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This blog is an official interview of the Fanon Fact Finders. We hope you enjoy it! |
Hello fellow Avatards! ATLALOK is back again with yet another interview for the Fanon Fact Finders and its been awhile since I've done one! And what a great comeback in the making, because this interview is a collection of one-shots (my first one-shot review!) written by the talented and well-known wiki user.......AvatarRokusGhost! He calls this collection of currently seven one-shots ARG Presents! Lets see what he had to say about each and every one of these fantastic and hilarious pieces of work.
First off, how are you?
I'm doing well. As usual, I've been pretty busy, nowadays with my new online course, plus work, plus a potential volunteer gig that makes it like having two and a half jobs at once. Luckily, I still do find time here and there during the day for writing.
Wow, how exciting! Hope it's not too tiring XD. In The Consultant, the story takes place about midway through the episode The Chase. Why'd you pick this episode?
Well, it's loosely based on the events on that episode mainly for the time and place that made it convenient for telling the story that I wanted to write. Being in the earlier part of Book 2, they had recently found Toph and Azula and company were chasing them across the land, and that was a suitable confrontation to have going on in the background. In other words, the circumstances seemed ideal for a video gaming "consultant" to enter in and give his bizarre take on their troubles.
Where did the idea of an irritating man that talks like he's in a video game come from?
I was actually thinking of the Star Wars Tales line of comics when I first came up with this story. They were more comical than the mainstream comic series, and they often featured blatantly out-of-universe references in their parodies. Growing up, I played a lot of video games, and the "consultant" is an out-of-universe character representing the absurdities in video games when compared to the real world, featured in the Avatar world. Since the consultant is a gamer who is used to controlling characters, he tries to do the same with Team Avatar with the utmost confidence, but not everything goes according to plan.
Why did Aang ask The Consultant if he was an airbender if Aang is the last of his kind? (At the time).
Well, it has been nearly four years since I wrote The Consultant and I wasn't always paying as much attention to detail back then. Nevertheless, I figured he still had some lingering hope of finding a long lost member of his own nation, as he did in the comic Relics and in the episode The Northern Air Temple. While I didn't give much in the way of description for the consultant, especially physically, I wanted to give the impression that he immediately showed as being "definitely not from around here". Therefore, everything is pretty much on the table. The ultimate truth of him being an out-of-universe gamer entering into their world is even more crazy than him being a surviving airbender.
Aang took lives when battling the animals? The Consultant told him to fight the animals, not kill them! What was the purpose of having Aang kill them?
Maybe I should've been clearer about that in the fanon. Regarding the outcome of battles, in RPG games you only obtain items, gold and experience points when you win, and to do that you have to vanquish all the enemies you face at a given time. The battles end when either your opponents expire or everyone in your party expires, in which case it's game over. Yeah, it may have been out-of-character for Aang, but the story was already ridiculous and on its path to becoming moreso. However, I did attempt to compensate by having Aang show some regret.
Lets move onto your next fanon. The Legend of Ong. You have Tenzin's name, but Kaddo and Vameria? How'd you come up with those names? Do they have a meaning?
Kaddo and Vameira are characters I made up for my fanon Energy Saga back in 2011, before The Legend of Korra was released. Being Aang and Katara's other son and daughter, they are a waterbender and an airbender, respectively. Kaddo is also sexist, like a younger version of Pakku, and he doesn't like it when Katara introduces him to healing, calling it "women's work". For the names, I actually started with "Kataang" and "Aangtara". I added a "V" to the beginning of the latter and played around with the spelling and the pronunciation until I thought it was changes sufficiently so that the origin wouldn't be too obvious. Since some of these one-shots spring from the Energy Saga chronology, they are also in The Legend of Ong 2, The Legend of Morra and Live Another Day.
I was internally laughing at the idea of Tenzin being a complete fanboy and shipping people! The fanon was a total fourth wall break . I must ask; how do you think Aang and Katara would feel if they knew they were being shipped?
In the show The O.C., there is a show within a show called The Valley which is supposed to be the equivalent of itself within the universe and the characters act sort of like fans within their own reality. After writing The Consultant I felt like doing another parody, and the Avatar version of that seemed like a good fit. As I was writing Energy Saga at the time, I fit it into that timeline. As for Aang and Katara's reactions to their shipping, it would be a much more intense version of their reaction to seeing Tenzin's canvas, since it concerns their real-life selves. I would picture something like the image of Katara googling herself on the fanon shipping page.
In the sequel of The Legend of Ong, Global Infodex is supposed to be a reference to Avatar Wiki. And the "Fanon Portal" section are parody titles of real stories. How did you come up with this dedication to our wiki users?
Running with the same parallel to the original The Legend of Ong, I decided to take it a step further. As I had also recently referenced several wiki users in an Energy Saga, featuring a parody version of the wiki itself in a sequel to its predecessor seemed a natural course of action. I didn't want to make it too over-the-top, so my goal was to delve in just enough. Tenzin's equivalent of a username is PriscongLover. The 777th Crystalbender is supposed to be like The 888th Avatar. For the stories he listed, A Bat Could Love a Flounder is like A Bird Could Love a Fish, Eyes of Priscilla is like Eyes of Katara, Crystal Guardian is like Avatar: Guardian, Crystal Rhythm is like The Avatar Rhythm, The Weather Crystals is like The Weatherbenders, Crystals of the Burning Earth is like Avatar: Aftermath and Burning Earth, The First Sky Crystal is like Avatar: The First Skybender and Heiress to the Crystal Throne is like Heiress of the Nile.
Is the story of Tenzin getting told off by some other guy a true story that happened to you on this wiki?
Well, I haven't ever trolled or inserted false information to articles and I've never been blocked, so nothing quite like Tenzin's experience. Back when I was an administrator on here, I experienced the other side of the story quite a lot, and I blocked a fair amount of users like Tenzin, though I didn't usually see as much of their reactions afterward as I included in this story. At the time I wrote this story back in the middle of 2012, I used my admin tools quite a bit, so it reflected a fair amount of my experience then, as opposed to the last year when I was much more focused on community fanon work and used my admin tools hardly at all.
Moving on to Life as I Know It, what's with the dynamic of Pakku and Aunt Wu?
Well, this would take place following the end of the Hundred Year War, when the nations are at peace. If individuals in the Avatar world are able to travel about freely, then I could see Ember Island becoming a popular vacation spot for members of other nations the way that it is for those of the Fire Nation. Pakku is a knowledgeable man as a member of the Order of the White Lotus and could've known that she was on the island. Since Pakku was scouting out for someone to train in waterbending and he wanted some fortune teller confirmation, he sought her out.
And a person discovering waterbending abilities is on Ember Island? Was this unnamed main character born into a multicultural family?
Yes, from TAD's fanon writing challenge using my day and my birthday, I was given the prompt to write a story about "I had my fortune told with Pakku on Ember Island because I realized I was a bender". I suppose the main character is multicultural, too, since he's based on myself and I come from a mixed background. He's lucky to have discovered his bending abilities after the war and not before. That's for sure. The waterbenders we see in Avatar are primarily based at the North or South poles, but it seems like a convenient art to have on a tropical island as well. If any exist that permanently reside in such a place, they'd presumably be like the swampbenders.
Why does the main character not have a name in this one-shot?
Like I said before, the character in the story for the prompt could be either yourself or a character that you choose. Since I didn't have any characters in mind for such an outlandish scenario, I simply went ahead and used myself for the prompt, or more accurately, myself when I was in late high school/early college. The two friends are based on two of my friends in real life. The picture of Pakku that I used was also that of a user on here for a while. There were quite a few discussions in the comments sections of pages and blogs where I thought it fit him perfectly, and I thought it would work for the story as well XD
In Live Another Day, an elderly Hakoda would die before surrending to avoid taking out the trash? I know it's meant to be humorous, but isn't that a little extreme?
Perhaps, but I wanted to keep it vague who Hakoda's opponent was and why this was happening to him during the fight scene. I opened up with some background about his journey as a warrior spending the bulk of his life fighting in the Hundred Year war against the Fire Nation, and stated that he was someone who never backed down. The line about how he would die before surrendering here and now was more in line with how I wanted to portray him than it was the literal situation. He had fought the Fire Nation his whole life and defended his tribe and his family in the process, so he's not someone who would back down or relinquish his ground when he has it.
What was the inspiration for this fanon? Possibly your own feelings about taking out the trash? XD
Like four out of the seven one-shots, it came from a prompt on a contest blog here on the wiki. In this case, it was Minnichi's Epic Art for Epic Battles writing contest. In this one, I wound up doing something featuring Hakoda and a waterbender. Rather than something akin to rebellion or traitor in the post-war Southern Water Tribe (the only waterbenders besides Katara in ATLA were in the Northern and Foggy Swamp Water Tribes), I decided to do something else with Kaddo, which was one of the funner characters to write for in Energy Saga, and had some of the best reception as well. I ended up using him for Vortex, too, and the scenario seemed perfect for him as well. Of course, it had to be something seemingly-trivial like taking out the trash. I liked shows like Blackadder growing up, which always featured some comedic twists in fate.
In the Brothers of Jang Hui, Dock, Xu and Bushi were all actually brothers, but when Xu and Bushi died, Dock developed schizophrenia making him not only himself, but his brothers as well. Brilliant! How did you come up with this idea?
Actually, I had the idea to write a story from Dock/Xu/Bushi's perspective long before I wrote this and long before I had the idea to have that happen to him and become the reason behind his schizophrenia. Telling a story through his eyes seemed like a fun exercise that harbored some possibility, with the reader knowing the truth and the other characters knowing the truth, but the narrator being oblivious to it. I was going to write a series called the Chronicles of Jang Hui and it was intended to be a humorous take on the lives of "normal" people in the Avatar world, when Team Avatar and their enemies aren't around or at least not directly in the picture. Eventually that idea got scrapped, but the basis for it remained in the back of my head until that cruel twist came about. I like plots common in thrillers where the plot takes a sinister turn and I wrote the story at what I felt was the right time to do it.
Your newest one-shot, The Legend of Morra, Tenzin says to Kaddo, "The series itself is enjoyable...for the most part. It's not as great at first, but it gets better later on." Is this how you feel about The Legend of Korra?
First off, I do have Kaddo drive the story for a lot of it, but I wouldn't say that I'm always necessarily closest to him with regards to what he thinks of The Legend of Morra and what I think of The Legend of Korra. He's more confrontational than I would be most of the time, so he seemed like a good character to take center stage, though, so I kept coming back to him as I was writing. Regardless of that, I would say that I thought Korra got better as it progressed. I did prefer the second book to the first book, and the third and fourth books to the first and second books. I still do prefer ATLA though.
Is Kaddo's or any of the other characters based off of someone in your life? A sibling? Friend? Wiki user? Just curious.
The characters are based off of the fandom at large and individual characters are different types of fans within groups of fans. The Legend of Morra is essentially The Legend of Ong 3, and follows up by parodying the reaction to The Legend of Korra and the finale. Some inspirations came from discussions on the wiki and users on the wiki, though the majority was non-specific and I should probably keep it that way to avoid unnecessary commotion over it. Ultimately, I do have my own views as a fan, but I wrote The Legend of Morra for the fandom in general, and it is not about "what side is right".
The conversation Tenzin, Kaddo, Neinei and Viola have with the shipping wars was interesting. What side were you on? Dikmorra, Morrasamyu, or no shipping at all?
Comparing equivalents together, my personal views are closest to Neinei's in terms of shipping. After the earlier season, I largely left behind shipping in The Legend of Korra. I do ship Bopal and Zhu Li/Varrick and I'm alright with Kainora, even if it is underdeveloped. As far as Makorra and Korrasami, I'm all for either if it were developed as a proper relationship. Korrasami has been done pretty well in some fanons I've read like A Minute by Lady Lostris, but I wasn't expecting it in the show. Honestly, my instant reaction to watching it was that I laughed. I laughed because A)I wasn't expecting it and B)I felt that Bryke knew it would be unexpected by a lot of the fan base (and I still think that, as I consider the mention of the "hetero lens" was not came up with on the spot) and Bryke did it on their own terms, rather than as fanservice, and also C)I thought that they intended for it to be somewhat vague, which turned out not to be true. Granted, none of that has anything to do with how developed the pair was, but the whole ordeal did seem worth it nonetheless. As far as Korra-Age shipping wars go, sometimes they can become more brutal than they need to be, and require a bit of vigilant peacekeeping from someone like Neinei, but I enjoy discussing it with anyone who can be civil, regardless of preference.
Which one-shot was the most fun to write? Most difficult?
I would say The Legend of Morra was the most fun to write, hands down. The style was one that I love using but hadn't in a while. I didn't know what to do for The Legend of Ong 3 for the longest time. I did have some other ideas, but they didn't work out, then I got writer's block. One day, inspiration struck like a lightning bolt and I went with it. Those are my favorite moments in writing. As for the most difficult to write, I would say Live Another Day, for the complicated task of setting the stage, managing the tone and keeping the story consistent throughout with the right description.
And finally, any advice you'd like to give for someone that is planning on writing one or more one-shots?
One-shots are short stories, so one doesn't need a complex plot. A simple idea suffices as long as it's something that you can run with. It's best to write while it's fresh in your mind and you can put the bulk of your energy behind it. It's times like these that writing is most fun, so I hope to also write some more one-shots myself in the future.
As a bonus, ARG decided to ask me what my favorite one-shot of his was. My response:
As for my favorite one-shot....ooo, that's a toughie. I'd have to go with the Legend of of Ong 2. It had be rolling and was just brilliant! XD
Ooooo, and for an extra bonus, ARG has heard some rumors about an upcoming newsletter issue you might be interested in. *makes a pyramid with my hands* *laughs out loud and sinister*
Well, that's my interview! Special thanks to ARG for letting me interview him about his amazing one-shots. If you haven't read them yet, I'd seriously recommend them if you're either looking for a good laugh, want to read something that is well thought out, or just for the experience itself. Also, if you have a fanon or one-shot collection that you want to have questions asked about, feel free to drop the name of said fanon or one-shot collection in any of the FFF members user boxes. This is ATLALOK signing off! *salutes with two fingers*