There Ain’t No Money in Fanfic: Post-Legend of Korra Avatar Pitch

And that’s a wrap. Korrasami is canon. Totally called that (along with about forty bajillion other people) and creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko (Bryke to their fans) have indicated that they’re ready to move on to projects not related to the Avatar universe.

I was onboard with this from season two. Mako was such a jerk to both Korra and Asami. He didn't mean to be and he's become a better person since then, but it was not a thing that was going to happen. Bolin was always just oo much of a goofball and needed someone with more patience than Korra. It had to be Asami.



I guess it’s up to me.

Flash forward eighty-five years in the future. Korra has died peacefully at a ripe old age. At that moment, somewhere in the world, a new Avatar, an Earth Bender, is born. But it’s going to be a long time before she’s ready to take over the job, assuming the White Lotus can even find her and train her. A lot can happen in fifteen years with no one at the helm.

“Built on top of Spirit Vines spreading from Republic City, the Spirit Net allows instantaneous communication around the world. Now powerful interests seek to control the Spirit Net and the world’s commerce, money and information. Once again, the world is in danger of falling out of balance.”

She’s just a nerd girl from the Earth Kingdom starting a summer internship as a silicon bender at her father’s corporation. Sure, she’s an Earth Bender and she had some training in gym class, but she never had much aptitude for all that martial arts stuff. Likewise, she’s not much interested in politics and all these “Occupy Republic City” protesters her father’s always complaining about. She just wants to hang out online with her friends, play online games and fangirl over the latest fantasy-adventure series.

But what’s with these untraceable emails from whitelotus.org? And what’s with these dreams?

And who are the cyber benders and what are they doing in the Spirit Realm?

Let’s pitch this as the Avatar meets The Matrix. So my vision of the next Avatar is someone who’s a little bit Sheska from Fullmetal Alchemist and Marigold Farmer from Questionable Content. Her social skills are fine as long as she’s online; face-to-face, a bit less so. Despite being a natural at earth bending, she’s never had much interest in it. Likewise, her high IQ is just a means to get through her schoolwork faster so she has more time for MMORPGs. The twist no one knows about is that the MMORPGs she plays on the Spirit Net are actually in the Spirit World and she doesn’t even realize she’s entering the Avatar state to play them.

Unlike Korra, who wanted to be the Avatar from the time she was a toddler, this one needs some convincing. She’s able to talk to Korra at some point (the only previous Avatar available now) but they’re coming at their shared destiny from very different perspectives.

 

Sheska is an obsessive reader and has a photographic memory of everything she reads and gets hired to reproduce the entire collection of a burned library.

 

Marigold is more comfortable in her room online until she finally gets a boyfriend.

Quotes: “How m’any times do I have to explain this? I’m not an avatar! I’m the Avatar! Deal with it. They don’t make an app for this!”

“I’m also an Air Bender. That means I control the Cloud!”

If that goes well, let’s jump 114 years into the future from there. This time, the White Lotus has the plan in place for maintaining balance during the downtime between active reincarnations. They find the new Avatar, a Fire Bender, train him up right and give him the people and resources to do his job right.

He’s an older Avatar with several successes behind him and a loyal ensemble of benders and non-benders to help him troubleshoot. This time the trouble is on a neighboring planet where colonies are being established. The planet doesn’t have much going for it other than an atmosphere that smells like a laundry hamper, shallow puddles, algae, and various small mollusks and crustaceans. But something is affecting the benders among the colonists. Could it be that the planet has an Avatar of its own?

I would never pitch this as Avatar meets the Avatar.

And then, if that works out, maybe we can take Avatar: The Next Air Bender out among the stars.

“Weak nuclear forces. Strong nuclear forces. Electromagnetism. Gravity. Only the Cosmic Avatar can master all four…"

Bryke, call me.