Make Rohan a Bender but NOT an AIRBENDER

I know Pema wants Rohan to be a non-bender like her. But what would be cool is if he turned out to be a WATERBENDER.

Imagine how happy Katara would be! Kya it seems will never settle down and give Katara a grandkid. And Bumi became an airbender due to that dumb harmonic convergence crap (screw Korra btw). Rohan being a waterbender would force Tenzin to acknowledge the water tribe part of his heritage for once! Also maybe Katara could teach Rohan too :). Katara deserves to have a waterbending grandkid damnit and to be more involved in her own freaking family! Give LOK Katara some love please!

wait rohans a waterbender? since when?????

Since I made it up? I dunno, I like the idea. I doubt they'll go that direction in canon (unless they HIRE ME to make some damn COMICS)

Rohan being an airbender is boring to me. It's totally expected, practically makes the kid a non-entity. It's much more interesting to make him something else and explore what that means for the family dynamic. That (likely) means non-bender or waterbender, though earthbender is a possibility since Pema's from the Earth Kingdom. I'm just going to assume that Katara wasn't bullshitting when she touched Pema's preggo belly in the very first episode and said the baby would be a bender. She just got the element wrong. It was a safe bet!

First off, it'd raise some questions about how bending is passed down. Based on what we've seen in canon, it's easy to assume that a bender only passes down their own element to their offspring, with it either manifesting or staying dormant, possibly for multiple generations. But what if it's more complicated than that? Tenzin may style himself as Mr. #1 Air Nomad, but his mother's element and culture are part of him, too, right? With the different nations intermarrying more than ever before, it creates the potential for any type of bending to pop up in any part of the world, which has many fun worldbuilding implications. It'd also make a lot of sense, considering how the new airbenders pop up the way they do. They may all have had airbenders somewhere in their ancestry, with that potential lying dormant for centuries or even millennia until it was finally activated by Harmonic Convergence. I know this isn't a groundbreaking fan theory, but whatever.

Anyway, back to Rohan.

The discovery that Rohan's a waterbender would be a surprise, maybe even a shock, and it'd give the Kataang clan a new point of conflict and introspection, particularly for Tenzin. He'd have to grapple with his kneejerk reaction being denial, followed by disappointment. Then comes the doubt...

Why does he suddenly feel more distant from Rohan? He reviews his own interactions with the boy, both before and after the discovery. Does he treat him differently now? Should he? Of course he doesn't love his son any less, but it changes their relationship, or seems like it must. Is it fair to bring him up like an Air Nomad, the way his siblings were raised? Would it be better to introduce him to more Water Tribe traditions? He realizes how little he valued his mother's culture compared to his father's. It's not that he doesn't care, but...

Is this how Aang felt about Bumi and Kya, before he was born? How did he come to terms with that? Did he feel this same ache? And knowing now how alienated Bumi and Kya felt from their Air Nomad heritage for so long, how can he stop himself from making the same mistakes? What does this mean for the future of his people? Can Rohan be an Air Nomad but not a member of the Air Nation? Is such a thing possible?

He sees himself reflected in his son's innocent, trusting eyes, his own expression one of confusion and fear. He's lost again. Nothing in his readings of Air Nomad wisdom or his memories of Aang tell him what he should do, and he's too ashamed to admit his conflicted feelings.

Finally, Tenzin's head explodes.

Plus, hey, it's a great excuse to bring Auntie Kya around for lots of fun waterbending lessons! Both she and Bumi get to say "toldja so" to Tenzin once he admits his struggle over his relationship with Rohan and what that made him finally truly understand about their childhoods, about what it meant for all three of them to be children of the last airbender.

Meanwhile, Rohan's just being this precocious kid—a lot like his sister Jinora—inventing whole new ways of bending water like it's no big deal, and all the adults are too tied up in knots to even notice. His siblings notice, though, and help him figure himself out. He's a true Cloudbaby, a perfect cinnamon roll.

In the end, they do work it all out, and the whole family is closer than ever before... until Meelo announces he's joining the United Forces and all hell breaks loose.

I really wish that the show had, or the comics had (will? I don't know if there's going to be more) done more with Rohan? As far as I'm aware, he's never really had any actual dialogue or even made sounds outside of cooing as a baby and laughing as a child. I'm not expecting him to have a super major role in anything, but if you're not going to do something with him, why make the character to begin with?

Heck, at this point, I'd be happy enough to get some kind of confirmation on whether he's an airbender or not. Part of me assumes so, since it seems to be implied Katara made the same prediction about Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo and obviously all of them ended up being airbenders.

Big Sis Korra ☺️

Soooo... I'm feeling really shitty rn and im stuck in bed so here is morre ofbmy horrid creation

Previous

Hi there. Love your blog. I read your ask about how you'd rewrite Aang and Katara's kids and thought it was pretty interesting. Is there also anything you'd rewrite about Tenzin's kids?

Hi, thank you so much! I tried to start this yesterday and the app crashed so let’s do this again.

*** There’s not much I’d change about the airkids, I think they’re fine but here are some of my headcanons during and after LoK:

Jinora I think is the most developed of the 4 and the one I like the most. I have a ficlet of Katara telling her a story from the war because she seems to be really interested in Katara’s stories in canon. I think Katara’s probably her favorite person to be around, after Kai obviously, because she likes learning so much. I think she’s virtuous and studious but not too uptight like Tenzin. Leading the new air nation and taking up Tenzin’s responsibilities would be natural for her and she’ll most likely train the new avatar too. If you’ve read Yangchen, I basically see her as Jetsun. As for her siblings, I think Ikki annoys her constantly and follows her around. Meelo seems to be more independent as he gets older and Rohan is probably her favorite sibling because of the age difference.

Ikki, I think is loud and attention deprived. comes with the middle child territory. I headcanon that she grows close to Katara after following Jinora around and listening to her stories. I think Katara would influence her after some stern talking to and she would take after Katara and Kya’s example the most, helping people around the world. I think she’d be really outgoing and would be the first to move out of Air Temple Island. A true nomad in every sense, but she’ll always come back home for holidays and festivals. Her and Meelo are airball rival captains and she takes physical air nomad activities very seriously. She’ll let Jinora lead but she dominates the space whenever she comes back home.

Meelo, I liked the least during the show but as he got older, he got less annoying and more mature! I think like the comics he’d spend the most time with Bumi, exploring the world particularly air nomad temples. He’d probably go live in one after Rohan grows up and take some new airbenders with him. I headcanon him to be a wise crazy elder like a mix of King Bumi and the guru from ATLA. Also, comes back home for major holidays like Ikki where they try to beat each other in air ball tournaments.

Rohan, I know the least about because he’s a baby. If I had to give him a personality, I would give him Tenzin’s canon one. He’d be very particular and studious helping Jinora out a lot. He probably looks up to her because she’s the eldest and she finds him endearing. He’d probably be really big into archiving and training the new air nation, more than sports and festivities.

My cloudfamily headcanons

do you think tenzin would be disappointed if rohan was a nonbender?

I think he would wait for him to show signs of being a bender. He'd wait and wait and wait, even after everyone tells him he needs to stop waiting and accept that he has a nonbender child. He would struggle to accept it at first.

Memories of being so separated from Bumi and Kya during their childhoods would weigh heavily on him. He would mourn for the fact that Rohan wouldn't get to experience the joys of bending the same way his other children do.

But ultimately, he loves that damn kid, bender or not. He would redouble his efforts to keep him included while never hinting that he held out hope for a long time hoping that he was a bender. Tenzin may be the leader of the new Air Nation, but he's a dad first. His children's happiness means more to him than anything.

Tenzin would be happy to have a healthy child who thrives in their own way.

Bumi and the air kids hc?

He is the closest to Ikki I take 0 criticisms. Ignored kid, ADHD ball, adventurous, overshadowed? Ikki's his little babygirl and he will never say it out loud but she's his favorite.

He gets Jinora all the books in her library and teaches her a lot of difficult Hanzi.

He found 16yo Meelo drinking once and instead of scolding him just told Meelo to find him anytime he wanted to try drinking or smoking because then he could atleast keep an eye on him.

He sings Rohan to sleep, and it's not uncommon to see Rohan curled up in Bumi's arms and taking a nap even as he gets older.

Lovetober day 6: Harvest

Jinora and Rohan make a mad dash to get to the early morning harvest celebrations.

Meelo is a good example of what could happen if you try out the famous air nomad vegetarian diet

Perspective

Perspective

Chapter 20

-Summary-

It's Rohan's birthday and as usual chaos ensues. With a new age comes new beginnings but Meelo isn't sure if he's ready.

Fandom: Avatar: Legend of Korra

Relationships:

Meelo (Avatar)/Original Female Character(s)

Ikki & Jinora & Meelo & Rohan (Avatar)

Lin Beifong & Meelo

Characters: Meelo (Avatar), Lin Beifong, Tenzin (Avatar), Original Characters, Ikki (Avatar), Jinora (Avatar), Pema (Avatar), Rohan (Avatar), Bumi II (Avatar), Korra (Avatar)

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Aged-Up Character(s), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Minor Jinora/Kai (Avatar), Minor Korra/Asami Sato, Original Character(s), Post-Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Post-Canon, Crime Fighting

So Tenzin and his kids won’t exist in LOK in your AU?

Welllll they will, but in different ways :)

I actually have a Korrasami-focused LoK rewrite brainstormed already that takes place in the same AU as The Avatar and the Fire Prince. Here’s a few of my bullet points from my brainstorm document:

- Tenzin would still exist, but as an acolyte of EK descent who desperately wishes he was an airbender. He would be an orphan who was mentored and eventually adopted by Aang; Aang and Zuko are his fathers and Izumi (also adopted) is like a big sister. He would still serve as Korra’s airbending teacher, but feel inadequate due to being a nonbender. Harmonic convergence would eventually give him, Jinora, Ikki, Meelo, Rohan, and Bumi airbending.

- Bumi would be a nonbender descendant of Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation colonialists (probably from Cranefish Town/Republic City), and also be adopted by Aang and Zuko. Kya would still be Katara’s daughter.

- So in this AU, Izumi, Tenzin, and Bumi would be adopted siblings, while Kya would be a close friend for them, like Lin and Suyin.

Obviously I’m doing a lot of lore-bending for the Gaang’s kids here, but I’m doing that anyway with a LOT of other plot points (I basically plan to rewrite a lot of the plotlines I had major issues with from LoK), so at the end of the day I figured what the heck, it’s my AU, I can do what I want lol.

Let me know if you or anyone else is interested in hearing more about this LoK AU, because I have a lot of other interesting ideas for it! :)

Hello! Can i request some timeline questions for Rohan from The Leyend of Korra?

He's only 0-3.5 years old in the actual show. So general questions about my life work!

Thank you!

happy to see some people from avatar!! :D i love the avatar universe so much <3 i actually watch a youtuber called "overanalyzing avatar" who basically went through the entirely of atla and pointed out a bunch of tiny details i never noticed before, and hes going through lok now and its so fun :] id totally recommend his channel!

what was your relationship with your family like? did you get along well with your siblings?

were you a bender or a nonbender? if you were a bender, were you good at bending and did you like practicing with other people or did you prefer to practice alone? if you were a nonbender, did you wish you were a bender?

what was it like being an air acolyte? was it exciting or was it more scary being so heavily involved with a nearly extinct culture?

did you live on air temple island, or did you end up living somewhere else? if you did, did you like living there? if not, do you wish you lived there?

did you attend school? if so, where and how was it for you?

did you keep any pets, such as sky bison or lemurs? if you had a sky bison, were you any good at flying?

did you ever meet korra? if so, what did you think about her? was she nice to you?

i hope this works out for you! please let me know if you need anything changed or if you want anything else! feel free to request again whenever! :D

-🍓

Avatar's cutest kid tournament

Round 1.4

If you were writing LOK, how would you have handled the subplot about Aang's kids remembering their childhood so differently? Personally I always felt that the reality of the matter is that Aang(wheter intentionally or othervise) WAS prioritizing Tenzin while he growing up... But not to nearly to the extent his two older kids recalled it to be like. But what do you think?

Like so many questions concerning LoK, my true answer is "I'd handle it by not doing it." XD

I don't even understand why the memory discrepancy was a thing, at least as far as the storytellers' intent. Was it just to justify why Tenzin and his siblings reached their 50s/60s without actually talking through their differences? Give them an excuse to keep fighting for two episodes while in close proximity to each other? I can't help but feel there are easier ways to do those things. Or, you know, we could just not have Aang's boomer kids arguing with each other like children fighting over the best peanut butter sandwich. Crazy, I know.

But I'll engage with the question in good faith and assume the memory discrepancy conversation is something I'm stuck with. Maybe I'm the writer of the "Civil Wars, Part 2" and I have to deal with the mess left for me by some scriptwriter named 'Michael Dante DiMartino,' whoever that is.

For the record, here's the exact dialogue:

Bumi: Well, lookee here, 'Vacation Tenzin' has finally decided to join us. Tenzin: Yes, he has. It's so nice to get to spend more time with my family. Isn't that right, my little Rohan? And I've really enjoyed having you two around. Reminds me of all those great vacations we took as kids with Dad. Kya: Uhh, I think your memory's a little foggy. Bumi and I weren't on those great vacations. It was always just you and Dad. Tenzin: No, that can't be right. What about the time he took us to Kyoshi Island to ride the elephant-koi? Kya: Nope, we weren't there. Tenzin: Hm. Oh, remember Ember Island? Those amazing sand palaces we built on the beach. Bumi: You mean, you built? We never saw the place. Tenzin: I could've sworn.

But I'm going to also reference this bit of dialogue from the prior episode, when the Aang-Spawn arrive at the Southern Air Temple for the first part of their vacation:

Bumi: S'cuse me, a little help here? Air Acolyte: Sorry, I thought you were the servants. Bumi: We're Tenzin's brother and sister! Air Acolyte: Avatar Aang had other children? The world is filled with more Airbenders?! Kya: We're not Airbenders. Air Acolyte: Oh- I'm so sorry.

Yes, it seems there were multiple people with memory problems about Aang's family. In canon, this is to show that Aang was such a horrible father that the entire world, even his own Airbender child, doesn't notice the existence of his other kids. I kid. It only had that affect on the audience, but was likely only intended to give a little sympathy to the Bumi and Kya before they become the villains to the Tenzin we're already inclined to like and favor.

But under my control, this is the start of the hints that the Spirit World is going wrong and waging war on the material world.

Yes, you understand that correctly.

I'm invoking Evil Memory Magic!

The idea here is that the most spiritual areas in the material world are being influenced and darkened by the spirits who are in league with Unalaq and Vaatu. They desire to cause conflict amongst the humans, just like how Unalaq is causing conflict between Korra and all her loved ones so that he can isolate and control her. If the most spiritual humans are in conflict with each other, then no one will notice what's really going on.

With Bumi and Kya going on a trip with Tenzin to the Air Temples, this manifests in materializing their greatest fears and making all the Air Acolytes forget that Aang had additional kids- and the clue which starts to tip people off that something is very wrong is when Tenzin mentions Katara and the Air Acolytes are shocked when he explains that Aang married a Waterbender! (This will also introduce some lowkey criticism of the Air Acolytes as being more fetishists than true disciples of Air, since Book Change is going to confirm that anyway by making so few of them part of the emergence of new Airbenders.) In Tenzin, who isn't about to forget his older siblings, this manifests in forgetting all their uniqueness. Eventually, the memory issues extend to Ikki's disappearance, with Jinora forgetting her own sister. Everyone has to team up to find her and defeat the dark influence!

The story would be very paranoid and creepy, with everyone unable to trust their own memories, and real emotional peril as these family members struggle to remember each other as the darkness starts fighting back more heavily. The Air Acolytes even forget Tenzin completely at one point, glorifying in how they think they resurrected a dead culture themselves. Jinora fights to remember Ikki, no matter how annoying, guided by Tenzin, who has broken through and remembers the quirks of his own siblings. They find Ikki unable to remember anything but the Sky Bison she befriended, but Pema guides her back to herself by talking about their family history. Tenzin and his siblings stand against a dark spirit which emerges from a tree, with Bumi providing strategy and the other two defeating it with their Bendings.

The resolution has the Temple purified, with Tenzin's vacation now turning into an investigation of the other Temples and various other spiritual sites. The Air Acolytes remember Kya and Bumi, and Tenzin berates them for their Air-supremacism. Tenzin, in turn, admits that he apparently has a tendency to not see the differences or problems in their family, and apologize to his siblings. But Bymi and Kya in turn apologize and admit that the dark influence made them see Aang's actions as neglect when it wasn't. The true story of the vacations is revealed, that they were teaching/working trips specifically meant to prepare Tenzin to be a national leader, barely having any time for some fun, and the moments Tenzin remembered were actually shared with local children who he, a shy introvert, was meant to be learning from and befriending without his older siblings to guide and shield him. Bumi and Kya admit it was silly of them to feel left out, but they still did. Tenzin admits that their feelings are valid, even if there was an innocent logic to Aang's decisions, and the real problem was the pressures their family was under all their lives.

I admit, for a "good faith" response, I'm completely undermining and sabotaging what was probably the true intent of this subplot, and I'm basically clearing Aang of making any mistakes. I don't know if your compromise would go as far in the implementation, but I can't stand Aang becoming the exact monster which destroyed his childhood (different than the monster named Sozin who destroyed his people/nation). I'd rather depict that monster as never having been truly defeated, and Aang had to fight it all his life but still suffered losses to it.

I also threw in a little something to help recover Jinora's character, because for a supposed Naturally-Spiritual Chosen One, she's a stuck-up little snot.

Also, apparently I love paranoid thrillers about altered memories. XD