#something about I don’t think reigen got to travel a lot when he was younger because he was too busy trying to establish | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

strawberrygiorno · 6 years

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Ok, time to talk about Momo! So, last I heard of him, he was a deaf airbender with an adorable hearing lemur, living with the air nomads in the Northern Air Temple and studying to become a scholar. He knew sign language, which was only really known in the temple, so travelling was difficult for him. Did any part of this change? What else is there to know about him? You mentioned he meets the group (or at least someone in it), how does that happen? What does he think of them? Anything else?

yes!! momo!!

under the cut!!

you’re right!! his lemur’s name is taro, by the way. Momo and taro are so good.

Sign language actually is known outside the temple, it’s just that pretty much everyone in the temple knows it while it’s much harder to find people outside who do. It’s a nice stroke of luck that three whole people on team avatar are fluent (reigen because he grew up at the temple, and mob and ritsu because mob’s got apraxia of speech so he uses signing to communicate sometimes) and the others know at least a little bit from hanging around mob.

After leaving the fire nation and travelling for a while, the group ends up at the northern air temple at reigen’s suggestion, which is how they meet him -- looking for an airbending teacher as well as a place to stay for a while.

Reigen, knowing most of the older monks personally, took to discussing the situation with some of them, and so mob and momo were both stuck outside waiting to be called in. Momo decided he’d had enough of that and ditched, and, having nothing better to do, mob followed him.

Momo had intended to be by himself for awhile, but mob is persistent in following him around. After they talk for a bit mob grows on him and momo offers to show him around the temple, first the bison stables and gardens, but eventually some of the cool secret spots that momo knows about that he sneaks off to when he feels like skipping any kinds of lessons or training.

One of these places happens to be near the hall of statues, which mob takes an interest in. Momo decides to show off a little to his new friend and show him to a secret entrance that he found ages ago, one that wouldn’t alert the monks that the door had been opened.

Once they get inside and mob actually sees everything there, he falls into an almost trance-like state, surrounded by the spiritual energy the room is drenched in, looking all his past faces - eventually his gaze falls on the (yet) unnamed air avatar that came before him, and he freezes.

Momo has no idea what the fuck is going on.

He tries to talk to mob, but mob isn’t paying attention, too caught up in the moment, until suddenly mob collapses, overwhelmed. Momo is freaking out now but manages to get mob outside, and after they spend some time just sitting and giving mob some time to recover, momo asks about what happened.

Mob hesitates, but goes on to explain how he’s had trouble connecting with the spirit world and especially with his past lives, but seeing all of those past avatars he could feel that connection, and it was too much. He also asks that momo not tell anyone about it. The others don’t really know the extent of his issues beyond him having some minor troubles with spirits that they’d encountered.

What had happened was that mob had been slowly opening the connection again over his travels as he came to terms with his role, but it was still weak. All of the information that he was getting from being around these statues flooded in at once, and for a moment he even saw the spirit of the previous avatar again, and it was too much.

He got scared and overwhelmed and shut the door on them again.

(we talked about mob’s complex more here)

After this, they rejoin the group and reigen reveals that serizawa will be teaching mob airbending. Momo… isn’t happy about this. Serizawa is His teacher, and the only one that hasn’t given up on him, and he feels as if he’s being brushed aside now that serizawa can have a “better” student.

Momo runs off to one of his (not-so) secret places, and after a few moments serizawa comes after him. They have a small talk where serizawa reassures him that he’s still teaching momo too, and he certainly has no intention of giving him up. He also jokes about having momo help him train mob, and that gives momo an idea - help mob with his spiritual problems.

He spends the next few days cooped up in the library doing research on anything that he thinks might be helpful to mob, studying up on spirit world stuff, what they know about the avatar state, everything, and approaches mob later with the offer to help him overcome his block.

Mob accepts the offer, and they make slow progress together outside mob’s usual training, and this helps mob a lot because it’s less formal and there’s less pressure on him here, so he can actually relax and genuinely work on letting the spirit world and the past avatars back in.

In turn, mob also helps momo make friends in team avatar, and he integrates into the group while they’re staying at the temple.

Momo’s still not too open or trusting at first and tends to be rude, so it takes awhile for him to bond or decide he likes anyone, but since they end up staying for at least a few months, he has a lot of time to do so.

The first person besides mob that he decided he liked was ritsu. They met while momo was doing his studying to help mob out, and ritsu initially confronted momo about what happened when momo snuck off with mob, but once momo can explain ritsu backs off and even helps with some research. Their personalities complement each other really well, and they also bond over their shared love of making fun of reigen and teru.

Momo and tsubomi get along pretty well, too. She’s also interested in what’s in the library, so sometimes they’ll end up hanging out together while they’re both doing some research. Momo’s never been very far from the temple, so naturally he’s interested in hearing more about the world, which tsubomi, having travelled quite a bit even before joining team avatar, is happy to tell him about. In turn, he helps her find information on airbending forms, something she seems very interested in hearing about, impressed by the ease of movement. After some prodding, he agrees to demonstrate, as well.

Teru and shou both get on momo’s nerves a whole lot, and teru especially annoys him because he can get so stuck-up, without realizing it sometimes. As luck would have it though, one day teru and shou challenge momo to a game of airball, giving him the perfect chance to get back at them. Naturally, momo destroys both of them despite the odd numbers and teru had to go to bed early that night with a fever. Momo was smug about it.

Teru and taro also don’t get along very well. Taro bit teru one (1) time, so teru is convinced taro’s evil (in taro’s defense, teru was being rude and messing with his sensitive wing skin without permission :/ )

Momo’s not really sure what to make of reigen. He’s weird and it’s baffling to him that he would be in charge of a group of teens. Still, he could be a lot worse, and while momo would never pass up an opportunity to mock him, he’s still nice enough and momo can appreciate that. (He’s also impressed by the fact that reigen just… left the air temple when he was younger, something he’s vaguely envious of)

Serizawa is actually the monk that’s been training momo for the last two years. They were kind of shoved together by circumstances (and the other monks) because momo’s rudeness and tendency to skip his lessons had him labeled a “problem student” and hardly any of the monks were willing to try to teach him, and so they dumped him on serizawa, who at the time was very depressed and isolated. This ended up being beneficial to both of them, and they grew very close. Serizawa has someone to take care of, and momo has an adult who actually listens to him.

The only other thing that i can think of that’s relevant is a little thing that happens later, where momo meets shimazaki (another airbender) and learns by studying him how to use airbending to expand his senses, in a way. He learns how to sense air currents and use that as another means of perception.

#100 psycho mob #asks #mp100 #atla au #i'm sorry this one took so long aaaa

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