Trope Bending - Blog Posts
the following is an excerpt from my new ATLA aang is aaged up AU fanfic!! (or at least, a teaser from the upcoming update on wednesday) (!!!!) (so excited bc u guys seemed to really like the first ch and left so many lovely comments!!
i present to you, a little sample of ch2 of "the teenager in the iceberg"!!!
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The trio flew on through the sunset, until Tui rose above them, pulling the colour out of the sky as if she were weaving onyx black strands of soft wool into the most beautiful of tapestries. Katara settled on her back, tugging her fur lined overcoat closer, huddled against Sokka, who was in turn huddled against Aang for warmth. Moonlight and starlight bathed the three in enough light that neither Katara nor Aang could sleep, although Sokka seemed to be snoring away just fine. After a few hours of fruitless attempts to slip into dreamland, both Katara and Aang rose from their respective spots beside Sokka and moved to sit in the driver’s bench.
“Trouble sleeping too, huh?” Aang cocked a grin, tilting his head to Katara. She kept her eyes fixed upwards, trained on the moon and the stars, worried that if she looked away, she’d end up staring into his eyes like a weirdo.
“I always feel so awake with the moon’s light on me. Sleeping under the stars has never really been a thing that works. It’s too energising, too… too much. It’s hard to explain.”
“No, no… I get it. I feel the same way in a windstorm, all those breezes and gusts of wind, it feels… exhilarating.” She watched through her peripheral vision as he looked up at the moon. “In times of war, I think we all tend to forget how spiritual bending is at its core. I’d say it’s a good thing that you’re in touch enough with the origins of your abilities to feel the moon’s pull tug at you just as much as it does on the ocean.” Katara raised an eyebrow at the cheesy sincerity, and he chuckled in response. “I’m serious! Out of all the nations, Airbenders have the highest rate of benders, and I’ve always felt like it’s because of how much we connect to the spiritual aspect of all of this. We feel our element through our veins, we acknowledge its origins, we treat it as a sacred art.”
Katara nodded, puzzling it all over. “I wish I’d gotten to learn bending as a child properly, the way you did, with the stories of its origins and the teaching of precise bending forms.”
Aang’s brows wrinkled at this. “You- you didn’t get a teacher? But… weren’t you the one to break me out of the iceberg?”
“You’re looking at the last Waterbender of the Southern Tribe.” She sighed, hanging her head. “Everything I know about my bending was either made up through trial and error, or scraped together by bits and pieces of the few bending scrolls my tribe held on to. We’ve never believed in building fortresses and kingdoms the way the Northern Tribe does, and so, when the Fire Nation raids began… our waterbending numbers just continued to dwindle as they were defeated and taken to Spirits know where.” She bit her lip, trying desperately to steady her voice.
“That's… that’s how my mother passed. I was there, in the tent, when she was…killed.”
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just finished the draft!! 4,424 words baybeeee!!!! you guys are eating GOOD w this update. releasing wednesday morning:))) catch up on the first chapter before then here ->
i'm coming out of my writing slump to drop some lines from a very fun concept to write in!!! atla au!!! and kataang content!!!! (to nobody's surprise)
i feel like a lot of people have wondered how different atla as a whole would be if aang had been older, so in this au, now zuko and aang are the same age! naturally, i just had to flip aang being after katara from day one to katara now having a crush on aang from the very beginning.
essentially, to recap. ATLA aang aged up AU fic. kataang. where she falls first, and he falls harder.
also, cmon. i just had to write a new version of the scene where zuko and aang meet.
zuko: you? you’re just a teenager!
aang: s-…so are you…?
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Shining blue eyes. Bright robes made up of strips of fabric coloured in shades of sunset they almost never saw down in the Southern tribes. Katara wasn’t quite sure what to make of the boy sprawled across the ice in front of her. One minute, she’d been getting upset with Sokka over how rude he was being about her water-bending, and the next, she had split a massive iceberg clean in half and released some glowing beam, a blue-arrow-tattooed teenage boy, and his hulking fluffy monster-dog-bear-thing.
The boy would later tell her that it was called a “sky bison”, and that it flew. Sokka had refused to believe this. Katara had rushed over the hill towards the bluish glow, tumbling through the snow and ice until she had seen him.
Shining blue eyes. Bright robes made up of strips of fabric coloured in shades of sunset they almost never saw down in the Southern tribes.
The most beautiful boy she’d ever seen.
She couldn’t help her lips parting slightly, jaw hanging slack before she remembered herself. The boy sat up, and Katara tried her best to focus, to gather a cohesive thought.
“W-What is it?” She breathed, whispering for some reason as if the boy would spook and disappear if she was too loud.
“W-Will-” he struggled, the words so hoarse that it was as though he hadn’t used his voice in decades. He cleared his throat, eyes sparkling distractingly, grinning roguishly. “Will you go penguin sledding with me?”
Katara blanched, momentarily caught off guard. She looked back over at Sokka, who had been watching the exchange with narrowed eyes and a suspicious expression as he recrossed his arms over one another.
“I- um-... yes?” she answered, hesitantly, just as Sokka’s voice overlapped hers, yelping the words “She absolutely will not!” Katara shot Sokka a scathing glare as the mysterious boy rose to his feet, shaking the snow off of his cloak like a polar-bear dog.
Sokka continued, his voice both indignant and commanding. “We don’t even know your name, Mr. Walking Ice Cube! What were you doing in there? Were you trying to mimic a snow-man and got too carried away?”
“And you aren’t exactly dressed for the weather here,” Katara added appraisingly, giving him a once-over. “You look-”
“Dashingly handsome?” The boy smoothly interjected, accompanied by a grin that felt like it was just for her.
“...Cold.” she said flatly, hoping she wasn’t furiously blushing as she shot him with what she hoped came across as a scathing glare.
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♥ if you want to stick around while i continue this fic, my ao3 (with lots of other kataang and atla works) can be found here!! the first chapter is up now->
do any other fanfic writers ever look back at something they've written and just wanna cry because you want what they have 😭 bcos same 😭😭 this exerpt is from my fic where i take the common zutara trope of zuko saving katara from a loveless relationship with aang and flip it on its head until it becomes kataang hehhee :) also new aang au fic coming soon!!!
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Once she closed it, she turned to leave, but… hesitated. The wind, it seemed, had blown one of Aang’s cupboard doors wide open. But that wasn’t what gave her pause. No, what confused her was the glint of ice blue stone that seemed to shimmer inside. She stepped closer, then, silently apologizing to Aang for definitely invading his privacy, she reached in.
And drew out what looked like a traditional Southern water tribe proposal necklace.
For a moment, she was sure that her mind was playing tricks on her, that she was somehow misinterpreting something, but as she turned the necklace over, back and forth in her hands, she knew that this was unmistakably a proposal necklace. One she’d never seen before. The pendant itself, in style, shape, and material, mirrored her mother’s necklace, but the combination of carvings on it was different- two that were water tribe, that in fact matched her mother’s necklace perfectly, and two that looked distinctly air tribe.
Before she could puzzle it over for much longer, she heard the clearing of someone’s throat and a gentle knock on the doorframe. She whirled around, feeling as though she’d been caught red-handed, only to see that it was Aang. He grinned at her, opening his mouth to ask her what she was doing snooping around his office, only for him to feel the words dry up in his throat when he saw what she was holding.
She panicked, interpreting his expression as disappointment. “I found it by accident, I swear, I-”
“It’s okay, Katara,” Aang assured her, and he meant it. Maybe it was better that she’d found it this way. Spirits knew that it would’ve taken him much longer to work up the nerve to broach the subject with her.
“Who-who’s it… for?” Katara asked, trying not to make the tremble in her voice too obvious. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to keep it together if he told her that he’d found a lovely water tribe girl who wasn’t her to settle down with.
“She’s beautiful,” Aang smiled softly, shaking his head lightly. “She’s stubborn, opinionated, with a short temper at times, and I love how passionate she is about what she believes in. About helping people. She’s an incredibly talented and exceedingly humble bender, and she’s so, so kind, and, did I already mention how beautiful she is? Because spirits, she is. And I’m so in love with her. I have been since I was twelve.” He took a deep breath, his hands shaking now.
“I’m so, so, so in love with you , Katara.”
Katara suddenly could no longer form sentences.
“Do you want to know when I made that necklace?”
She nodded, staring up at his eyes, her own welling with happy tears.
“The moment we arrived in the Northern Water tribe, years ago, I found a carver to teach me the significance of the symbols. Later on, I had Toph help me find an earthbender who specialized in teaching the skill required for etching tiny symbols in rock. I’ve carried it with me every day since.”
Katara’s tears were flowing freely now.
“I don’t want to rush you, don’t want to pressure you, and if you don’t want me the way I want you, then just say the word, and I’ll never mention it again, but Katara, I need you to know that I am head over heels for you. I meant what I said in my letters.
I am forever yours, always, if you’ll have me.”
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