#heatbending

I could make whole post on how it exists yet Zuko is the only one we see doing it; but theres not much info on it(its not addressed like bloodbending or metalbending)

so here are headcannons [I'm calling it heatbending for shortening purposes]

Zuko discovered it when he was like 7

by accident.

he didnt even realize he was doing it until he was 9

why?

heatbending doesnt involve hand movements or anything, you basically just have to think about it

he thought he was just lucky and it got hotter when he was cold and vice versa

It's the only thing that impresses Ozai, but Ozai is more angry than zuko cant teach him.

Anyway

Zuko explains what heatbending is and that it's a protective form (heating up his skin so it burns at the touch, protection from the cold, etc)

so aang is like "teach me!" but zuko is like "I kinda cant"

he admits that he isnt sure how to describe how he does it

"Wait so doesnt that mean you can give super warm hugs?" "I dunno, i havent really hugged anyone since i was a kid-" "W H A T "

so they all hug Zuko (even Toph is like 'ight, warmth is warmth')

And Zuko just becomes a heater

Sokka uses it as an excuse to cuddle, (because of course) as bros, obviously

Zuko catches feelings

at some point it's really cold at night and they all fall asleep surrounding Zuko

he's touch starved ok

Eventually something activates his Fight or Flight

it's some wild animal attacking them

and Zuko ups the temperature of it and it dies

he's just like "whoops" and aang is like "OH MY GOD"

no this isnt just me trying to produce some kind of content because I cant seem to finish my fic

IIRC, Sozin isn’t lavabending, he’s just venting off the heat to cool the lava (aka molten rock).

We know firebenders can control heat (Iroh heats up water for a bath, for instance), and I guess they can super-heat their breath aka kind of control steam (doesn’t make a ton of sense, but okay). So Sozin’s like, heatbending, a subset of firebending.

As a quick note, firebenders can redirect existing fire and use what’s already around them…they don’t have to produce the fire they control.

Earthbenders bend “rocks” (I actually take some issue with what is defined as “earth” in this universe because scientifically speaking it’s kind of arbitrary). Metalbenders can sense the “earth” aka “impurities” in metals in a way that other earthbenders can’t. Lavabenders seem to be an even rarer subtype, who have the ability to control the heat of the earth they are manipulating. In that way, it’s almost like they have “heatbending” as firebenders do, but it doesn’t draw power from the breath. It’s somehow physically manipulating earth to cause the phase transition at a high heat.