#atla thing

[mylordshesacactus]

for those of you who have been enjoying my Avatar concept--Our Hero, tm, at the beginning and end of our time with her.

[mylordshesacactus]

Can you share more about fake avatar guy in your AU if you’re up for it?

This one’s been sitting in my inbox until I got a chance to think about it!

Fake Avatar Guy (TM), the Firelord’s son.

The awful thing is--when you have connections, it’s so easy to fake.

This is before the White Lotus, before there was any formal system in place to identify the Avatar. Oh, the Sages, of course--but as evidenced by ATLA, even Sages can be corrupted. And this was at least a hundred years pre-Kyoshi; systems of communication and formal methods of identifying Avatar candidates, especially if the spirit reincarnates in a distant rural village, aren’t up to the level we see by Aang’s time.

It’s so easy to fake.

Especially because of the simple fact that the Avatar is not traditionally told their identity until they’re sixteen.

So...it takes some doing. I genuinely don’t think the Firelord knows about the deception, because I don’t want to make the Fire Nation the “big bad” again and because I’m so in love with the image of leaving an episode on a cliffhanger of the Firelord standing with all his guards outside Girlfriend’s house...and then they show up safe and sound, because he was never the enemy.

But also, a twelve-year-old raised by that person would not come up with a plan, on his own, to pretend to be the Avatar. 

By the time we hit the series proper, the kid’s deeply invested in the scam because of the influence and false respect it earns him, but it was clearly thought up by some adult ringleader. He was clearly, at first, manipulated.

And it’s....so easy. Get extremely skilled benders from all four nations, benders who can, like Bumi, bend the elements with very small or nontraditional movements. Present them as non-bending specialists. Get your “in” at the palace--some advisor or other, a power-hungry noble, someone close to the prince--to place them as the young prince’s bodyguards. 

Wait. Wait for at least six months. So that when the kid makes a movement and an element suddenly bends that isn’t fire, the change won’t be directly tied to these new guards.

And well, no need to find some SAGES to confirm his identity, not anymore. It’s pretty obvious. Look! The kid’s waterbending!

There will be sages who know the truth, of course. Who can tell that the Avatar spirit is absent here...but there are these extremely dangerous specialist guards, and these are only the handful directly assigned to the false Avatar. And it’s immediately obvious that there’s a deadly powerful spirit magician on hand, as well.

oh, you could decry the false Avatar. You could search for and seek to protect the real one.

And you would lead this extremely dangerous, well-organized small band of benders directly to the real one. Untrained, and undefended.

They choose not to. They pray, fervently, that the true Avatar knows to hide.

I think....that the final confrontation is not a boss fight. Not even full Last Agni Kai style where it’s just sad. I think that ultimately a major theme here is going to be not like, a Big Bad represented by one nation, but...the final confrontation, the final battle so to speak, the finale--it’s going to be about unity. About the community protecting itself and one another against forces trying to divide it.

 I think the true Avatar is capable of understanding that the false one, while responsible for his actions...was also manipulated. And has been led to believe that he has no other value.

I don’t know whether she has to kill him. It’s possible he’s not even a bender at all and never was, and when his “guards” are taken out he can be apprehended by the airbenders without causing further harm. It’s possible she talks him down. I’ll admit, I don’t know the “plot” of this story past about mid-”season two”.

It’s possible, if so, that he’s the one who gets casually taken out during that attack on the Air Temple, a blow from his own side to silence him. It’s possible he is the one our hero is healing when she finally unlocks the Avatar State.

I’m not sure. I think his intentions have been malicious, I think he’s been an active collaborator. But in order for the deception to work, he HAS to have been indoctrinated into this from a young age. Our hero is, maybe, nineteen when the story opens. He’s by definition her age. And he has to have been firmly established as the Avatar by age sixteen in order to pull off the deception, and the fact is that a fourteen-year-old boy uncoached could not pull this off. He’s responsible for his own actions, but he--like Azula, frankly--is also a victim.

I don’t want to portray him as evil. I want to portray him as a kid who was an entitled bully, and is mad that his power has been taken away, and for most of this has absolutely been out for revenge because he just lost everything. But I want to tell a story about how there is no such thing as having gone so far in that you can’t stop and choose to do better from now on. And...frankly? I think there’s a difference between being an entitled bully, and being willing to set children on fire.

I think there’s a lot of space between being a good person and being irredeemable. And that there’s a lot of space between being irredeemable, and being forgiven.

Listen...he’ll never be Firelord after this. I think it’s very possible that, when the dust clears, especially if the true Avatar saved his life, he’s only too willing to let his younger sibling take his place and quietly disappear. Become a person.

He’s had enough of chasing a destiny. It brought no one anything but pain.

His family doesn’t...wash their hands of him. But he did some shit, y’all. At the very least, they’re gonna need some time before they welcome him back. He doesn’t like, become an Atoner. Zuko this dude is not. But there’s a place for him in the world as a human being.

You become the person you choose to be, and that person is shaped by the community you choose to be a part of.

It’s also possible that she offers him this choice, and he rejects it. That--honestly, more than anything that would put her in the mindset of “I can’t do it, I’m not a real Avatar”. That she saves the Air Temple but doesn’t feel like it was a victory, and then is narratively given a chance to realize that the Avatar is more than a weapon, that her power can be used in a way that brings her and others peace.

You become the person you choose to be. She’s going to try to talk him down. And he’s going to make a choice.

[mylordshesacactus]

[cracks back] well I just finished the ATLA rewatch so hey, have some further thoughts on that pre-Kyoshi Avatar plotline I’ve been tossing around. Specifically, since you guys appreciated my boy Black Lotus: I had some expanded thoughts about his rescue mission.

Obviously Our Hero--okay this is getting confusing, I gotta give this girl a name. Anyway. She’s had to go on the run after some kind of dramatic event revealed her face to the Firelord’s son as the true Avatar, stole a Fire Nation komodo rhino to get away, etc. Would have had to somehow barter passage on a ship--whatever ship was leaving first--because this girl does NOT have a flying bison.

When she gets there, she...does not exactly march up to the Chieftain of the Northern Water Tribe and announce the return of the true Avatar. She’s hiding. She has to, in order to protect her girl and the baby sister she left behind.

The Firelord’s son knows her face; but at best he has a hazy memory of her being with a random shepherd girl and a kid last time he saw her, and that’s if he remembers their faces at all. She has to trust to the community not to expose the loved ones left behind.

Her trust is not misplaced. No one gives them up.

Water is fire’s natural opposite; she’s not gonna pick up waterbending just be being around waterbenders, I’m afraid. But she’s also probably in pretty bad shape. She had time to heal a bit from whatever confrontation she fled, on the voyage up; but eventually some well-meaning stranger directs her to the local healer’s training school, where she can get healed properly for free.

Team Avatar grows when she meets a young--male--healing student. He’s the one who earns her undying love by casually healing Red and her stolen rhino as well, and they get to talking. Eventually, over the course of several weeks, they talk enough that...Hero catches herself in a lie. 

She speaks a little too freely, or mixes up her cover stories, and her new friend realizes she’s not quite who she claimed to be.

What it is, is she’s trying to simplify her story. She was going to make it out that she had to flee the Fire Nation after she panicked and used bending to defend herself from the Firelord’s son--

(Her waterbender friend picked up on that. She always calls him “the Firelord’s son” when literally everyone else on the planet calls him ‘the Avatar”.)

Anyway, she told the accurate story about earthbending a barrier to interrupt his punishment...to a young man who knows her as a firebender.

He’s also a nerd with access to a library via his healing training. He becomes the research guy. The one who helps her find legends about how previous Avatars discovered powers, contacted spirits, mastered bending in nontraditional ways...the one who proposes that maybe what she’s missing is an animal guide, who explains to her about dragons.

Hero is not out here planning to “master all four elements, defeat the false Avatar, save the world”. She wants to protect the loved ones left behind; she’s nineteen, she’s scared...no one ever asks to be the Avatar. And she doesn’t even know if her partner and little sister are alive.

Bender guy finds a way. She doesn’t know how to enter the spirit world, where she could find out whether her family is safe--but he’s a healer in the Northern Water Tribe. He knows where they can go to find out.

The koi fish help her bridge the gap, and she enters the spirit world and starts looking. That’s when, drawn by powerful energy and discord, she finds the dragon. She had actually been warned by her friend to avoid dragons at all costs while in the spirit world; they’re powerful creatures with spiritual connections to Avatars and he’s not sure whether or not one might be able to see her.

Something about it is...wrong. She approaches anyway.

She learns then why he hasn’t abandoned the false Avatar--and why the Firelord’s son never rides his “animal guide”.

Black Lotus is bound, chains invisible in the physical world--spirit bonds, pulsing and liquid with horrific, powerful corrupted spirit energy. They’re mostly in the spirit world, where no amount of struggling by the black dragon will do any good; but “phased” just enough into the physical world to hold him. He can’t spread his wings. His tail is pinioned. He can’t stand fully. He can open his mouth, barely, enough to drink.

She came here to locate her family, not declare war on the false Avatar.

The spirits--and her waterbender friend, when she drops back to her own body briefly to report--are sickened but tell her that this abomination can’t be destroyed, even by the ones who created the chains. They can’t be reached fully from the spirit world, because they’re half in the physical realm; but from the physical realm they can’t be detected, because they’re half in the spirit world.

If she even tries, and trying will do no good, there is no way the monster who created these chains won’t sense it. She cannot try to help without revealing herself, and if she’s attacked in the spirit world, she can’t bend.

Of course she frees him. Of course she sacrifices the chance to see her family in order to do it. And of course it works--she’s the Avatar. She’s the bridge. She can touch both worlds.

She pulls Black Lotus into the spirit world via that connection. She tries to talk to him, assumes he’s her animal guide, not understanding--through a brief, regretful contact, a momentary brush of his nose against her forehead, he communicates only that he’s grateful--but she means nothing to him.

They are, in fact, attacked in the spirit world. Lotus hesitates, clearly bound to stay--and she gives him permission to save himself. 

He takes it. She does not blame him; he’s weak, traumatized, terrified, and he never intended to bind himself to the Avatar. He was taken unwilling because he was strong and scary, and all he ever wanted was to be free.

Healer buddy I think is able to realize, through fluctuations in her body’s energy, that she’s being attacked; we get commentary from him, cutting back and forth with the battle in the spirit world. Finally the rapid-fire cuts culminate in him noting that she can’t bend, but--she’s used to not being able to bend properly. She had to hide while she was in the Fire Nation; this isn’t so different. Come on, Hero. You can do this--

(He knows she can’t hear him. That’s not the point.)

Come on, Hero. You can do this. What would you normally do, if you were attacked and you couldn’t bend? You can take this guy. If you couldn’t risk bending--

In the spirit world, Our Hero, pinned and helpless, reflexive: “Red, take him!”

It is not physically possible for her dog to hear her, let alone follow. Love doesn’t work that way. Red has never in her life failed to come when her Avatar called.

Black Lotus will come back someday--in his own time, when he’s healed, when it’s a decision he makes freely. Not in payment of a debt, and not out of guilt.

There was....a bit of a light show, when Our Hero and Red the roosterdog supercharged their spirit bond to a degree that will become a legend in and of itself on the shores of the most spiritually powerful location in the world. 

Hiding the fact that the Avatar’s possibly not actually sitting in the Royal Palace just got a lot harder.

But there’s still Reasons to hide it. In all likelihood--throughout this first season with the spyjinks in the Fire Nation capital, there’s evidence of a massive conspiracy. The team of highly-specialized bodyguards the Firelord’s son keeps around him, two of each kind of bender and all capable of bending at a distance and with minimal movements, to sell the illusion, is damning enough--but that level of horrific spirit work is not bought. That was not a mercenary. This is big.

I think I accidentally set up a plot where the endgame is the formation of the White Lotus, specifically to ensure the Avatar’s identity is never coopted like this again.

Anyway, the point is, they need to Fucking Skedaddle. Bender kid absolutely is not supposed to be at the spirit pool either, let alone fucking around in a manner that causes massive beams of energy to light up the goddamn hemisphere. So he can’t stay behind and make her excuses.

They escape together, and head for the Earth Kingdom. End of Book 1.

[mylordshesacactus]

Jo. Jo. I'm going to go to an early grave, and I want you to know that it's 300% because of your writing making my heart and brain fucking explode.

Okay see the main issue is that I’m not totally sure about where the main plot goes after that incredibly vivid “pilot episode” in my head. There’s some Vague Impressions of varying solidity though!

Our Hero has to run for it at some point; the natural recourse for the false avatar is to discredit the real one, until she can be killed. Take refuge in audacity and say she’s the fake. This wouldn’t be a “series”-long conflict ie ATLA, the Fire Nation isn’t the bad guys here.

I’m actually not convinced the FIRELORD is even in on the deception; there’s absolutely someone in the palace, probably a sibling, who genuinely believes their brother is the Avatar at first.

(Either a younger sibling, highlighting the idea that birthright is not a real thing and leadership should go to the person best suited for the job, or else an older sibling that the false avatar was trying to leapfrog in order to inherit the throne.)

Heroine, while on the lam, does need a mount of some kind. Breaking with Avatar tradition this is not her animal guide--it’s very probable that her animal guide is, in fact, Red the roosterdog, but if so it’ll be a long while before she knows that. The poor kid assumed that the animal guide thing was, you know....a ritual. As part of Being The Avatar, “they” (whoever “they” are, you know, the sages or whoever) give you a magical companion. That’s not an option for her, which just ties into the idea that she’s not a real Avatar.

(This is her main character arc, I think. It’s not like with Aang--it’s not avoidance, it’s not that she “doesn’t want” to be the Avatar. It’s just that she’s no one special according to her, and she had to keep her bending quiet for the sake of the people around her, she doesn’t know how to live the kind of life the Avatar is supposed to lead...she doesn’t know how to think of herself as important. And because of that she doesn’t know how to see that she’s already doing it.)

The mount is a stolen Fire Nation war rhino. It’s a very sweet animal who stays with her until the third act, when I think it actually does get killed off.

Somewhere, there is a dragon with her name on it.

The Firelord’s son isn’t stupid; he could never have sold this deception if the next Avatar in the cycle was due to be an earthbender. Our Hero is passing herself off as a simple, untrained earthbender because that’s the genuine extent of her self-taught earthbending skill.....because she was a firebender first.

By rights, the Fire Sages would have helped her bond with a young dragon.

By rights, a young dragon would have bonded with her. Both of them were robbed of that bond--but she has Red, and the dragon who might have been hers will never miss what he never had. No one has a destiny set in stone, and there’s no such thing as “the One”.

The Firelord’s son has a dragon.

It’s young, exactly the right age for the “Avatar”. A great, black serpent named Blackflame, golden-eyed, the terror of the Fire Nation. Rarely is the Avatar seen riding him; the sages and the Palace say that that the creature is so powerful that merely by flying over the countryside it would devastate the surrounding area, and so the Avatar “keeps the peace” by holding such terrible power in reserve against nothing but dire need. Rumor is less kind, and whispers that the beast is so vicious and unstable not even the Avatar has been able to tame it yet.

Dragons are not fools. Whatever was done to the poor creature, it is not there willingly. This part...I’m not certain. Perhaps they have hatchlings, or children, or dragon eggs held hostage; perhaps the dragon’s golden “armor” collar has some kind of dark spirit magic to it. 

I suspect the dragon isn’t controlled at all--but rather chained in the spirit world. Invisible from our plane of existence--by all appearances the dragon is just standing there, but from the spirit world it’s obvious that he’s bound by every limb with heavy chains that prevent him from escaping and sell the illusion.

Don’t worry. The true Avatar is going to find that out. She names him Lotus, cuts the spirit chains, and he flies free again. 

This is likely also the moment she realizes Red is her animal guide--in all likelihood, the highly risky journey to the spirit world was planned because the whole “thing” for this girl is trying to reclaim the power of the Avatar despite never having known ANYTHING about ANY Avatar traditions except through vague misconception and hearsay. They know she should have an animal companion, and they know about the black dragon, and they learn he’s bound--and assume this is it, this is Our Hero’s missing connection, they have to rescue him. Once he’s freed, she asks if he was meant to be her guide--and he rests his forehead lightly against hers and silently, mournfully indicates that he can’t help her.

After some brief despair something happens, she’s placed in danger in the spirit world, and instinctively--devoid of bending, after all--she calls her dog--and Red answers.

At some point after the heat gets turned higher but before everything goes tits-up, Our Hero spends quite some time in the capital city doing some Robin Hood shit to try to help people.

OBVIOUSLY Team Avatar has some transes. I’m feeling one of them is the airbender.

Team Avatar’s obligatory waterbender is a male healer who’s a history nerd and only SOMETIMES dead wrong.

At some point during this whole thing and probably at the point where Our Hero has revealed herself and REALLY has to run for it, she and the little sister get split up. I think she hands the kid off to the girlfriend before the big reveal and tells them both to leave now and keep their heads down, so as to shield them from being openly associated with her.

This, implicitly, places immense trust in their community--a single word from anyone on that farm would kill them both, but one fugitive travels faster and more securely than three, even with a dog...and her sister is five.

It works--for a while.

Black Lotus comes back for the finale.

[mylordshesacactus]

The Legend Of No I’m Still Not Done With This Nonsense

The last post kind of went balls to the wall on the Black Lotus rescue which is fair and valid because he’s a very good boy but I HAVE actually had other thoughts.

I recommend opening this post in a new tab because the dashboard eats nested bullet points now. Fun and functional webbed site.

Anyway so, some thoughts on our Avatar’s continued adventures.

I said in the last post that Book One ends with her and her new waterbender friend fleeing the Northern Water Tribe because she’s not ready yet to like, Come Out As The Avatar without any time to prepare or even knowing whether her family might be killed or hurt because of that decision.

Regardless, that’s not just...a thing you can do, when you don’t actually have Appa or a girlfriend who owns an airship company in your back pocket.

Hero and her new history nerd healer buddy really just have to gtfo of the spirit oasis without being connected to the intrusion, which isn’t easy but they’re not like, being hunted afterward.

There’s probably a fun bit of filler where her eyes or Red’s markings or both keep inconveniently glowing while they’re trying to get somewhere unsuspicious. This IS Avatar after all, we gotta get in some humor as well.

I actually think it’s very likely that they don’t get away with it; I don’t want this to be an ATLA-style ‘the hero is running from [the fire nation/conspirators/etc/” for the most part. I think they’re ID’d by waterbending masters and afterward Our Hero is overwhelmed and Healer Buddy is like “hey, do you want to....leave?”

Side note: Our Hero’s nerdy water tribe buddy who trained specifically as a healer? He will never use his waterbending in combat. He’s a specialist. It’s very possible that he’ll use some technique that’s technically “combat,” like an ice wall, to defend the group--but he will never use it as an offensive weapon.

This is never made into a ‘thing’. It’s just never questioned. There’s no big Ethical Statement, he never has to tell Our Hero that he refuses to use his bending as a weapon, it’s just....not something he does, and not something he’s ever asked to do.

Anyway. For whatever reason, they are trying to ever-so-casually skedaddle out of the Northern Water Tribe. Our Hero briefly, uncomfortably expresses guilt--isn’t she, you know, supposed to....is she gonna doom the world if she doesn’t “master waterbending” or whatever? Healer Buddy points out that water is fire’s natural opposite--and she doesn’t have to master it before she’s ready. Whereas air and fire are natural companions. If she wants to master something, it’d make more sense to learn airbending and strengthen her earthbending before she tries to tackle water.

He does offer to try to teach her some healing as they travel though, and she agrees because it sounds like a valuable ability.

Healer Buddy uses some of his savings to get them passage--legally, this time--on a ship headed to the Earth Kingdom. 

Our Hero, briefly, freezes.

She KNOWS they can’t go back to the Fire Nation. She knew they weren’t planning to. But--her baby sister is back there.

Healer Buddy can tell she wants to be alone and goes to talk with the captain of the ship to see if there’s any fees associated with [name] the rhino. While he’s gone, an Air Nomad woman approaches Our Hero where she’s having a minor anxiety attack at the railing. She’s a young mother, maybe ten years older than Our Hero, has a few kids running around.

“I...left my baby sister in the Fire Nation. And my partner. I had to, they understood, but I promised I’d come back for them when I could, and...I just don’t like the feeling that I’m getting further and further away from them.”

They bond. Air Mom (who is not a bender, though one of her kids might be) can tell there’s a lot going on for this kid and they talk. Normally they’d be taking the family bison back from the NWT, but they realized the bison’s sick or pregnant and a long flight wouldn’t be good for her, so here they are.

In a good portion of this season there’ll be a running background plot that I haven’t entirely worked out. It starts out looking VERY ominous; maybe that Air Mom, or someone else, sold them out. A shadowy room, an unseen figure, and someone who may or may not have seen something they shouldn’t saying something to the effect of “I know something that may be of GREAT interest to you” etc.

Regardless, what actually happens is that a whole network of people--for maximum emotional devastation, a whole string of contacts who’ve been helped by Our Hero in the past, a string possibly including the Firelord whose son has by now been revealed as a sham--coordinate to safely evacuate her family to the Western Air Temple to meet her there.

Air Mom would have sent her oldest son off to start this chain of events early in the season--subtly, so as not to attract Hero’s attention.

The point is, when Our Hero arrives in the air temple, the audience knows that something happened to her family but we don’t. It’s very possible that the last we saw of them, the actual Firelord had just shown up at the girlfriend’s door in the middle of the night. If so--the two of them run out to greet Hero when she shows up, it’s beautiful, and then the Firelord bows to her and we get the reveal that he’d been trying desperately to find and protect the real Avatar after his treacherous son fled, to protect her, etc. It’s great.

Our Hero, who revealed herself to Air Mom eventually (since “the known Avatar was a fake” isn’t a secret anymore it wasn’t life-threatening but like, old habits) has been trying to learn airbending. Air Mom acknowledges that she’s not a bender, but she can tell her what all Air Nomads know about their element, if it helps.

A recurring theme--every time Our Hero tries to airbend, she firebends instead. It’s not aggression. It’s fear. The fact that she’s afraid--terrified for the safety of her family, who she can’t contact while they’re in the Fire Nation for fear of getting them killed--prevents her from releasing enough tension to airbend.

It’s the same reason she can’t waterbend even though Healer Buddy’s trying to teach her--you can’t really CONTROL water, only direct its own natural ebb and flow. And giving up any control, her whole life, means she and everyone she loves will die.

Air Mom finally, gently tells her, while watching Baby Sister play with her own kids at the Air Temple, that she had her childhood stolen. Maybe it won’t help you airbend...but, it wouldn’t hurt you to learn how to have fun again.

Hero goes down to join a game of airball. For the first SEVERAL minutes she’s just playing like a nonbender, ie, badly--but good-natured about it, relaxing as she makes a fool out of herself. Visibly growing lighter inside. Eventually laughing--and eventually, without thinking about it, airbending. 

The last thing I’m certain of: She has never, in all of this, accessed the Avatar State.

Think about it--it’s the same reason she can’t waterbend. She was a firebender who was pretending not to be. If she lost her temper, if she lost control, if she got in over her head and allowed herself to tap into some additional power...

That was not an option.

So she has never accessed the Avatar State, and she’s never managed to waterbend more than maybe enhancing a few waves.

Someone gets hurt.

I don’t actually think it’s the sister, it’s definitely not the girlfriend. It’s probably one of the air nomad kids. I’m not sure under what circumstances--if the reunion with her family is the midseason special, this would be the season finale.

Therefore, probably this is the confrontation with the Firelord’s son, because I don’t want that to be the FINAL final challenge for our young Avatar. He’s clearly still after her with his little group of conspirators, etc, and there were casualties in the crossfire despite everyone’s best efforts.

Healer Buddy, the only one with a chance, does his best--but it’s not going to work, the kid’s dying. Waterbending can only accelerate the healing the body can perform naturally, and....Hero, there’s no natural healing from this. There’s nothing. No Waterbender in the world could heal this, and I’m not even a Master.

No Waterbender in the world could heal this--but the Avatar might have a chance.

She doesn’t know how to waterbend, you can’t get these people’s hopes up--I’m not a healer, I’m not a real Avatar!

Yes, you are.

The first time she channels the Avatar State--a spiritual binding with Avatars past, intended for moments of intense danger--it’s not out of anger, or a desire for destruction. A moment of absolute desperation--but not for herself.

It’s a moment of peace. For the first time, the very first time--she’s recognizing value and power in herself as well as others. 

There’s probably an achingly soft rendition of the Avatar Theme playing over this moment ngl.

Giving me feelings bro.

[mylordshesacactus]

So what you're saying's Black Lotus is your Avatar's Momo, but with his threat level perfectly apparent.

EXACTLY

The part of Momo will be played by [checks notes] a fully-grown jet-black dragon who’s not actually present for most of the storyline, whatever that ends up being.