reading ATLA fanfiction for the first time in ages
Recently, I'm going through a bit of an Avatar: The Last Airbender nostalgia phase. Usually, the interval between these individual phases is pretty long - I think my last ATLA phase was around three years ago. The "nostalgia surge" usually lasts for a week or two, and then I move on until the next wave hits.
The trigger for this ATLA phase was the trailer for the new Avatar Aang movie. I had not been following Avatar-related news at all for the past few years. For some reason, the trailer still showed up in my YouTube feed. I haven't actually been able to watch the movie yet1, but the trailer was enough to get the ball rolling.
Aside from watching some videos on Season 2 of the Netflix Avatar show (which I also haven't watched, and honestly ... don't intend to), another media that I've found myself searching out is fanfiction. It's been a loooong time since I last read a proper fanfic, probably ten years or more. But I suddenly found myself interested in more "seriously / maturely written" stories focusing on Aang & Co. post ATLA Season 3 - the kind of stuff that doesn't really get addressed in 90-minute movies or even sequel series. So AO3 was the logical place to go.
Specifically, I started searching for stories about Aang and Katara, their relationship after the war, dealing with the aftermath, new responsibilities, etc. There are quite a few interesting questions there, for example: How does Aang really deal with the loss of his people once the immediate threat of Ozai is gone, and how does he bring "balance" to a world that ought to have four elements but really only has three?
After a bit of filtering and sorting, I ended up with a short list of works that sounded promising, and started with this one. The initial "hit" for my filters turned out to be Part 3 of the series, so I decided to start with Part 1: "The Language They Built".
Review, I guess
This one was a bit different than what I was initially searching for, but still interesting. First off, it was more ... steamy than I expected (I didn't really check the tags before going in). Essentially, it's a short story leading up to Aang and Katara having their first time. It seems a bit silly, but if you think about it, there are some interesting things to explore here. When Aang first kisses Katara in the show, he's 12 and she's 14. Where do they go from there? They're both still kids, and there's quite a bit of time to account for before they start having the children that show up in TLOK.
Overall, I found the story pretty well written - maybe a bit too well, though. Does that make sense? There's this big emphasis on communication in relationships and explicit consent ... which is great, don't get me wrong. But at times the characters behaved so exemplary that it took me out of the experience a bit. I get that Aang is a monk and probably a lot more mindful and considerate than the average guy. But man, they're both so mature. The sex scene happens when Aang is 18, but him and Katara behave like they've had the content of multiple relationship and sex advice books downloaded straight into their brains.
To a certain degree, it's understandable. When there's no easy method of contraception, it makes sense that relationships progress slower, with a longer "modest" phase. Honestly, the whole thing raises a lot of interesting questions surrounding the culture(s) around romance and societal expectations in the Avatar world. In the show, this is not really touched upon. The tropes and stereotypes it uses lead the viewer to assume that things are vaguely like they are in "the West" in real life, even though the setting is fantasy Asia (+ Inuit) with no European parallel whatsoever. This kind of area is where fanfiction excels. It's way too granular to get explored in sequel / prequel shows or movies, and probably even official novels. When written well, they can give a lot more depth to fictional worlds.2
The Language They Built kind of delivers in this aspect, even aside from the incredibly "correct" way the characters communicate, in a way that feels just a little bit too perfect for people in their late teens, there are some things that feel a bit off. For example, I found it a bit difficult to believe that Aang and Katara essentially lived together for four years and apparently never had a romantic moment that went beyond a short kiss with closed lips. In the story, it's like there's a switch that suddenly gets flipped for Katara when Aang turns 16, and new pathways in the relationship tree "unlock" from there. I can see why the writer wanted to write it like this (writing a romantic story about underage characters with sexual elements is very ... precarious. I wouldn't dare to attempt it myself). Nonetheless, I found it a bit jarring that apparently their relationship progression was just frozen in place for four years. Just like the impeccable communication thing, it ends up feeling less like something that's organic to the fictional world and characters and more like the author's own positions, sensitivities and ideals seeping through.
Some elements are underexplored: In the beginning, there is a paragraph where Katara thinks about how she's seen Aang grow, and there are some uncomfortable undertones here considering she's older and also the "mother of the group" in the show. That alone feels like it should throw a bit of a wrench into the clean progression shown in this fic.
Also, maybe it's because I'm a guy, but ... I just found the whole thing to be a bit too drawn out. At the beginning of Chapter 2, I mostly found myself (exasperatedly) thinking "oh my god, just do it already!!!" In the end, this was an interesting read in the sense that I hadn't really read anything like it before, and it was clearly written by a somewhat experienced writer. I'm going to continue the series, but I hope the full-on romance fades into the background, at least a bit.