#atla aang aged up

[quillthrillswriting]

the following is an excerpt from my new ATLA aang is aaged up AU fanfic!! (or at least, a teaser from the upcoming update on wednesday) (!!!!) (so excited bc u guys seemed to really like the first ch and left so many lovely comments!!

i present to you, a little sample of ch2 of "the teenager in the iceberg"!!!

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The trio flew on through the sunset, until Tui rose above them, pulling the colour out of the sky as if she were weaving onyx black strands of soft wool into the most beautiful of tapestries. Katara settled on her back, tugging her fur lined overcoat closer, huddled against Sokka, who was in turn huddled against Aang for warmth. Moonlight and starlight bathed the three in enough light that neither Katara nor Aang could sleep, although Sokka seemed to be snoring away just fine. After a few hours of fruitless attempts to slip into dreamland, both Katara and Aang rose from their respective spots beside Sokka and moved to sit in the driver’s bench.

“Trouble sleeping too, huh?” Aang cocked a grin, tilting his head to Katara. She kept her eyes fixed upwards, trained on the moon and the stars, worried that if she looked away, she’d end up staring into his eyes like a weirdo. 

“I always feel so awake with the moon’s light on me. Sleeping under the stars has never really been a thing that works. It’s too energising, too… too much. It’s hard to explain.”

“No, no… I get it. I feel the same way in a windstorm, all those breezes and gusts of wind, it feels… exhilarating.” She watched through her peripheral vision as he looked up at the moon. “In times of war, I think we all tend to forget how spiritual bending is at its core. I’d say it’s a good thing that you’re in touch enough with the origins of your abilities to feel the moon’s pull tug at you just as much as it does on the ocean.” Katara raised an eyebrow at the cheesy sincerity, and he chuckled in response. “I’m serious! Out of all the nations, Airbenders have the highest rate of benders, and I’ve always felt like it’s because of how much we connect to the spiritual aspect of all of this. We feel our element through our veins, we acknowledge its origins, we treat it as a sacred art.”

Katara nodded, puzzling it all over. “I wish I’d gotten to learn bending as a child properly, the way you did, with the stories of its origins and the teaching of precise bending forms.”

Aang’s brows wrinkled at this. “You- you didn’t get a teacher? But… weren’t you the one to break me out of the iceberg?”

“You’re looking at the last Waterbender of the Southern Tribe.” She sighed, hanging her head. “Everything I know about my bending was either made up through trial and error, or scraped together by bits and pieces of the few bending scrolls my tribe held on to. We’ve never believed in building fortresses and kingdoms the way the Northern Tribe does, and so, when the Fire Nation raids began… our waterbending numbers just continued to dwindle as they were defeated and taken to Spirits know where.” She bit her lip, trying desperately to steady her voice.

“That's… that’s how my mother passed. I was there, in the tent, when she was…killed.”

---

just finished the draft!! 4,424 words baybeeee!!!! you guys are eating GOOD w this update. releasing wednesday morning:))) catch up on the first chapter before then here ->

[allgremlinart]

au where Aang gets told he's the Avatar (and subsequently frozen) at 16 like he was supposed to.... I think it would change a lot honestly

[junotter]

My redesigns for aged up gaang

[wackus123]

randkm kataang sketches cus idk

theyre awesome

[cienie-isengardu]

Zuko and Azula in "The Beach"

Lately I think a lot about "The Beach" episode [x], especially about this small detail of great teamwork Zuko and Azula have during the game.

Zuko is looking ahead, directly facing their rivals (who had the control of the ball at this moment) but his body is clearly lowered to the ground, left hand most likely touching the ground, legs bent and widely spaced - a clear contrast to Mai standing near and how he stood before on two separate occasions

which is why I think Zuko willingly create an opportunity for Azula, so she could jump higher - something she definitely used to their team’s advantage. If Azula simply jumped on her brother’s back when he wasn’t expecting it or wasn’t ready, he would probably just fall face down from the impact but as the scene shows, he had no such problem nor was angry about it in the following scenes.

During the game sequences there was no dialogue shown between our protagonists, so it is hard to determine if Azula in advance called Zuko to give her a “lift” or Zuko offered on his own, or did they were that much in sync they just acted without thinking. Regardless I like this few seconds long interaction, because for me it implies how they trusted each other despite all the rivalry and bitterness from previous episodes. Like Zuko trusted Azula won’t use that moment to hurt/humiliate him by overuse of force, the same as Azula trusted in Zuko’s strength and that he won’t mess up by losing his balance. It is a small thing but no less sweet to see them working well together when fighting for the same goal - what reminds me a bit their teamwork from the previous season finale.

Interestingly, it was also the second time Zuko assisted Azula in scoring against their rivals while not scoring himself any point on screen. The first time happened almost right at the beggining of the game (second from total five sequences)

while each girl have the solo sequence of winning a point:

Azula's first attack,

later Ty Lee landing on the net

and Mai kicking the ball (and presumably scoring)

while Zuko’s two actions are shared only with his younger sister while there is no sense of competition between the siblings, something contrasting a lot with some previous and later episodes.

Azula is bossy and competitive through most of the episode and her brother lets her be that without a complaint. Azula and Zuko get along pretty well and A) do not argue (with the exception of the campfire scene and then they argue not even for the whole scene itself) and B) don't get on each nerves the way they do in the palace, with Ozai's presence looming in the back of their mind. I absolutely adore this episode, as it humanizes all our Fire Nation characters by showing them as teenagers outside the war zone but also giving us a bit of insight into what Azula and Zuko could be if Ozai didn't pit them against each other. And they could be a great team!

[my-cabbages-gorl]

“Before you helped him save the world, he helped save you, my dear prince” - Iroh to Prince Zuko, Legacy of the Fire Nation

[adriancatrin]

sokka’s gettin that fire dick

(not my jokes, sourced from a reaction vid)

[janadoesstuffwrong]

Thinking abt the air nomads:

What if, after the war, once the dust has settled a little, Aang goes back to travelling, hoping that maybe he can find at least some trace of surviving airbenders. As an added bonus, he gets to do more of the exploring and wandering that he had to put on hold.

Toph goes with him ofc. She only just got a taste of real freedom and it was overshadowed by ever-present impending doom. While she's on speaking terms with her parents, she isnt quite ready to be back under their roof on a permanent basis. The rest of the gaang have their individual homes and responsibilities that they get back to, though they join for the odd field trip or adventure when they can.

So anyway, they're touring all over the world and over the years they notice just how displaced so many people have become. EK citizens who barely escaped the blaze but lost everything; FN military now decommissioned with no idea how to carry on; people looking for a new start in the hard-won peace. Maybe it starts with Toph heading back to Earth Rumble, where a group of young runaways scrounge for cheap fights to make a little money.

At each turn they find more and more people with no homes to return to and no family to protect them; runaways escaping the roles the war forced them into. Gradually, Aang and Toph start to see that they aren't so different from themselves. They just want a new start.

So they decide to give them one. They clean up the temples and set up villages in the surrounding areas (helps to be master earthbenders), where people can arrive and stay as long as they need. Travellers and refugees pass through in droves, sometimes choosing to stay and rebuild their lives there, sometimes continuing in their wandering with a guarantee that they'll always have a place to return to should they have the need.

Over time, the lemurs grow in number and even some flying bison calfs (hybrids with a relative species maybe?), can be seen in the skies. Whenever the founders visit, it isn't the same but Aang feels a little more at home.

The first time someone asks Aang to teach him his philosophies, and expresses his desire to become a monk, how can he refuse? Maybe it's a former soldier, somebody who's done terrible things, looking for a path to redemption. So Aang teaches him, and then he teaches others. And though they may not be airbenders, they are as earnest and faithful as any nun or monk Aang knew before. The temples become filled with new faces: Firebenders, Earthbenders, Waterbenders and non-benders all wearing Air nomad orange and yellow.

Aang always feared that it would be his responsibility to have airbender children, and the idea of forcing that on someone he loved terrified him. Maybe that's why he waited so long before acting on his feelings for his best friend, his travelling companion, his fellow-village builder and temple-restorer. How could they have a truly happy relationship with this pressure hanging over them? He wishes he could be content with the new way of things that he and his friends have created. But he knows that he can't be the last airbender forever...

Nobody knows why some children can bend the elements and others can't. Is it blood? Is it blessing? Is it the land in which you're born? Or is it the simple allocation of fates decided by the values and norms you're raised believing in? Is it enough to be surrounded by the culture and beliefs of the Air Nomads? Nobody knows...

All they know is that nobody sees it coming when the six-year-old daughter of two non-bender villagers from the Earth Kingdom and Northern Water Tribe sends herself flying twelve feet into the air with a sneeze.

[thegroundhogdidit]

i ship zukaang but i don't think they had anything during the show (except maybe aang having a crush on him that would be cute) i think they spent a lot of time apart after the war and when zuko saw aang again he was like a foot taller and incredibly powerful and zuko almost had a heart attack on the spot

[seasideoranges]

idk if it’s just me but the whole “which atla kid in the gaang is the most mature” debates can get redundant and kind of exhausting at times. they’re kids. they’re multifaceted characters. they’re mature in some departments and immature in others. they have their strengths and weaknesses. also they’re kids lol.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Paparazzi: Please we just want to interview you all! Korra, holding the door down: Damn it they found out about us! Kyoshi, helping her: So uhhhh what do we do? Yangchen: Sigh, we could just answer their questions. Korra and Kyoshi: Yeah no our public image isn't the best, and we really suck with that type of stuff. Aang: I'm a child. :) Kuruk: I don't deal with people. Roku: Something tells me we'll regret talking with them. So, no. Yangchen: FINE! I'll talk to them. What's the worst that can happen?

Reporter: Yangchen! Yangchen! What's it like being the only Dom in a long line of Subs? Yangchen: This panel is closed!

[quillthrillswriting]

sooo.... anyone else ever wondered how different ATLA would have been if aang had been frozen at age 16 instead of age 12?

yeah... me too 😌 my new fanfic "the teenager in the iceberg" follows the events of the show, but with only aang aged up, while everyone else remains their canon age.

also...cmon....how funny is it to switch zuko and aang's iconic dialogue to "you're just a teenager!" "...so are you?"

this idea was originally inspired by the talented @allgremlinart's aged up aang drawings, so please go show them some love!!:)<3

enjoy the excerpts from chapters one and two!

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Aang chuckled, pushing himself up with his hands on his knees. He was… taller than Katara had realised, taller than Sokka. He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, turning to look over his shoulder at the remains of the boulder-sized chunk of ice he had just been blasted out of.  “Aang. My name’s Aang.” He hesitated, momentarily seeming to puzzle something over. “And honestly? No clue. Don’t remember how me and…Appa!” He yelped, suddenly scrambling back over the hill of ice and snow. Katara followed him without thinking, and Sokka, grumbling under his breath, followed moments later. 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

“So, you’ve brought a monster to invade the village, then? You’re some incognito Fire Nation soldier sent in as an undercover scout? Well, I’ll have you know that I’m the village’s strongest warrior, a-”

“The only warrior,” Katara chimed in, lightly elbowing Sokka’s side, earning herself a responding glare. 

“The strongest warrior.” Sokka reiterated. “And I don’t much like firebenders.” He added the words pointedly.

“Ah.” Aang titled his head. “That’s a shame. Some of my closest friends are Fire Nation.”

“Of course they are,” Sokka glared, hunching over into a defensive position and adjusting his fishing spear until it pointed directly at Aang.

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Katara still wasn’t quite sure what to make of Aang. The Water Tribe boys had always been all flashy muscles, seal-jerky breath, and overconfidence, so Katara had never seen someone move, carry themself, the way Aang did. 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Katara had admittedly forgotten how much fun penguin sledding was. “Spirits, I haven’t done this since I was a kid!” she called to Aang as he raced past her, surprisingly skilled considering that he’d never even seen a penguin until half an hour before. 

“You still are a kid!” He called back over his shoulder. “A kid who’s losing this race, badly !”

Katara’s competitive streak reared its head, her eyes narrowing as Aang stuck out his tongue. She sat up slightly, no longer gripping the penguin’s fur as tightly. “You wish!” She shouted back the words as she raised her hands, breathing deeply. Her hands moved through the positions she had practised from the few bending scrolls the tribe still held on to, and before Aang knew it, the snow in front of Katara turned to ice, and she shot past him as his own ice trail suddenly became dry snow with too much friction to slide on. 

She made it to the bottom of the hill, beaming, breathing heavily. The wind had whipped her hair out of her bun, and she knew without checking that her hair must have looked like a lion-turtle’s mane. She watched as Aang made a show of drying himself off with a gust of wind that he then redirected at her, messing up her curls even more. 

“You’re a cheater !” Aang gasped, mockingly clutching imaginary pearls at his throat. “I demand a rematch.”

Katara strode past him, only turning her head to cast him a smug smirk. “Maybe you’re just not as good of a penguin sledder as you thought .”

“Oh, not so fast!” Aang grabbed her wrist, tugging her back towards him, and she internally questioned why the momentary brush of their skin made her heart flip. He tried to trip her, she tried to flip him, and they both ended up on their backs in the snow, giggling, cheeks and noses bright pink from the cold. 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

“Trouble sleeping too, huh?” Aang cocked a grin, tilting his head to Katara. She kept her eyes fixed upwards, trained on the moon and the stars, worried that if she looked away, she’d end up staring into his eyes like a weirdo. 

“I always feel so awake with the moon’s light on me. Sleeping under the stars has never really been a thing that works. It’s too energising, too… too much. It’s hard to explain.”

“No, no… I get it. I feel the same way in a windstorm, all those breezes and gusts of wind, it feels… exhilarating.” She watched through her peripheral vision as he looked up at the moon. “In times of war, I think we all tend to forget how spiritual bending is at its core. I’d say it’s a good thing that you’re in touch enough with the origins of your abilities to feel the moon’s pull tug at you just as much as it does on the ocean.” 

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Aang smiled back. “Now is our time to try to make up for that. I can’t bring back everyone who was hurt in this war, and you can’t bring back your mother, but together, the two-, three of us can make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“I’d like that,” Katara exhaled, her breath calming down and tears dissipating. The two spent hours talking back and forth, exchanging the stories of their respective childhoods. Katara learned that Aang had invented several new bending moves and had been a big fan of fruit pies, while Aang learned that Katara had always been the bossier one between her and Sokka and that she had almost chipped a tooth on seal jerky when she was six. They continued talking back and forth in increasingly hushed tones until the world faded away under the cover of clouds and sleep.

Katara awoke to the loud shout of her brother. 

“Wakey wakey, lovebirds!” he yelped, chucking a rock-hard stick of seal jerky at both of them. 

“Ouch, Sokka !” Katara snapped at him, rubbing her head at the spot where she had been hit, before realising that she was leaning against Aang and immediately jumping away, blushing furiously. 

♥ check out the two chapters of this (ongoing) fic & my ao3 here! ->

[isthei]

au where 16 yr old aang pops out of the iceberg as master of three elements and 14 yr old she-should’ve-been-playing-roblox azula chases him around trying to kill him but he’s determined to befriend her and is incredibly op so he wears her down bit by bit and azula just. is baffled by this sincere fun-loving “ancient spirit” who wants to be her older brother

[molesamole]

Totally didn't post a Rozin one shot on AO3 Randomly at 7:30 AM in the morning cause of Agin's Children whaaattt anyways take this kinds old art of some sillies I don't think I ever posted

[broadwaybalogna]

Me Screaming: AANG SHOULD’VE KILLED OZAI

*Even louder* IT RUINED HIS WHOLE DYNAMIC OF BEING A CHILD FORCED INTO WAR AND DOING THINGS HE NEVER WANTED TO DO AND ITS OVERALL BORING HE GOT A MAGICAL SOLUTION THE LAST MOMENT

[moodlemcdoodle]

Read some Dark/Chaos Avatar Zuko AU fics a while back and those AUs are VERY GOOD but then I had a brain blast so. Dark/Chaos Avatar Toph AU