Fic Post - Imagine The Ocean - Book One (Master Post)

[damkianna]

Title: Imagine The Ocean - Book One
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: Somewhere between PG and PG-13.
Characters/Pairing: Hints of Sokka/Suki if you're looking for them. Katara-focused overall. Includes some original characters.
Wordcount: The prologue and Chapters 1-6/13 amount to around 50,000 words. ETA: Prologue and Chapters 1-10/13 are up to about 90,000 words. The now-complete fic is around 117,000 words.
Content Notes/Warnings: Mild amounts of violence in a few places; nothing very graphic. Some spoilers, in a very general sense, but this story is quite AU. I doubt there's anything in it that will ruin the events of the show for anyone.
Summary: Hakoda found the boy in the ice eight days before Kya went into labor. Avatar!Katara AU.
Disclaimer: Places and people you recognize from canon are not mine.
Acknowledgements: More thanks than I can possibly express to my sister, idriya, who was my cheerleader, my beta, and the complementer who produced the gorgeous art that accompanies this story. And, of course, this fic exists in general thanks to the ladiesbigbang challenge, and everyone who helped make it happen.

Story Links
Read on DW: Prologue & Chapters 1-5 | Chapters 6-10 | Chapters 11-13
Read on AO3: Link

The story art is embedded in both locations.

Comments

[havocthecat]

Will you be posting chapters as you write them? I think I'll track the tag for this story and read it when the whole thing is done. I'm very excited to hear you're writing this!

[damkianna]

Yes, I will - or, rather, I'll post (with appropriate tags) to point to where I've added new chapters into the existing story posts. That's very kind; I'll do my best to finish it quickly for you! :D

[havocthecat]

Wonderful! I want to read it, but I don't read WIPs, so I appreciate you making these posts with the tags so I can keep an eye on it.

[havocthecat]

Wonderful! I want to read it, but I don't read WIPs, so I appreciate you making these posts with the tags so I can keep an eye on it.

[damkianna]

It's no trouble at all; believe me, I completely understand.

[mercredigirl]

Where do I start, where do I start.

I love the art, yes, but I love the writing too.

Feminism, yes please. Bring on the Bechdel fix. Bring on the complete restructuring of the Katara-Sokka sibling relationship. I love ghost!Aang. So sweet, and so in-character. I also love the fact that, no questions asked, women are accepted in all the different elemental societies. It's not unintentional that both Zhao and Zuko have women lieutenants, and that both of them are competent, respected, and independent! And their uniforms! So! Much! Gratitude! For your fixing of the midriff-baring, completely impractical armour from canon. Aaaaand Iroh is wonderful, and June is not fanservice, and everyone is lovely and I adore your spin on things.

Ye-ah. *grin*

Wait, sorry, not done yet. Just these points left...

1. Disability (Suki's mother). YES. REPRESENT!
2. SEAsia shout-outs! Vietnamese philosophers! SEAsia is soooo overlooked in fic. A thousand thanks for this!

[damkianna]

I basically clapped like a seal when I got this comment in my inbox; thank you so much!

I really enjoyed going wild with the lady-awesome - there are places in my outlines where it actually says, "Oh, why not, it's ladiesbigbang!" :D So I'm glad you enjoyed reading it, too! It definitely soothed small grumpy parts of my soul; A:TLA canon is certainly better than many shows, but. There's always room for more awesome women being awesome. \o/

I loved being able to add Suki's mother, and I hope to have her show up some more later, because she is excellent; even though the part she's in is relatively short, I thought about her a lot, and I'm glad her being there meant something.

And same goes for the SE Asia mentions - one of the reasons I chose to break the Earth Kingdom up into multiple kingdoms was because of the way it would open things up in that respect. You ... probably don't want to know how much time I've already spent working out the borders and history of the southeastern kingdoms, but suffice it to say: I am beyond glad that even the tiny bits and pieces that have made it into the fic are appreciated!

Thank you again for the lovely feedback; it pretty much made my weekend. :D

[schneefink]

Awesome! Avatar!Katara is great.
Unfortunately I haven´t seen every episode of Book 1 yet so I probably can´t appreciate all the details, but the ones I did recognize I enjoyed very much, like Yue teaching Katara instead of Pakku (Yue!). I really like Mizan and Yin! And Suki, of course, and her decision to travel with the Avatar, and of course Katara herself and also Sokka (Sokka! That´s the only very very minor complaint, or more like a suggestion, I would have loved more Sokka.)
Aang as ghost was great, and I liked that you showed that travel is much more difficult without a sky bison.
I´m really looking forward to your version of Book Two! It must be very different, seeing as your world doesn´t have a united Earth Kingdom...

(And so I don´t miss it and because you seem generally interesting I´ll be stalking you, hope you don´t mind :) )

[damkianna]

Thank you so much!

I'm so glad it makes sense even without having seen all the eps! And it is great to know the changes worked for you; I spent so much time on this fic that I have absolutely no objectivity left about Yue and Mizan and Yin and Suki, so that's very reassuring. :D (I agree completely; I kept his POV sparing partly because this was originally started for ladiesbigbang, but I adore Sokka! So there will probably be more of him in the next book.)

Oh, thank you! It might be a little while, I am still revising and expanding my outlines, but I hope you enjoy it when I do post it. :D

(I don't mind one bit - actually, I will probably stalk you right back as soon as I post this. :D)