I love all of your thoughts but this is how I see it going down:
Toph loses her earthbending and absolutely freaks out, until she realises she can now firebend. Toph without her earth sense but with fire? Terrifying
Zuko sits down to teach her. He teaches her to feel that strange flame inside her chest, and holy shit, she can feel the same heat around her. Agni in the sky, the flames flickering in lanterns, her friends around her. She might not have her earth sense, but she can feel where everyone is and see how strong and alive their fire-spirits are. It helps.
She also quickly discovers the joy of throwing fire next-to-but-not-directly-on people and hearing them shriek like little babies. It’s amazing.
Sokka gets Katara’s waterbending as karma for all the times he called it dumb water magic. She laughs and he threatens to douse her in cold water and see how SHE likes it and it’s a whole thing - until she starts teaching him. And then Sokka gets to participate in a part of their culture that was always out of reach for him. He gets to feel physically connected to the water and to the moon, to Yue, in a way he never has before. Katara gets to share this huge part of her life with her brother. It brings them closer as siblings.
Katara gets earthbending. She struggles to pick it up at first since it’s different from the fluid motions she’s used to. Aang gives her a loving speech about how it’s okay, they all take time, look at how difficult it was for him to learn! And then Toph calls her a little bitch and tells her to bend her damn knees more and Katara rage-bends half the mountain. Aang shuts up. Toph screams her head off in support
Everyone discovers their new bending pretty quick, so Zuko figures he’s the nonbender now. Not a big deal. He can fight without bending, and Sokka isn’t any less badass for not being a bender–
And then he sneezes and gets propelled out a window
He spent 3 years frantically hunting the Avatar and now he IS the Avatar. This is clearly some kind of cosmic joke. He’s already the Fire Lord, he doesn’t have time to learn three extra elements and maintain peace and harmony around the world, he can’t even maintain peace and harmony among his goddamn nobility
Aang tries to calm him down by patting him on the back and offering to teach him his signature marble trick and Zuko is so close to a breakdown at that point that he just stares blankly at him and says, “That would be nice”
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