturbed and said that was normal for them and that I shouldn’t worry. But I was worried because they were really drunk and I was 15 and the only ‘woman’ around that wasn’t related to them. I went in my friends room, told her I needed to call my mom and say goodnight. Before I hung up with her I asked “Next time we go to the store, can we get some peanut butters cups? I’ve been craving them.” And she came and got me, just like that. 

*clonk*

“two hops this time”

“When you’re a public worker and politicians come around talking about lower taxes, that means they want to lay you off.”

And it’s true. I’m a librarian, so my wages come from tax dollars. Lower taxes means the library has to cut costs, and that means either lowering wages or laying people off. It’s a pretty direct cause and effect.

My dad was a mechanic for public school buses. The first time he took me to vote it was for a local election and he told me even if I did nothing else to vote to pass the budget so they could replace two school busses that were beyond repair so kids were safe.

“A baby fox showed up to say hi at my grandmother’s house“