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emletish-fish · 2 years

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Hey! I’m rereading worst prisoner and I was wondering if you had any plans for it? Also if there is any way to get you the rights to atla so that you can be in charge of cannon since your version is the only one I am willing to accept lol

Ah, The Worst Prisoner!

I do love it.

I want to finish it.

I know exactly what is going to happen.

But, full disclosure - I've hit a wall of writer's block with the next Aang-centric chapter. We've spent a lot of time with the Fire Nation kids, and I got many queries/requests to catch up with the gaang, so I promised I'd write the next chapter from their POV...

(and I normally try and keep my promises, and I knew what was going to happen, and all these events were happening concurrently, so I figured it would be easy)

And...

Nothing

I love Aang as a character. It's a pivotal chapter for him when it comes to reconciling himself with his past/his beliefs/how he wants to BE as an avatar... so I really want to get it right. It's a chapter I probably feel more perfectionist about.

(And this is probably due to the 10+ years of Aang discourse. So I do want to be really clear in this chapter. I love that lil dude, and he was done so dirty by canon. Aang is a character were you can clearly see that there were huge squabbles in the writers room about him because the end of his story does not match the set-up AT ALL, and I have never seen a character be done a greater disservice whilst being given their so called happy-ending.

Like, wants and needs Bryke?!

It's a super basic story-telling construct.

What the character wants vs what the characters need are meant to be two different things, and the narrative tension comes from them being pulled between the two. Shoving what they want in their face and never giving them a skerric of what they actually need isn't a happy ending.

Aang wants katara.

Aang needs to forgive himself and get closure on the loss of his people, reconcile himself with his beliefs, gain some self actualisation and control over himself and his powers, rebuild his found family (because the air nomads weren't 1950s american boomers all about the nuclear family. found family was their whole jam?!) and be able to confidently move forward in his role as the avatar rather than running away from it.

but sure, lets give him NONE of that. Aang gets not one ounce of closure, not a single drop of working through his fears and doubts to overcome them and become stronger for it. Aang gets a magic rock and a kiss then Bryke call it a happy ending?!

And that's not even my biggest gripe!

My biggest gripe is that Aang was the character I actually saw a lot of myself in. I'm a pacifist. I will build my own canoe and paddle to the other-side of the globe to avoid an awkward conversation with someone. I totally got that aspect of Aang's character and between season 1 - 3 and a half, I didn't actually mind the way he would run away from problems because the narrative was clearly set up to DEAL WITH THAT AS A CHARACTER FLAW. Like, I was pretty sure there was going to be a satisfactory resolution.

I'm a pacifist but I totally support BLM, and the Eat The Rich Brigade and Extinction Rebellion, even when they aren't using pacifist means. Without any exaggeration - billionaires are completely happy for a shit ton of us to die just so their stock portfolio can go up a quarter of a percent. Systematic Racism isn't going to be solved by a gentle approach because white-supremacists/facists want to kill everyone who isn't like them. How do you embrace non-violence in a very violent system?

It's the tolerance paradox in a children's show.

It's really meaty, weighty stuff that Aang's entire story was set up to deal with.

He is a pacisfist who is shoved against his will into a situation were he has to kill a dictator or the whole world will burn.

like wow, what a conundrum.

Damn, I was expecting some really great self-discovery and philosophy and drama and beautiful coming of age/coming into his own for Aang.

and instead...

magic rock.

An emotional, spiritual, meaningful and impactful personal conundrum with extremely high stakes all revolving around the pacifist dilemma that was set up from the very beginning of the entire show - pretty much something that could have been the centrepiece of the entire series. The main philosophical questions of ATLA - how to choose peace in the middle of a war? what is the price of justice? what is the importance of mercy?

and the answer we were given was ....

No think to hard... No life lesson for you here. Magic turtle and magic rock solve all your problems. by magic.

Like, Damn.

Yeah, I'm still salty about this.

Aang was done so dirty, y'all.

But do you know how hard it is to be a Zutara shipper and an Aang fan?

Like, I genuinely like Aang.

And I honestly feel that so much Aang criticsm/Aang hate is railing against Bryke shoving their creepy nice-guy fantasies onto the character and completely derailing his story so they could animate their weird creepy fantasies...

That's a rant for another time.

But anyway, the Aang-hate seems more about the weird writing than Aang himself, and people can't seperate the character from the writing. (and like, fair. I get that. Bryke couldn't either, because they animated older Aang, AN ASIAN MONK, to look exactly like one of them - a midwestern white dude. Like, we knew they were over-identifying, but c'mon people! seriously. I'm pretty sure that's racist.)

But anyway, the ATLA fandom is still WILD.

For saying things like "Aang should have gotten what he needed, not what he wanted. I think it would have been a better story if Aang was allowed to work through his grief and build a found family/ Aang's story would have been better if it dealt with his spiritual conundrum/ Aang's beliefs are closely modelled on buddism and so an american style nuclear family as a happy ending doesn't make much sense for him. Aang was a 12 year old child who's entire narrative was about coming into his own as the avatar and having him french kiss someone as the end point was a disconcerting choice for me," - has gotten my inbox overflowing with hate. I've been called a nazi, told to kill myself and had someone try to dox me.

all from Aang stans?!

So yeah, writing Aang-centric chapters makes me apprehensive.

Like, I'm a person too?

Dealing with an inbox overflowing with unhinged hate stresses me out.

Like, I still have the occassional Aang stan getting all up in my grill on my Cobra Kai fanfics comment section yelling at me?!

(Cobra Kai is a VERY different story to ATLA. Yeah, they both have martial arts in them and talk about balance, but.... beyond that, the characters/story-structure/arcs are very different. Like, these characters would not fit into each other's worlds.

Like, can you imagine the sheer amount of chaos Johnny Lawrence could create if he had bending?

my god. the mind boggles.)

So yeah. Whenever I have an Aang-centric arc, I get nervous about pressing 'post' cause I don't want to invite an avalanche of weird abuse.

But you asked if I have plans for worst prisoner and damn straight, I have PLANS!

So many PLANS

And one of those plans was to start to un-tangle Aang's spiritual conundrum in a way that I felt was personally satisfying.

(Spoiler alert - The Worst Prisoner will contain no magic rocks. Aang is going to have to work through this problem on his own).

But because these plans involve Aang not always getting what he wants and having to work for what he needs - I've hit a bit of a block. Past drama/discourse/series of unhinged abusive messages has made me a little wary of opening the can of worms again.

So there has been a massive delay in chapters because I really don't want to be misunderstood this time.

But I know exactly what I want to say about pacifism/justice/mercy/Aang's dilemma this time.

But, yeah, writing it is hard because every second sentence I'm like 'Is this going to bite me in the ass?'

I'm toying with the idea of just finishing Zuko-Finally-Escapes/Fire-Sibling Dysfunctional Relationship Shenangins Arc instead.

That one is easier to write now.

(To be honest, everyone bags Azula fanatics, but I have only ever been threatened with violence from Aang stans? And there is like a weird ironic disconnect for me there because Aang is the easy-going, happy-go-lucky pacifist and Azula is.... the very opposite of that. But yeah, I'm less nervous about writing fire nation drama, simply because people who really jive with Zuko, Azula, Mai or Ty Lee seem to have mastered the art of reading something they disagree with on the internet and then scrolling past and continuing with their day?)

So if the next chapter is Zuko-centric, you will know what I have decided to do.

(Honestly that is looking more and more likely at this point).

But if the next chapter is Aang centric, then... um, three cheers for me.

I would have solved one of Aang's challenges from the series, and stopped avoiding the unpleasant drama.

So that would be some fun character growth for me.

If you have made it to the bottom - my apologies for the rant.

#Emletish Answers #The Worst Prisoner #Emletish writes #Anti-Aang #not really #I love A@ng #but damn I do it every time I mention him just in case #Like I'm a mum now #I have kids #I don't have time or brain space or emotional energy to deal with someone trying to dox me over a fanfic #Fic: The Worst Prisoner

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