Far Out There

So, I went into this page with no rough draft, no plan whatsoever outside of the rough knowledge of what happens later, and already an hour or so late. Frankly, I was too worn out to really bother with actually, you know, THINK of anything, so I just kind of started drawing, and a few hours later this happened. You know what? It worked, dang it! Layla tugging Avatar out of some little-girl’s-feet-shaped-craters? That’s just plain cute, right there. And this is the second time in recent memory where a page I just made up off the top of my head turned out better than the ones that were planned out in advance. Clearly, this whole “actually thinking about where the plot is going” thing is overrated.

Funny thing about that, though: as I was drawing it, I thought Alphonse was hacking the locking mechanism of the door… which made no sense, since we’d already seen that the doors have to be opened manually. I think the altered explanation is actually a lot funnier, since it’s BLATANTLY absurd rather than just accidentally so, AND it gives Layla another chance to ask a perfectly valid question (If you’re wondering, I’d say that Tabitha only had the idea to use the Alphonse projection to transfer power AFTER they opened the previous door. She’s probably fiddling with all sorts of stuff as the ideas come to her… not unlike my writing process!)