#mighty nein atla au

[duskoscrawl]

Happy first birthday to my mighty nein atla au!! i know this date offhand for no particular secret reason :))

Water, Air, Earth, Fire, Sword, and Star!

Newly defected from the side of Firelord Ikithon, firebender Caleb Widogast has a long way to go if he's to truly join up with Team Avatar. He hears a lot of stories in the first few weeks that really let him put everything together - how the Avatar, Fjord, got stuck in an iceberg, for instance. In return he tells them a few stories of his own (and helps Jester break into a high security Fire Nation prison).

I love this fic so much and it took me five months to write. I haven't stopped thinking about it since :))

[flashhwing]

okay found it

I need to make a masterpost of all my au tags. I can’t find my critical role atla au

[jadequarze]

The whole members here!

As long as I have fun doing this, I’m fine with that. And again, love and respect each other.

💥 [Ko-fi | Redbubble | Twitter ] can be found in Bio.

[criticalrolo]

okay so some of the mighty nein's benders are a lil obvious (Caleb, Caddy, Fjord) but like?? What about everyone else?? Are they all benders?

Here’s my thoughts!! 

Caleb - firebender obv

Fjord - waterbender obv

Caduceus - earthbender probably, I could probably be persuaded to see him as an airbender too

Yasha - airbender (she loves the sky, shes an angel, Worships The Storm)

Jester - waterbender (father is water genasi, she’s Ice Flavored, the flexibility fits her)

Nott -  earthbender I think, but very open to new ideas here. she MUCH prefers being on land to anything else, she’s got very Firm Opinions, etc

Beau - aesthetically speaking she SHOULD be a waterbender but I think storywise... she fits an airbender a lot closer (raised by monks, pretty Wise, very focused on personal freedom and being true to yourself)

[elizabethemerald]

College AUs

So I realize my college experience might not be universal but it definitely colours my idea of different college AUs. Basically I went to college in a hick town on the other side of the state. The population of the town doubled when school was in session, and it became a ghost town during summer and holidays. Not the best place to realize you are a transwoman maybe, but it did have some unique aspects. Namely students didn’t stay in a bunch of crummy apartments in shady part of town. People stayed in massive houses, repeatedly remodeled to add an increasingly ridiculous number of rooms. 90% of any friend group lived in one of two locations and every party or gathering would happen at one of those two locations. For me that location was the Lake House (so named because it sat on the end of lake street). That was where I spent hours upon hours of my college years, even though I didn’t live there personally. Its a place where some part of the group ends up staying there the entire duration of their college experience, handing it off to younger friends as time progresses. 

So this is the Mighty Nein moving into the Xhorhaus after Upperclassman Essik tells Caleb about a house, but he better have a lot of friends to fill the rooms, because there’s no way he could afford it by himself. Caleb glances at the Nein crowded into his dorm room, and says he thinks he can manage that. Its Caleb and Beau getting into fierce arguments about different topics, though Beau will deny it vehemently if anyone mentions her passion. Beau shadows a bunch of classes just because she considers the topics interesting. Jester was roommates with Beau her freshmen year, and decided to stick with that arrangement. She also spends ten minutes in their room the first day they move in and they all realize they are not going to get their deposit back. Fjord, Caduceus and Yasha are all in religious studies (Fjord’s a late transfer). Caleb and Veth work on chemistry projects together and have almost burned down the house several times (mostly veth). Caduceus plants a garden in the back yard, and parts of it he lets grow out of control into the neighbors. He ignores all complaints.  There’s a house rules wall, with an artfully decorated poster and hand written rules. There’s the standard ones about quiet hours, and bringing home partners and who does the dishes, plus a bunch of unique ones. Jester’s rules are mostly small pranks, but she still fiercely enforces them. “No you guys, you have to raise your hands and say woo when you enter the house. It’s in the house rules!” Part of this wall is a banned wall of people who are no longer allowed to enter the Xhorhaus, including several abusive exes, such as Avantika and Obann, also Marius is on the wall, though he still shows up on occassion. 

For Avatar AUs, its the Gaang all living together. Aang is the teenager who graduated high school early and is also the one person who had a car, because that’s part of his culture. (When it gets stolen one year he is furious and cries when they find it again) Toph never wearing shoes, and tracking mud throughout the entire house because she never thinks to wipe her feet. Katara shouting at Sokka to wash his dishes, the mold in his protein shake bottle has almost gained sentience. Suki and Yue have a small rivalry for a little bit before deciding Sokka is a dumbass and dating each other instead. That’s fine because Sokka is pining after Zuko. They can never agree on a temperature too keep the public spaces in because everyone is used to such different climates. The house constantly smells slightly of chlorine from Katara’s swim gear. 

For TOA AUs the Trollhunters its a massive house with terrible windows at the bottom of a hill. There’s no natural light in the house, and visitors say it feels like a cave. But they find it homey enough and they call it Trollmarket. The crowning jewel of the house is the Heartstone, the massive fire pit in the back yard where they host bonfires. Its the whole house having such a casual level of intimacy that outsiders are never really sure who is dating who. Movie nights end up as a massive cuddle pile with everyone’s limbs tangled together. There is wildly different music blaring from each corner of the house, Claire and Douxie’s rock battling with Krel’s electronica. Claire and Jim spend a semester studying abroad and leave Toby behind, and he’s terrified that they hate him, but Krel and Aja are there to make sure he’s ok. Jim is master of the kitchen, keeping the fridge well stocked and his friends well fed. Aja sets up a small fighting pit in the back yard near the Heartstone. Krel’s room has a bunch of Razzberry Pi’s set up to run different programs for him, like music, mood lighting etc and he constantly complains about the backwater city not having the tech supplies he needs. Their wifi network is called “DefendersofArcadia” and for some reason they have the fastest internet around. 

I love college AUs so much. I just wish so many of them didn’t focus on small town kids coming to the big city and staying in a bunch of tiny apartments and there was more stories about a bunch of kids moving into one massive cobbled together house, and living together that way. 

[moderndaybard]

2020 Critmas Fic Day 6

Everything Changed When… (CR C2 ATLA AU)

-

The Empire, home to most of the world’s Fire and Earth Benders, has lost the Avatar.

Not officially, of course: officially, the Avtar is ‘in training’ still, but rumors of their death eleven years ago were never really disputed, and it is hard to miss the intense (and invasive) interest the ruling elite have in the wandering Air Nomad tribes in the south of Dynasty territory. (Which, of course, does nothing to ease tensions between the Bender-dominated Empire and the Dynasty that chooses to focus on Spirits and the Spirit Realm to the point of dismissing bending as ‘base’ and ‘distracting’ from the truly important part of life: the inner. In the last decade, shadow wars have occasionally broken into open battle, and the general consensus of the average citizenry is easily summarized as ‘will the Avatar go ahead and grow up, show up, and put a stop to this already?’)

Even the Water Benders of the Menagerie Coast (and, in lesser numbers, in Eiselcross), who have mostly managed to keep a neutral stance even while trading predominately with the Empire, are tired of the whole business and want life (and business) to return to normal as soon as possible.

But for now, and for who knows how much longer, the ‘new normal’ prevails.

-----------------

And it is in this ‘new normal’ that the group known as the Mighty Nein have found themselves by finding each other.

Fjord and Jester both originally hail from the Menagerie Coast, the half-orc still struggling slightly with the Water Bending abilities he only recently realized that he has, but patiently accepting coaching and advice from Jester, who has studied the subject despite not being a bender herself, in hopes of connecting with the Water Bender father she’d been searching for for so long.

Then there was Beau, the Empire-born non-bender who has seemingly made it her goal to learn the bending styles of all four elements as forms of hand-to-hand combat (though she is certainly not above a basic, bare-knuckles brawl).

Rarely far from Beau (at least, when she isn’t far from the whole group), is Yasha, an Air Bender with quite the imposing presence. There is no hiding or disguising her connection to the Nomads, despite her reluctance to speak of her home and her past, and the large, quiet woman draws quite a number of questioning glances, despite clearly being too old to be the Avatar herself. (But did you ever see them? Do you know them? Are they from your tribe?)

(It hardly seems likely to the Nein, as the aasimar’s seemingly only pre-group connection had been Mollymauk, the amnesiac water bending tiefling who refused to investigate his own past during his too-short life, after discovering that blood bending came far too naturally to him for comfort—whoever had landed themselves into the grave that he’d crawled out of was not someone he had wanted to know.)

After losing Molly, the Nein had been joined by Caduceus Clay, an earth bending firbolg from just outside the Empire finally ready to experience life beyond his family’s isolated home/graveyard—and hopefully find his family along the way.

Veth, the halfling that is the group’s other Earth Bender, can hardly be more different from the gentle firbolg: quick hands and a quicker mind, inquisitive and intelligent—if occasionally unobservant or even abrasive—fiercely loyal and defensive, and aggressive in her retribution (whether blatant or subtle) against anyone who dared hurt her family, (blood-kin, or the one that she has chosen, has claimed.)

The first of them to be claimed by her had been Caleb, the Fire Bender barely a shell of a man when she met him, struggling to piece himself back together after some past he refused to speak of had torn him apart and spat him out.

(He can still feel it, sometimes—the experiments that were interspersed with the ‘lessons’ in loyalty and proper use of their bending gifts; experiments with the newly-discovered methods of condensing spiritual energy down into crystalline, physical form. Could the crystals be inserted into their bodies, to heighten the abilities they already preserved? Could the spirit within him have some of its power siphoned, made into crystals that could ‘share’ his gift with others? Could he be replicated as well as formed, trained?)

(He can still hear them, sometimes—the agonized, dying screams that pierced straight through him, woke him up—but not in time to save them—and woke something else within him, too: the Avatar State, in all it’s destructive potential, and there was not enough will left in him at that point to control it, direct it. He awoke leagues away, exhausted, broken, haunted by those screams, hollowed out by what he had done, become.)

Let the Avatar be dead; I am not he, he had thought as he slunk through shadows and filth, hiding from those who had warped him—who would do so much worse than kill him, if they found him. But he is not so dead as even he had thought, and every day the others bring him more and more back to life. It was long, so long, before he told them, revealed that he was studying them, their techniques, and training himself in secret for the mantle he’d cast aside more than a decade before; so long before he revealed the mess that he is and found himself embraced, not cast aside, before his friends began to train him in earnest, darkly eying the elites who have turned a blind eye for far too long…)

-----------------

Yes, the Empire has lost the Avatar…and they will rue the day that he finds them…

-

 (Also on AO3, with my other fics)

[storybook-souls]

man sometimes i really wish i was a person who could write and stick with long fanfics...naddpod thiala wins au and atla dystopian sci-fi city au and mighty nein heist au and stranger things monster hunting on purpose fic you all live so dearly in my heart....

[sockablock]

I'm in love with the idea of an ATLA Mighty Nein AU where one of them is the Avatar, but I also really like the idea of—while Avatar Keyleth and her group of friends are busy over in Tal'Dorei mastering the four elements and saving the world, the Mighty Nein are ALSO having to save the world, except they're doing it because they're just a band of totally irrellevant assholes who keep getting accidentally caught up with some of the world's most dangerous people and all they've got on their side is grit and the power of friendship

[lily-sweet-dreams]

mighty nein atla au

welcome, listen to me ramble about who bends what and why

caleb

this is literally so obvious do i even need to tell you he’s a firebender. 100% still has canon caleb’s trauma re:fire, is more interested in finding other applications for it

beau

non-bender. fight me on this. she’s the only one of the nein has literally zero magical abilities, she Punches things

fjord

a classic waterbender. starts out fighting mostly with bending, eventually learns swordcraft and now uses a mixture of both. learned to heal a little from caduceus and jester.

caduceus

swamp bender baby!! technically that makes him a waterbender but he never bends plain water. plants and spiritual energy only. healing is very similar to canon, good plants go on wound and he channels their energy into healing

jester

water bender who uses ice a lot is closest to canon i think, but the idea of air bender jester won’t leave me alone. i think its the aang vibes. can u imagine the shenanigans she would get up to with airbending

veth

originally thought she was a non-bender, but picks up a little firebending from caleb. still prefers her crossbow though. on the other hand i love metalbender veth who straight up just bends her lock picks into keys, but that doesn’t really fit with my idea of her level of bending bc metal bending is an advanced earthbending technique.

yasha

tempted to go non bender again, but shes got Vibes. its definitely minor bending, but air comes to mind for her wings or water for the healing. perhaps she gave up bending when zuala died. i originally had her as an earthbender bc buff

bonus molly

either a non bender or a blood bender. again we run into the x-bending is a high level technique problem but i kind of like the idea that maybe lucien was a master water/blood bender and molly got left with the remnants.

[church-of-lavorre]

Ask me questions about CR ships!

1) Who is the big spoon and who is the little spoon?

2) Why do I or don’t I ship a pairing?

3) Who’s the one that cooks and who’s the one that’s banned from the kitchen indefinitely?

4) Who gets really drunk and cries about how beautiful their partner is and who is the partner that watches it happen and thinks “oh, you sweet sweet moron”?

5) What do I think their wedding would be like?

6) Do I have any fankids for the pairing and, if so, what’re they like?

7) Who wakes up in the middle of the night from nightmares and who helps calm them down so they can both go back to sleep?

8) Who’s friends beyond the party (Mighty Nein or Vox Machina) react the most to meeting their friend’s partner and how do they react?

9) Is the ship an OTP, BroTP or a NoTP?

10) When did I start shipping this pairing?

11) If I stopped shipping this pairing, when and why?

12) Who adopts a bunch of rescue animals and fills the house with them without telling their partner and who has to return the animals with tears in their eyes because they want to keep them but know they can’t?

13) What Hogwarts house/ATLA nation do I think the characters in this ship are in?

14) Who gives up their jacket when their partner is cold and who forgets to bring a jacket despite being warned that it’s going to be cold?

15) Who gently tucks the other one in after a long night of research/study/practice (fighting, magic and/or musical)/being lost in thought and who’s the one that stayed up all night?

16) Who coordinates the most dates?

17) Who gets them banned from their favourite restaurant and why?

18) What AUs do I like to see this ship in?

19) Do I have any AUs for this ship?

20) If I could ship the characters in this pairing with a non-critical role character who would it be and why?

[duskoscrawl]

mighty nein as atla characters from this fic and this picrew

[flashhwing]

that scene in atla when Iroh is teaching Zuko lightning redirection but refuses to shoot lightning at him, only it’s Essek teaching Caleb and he 100% does shoot lightning at him

[flashhwing]

still thinking about Fjord in the avatar au. an earthbender who grew up on the water raised by waterbenders? boy doesn’t know jack shit about earthbending. he’d be similar to Katara, searching for a master who can teach him

when Jester figures out she’s the Avatar she’ll get all excited “ooh, the next element I’m supposed to learn is earth. Fjord, you’re an earthbender! you can teach me!” and like he tries but he just doesn’t have the base or context for it. so they’re looking for someone to teach both of them together

and then, and THEN! after they both learn earthbending, the shit with Uk’otoa goes down, and Fjord loses his bending. Jester’s learning fire from Caleb and Fjord’s in the background kinda. trying very hard not to mope

until he goes on his Wildmother Spiritual Journey (which is probably an actual physical journey through the spirit world (and coincides with getting veth’s body back)) and gains the ability to airbend — right when Jester’s ready to learn airbending too. so once again, they’re learning how to bend their elements together 🖤

[flashhwing]

Slow Fall

welcome to my atla au, 1.4k

~*~

Beau was in her element. Helping down-on-their-luck-villagers, fighting random Fire Nation soldiers, kicking ass — this is what she was born for.

Okay, some people would argue she was born to find and protect and aid the Avatar or whatever, but nobody knew who that was yet, so Beau was off the hook for that. For now.

She dodged under yet another fire blast, sweeping out a leg to trip the soldier who shot it. Two quick jabs with her elbow — pop, pop! — and he was down for the count.

The Cobalt Soul Avatar shit wasn't even a destiny she was born with anyway. It was just something her dad forced her into when he realized she wouldn't be his perfect little wine-lord princess. So who could blame her for totally ignoring her futile Avatar finding quest?

(read more on ao3)

"Beau, look out!"

The ground around her erupted into a perfect circle of flames. She dropped the latest asshole from her chokehold and spun, searching for any possible opening. Before she could even think about saying 'fuck it' and somersaulting through, a spray of water smothered the fire, quenching it with a soft sizzle.

Beau shot Jester a grateful smile and a wink. "Thanks, cutie."

"Got your back, Beau!" Jester called, her blue cheeks tinged a faint lavender. Spirits, Beau liked making her blush.

See, who needed the Avatar when you had cute waterbenders to travel with? Besides, she kind of liked the rest of this scraggly group of fellow wanderers, despite herself. There was Fjord, the earthbender with the commanding presence who took it upon himself to teach Beau how to 'people.' Caduceus, the weird airbender who kept them out of trouble as much as he could. Yasha, the mysterious woman with lightning dancing through her — and boy, did Beau want to know more about her. Caleb and Nott, the nonbenders who were okay in a fight, but better than anyone at getting in and out of tight spaces, physically and metaphorically.

Even Molly, who was impossible to get along with. He claimed to be the Avatar, and sometimes Beau thought he even believed it. But the man could barely bend water, his native element. Master of all four, he was not. Still, his claim was a passable alibi if anyone from the monastery came asking questions.

Beau caught one, two, and dodged a third flaming arrow aimed directly at her face. She spun and flung the first one back where it came from, dropping the second off the edge of a cliff.

Shit, she hadn't realized how close to the edge she'd gotten. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she found herself enveloped by a soft pocket of air and nudged towards safety. Or, what counted for safety when six firebenders were still trying to kill them.

"Mind the cliff, Beau."

"Thanks, Caduceus." She hoped it didn't sound as scathing as it did to her own ears.

She jumped back into the fray, following up two of Fjord's smaller flying boulders with her own expertly placed flurry of blows. It was a move they'd practiced and executed many times before, designed to lay a full grown soldier on his ass.

Now this was the real shit. If Beau ever actually found the Avatar, it'd be all spiritual journeys and mastering the elements and maintaining balance. Nothing could be more boring, and she should know. She trained for that shit for months.

No, she'd much rather be free to travel with this group of assholes, taking odd jobs, fighting the occasional spirit-warped beast, getting in skirmishes with Fire Nation soldiers who didn't like their attitude. (They all said they wouldn't get involved in the war, but when the opportunity arose to help beleaguered villagers and pull one over on the colonizers … well.)

Another fire bolt, this one aimed at Beau's chest. She barely dodged it, dropping to her knees, then into a roll to avoid the soldier lunging for her. She came back to her feet, twisting into a recovery stance, preparing to disarm the fucker. One jab, two, four, but each one was blocked. Still, with each jab she pushed the soldier a step closer to the cliff.

Her back was to the rest of the fight. That was untenable. She trusted this group, but not that much.

With a final kick, the soldier fell back over the cliff. Brushing hair from her eyes, Beau spun back to the fray to meet a face full of flame.

Searing heat bloomed across her face and chest, gone as quickly as it came, the air in her lungs along with it as she toppled backward.

"BEAU!"

The ground was gone.

Shit.

Shit!

Her stomach turned as she fell. Too late, she scrabbled for purchase on the cliff's edge, but she was already ten feet down, fifteen, twenty five. Air rushed past her with a muffled roar, whipping strands of hair from her bun and into her face.

This was it, and what a stupid way to go. An airbender could catch themself in nothing, an earthbender could create a platform from the cliff, even a waterbender could craft a decent landing from the rushing river below. All Beau had was her fists.

"Hold on, Beau!"

Jester — oh no, Jester. She flew through the air after Beau, skirts flapping all about. Her hand was outstretched, her body angled down, a desperate look on her face like she had any hope of reaching Beau, of catching her.

"Come on, come on!" The wind whipped her words away, but Beau was just close enough to read her lips. The very air seemed to swirl around them, a cyclone of color centered on Jester.

She was beautiful. Beau reached toward her.

Even so, the river fast approached. Jester couldn't catch her before she hit the water. It just wasn't possible, not at the speed they were falling. Beau closed her eyes and waited for impact.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt. Maybe she wouldn't even feel it.

Wind continued to whip around her, faster and faster. It tugged at her clothes, lashed at her skin, tried to tug her up even as gravity dragged her relentlessly down. It cradled her, cushioning her against what was to come.

Wait …

Beau opened her eyes.

Jester floated before her, hair and skirts swirling in the wind. It suspended them both as they descended, no longer in freefall but in a controlled descent.

Her eyes were stark white and glowing with the intensity of twin suns. She reached out and took Beau's hand in hers.

Beau could only gape.

Jester's mouth opened, and from it spilled a thousand voices.

"Fear not. I have you."

Crap. Beau knew what this was. She'd read about it in half a dozen boring books back at the Cobalt Soul monastery.

Why now? Why her?

Jester pulled Beau closer, hooking an arm round her waist. She raised a fist and a section of the cliff face splintered off, jutting out to form a platform about ten feet below them. They landed, wind dissipating with a sigh.

Beau stared at Jester. Jester stared back. Probably. It was hard to tell with the light pouring from her eyes. Then she blinked, and the light was gone. Never had Beau been so glad to see those pretty purple irises.

"Oh man, that was crazy!" Jester said, pressing one hand against her temple. The other stayed where it was on Beau's waist. "What was that?"

The Avatar state, Beau didn't say. Jester swayed, slumping against Beau, who guided her to a sitting position against the cliff face.

The Avatar state. A powerful meditation the Avatar — and only the Avatar — could enter, during which they channeled all their past lives. Could be induced through careful meditation or spontaneously in times of distress. Characterized by glowing orifices, increased mastery of the elements, and the echoing voices of all past Avatars.

Beau knew this shit by heart. And Jester had definitely just entered the freaking Avatar state.

"Beau?" Jester said weakly. The Avatar state was said to take a lot of energy. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Jes," Beau swallowed. "I'm alright. You?" She gave Jester's hand a small squeeze. Jester nodded, weary eyes trained on Beau.

What was she supposed to do now? The last thing she wanted was to return to the monastery but that was, technically, her duty, or whatever. Suddenly Jester was the most important person on the planet.

Maybe she always had been. Of course it was Jester Lavorre who was the fucking Avatar.

[flashhwing]

I know regular cats exist in atla (miyuki) but atla au Frumkpin HAS to be a hybrid. I’m leaning towards bunny cat. floppy ears

[duskoscrawl]

the accidental chapter fic is coming along nicely. i have no idea where it's going, but it's taking itself on a journey, and im willing to go too