#not always outright illegal but certainly not in good spirits

[elizabethplaid]

I napped instead of attending the meeting tonight, but the Excessive Stick Project drama is getting... hilarious. Getting caught in lies and hinting that this shit is shadier than we thought. Which is awful.

Oh and since it’s beginning to look a lot like Shitscram, we should be getting some good/damning articles in the media. If the “charity” side of this family’s activities gets in the spotlight, I’ll post a link. Seriously, if the articles get good enough, it’s worth risking my location being revealed.

I’m still tempted just to photograph those fucking corporate-sponsored vehicles they have. I get unnerved seeing the dead exploited like this. D:

[arverst-aegnar]

everything changed when the air nomads attacked

@the-badger-mole: hello from the air nomad attack au anon (alliteration is always appealing)! This is as much of the idea as i have right now, and is more than i ever intended of writing it. Anyone seeing this is welcome to make use of this idea however they can, because i'm certainly not likely to.

100 years ago, the Air Nomad leadership had been feeling troubled for quite some time with the state of the world. So much violence, so little meditation, so much focus on material possessions, so little connection with the spiritual. They saw themselves as the cure. When Roku died and the next Avatar was born into their number, they saw it as their opportunity to reshape the world into a “better” place. Sozin did something they disapproved of -- something perhaps morally questionable, but way less objectively bad than, say, colonizing the Earth Kingdom or attempting genocide -- and they executed him, and placed a puppet on the throne. They told their people the leaders of the world were like wayward children, leading the world into an era of war and cruelty, and they, the enlightened Air Nomads, needed to take them in hand and lead them to a brighter, fairer future.

100 years later:

* Aang rules the Air Nomads as a “benevolent” father figure. He’s effectively an absolute dictator, with everyone following his commands.

* The Air Nomads are smothering the entire world, metaphorically speaking. Most leaders are puppets, enforcing Air Nomad beliefs on their populations because they know they'll be imprisoned or worse if the Air Nomads decide they're "leading people astray". Bending is strictly controlled: only Air Nomads can teach it, regardless of the type, and their methods of teaching are based on airbending, ignoring the strengths and styles of each element. People caught bending in an "unauthorized" fashion can be imprisoned or have their bending taken away.

* The NWT is the most compliant: the Air Nomads manipulated their strict traditions and strong sense of community to browbeat them into following along. The SWT is dissolved, with various (very small) communities hiding out in the Earth Kingdom or some parts of the South Pole. When they’re found out, it tends to be bad, as the Air Nomads considers their attachment to their families, use of furs, and dependence on hunting to require extra special conditioning to “correct”.

* The Earth Kingdom is very divided. No one is interested in listening to what the Air Nomads have to say, so when a monarch or leader is replaced with a puppet or intimidated into backing the Air Nomads, suddenly a bunch of their subjects leave, swearing allegiance to other leaders and moving to other areas.

* The Fire Nation is suppressed the hardest, both in an effort to combat fire's determination to act, and because the Air Nomads believe the Fire Nation wanted to wipe them out one hundred years ago. Firebending is very heavily restricted, if not outright illegal. People in the Fire Nation fall mainly into two categories: those smothered by the Air Nomads, who follow along and don't cause trouble (the majority); and those for whom the Air Nomads only fuel the fire, and have overbalanced into fighting for fighting's sake (led by Ozai supported by Zhao and Azula).

* Over the past few decades there have been fewer and fewer airbenders born, as a result of the imbalance in the world. Aang uses energybending to give airbending to those he trusts, and though he publicly assures everyone that the diminishing number of born airbenders is a good or at least neutral or temporary thing, behind the scenes he’s trying desperately to change it.

* The plot centers around two things: one, some kind of reconnection with the central spirits behind earth, fire, and waterbending, and two, ending the Avatar cycle permanently.

* Aang's working toward something, i'm just not sure what. Possibly some version of the Harmonic Convergence whatever from LoK, where he'll be able to grant airbending to the ones he likes and take bending away from those he doesn't. Or maybe he's trying to make himself immortal, somehow.

* The main characters are Toph, Sokka, Katara, Zuko, and Tenzin -- Tenzin (alternatively named Gyatso) in this case being Aang's great-grandson. Suki would be there too, i just have no idea where to put her.

* The story starts at Tenzin's airbending mastery ceremony. It's a big celebration: not only is he the Avatar's great-grandson, but he's the youngest master in a long time (not sure how old he is exactly, probably not twelve but still just a teen), which encourages the Air Nomads worried about the dwindling number of airbenders.

* Around that same time, bad weather forces Toph and her mother to stay at the temple, and a series of events leads to Toph saving Tenzin's life with earthbending. But her earthbending is the Bad kind, so Aang determines she needs to have her bending taken away. Toph escapes before this can happen -- possibly with the help of Tenzin, though he's quickly persuaded he made the wrong choice when the Nomads discover what he did.

* Tenzin is the antagonist-turned-hero of this story, though in a different kind of storyline than Zuko's. A natural free spirit, Tenzin recognizes instinctively that the Air Nomads are in the wrong, especially as he's confronted more and more with evidence of their and Aang's wrongdoings, but he's also afraid of confrontation and overawed by his great-grandfather. His story arc has to do with confronting the unhealthy Air Nomad philosophy, internally as well as externally, replacing it with a healthier understanding of freedom and humility, and learning to stop running away and stand up for what matters.

* Not precisely sure what Sokka and Katara's family situation would be like in this AU, but they're more or less on their own when the story starts. They're traveling through the Earth Kingdom, insisting they're just wanderers or refugees or traveling merchants, and definitely don't have anything to do with the mysterious healings that seem to follow them. Toph runs into them, figures out what's going on, and they team up.

* Zuko lives with his uncle, having disowned his father (!) after ... something. As noted earlier, Ozai is the leader of the hyper-violent Fire Nation resistance, so it probably had something to do with that. Outwardly he's one of the passive, suppressed Fire Nation citizens, but there's rumors about this Blue Spirit character running around at night ...

* Not quite sure about Iroh. He's still a good guy, very supportive of his nephew, but he might be more passive this time, seeing as Zuko isn't in as desperate need of guidance. Perhaps he's been crushed by the loss of his son, and fears losing Zuko too, or maybe he's still part of the White Lotus, and serves as the last nudge Zuko needs to join up with Toph, Katara, and Sokka.

* Ozai is still a bad person, but not quite as terrible as in canon. He’s a narcissist who considers violence the best, if not only option; but instead of growing up as a prince of the most powerful nation fed on a diet of ethnocentric, imperialistic propaganda, he’s from the most oppressed country in the world, the victim of the ethnocentric, imperialistic propaganda, and his family hasn’t held real power for a hundred years, so his megalomania hasn't quite reached the level of canon. Plus the condition of the Fire Nation does stoke some very low-level sympathy for his people. He’s not exactly any better as a father, but he’s not as explicitly abusive, either, as he’s too busy with his causes to set his children against each other, and he doesn’t receive near enough fear or deference from those around him to be able to hurt them with impunity.

* No other thoughts, except that i'd definitely have Zuko and Katara end up together, because they are the best and i love them.