#the art style doesnt even work for most species a lot of them just look.. Okay. anf theres barely any design variation

[matoitech]

still (unfortunately) thinking abt zootopia cuz i cant stop thinking abt how mid it is even if u took out furry racism metaphor and cop plot its like so overwhelmingly mid

[gascreates]

eeeee I love your atla dino au so much!!! do you have an idea of how bending would look different in the dino forms?

aaaa thank you!! im glad you like it!! it feels so great to know that people like this au!!!

actually, bending as a dino was one of my first thought experiments, came way before anyone had any dino designs! ive always wanted to make sure to preserve the whole magic martial arts vibe of atla, even in dino form. and combat is such a big thing in atla that im constantly shifting things around in my head to try and make sure that everything feels balanced. i don't want dino bending to be the definitive replacement for human bending, yknow?

im gonna plop the rest of my response under read more cuz it got pretty long. here we go!

as for how bending actually looks, my thought was that dinos primarily use their head and tails for major bending motions, as most dinos dont have long or flexible limbs that would do much good, at least compared to human limbs. each bending looks slightly different, as with their human forms.

earthbenders are the easiest to visualize to me, as mostly they just do a lot of stomping and head throwing. foot goes down, rock goes up.

airbenders mostly rely on appendages that are feathered, so flapping wings or slamming down a very feathered tail like a fan. i have no idea what a non-winged airbender would do. probably not be very good at airbending.

waterbending is kinda muddy honestly, in my head they're mostly ground based tail and head swingers. less flipping than an airbender, but more mobile than an earthbender. i feel like sokka would use his head a lot though. he's not a bender, so if he wants to get a concussion blugeoning a parasaurolophus, go ahead man.

also also, airbenders and waterbenders can absolutely propell themselves with bending. i mean i guess all of them could if you want, but it's super common in air and water. air dinos flying in dino forms that aren't *quite* built for sustained flight (aang is a microraptor, which is a gliding dino, and not actually able to fly, but with airbending, that doesnt matter!) and water dinos bending while swimming in order to torpedo themselves through the water.

and then firebending is mostly reliant on the tail and legs if possible, basically use the tail as a replacemnt for legs in human form. loooots of roundhouse kick stuff. with a tail. also i was thinking that maybe it's normal to be able to spit fireballs like a dragon? but it's still kinda hard, and something most people can only do in dino form. idk about that one, i just like the idea.

i drew a bit of concept art for this waaay back, but honestly im not all that well versed in how to draw movement, so i feel like the firebender there is the only really clear representation of my thoughts. here's that pic, and a link to the post.

in terms of visualizing the movement, there's this one video game project though called dinoSword by Jean Nguyen that actually really represents what im thinking, even if it's a bit flashy and fast for what i mean. either way, it's badass and might give a good point of reference. absolutely check out their work, here's a compilation of some of their animations

and here's a gif of another one of their animations which i will try so so hard to describe in the alt text

so yeah, all in all super badass! definitely faster and more deadly than what i have in mind, but the general idea about the potential movements and range of motion for these dinos is there

(also a side note, in terms of species for dino forms, my half baked idea is that it isn't really based on nation or bending style as it is geographical location. like, those are obviously linked, but the cause is the physical location. so you can find spinosaurus anywhere you find water, even though it is commonly believed to be a water tribe dino. there are swamp spinos, earth spinos, and yeah, even fire spinos. yes, there are conotations and societal consequences to a fire spino, regardless of how accurate those assumptions are. it got worse with the war

the msot common species for each nation are: mid to large raptors for the fire nation, spinos abd cold weather dinos for water tribes, large herbivores for the earth kingdom, and tiny tiny raptors or flight adjacent dinos for the air nomads. maybe also some lil herbivores, and they just dont get to fly in dino form.)

in terms of what the actual element looks like while moving, i imagine that dinos would have a rougher time with anything that has a huge amount of finesse to it. delicate movements or anything super precise might not be worth it to do in dino form, and most attacks would be more explosive than their human alternative. that whole thing katara did where she incased zuko in a ball of ice in the s1 finale? not happening as a spinosaurus. so while a dino form might give a boost in power, it isn't always practical at the time. not to mention it takes energy to transform, and sometimes it's best to save that for the fight itself.

the general feel of the movements is much more flexible and weirdly athletic than any actual dinosaur would ever be. but at the same time, i want to impose this idea that dino bending, while powerful, can be pretty clumsy, and each dino brings it own limitations. large dinos like sokka and katara are automatically slower, and in fights like the ones we see in atla, that really matters. small dinos like aang and toph also have to deal with how lightweight they are. their natural defenses are to run and hide, so they dont get much in terms of physical equipment the way a large carnivore or herbivore would. they're much more reliant on their bending to stay safe than say a big ol ankylosaurus, who's built like a tank.

SO. that's my big infodump agdkhsjf. i have maybe possibly thought a bit too much about this au. thank you for the aaaask!! so sorry if you didn't expect a wall of text x3

[gojaimas]

More Comments

MyloMatsuri: “I feel like you could've put this at the very end, after the story was finished. Dont get me wrong, I loved the little interlude. just thought that from a narrative standpoint, it would've been interesting to see this after reading how Gwen, ben, and Lucy reach the conclusion to this story.”

I disagree. It’s important to completely understand how Gwen feels at this point, so I wanted the readers to know everything about her and Ben’s past. Now is the last opportunity to show that.

kinglan10: “So while this author has Gwen describing herself as "not religious," this could mean anything from an Atheist, to an Agnostic, to a Christian who doesnt attend church often and/or doesnt think about God and religion often. And since it's somewhat open to interpretation I choose to pick the one that favors my views, which I'll go as far to say that no I dont believe Gwen is an atheist.”

Pretty much. I wasn’t expecting people to think this much about it. Gwen being religious or not isn’t important, I just figured it would come up at least once in the conversation if two people were to discuss whether or not incest was okay. I can share more about how Ben, Gwen, and Lucy think in terms of religion if people are curious, but it isn’t gonna come up in the story. It’s actually good character building exercise for me to answer unimportant background questions about them, so everyone should feel free to ask me whatever they want about the characters.

csgt: “Interesting twist to make Gwen herself the one who asked for the trip instead of her mother, but Natalie was very supportive of the whole thing. I wonder if this will be a plot point that will come up later, that Natalie might unexpectedly react better to the Bwen relationship than the rest of the parents (usually, in my stories included, Natalie is the most fiercely opposition to the cousins)”

Natalie actually being kind of nice deep down is probably a plot twist no one was expecting lol. I’ve had people commenting recently about how cold she seems compared to Frank, which is how I’ve purposely portrayed her so far, so it was fun to make her show how much she really cares about her daughter for once.

Guest: “I never thought about it before but it was weird that Gwen didnt come out to laugh at Ben hanging when she was in the Rust Bucket the whole time. This fic is now canon.”

Yeah, they didn’t really explain why she didn’t do anything at that point. And I always thought there were some holes in Gwen’s story about being forced by her mother to go on the trip with them. I definitely prefer my headcanon too.

Guest: “Lucy’s into girls? Her and Gwen just seemed like friends in the original serious but oh well. I have friends who’re bisexual so I’m not homophobic but I just can’t seen them as anything more than friends but that’s just my opinion.”

Lucy being bi isn’t something I based on anything from the original series. I just thought it fit because most of the girls I’ve known with her kind of personality have also been bi. Also, I figured she would have sort of a Captain Jack Harkness attitude towards the whole thing, as in, if she can be attracted to aliens who look nothing like her own species, she’s probably not gonna care too much about gender.

Guest: “Nice to see you following your idol Egaraptor’s “don’t break the chain” technique and caring about your fans so even when you can’t get the big chapters done just yet by uploading an interesting nostalgic take on the very first episode of Ben 10. Take your time, it only makes me more excited for it because there’s gonna be a lot of weightage to it. I can assure you’ll be as successful as Ego with your writing skills. Also Game Grumps is great”

Thanks! “Don’t break the chain” is a technique I’d recommend to anyone who wants to write a story as long as mine. I haven’t been watching a ton of Game Grumps lately, but I still love Egoraptor and everyone else on the channel.

Guest: “Something tells me this’ll go real south like ddlc”

What makes you say that, FriendGuest? Everything is fine. I am a perfectly normal hu-man.

Guest: “About the bathroom screen, yes we have seen her express other emotions before besides her trademark smiley emoji and prancing around the playground personality but for someone so seductive and sarcastic, panting from being close to Ben’s touch and running to calm herself down is the thing you’d expect someone like her to and something you’d expect Gwen to do. Deep down, we all have emotions and that can go both ways”

Well said. Lucy is a very emotional person, and that means experiencing both the highs and the lows.

Guest: “It saddens me the producers didn’t have the balls to end Oreimo right. I mean he rejected 4 girls for a short amount of time with his sister? They pussied out and gave an half assed ending. But hopefully, looks like you’ll set the record straight and please all your fans even though the ending is sadly nearing”

I actually suspect that Kyousuke used the “I will do one thing you ask of me” favor that Kirino owed him to break their original agreement and get back together in the end. But I agree, they didn’t end it well. Sorry to all you #RuriSquad people out there, but Kirino totally deserved to win.

Guest: “Julie’s a pretty underrated character tbh. I mean she was plainly made just to be Ben’s Girlfriend from the ghetto but she did have an understanding and likeable personality. They actually had good chemistry in alien force and unlike your story, Gwen was the one pushing Ben to go talk to her. They had their ups and downs in ultimate alien and broke up in omniverse for Ben yelling at a video game when he’s in a phone call with Julie. What?!”

Wait, that’s really how they ended that pairing in Omniverse? God, what were they thinking with those sequels?

Guest: “Uh I’m totally fine with Lucy having feelings for girls but with Gwen seems weird... they always seem to have a Sister or bestie relationship. It’s like pairing up Ben and Kevin to be gay when they act like bros or shipping Captain America and Bucky.”

I never said Gwen was into girls. As for why Lucy would have feelings for Gwen specifically, try not to view my story entirely through the lens of the actual show, as my story differs from it in many ways. If I haven’t done a great job of establishing it using my story alone, that’s my bad, but I hope I’ve done a good enough job of showing how Lucy’s feelings have developed over time.

Guest: “Tara Strong is the voice of my childhood”

Same! I love that woman.

Guest: “Do you watch HighSchool DxD? I mean I know it’s an ecchi anime, it’s like Game of Thrones, you watch it for the plot and the “plot”. What’s your impression on the Season 4 art style?”

I do watch it, and I’m only half-ashamed to admit that haha. I love Crossover Cosmology and I love hot girls, so what’s not to love about it? I’m not a huge fan of the change in art style, but I’m fine with it as long as Koneko is still cute.

Guest: “'This is how we met' that was a genuinely sweet moment between Ben and Lucy and something I wish would’ve happened in the canon timeline.”

Me too. Every chapter I write makes me realize more and more just how much potential the show wasted with Lucy.

Guest: “Since you have interest in drawing, after you’re done with the story, the multiple endings, moving onto others or the one shots. I hope you or someone can illustrate this in a manga or a light novel kind of way or even animate it, although a masterpiece like this definitely deserves an adaption that would be a real big deal”

I was serious earlier when I said I’d pay people to make fan art of my story if anyone was interested. The entire story is way too long for a complete manga or animated adaptation, but individual scenes might work. I might do some drawings of my own once I’m finished with the story, but my drawing practice is mostly on hold while I’m working on it.

Guest: “as much as I adore Bwen, are there any Bency stories at all? Even if they are, I doubt they could portray her character and the chemistry between her and Ben so well that makes me root for them too even this started off as a Bwen Fanfic”

I’m sure there are more out there, but I haven’t seen any. Well, aside from a single erotic oneshot I read once, but I probably shouldn’t link to that publicly haha.