it's time everyone officially meets luli and the emperor's dragons, bc i love them a lot and i can't stop drawing or writing about them !

as of posting this, the waste land is at 75,000 words and its tlok spinoff (which i still don't have a name for oops, but i'm leaning towards bay of the fire lilies) is 19,000 words. i've grown super attached to luli and her granddaughters 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👭

this is a drawing of the four i did before i pinned the three sisters' final hair designs, so jie's is drastically different to what she wears now :)

basically luli is still a f*cking deviant when she's a grandmother because of course she is 🥰 and she and the other heroes of the war pretty much encourage heroic behaviour in all their kids and grandkids. jie, chaika and zula grow up on tales of the war and kind of just absorb it. so when they choose to start cleaning up the streets of republic city as just teens, luli is all for it

we've got the responsible older child, the younger siblings who fight all the time, the fed-up middle child, and the hyperactive youngest child. quite literally a trio made out of both peace and chaos

the way they can descend from masterfully taking out equalists to chaika accidentally pushing zula off a roof because of a rude comment is astounding. the kind of sibling content i love to see

they're just such a great team and they work so well! and it's so fun writing traits that they've clearly gotten from their mother, who got it from luli. like the frown, and their drive to do the right thing and protect the innocent

here's a brief introduction to all of them !

THE EMPEROR'S DRAGONS —

- vigilante group named after the dragon emperor from the classic fire nation play, 'love amongst the dragons', also due to their family history with dragons

- they each use authentic theatre masks from said play

- masks once belonged to firelady ursa, were given to them by luli

- their mother is uzeya, councilwoman in republic city and second-in-line to firelord (after her older sister, izumi); their father is lihir, an earthbender who their mother fell in love with and married

— JIE

- the oldest of the three: eighteen in book one, twenty-two by book four

- named after luli's mother, jie

- an earthbender (and eventually metalbender)

- taught in the traditional kyoshi warrior style of fighting — was trained by suki herself

- was trained in earthbending by lin beifong

- uses her tessen to earthbend

- a lesbian

- tall and muscular, could lift someone off the ground with one arm and does multiple times

- protective over her 'baby' sisters and feels responsible for them, they'll always look to her for advice or help

- scary at first but really just a sapphic mess and a sweetheart

- "girls, are you ready to do something stupid?"

- "you mean, you don't recognise me?"

- wears the red DRAGON EMPEROR mask

— CHAIKA

- the middle child and always complains about it: seventeen in book one, twenty-one by book four

- nonbender

- she's proficient in sword-fighting and uses her grandfather's dao 

- bisexual

- she and zula fight a lot (mostly playfully) because they're the youngest and are always getting on each other's nerves

- a menace with her dao so thank the spirits she didn't get bending too

- she takes more after her father in terms of appearance, hence her having a rounder face than the rest of her sisters

- the biggest 'nerd' out of them — is most knowledgeable about history, bending forms, the spirits, etc

- basically the blue spirit is back and she's a badass

- "go cheif beifong! hey, you can join the emperor's dragons now! the newest vigilante on the streets"

- "'m still v'ry much alive"

- wears the dark blue DARK WATER SPIRIT (aka. blue spirit) mask

— ZULA

- the youngest: sixteen in book one, twenty by book four

- named after her great-aunt, azula

- firebender

- has regular-coloured fire but was taught by both her mother and a bit by her grandparents

- straight

- the shortest and will forever be reminded of it

- has the ability to lightningbend, both producing and redirecting it

- usually is the one who gets beat up

- has a lot of "aw, shit" or "man" or "oh, come on" moments

- the least serious of the three, jokes around a lot and is pretty hyperactive

- definition of chaotic good

- kind of an arsonist

- "boys are stupid. at least girls are pretty. what do boys have to offer? stupid hair and bad decisions?"

- "bombs, bombs, bombs!"

- wears the light blue DRAGON EMPRESS mask

yea i love them 🥰🥰

this is my big sketch dump on them i've been doing, with both luli and the sisters! also please keep in mind that these are all quick sketches that took me about ten to twenty minutes each, they're nowhere near polished! they were just for fun, so i apologise if they're shitty 👉👈

below are some close-ups, because wattpad absolutely abolishes the quality !

i gave them all the same >:/ expression, so this is pretty much the last thing you see before you die

jie being (totally not) in love 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

luli having her emotions constantly flip-flopping around like always

and chaika's response to just about inconvenience that comes her way

i love them a lot  :)  feel free to ask me stuff about them if there's anything you want to know! obviously they'll only make an appearance once TWL's whole series is done so i thought i'd just let people in on a sneak peek of them first

but i like talking about them so yea feel free to ask questions !! they're my loves