hello I hope you don’t mind me showing up in your inbox but I saw your post about the pjhm x ATLA crossover and I’ve been dying to know moreeee
like, what happened to the Mary? Can it still move? Where exactly did they end up? Close or far away from the South Pole? Is this all before or after Aang’s broken out of the iceberg? How long before/after? How do they come across each other?
I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS YOUR AU IS SO INTERESTING
Oh my goodness I did not see this until literally months later I would love to talk about this Au! Currently it's less of a cohesive story as it is a collection of ever growing ideas but the main ones are as follows.
Background World Building:
The world of ATLA is actually an alien planet. It's smaller than earth, with anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3rds of earths gravity, and considerably more atmospheric oxygen. This explains why the animals are so large, why people can fly, and why people can fall from two story cliffs and be hit with giant rocks and walk away unscratched.
The planet of ATLA is also linked to Earth via a wormhole. The wormhole isn't always open, but through the power of sci-fi bull-crap the wormhole makes a matrix of weird magical energy called the spirit world, and it can only be physically traveled through via that spirit world. So it's direct physical effects on Earth proper are limited, but it does account for Earth life and English speaking humans with similar cultures to be on both sides of the divide. Spirits canonically can change and combine lifeforms in ATLA, (cursed tree guy in first avatar's backstory) so lets say most of the animal hybrid weirdness is a byproduct of that.
Spirits are an energy based form of anhydrous life. (Grace has EMOTIONS about finding anhydrous life in the most Earth-like goldilocks zone planet in the galaxy) Astrophage absorbs most forms of energy, including the magical energy that spirits are made of.
Agni, the sun spirit, lives in and is powered by/defined by the local sun, which as of about 100 years before the story start, is dimming from astropahge. Agni himself might be getting eaten by the astrophage. He's not having a good time.
Agni reached out to Raava, the Spirit of Order within the Avatar, to help keep the world from freezing into a Popsicle. When Aang flees the air temple and activated the avatar state for the first time, Raava puts him in a stasis coma and through the avatar state combines her spiritual energy with Agni in order to sustain the planets temperature. To Aang, everything happened as it did in canon, but in this AU it was a calculated choice made by the spirits to preserve his life and use him as a living conduit (if Aang died then it could take decades for the next avatar to grow spiritually attuned enough for Ravva manifest and help with the astrophage problem, and by then the planet would have faced irreversible damage)
And then the fire nation attacked. While it can be argued that the firebender's spiritual connection to Agni in his desperate state might have increased their subconscious distress, paranoia, and desire to "spread warmth fire sun life over all nations more than ever before" they were ultimately responsible for their own genocidal actions in the war.
But Agni is a star spirit, everything his light touches is within his realm of sight, and about a dozen light years away he sees a tiny ship, with engines shining brighter and hotter than the surface of the sun, make it's way to tau Ceti, then Erid, and then both Eridani-40 and Sol regain luminosity. The ship is flown by a human. Agni can work with that.
A calculated decision is made. Ravva un-manifests and frees Aang from the avatar state in just enough time for him to try and do something about the war before Sozin's comet arrives while Agni uses his star's raido waves to send out a distress call to the Hail Mary.
And that is how Grace and Rocky get the spooky inhuman voice begging for help in perfect English over the radio. Seems legit. Not creepy at all.
Grace, Rocky, Adrien, and a few other Eridian crew members speed modify the Hail Mary and track the signal to the star. Grace sees the planet right away and has swings closer because hold on that looks WAY too much like Earth wtf.
Remember how astrophage adsorbs spiritual energy? Agni and Raava sure didn't, at least not well enough to warn the other spirits that the ship of terrifying energy devouring void (Rocky covered every inch in astrophage for radiation protection) is SUPPOSED to be there. Naturally some of them freak out and attack.
So the Hail Mary crashed into the ocean. Very dramatically. The atmospheric contact with the ship creates a mini comet effect that spikes local fire bending long enough to notice but far too short a time to actually use for any tactical fighting. Rocky manages to get the engines functional enough to flare at the last minimum, keeping damage to a minimum and boiling all sea life in mile radius. But now they are stranded at the bottom of the sea.
EVAs still work underwater. Grace waits for things to cool down then suits up and goes out. He is picked up by a fire nation ship that is investigating the phenomenon (and freaking out about the Godzilla Minus One style dead fish phenomenon around the crash site).
and this is where I would actually need to visit the ATLA timeline ans shuffle things around as needed because it's been a hot minute since I've watched it.
It's not Zuko's ship that picks him up
Because Grace is good with understanding and talking to middle schoolers. He has also spent years talking to high ranking ego heavy government officials. Somehow, through the power of experience, luck, confidence and the fox-like fae level charisma that got everyone (but himself) acknowledging him as second in command of The Hail Mary Project back on earth, he twists his way from "shady prisoner" to "Azula's Trusted and Otherworldly Advisor" and after several eye opening discussion of science, politics, and history, changes her mind on her position in the war
because if it takes you 100 years to win a war you are doing it wrong
also aliens exist, so the whole genocide thing is really limiting humanity's global power
and genocide is horrible in and of itself, but you can't start with that point against the 14 year old child of imperial propaganda and power or she will just ignore you and go on another speech about how she's more important than the tides.
And of course he meets the Gaang, Zuko included, and the rest of the story is him meeting up with Rocky and the Eridians, doing impromptu science lessons, shaking every bystanding adult by the shoulders for their inactivity, and organizing an end to the war that doesn't require a 1v1 fight to the death between a 12 year old and a genocidal tyrant.
Toph single-handedly metal bends The Hail Mary back into the sky and Grace leaves for Erid with a ship full of gloriously edible plants. He drops the Taumeba off on the way there, saving their world officially.
Fun Details to Add Somewhere
Grace, who spent about 8 years in 1.5 times the average earth gravity has crazy bone density and strength compared to everyone else despite being stick thin from the journey to Erid. This combined with his Eridian based fashion choices and esoteric knowledge starts the rumor that he is a fox spirit in disguise.
Azula lightning bends to prove a point/intimidate someone. Grace goes on a 20 minute feral rant about how fire is one thing, but how are you controlling electricity??? That's like one of the 4 fundamental forces of the universe itself!?! What's next, gravity? (this does a lot for Azula's ego and for Grace's promotion form "prisoner" to "guy the lady in charge keep around for his science commentary")
Grace meets the gaang and immediately interrogates them on how bending their respective elements works. His theory of "the 4 elements are actually just guidelines for what state of matter these kids can control" is thrown out the window when Aang airbends xenonite.
Grace finds out about the hybrid animal life on the ATLA planet, wonders if it extends to microbes, and nearly has a panic attack over all the horrific disease combinations that could arise. Turbuculosis-Rabies, polio-flu, smallpox anything, ect.
Grace is so so so happy to be eating food with flavor and proper nutritional contents. this man is not beating the spirit allegations.
Aang sees the ammonia burns on Grace's arm and immediately recognizes it as an injury caused by super heated pressurized air, Aang is very freaked out by this.
Grace sees a lot of himself in Aang's backstory, except he thinks that Aang 100% did the right thing in trying to run from the air temple when he did. That is the correct thing to do when your government is trying to separate you from your legal guardian in order to draft you into a war at age 12 kid. wtf.
"You're saying you have to fight the war because you have the avatar spirit in you? Did you ask for the avatar spirit to possess you from birth? No? If I get a tapeworm do I suddenly become the bridge between the parasite world and humans?"
Grace is also very American and culturally insensitive about the concept of spirits. Despite most people thinking he is one.
Toph teaches Rocky how to see when a human is lying via their heartbeat. Grace is less than thrilled.
The gaang learns about astrophysics. Sokka has an extessential crisis. Aang is taking notes on how to use applied physics with airbending.
Someone gets grievously injured in a way that would 100% kill them without modern medical intervention. Grace has modem medical intervention aboard his ship.
The subject of "meburgers" arises. A four hour discussion of pedantic theological debate ensues. Surprisingly enough "meburgers" are completely permissible to eat by airbender monk conventions as the "animal" they come form is not slaughtered in it's acquisition.
Wan Shi Tong's library is a part of the spirit realm, and close enough to the wormhole to get Earth WiFi. OPTIONAL: Emotionally intense e-mail chain with Eva Stratt in which the entire political situation of the ATLA planet is discussed and a post-war plan is formed.
Grace meets Wan Shi Tong, and he either get's kicked out of spirit world academia or promoted as an honorary knowledge spirit in and of himself.
Jeong Jeong starts talking about how fire is intrinsically evil. Jeong Jeong plus the gaang receive a very through lecture on photosynthesis, thermodynamics, and astropahge's effects on a nearby planet's biosphere.
The astropahge in the Hail Mary's tanks has been slowly soaking up magical energy this while time. This will surely result in nothing of any significance whatsoever.
Optional: Agni is so grateful that Grace showed up that he personally grants him firebending powers as a reward for his service. Rocky is not thrilled.
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