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paperbag34 · 6 months ago

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It's like, 11pm for me rn. Long post ahead lmao.

Y'know, I was just thinking about that one post I saw a while ago about Katara faking being the Avatar instead of ever finding Aang, and, well. How much of ATLA's stuff wouldn't happen or happen differently if Aang wasn't there?

Also, travel time lol. The Gaang gets the advantage of Appa being able to Literally Fly, but without Aang, no Appa, and thus no flight. You can just handwave it by saying Katara can travel faster by water using waterbending I guess. A surprising amount of ATLA happens a reasonable distance near bodies of water, but some parts happen unchangably inland. Also, Si Wong Desert lmao. Aint no way she's waterbending herself across the desert.

Also, imagine how much power Katara needs to fake being Avatar. Aang is OP, frankly. He's practically a one-man army. To be able to fight on the Avatar's level, with waterbending as well as her "fakebending", she has to be an abnormally powerful waterbender. Her fighting style would probably evolve to be a form of immense field control, spreading water all throughout the land so she can use it at any time to mimic different bending styles.

Anyway my thoughts on season 1:

In "The Boy in the Iceberg" and "The Avatar Returns", Zuko has no real reason to be aware of the Avatar's presence. Since Aang never gets unsealed, the giant sky-beam of light never happens, and Zuko never gets alerted to what Katara's doing. The Fire Navy ship doesn't happen either, since Aang doesn't get Katara to go in, so the flare doesn't go off. Zuko can literally leave the South Pole without ever meeting Katara or knowing about her (false) status as Avatar.

If we really wanted to make them meet, they could meet as Katara and Sokka boat themselves out of the South Pole, on the ocean. Zuko ignores them, of course, because what does he get from shooting traders? It's dishonourable. He does see them boating their way out though.

In "The Southern Air Temple", the world has no way of knowing the Avatar is back. Even if they decide to visit, since Katara isn't actually the Avatar, she can't resonate with the Avatar statues, and none of the worldwide temples get the big glowy light message. It would also be funny if Katara pays her respects to the past avatars, explains her plan, turns to leave, and then the past avatars just go "Eh. She'll do." and send out the "Hey, Avatar's back guys!" message.

Zhao also never gets the news about the Avatar being there. Zuko can just dock to resupply, get insulted by Zhao, win the Agni Kai, etc.

"The Warriors of Kyoshi" is probably the first place where it would make sense for Zuko to meet Katara. As a neutral spot, Zuko can reasonably dock there. Maybe Uncle Iroh gets him to take a break from Avatar hunting. While it's highly possible that this is where they can first get into conflict, as Zuko sees Katara demonstrate her "Earthbending" in town, it's also possible that Suki and the Kyoshi warriors get get them to Not Do That, and get Katara not to fight them, leading to a peaceful interaction between Team Katara and Team Zuko.

Omashu would probably be where news of the Avatar could spread to the world for the first time. Katara would obviously want to advertise herself as the Avatar for hope-bringing reasons, so the news spreads throughout Omashu. Fire Nation spies in Omashu can reasonably send word to the capital, which is how while Ozai would learn of the Avatar, Zuko would not, at least for now until he gets wind of the rumors.

"The King of Omashu" and "Imprisoned" can still likely happen, since Bumi obviously wants to get a handle on this new Avatar that replaced his old friend, and it's reasonable that by the time of Imprisoned, news of the Avatar's description wouldn't have reached that far yet.

"Imprisoned", though might go a little differently. The main thing in Imprisoned is Aang and Sokka ferrying themselves over using Appa, then Aang airbending all the coal out of the prison burners for the prisoners to use. Katara... can't do that. Or, well, she can because her pretending to be the Avatar in this AU means she's also ridiculously OP. So either she beats the warden's ass herself, or she uses waterbending to both douse the burners and steal the coal, which is explained away by her recognizing she has to help the prisoners save themselves or something, idk.

"Winter Solstice Part 1" might actually be almost identical to canon. Roku's reason for calling Aang is to warn him about Sozin's Comet. Assuming Roku knows about this upstart Water Tribe girl impersonating his successor, it's highly possible he'd also summon her to give the same warning. The village chief can have maps so they can find Crescent Island, and Zuko still shows up to see the Avatar because he's heard of her by now and realized his mistake.

Part 2, could also be pretty close. Being even more powerful in this AU, she can pass the blockade no problemo. The rest goes literally exactly the same, though in my opinion, Katara would have to experience backlash from hosting Avatar Roku in her body. She's no the actual Avatar, after all. Alternatively, she doesn't do that, and gets out on her own strength. Roku doesn't destroy the temple, and they either beat Zhao's ass or just straight up run away.

"The Waterbending Scroll" is interesting, because Katara being pissed off at Aang is arguably what causes the conflict in the episode. She steals the scroll and stays up late praticing because she's mad that Aang's natural at waterbending, so she gets captured by the pirates. It still makes sense for her to steal the scroll (Liberating waterbender stuff from pirates, wanting to see what actual waterbending forms are like), but I'm not sure how the pirate confrontation goes down, because at this point in the AU, Katara's could probably beat their ass just fine.

"Jet" goes pretty much the same, actually.

"The Great Divide" is a surprisingly problematic episode for this AU. This is a pretty Aang-heavy episode, with Appa being used to ferry the sick Zhang and Gan Jin over to the other side, Aang playing peacemaker in a way that really only he can, and most importantly, Aang being actually 112 is what lets him pull off his bullshit story at the end. I have no clue how to handle this episode, tbh. Let's pretend that this doesn't happen because Katara travels more by water, okay? TGD is kinda dumb anyway.

"The Storm" can also go basically the same. it's fine. Katara's a waterbender in a storm.

"The Blue Spirit" also can go remarkably similar too. It's unfortunately a rather important Zuko moment, so skipping this is out. Canonically, Katara gets sick. So here, she also gets sick, so she can't just power through Pouhuai. Simple solution, though it does feel rather contrived.

"The Fortuneteller" either goes with Katara beating the lava's ass, or the village being destroyed and them moving out of it, proving Aunt Wu wrong. Aang solidified the lava by airbending it, so Katara could do something similar by waterbending it. Maybe she can "fake earthbend" the trench even deeper than it reached in canon so

"Bato of the Water Tribe" goes similar. Maybe Bato can help Sokka and Katara fight off Zuko and June, since Aang isn't involved here. Zuko tracks Katara as usual, gets beaten up, they leave.

In "The Deserter", I think it'd be cool for Katara to challenge Jeong-Jeong to a spar. Why? Simple. She wants to feel firebending in a more controlled environment - The only times she's been firebent at so far she was fighting for her life - so she can mimic it more effectively. I think at this point she'd already have taken her Icebending to the other extreme in Steambending, so this fight would be her trying to either refine it, or come up with a more visible technique to mimic firebending.

Can waterbenders bend alcohol? Katara bent perfume once, so she should be able to bend low proof alcohol. A quick googling shows that our modern perfumes are around 15-20% alcohol, so reasonably Katara can probably bend alcohol made with ATLA level tech, the proof can't be that high, and the water content will be. Quick way to firebend, I guess. Keep a supply of spark rocks around to light alcohol on fire. Maybe Jeong Jeong drinks in this AU and she uses his alcohol to develop alcoholbending I guess.

(Side note, why do earth and firebenders get all the cool LoK bending? Waterbenders get healing and spiritbending, which is cool, but Earth and Fire get bending that feels different, while waterbending always uses the same water.)

"The Northern Air Temple" goes similarly, but for the life of me I don't know how Team Katara would discover the War Balloons. You know what? Maybe they don't! They discover the war balloons when War Minister Qin pops around and they confront him, leading to events as in canon. Maybe the Fire Nation never gets the original War Balloon here, actually, because Katara beats their ass and as such it never goes down, but Teo's father actually gets to show off the War Balloon to Qin, and if the Fire Nation can build a big-ass drill, they can recreate the War Balloons from a detailed description.

Finally, we reach "The Waterbending Master" and both parts of "The Siege Of The North". This is, quite literally, Katara's element. "Avatar" Katara beats Pakku's ass, finds out about the "Grand-Pakku" thing, the invasion goes as usual. Zhao might not get to kill the Moon Spirit here, since, well. Katara kind of relies on the Moon Spirit, so she does everything possible to get his ass before he gets the Moon's ass. Alternatively, this is a great place to have Katara's secret unveiled to any potential companions she's hiding it from, and also Iroh. Zuko isn't there, Yue dies so the secret isn't spilt by her, and whatever remaining fire nation soldiers won't be there when Katara reveals, at around the same point Aang does the Big Fish Thing, that she can't bend. iroh, I think, is willing to keep it a secret, especially since he's seen how powerful Katara is, and that she's actually pulling it off. This would also tip Team Katara off to Iroh possibly being on their side as well.

Finally, I wonder if other companions could join Katara. Assuming Kyoshi Island doesn't get Zuko'd, Suki might be a contender for a companion, wanting to help the Avatar on her journey (and also Sokka, but less so). Sokka comes along, of course. he's Katara's brother, he's not letting her con the entire world without him. I'm drawing a blank for any other potential companions, though. Maybe they cna meet Toph early lol? I really want Katara to show up at Earth Rumble as The Avatar though, so probably not.

Idk. This is my two cents on this idea, maybe one day I'll actually write it, but that day is not today. Maybe I'll get back to this with my thoughts on season 2 as well.

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