#same effect

Apocalypse AU. Fire Nation Wins AU.

What if when Aang saved Katara, Sokka, Appa, Momo, and that old fisherman from drowning in the Storm, he froze them all for another hundred years.

If you want to keep Zuko young/part of the main storyline, just say he fell off his ship and drifted close enough to Aang to be frozen along with them.

Unless you wanna go the Spirit Bullshit route, Toph would have 0 reason to be in the vicinity of that storm and would not remain young with the others of the Gaang. She could easily join up once they reach the Foggy Swamp though since that’s canonically where she went after retiring. Honestly, having these time-traveling teenagers and 112 y/o sassy lady on this quest to save the world sounds kind of hilarious.

This could also easily become a Vigilante AU too, since 100 yrs post-ATLA would technologically be around the early 2000s given that TLOK seemed about 50-ish years post-ATLA and tech advanced to our equivalent 1950s (ish). If you want to see my Vigilante AU ideas, they’re here but they’re not adapted to this specific AU, so if you want help doing that, dm me.

During 100 years (200 in Aang’s case) the Gaang have been gone, the Fire Nation wins the Hundred Year War through use of Sozin’s Comet and rules the Earth Kingdom with an iron fist.

Azula inherits the throne as Phoenix Queen after the passing of Ozai. When Ozai returned from burning the world to see Azula’s violent breakdown, he burned her (similarly to how he’d burned Zuko) in order to ‘snap her out of it.’ She’s still highly unstable but kept it together enough to avoid being burned again, developing a few more unhealthy coping mechanisms as a result.

The Water Tribes would come to little further harm without the Avatar highlighting them as targets. The South Pole provides no strategic advantage and the North Pole is both neutral and heavily guarded. Zhao is unable to justify his need for an army in his quest to become the “Moonslayer” without Aang as a cover target.

Amon probably wasn’t able to get on his bullshit while struggling to survive the Fire Nation’s imperialism, so Amon never started the Equalists. He still might’ve taken enemies’ bending though. Idk how/when he learned to do that in canon.

Harmonic Convergence will have happened 30 yrs before the Gaang reawakens, recreating the Airbenders. Without Aang, they have no one to teach them bending, nomad culture, nor protect them from the Fire Nation’s persecution. The Fire Nation has little motivation to repeat the genocide, believing the Avatar Cycle to be broken/fictional, but Airbenders still face prejudice and a repeat attempt of Earth Queen Hou-Ting’s Airbender Army seems likely, especially considering how easily airbending can power up firebending.

If you didn’t watch Korra, basically, the queen kidnapped/enslaved all the airbenders (including children) and kept them in a dungeon to be forced to brutalize each other as training.

What do you mean strictly

Somewhat, yes, but it's also a matter of attraction.

A great deal of fandom is shipping, and people tend to be more drawn to ships that they are attracted to. No, it's not the be-all end-all, yes, you can love characters and ships that you don't find attractive and dislike ones that you do, but it adds a MASSIVE boost. You are more likely to consider ships when you find one or more of the characters attractive. You are less likely if you do not.

I'll use myself as an example.

I don't give a shit about m/m pairings unless they have strong canonical chemistry that appeals to me (or it's a REALLY well written fic) because I'm a lesbian. It is harder to make them appeal to me because I don't get the attraction boost. I will read Adamsapple fics (with a note that I am picky about characterization) because I find the dynamic compelling. I don't mind Huskerdust, but have never once sought it out. Alastor is the major ship-launcher in this fandom, but I have not and will not read any fics that dedicate a significant amount of time toward Alastor shipping (or read Alastor-centric fics in general) because I can't comprehend how people find him hot and I find what we saw of him in canon deeply boring, so there is absolutely no appeal. M/F is honestly largely the same. Constrastingly, although I obviously gravitate toward things I already ship, I will give almost any f/f ship a shot if the fic seems well written. (With another note that I am picky about characterization.) Why? Because there is additional appeal there to make me willing to give the author the time to convince me.

(This is without even getting into smut, and I don't think I need to explain the importance of attraction there. All of the M/M or M/F smut that I've written was as a gift to a friend or because the narrative demanded it. And guess what? The f/f I've written (on a burner account that ya'll will never see) was way better.)

The majority of fandom is women. The majority of women are attracted to men. So guess what? Attractive male characters and m/m pairings get most of the attention. And guess what else? Female characters often get in the way of m/m ships, which provokes hate. Especially around younger fans who might not be experienced enough with narratives to be able to get a female love interest out of the way without demonizing them.

congrats on your excellent taste anon, i salute you

the short answer to your question: i have an art-grade printer and no self control

long answer: my dad and i have been hiding these little plastic skeletons around the house to prank each other. we reached a ceasefire (read: he hasn't found the skeleton hidden in the produce drawer yet) so i bought a pack of shitty little heart-shaped picture frames to put a picture of a skeleton on his desk. i had three frames leftover and figured...yeah alright i'll put a picture of my guy on my work desk to stave off the relentless grind of my job.

"If you want it more, needy greedy baby, want it harder, want it faster, then use your strength. I'm perfectly great back here."