#and sisi is just an outright lesbian

[nessandaus]

Not really an AU but, I've been thinking about my idea for an ATLA/avatar story.

Set during the time of (young) Guru Laghima, it would follow the story of the Avatar and her older sister. They are from the earth tribes, and have to flee their home after a strong, nonbending general calling himself the King of Earth and his army kill their parents.

The older sister, Sisi, is a 13 year old (at the beginning of the story) earth bender whose family had a stronger connection to the spirits than most. Sisi had been learning wood carving from her mother and earthbending construction from her father when the army destroyed their lives. She eventually grows into the person who invented the bending and solstice locks scattered through the various temples around the world, a feat which earns her the name "Lockbender".

The avatar, Mimi, is 6 at the start of their story, only just starting to learn earthbending. She is found out as the avatar because she liked to play with fire as well, able to make the fire and rocks around her dance from a young age. As she and her sister slowly travel the world, Mimi masters earthbending, then the other elements.

Laghima is a young, cocky, 16 year old airbender in the beginning, out on a nomadic voyage to learn about the world and the spirits that inhabit it. He finds the young sisters and likes to travel with them as he learns from the various places they visit.

Cheeks is Mimi's animal companion, an Iguanaparrot who they found injured. She likes to eat berries and carrots, and she picks up words to parrot relatively easily (and then just says "Berries please berries please" over and over)

The first book, Earth, is mostly slice of life of them travelling and becoming friends for 10 years until Mimi is a master earth bender and ready to learn other elements. Laghima is on and off, visiting temples and meditating with spirits a lot more than his companions. He also makes sure the two young girls are safe from danger, scouting and making sure they avoid the growing Earth army. The finale is them fleeing the Earth Kingdom, as the Earth King is crowned in the newly built Ba Sing Se.

The Second book, Fire, the companions enter the fire kingdom, and Mimi begins her fire training. Sisi, in barter for their stay, starts putting her construction and woodcarving abilities to work, helping to build and reinforce the temples, and gaining her name of Lockbender. Laghima meditates at all the temples, and floats for the first time. This book ends with Mimi being declared a master of firebending in only two years, and Cheeks picking up some fire related swear words.

Book 3, Air, the companions go to the Western Air Temple. As Mimi works on air bending and struggles to get past some blocks, Sisi works on improving the integrity of the upside down buildings. Laghima is made Mimi's part time teacher and is recognized as a Guru by his people. He hasn't yet mastered the state of mind for permanent floating, though is consistently floating with meditation. During this time, they also visit the other air temples regularly so Sisi can check the construction and install the giant airbending locks. It takes Mimi 3 years to master airbending. This season ends with the Earth king finding out about the avatar, and quietly dispatching a team to find and capture her, as the Earth Avatar is one of his citizens and therefore should listen to him.

Book 4, Water. The companions, still with Laghima, head towards the small southern water tribe to learn water bending. On the way, they instead discover some other water benders, a young new tribe in the middle of a swamp. Mimi starts to learn water bending from the swamp benders, and Laghima communes with the (while younger, still large and old) banyan grove tree, and finally learns what he needs to be weightless always. Sisi meets a swamp bender girl named Rocha who decides to join the companions (they're gay, Harold). A short bit through the book, they pick up travel to the Southern water tribe to complete Sisi's training, having gained all they could from the swamp. In the meanwhile, the earth king's team are getting ever closer. With half the book left, they complete the water training, the fastest of the elements, and are captured by the earth king's forces.

then plot, plot plot, it ends with Sisi sacrificing herself so Roche, Laghima and Mimi can escape. Mimi is a quiet avatar who spends the rest of her years trying to protect others from war. Laghima becomes the wise floating guru we hear about. Roche holds the memory of her wife dear, and retires to the banyan grove swamp where she spends years strengthening the spirit of the tree.

It's revealed also that the writer of this history is an old Mimi, with Cheeks also looking a bit grey on her shoulder (parrots live forever), looking out upon a peaceful Western Air Temple. With a small lock designed by her sister on the outside of the journal.

[fitzrove]

maybe you've already answered this before, but if you were directing a schonbrunn concert and you absolutely had to cast 2 elisabeths and this was non-negotiable, how would you handle the change? personally, i feel like it would make more sense to put it in the *reprise* of ich gehör nur mir, since that already involves a big dramatic reveal of elisabeth

Omg, what an interesting question! :D Thank you for asking.

I agree, I would absolutely put it in the portrait reveal/IGNM reprise, and I was in fact somewhat expecting that the change would happen then in Schönbrunn too. (I get why it didn't - everyone wants to hear Maya do as much IGNM as possible - but still.)

There's an added irony/thematic element to the audience seeing familiar iconography - the famous Winterhalter portrait of Sisi + the diamond dress and hair - AND a familiar actress :) From a production perspective, it would still be a pretty equal split (Elisabeth barely sings in Act 1 after IGNM), and it would just... make more sense to me. XD

Also, since you asked (you didn't, but I'm using the opportunity)... I've been thinking a little about how I would direct an Elisabeth production in general, so scattered thoughts on that under the cut.

My friend IRL asked me this question and immediately followed up with "you'd just make Tod **** everyone right? lmao". And like... XD While it's no secret that I like the more intense Tod performances, I actually don't think that fanservice would be my top priority at all. In fact, I'd definitely lean all the way in on the rotting/sinking/decaying of the empire from its former glory + the fact that the entire musical is Lucheni's creepy puppet show/unhinged defense speech to justify his actions. So like... okay, this is going a bit into costuming, but I'd definitely have something along the vines of the Vienna original/1st revival on every character except Lucheni. For most characters it could be fine dark/black lace, sewn into the costumes in a way that makes it (in all ots opulence) look like spreading rot, but for Tod it should be very subtle, colour-matched and more integrated into the costume, blink-and-you'll-miss-it.

As for the actual show... Definitely keep the master of ceremonies/puppetmaster imagery for Lucheni in some form in Prologue. He should be really charismatic and engage the audience a lot - it's his horse and pony show and it's on him to make the audience believe the story. This could mean that he introduces Tod in a more outright way - with a visible hand gesture or something, holding his arm up almost desperately until Tod finally appears in the place he was implying he would. And Lucheni is fascinated by, obsessively drawn to, working in collaboration with AND terrified of his creation - you must remember that the real Lucheni, like the one in the show, did take his own life. Tod should gain more "autonomy" as the show goes on - he's a bit stiff and puppetlike in the prologue (w line delivery to match), but starts to become more believable as a character as the show goes on. Lucheni is believing his own story.

As for Tod... I'm not going to tackle an explicitly fem-presenting fem Tod because heterosexual Schatten is so unappealing as a thought and they would never make Rudolf a girl. XD It's not a sacrifice I'm willing to make to have lesbian WITW etc. But he (?) could definitely be portrayed by an actor of any gender - I'd just style him in an androgynous way. Depending on how strong the actor's own gender presentation is, I'd adjust the styling and makeup accordingly - for more fem-presenting actors the look could be 25% pretty and 75% handsome, while for masc-presenting ones it could be the other way around, and for someone sitting in the middle of the spectrum it could be 50-50. On the acting front I'd avoid leaning into aggression - given her history, it makes more sense for Elisabeth's dream man (man as a very loose term lmao) to be quite non-threatening. Tod's "wrongness" and aggression is not human or physical - it comes from the fact that he's fulfilling his role (of taking lives coldly) and that he doesn't feel things in quite the same way that a human would.

Given Lucheni's story, there should still be aspects of romance and especially fascination in Tod and Elisabeth's relationship. But: no KKOG (nice song, completely ruins the story though) - instead insert the very first original 1992 version of Schwarzer Prinz. Tod is a force of nature.

For FJ: just copypaste Arnaud Masclet's performance from the Bruxellons production and go ajdjksjd. He's visibly torn between doing what his mother taught him the country needs (until he completely internalised it) and what he wants himself (freedom!! Every character in the show wants some amount of freedom - for FJ it's the freedom to love an unconventional woman). The show should sell us on their relationship, the tragedy of it not fitting the rigid environment they're forced to be a part of, and it breaking apart. ALSO, we should use the Essen thing where he briefly sees Tod during Der Letzte Tanz. Whether it is as a reflection of his own concerns or as Elisabeth's anxiety brushing off on him, we don't know. But after/at the end of the song he should really comfort her - the audience needs to see that the thing stopping him from being open and sweet to her is the external environment. It makes the betrayal the next morning even more bitter.

For Sophie - we can just copypaste Else Ludwig's performance from the 2005 dvd, it's flawless. She really believes she's doing everything for the best of the country and the people around her, and she's quite kind in scenes like Kind oder Nicht. She's doing unkind things but they're wrapped up in a box of kindness and she herself firmly believes that they're necessary evils.

Jumping to Rudolf - I think most productions haven't really screwed up the portrayal itself! Lukas Perman's performance in Schönbrunn 2022 is really moving in how desperate he is and how he suffers, just put the "skandaaal" high note back in and you're good to go XD But Rudolf and Tod... that needs major reworking. It doesn't need to be a rehash of the original Schatten blocking, just something that shows the depths of messed-up longing and just how much Tod is willing to indulge Rudolf in it. A bit of violence wouldn't be out of place, but it should be intimate and interspersed with moments of extraordinary gentleness - Tod holding him just a little too hard. It should really come across that this is Rudolf's most important all-consuming relationship right now - maybe throw in a little obsessiveness into how he seeks comfort from Tod. We could maybe keep the "Rudolf at Tod's feet" moment from Schönbrunn prologue, just have Tod visibly react to it in a subtle way - puzzled, like "oh, this happened - still have no idea how but it did. Humans are weird".

I'm a big fan of my "Rudolf is Lucheni's self-insert" theory, so maybe it should be made visible to the audience that he throws Rudolf onstage in Schatten (like in some productions). And definitely keep Serkan Kaya's take on "che bambino stupido" - he's actually empathetic to little Rudolf because he too was a child who was always alone.

Fanservice things / random mentions

- Put Tod in the brothel scene. At least in the derniere lol

- Lucheni watching Schatten from the shadows until Tod glares at him

- LUCHENI KISSED AT DERNIERE? 👀

- If they want to put in pyros they should be during Der Schleier Fällt. It's a bit on the nose but it would look epic with the ending choir thing

Banned elements

These elements are banned from my hypothetical production:

- Tod being more feminine in Schatten and more masculine in Elisabeth scenes. He can be genderfluid, I'd love that (more femininity in IGNM reprise and perhaps Sei nicht verzweifelt, to contrast w FJ) but why in the world this way around ??? For Mayerling, I'm fine with Mary Vetsera symbolism, but there should be a reveal soon before the kiss and a flash of recognition in Rudolf's eyes. If we keep Tod stationary like in Schönbrunn, there should be a veil that he (or Rudolf) takes off. And the veil coming off should only make Rudolf more enthusiastic/desperate for the kiss lol.

- Split Elisabeth is banned. It's just sexist to do it for her and not FJ...

- Leather/pleather outfits

- Carry kiss ending - Elisabeth and Rudolf should both get dumped on the floor. There isnt a way to convey the energy of "cat carrying dead prey around" with two humans and that is the only scenario in which I would accept Tod carrying them around post death.

- Die Verschwörung / Conspiracy. It's a good song but also kind of a nationalist conspiracy theory irl lol.

If anyone read this far, thanks for hanging along for my rambles XD VBW should hire me lmao