For the second time in two centuries, the Avatar is lost, their fate unknown. Asami Sato realizes a girl she met years before in the far North might be the person the world needs, and a young woman named Korra begins to rebel against her guardians; the Red Lotus. The fic intends to explore areas that the canon left open, and has several changes, the most obvious being that Korra was captured by the Red Lotus when she was three years old prior to the White Lotus confirming her identity.
This unofficial Alternate Continuity reboot fic of The Legend of Korra is a collaboration between Puffie and Sanctum_C. The authors became aware of the existence of this page during the course of Book One. The fic consists of three books, and has since been finished.
The fic can be found here
or here.
A tumblr created by the authors the further promote the story was launched.
Book One - Healing
After living with the Red Lotus for fourteen years, Korra never forgot about her meeting with Asami Sato and what she said about Republic City. After eventually receiving a brief vision of Aang, Korra decides to runaway from the Red Lotus compound to find this Republic City, so she can locate Asami Sato and Aang. Shortly after her arrival in Republic City, Korra has encounters with people that will forever change her life.
Publication for Book One began on January 1st, 2015 and concluded on May 1st, 2015 with a total of nineteen chapters.
Book Two - Metal
The new Avatar is found. But Korra's legend is far from over as she comes to terms with the aftermath of the Red Lotus and the new forces growing ever more prominent in the world.
Book Two made its debut on June 19th, 2015 and concluded on November 13, 2015. It can be accessed here or here.
Book Three - Lightning
The Equalists are defeated but Ba Sing Se has fallen. Now Korra must recover from her ordeals and face new threats; not least the approaching Harmonic Convergence.
Book Three publication began on January 14th, 2016 and concluded on July 28th, 2016. It can be read here and here.
Tropes found in this fanfiction:
- Adaptation Expansion: All of the main characters such as Team Avatar and the Red Lotus receive much more development and backstory than they did in canon.
- Adaptational Badass: Confirmed by the authors that Korra's training by the Red Lotus has made her more dangerous than she is in canon. Korra is also able to air-bend sooner than she can in canon.
- Anyone Can Die: After Book One, the body count in this story includes both original characters, several canon characters who died prior to their canon counterparts, and at least one character who did not die in canon. It is likely the body count will increase throughout the story.
- Badass Family: The Fire Nation Royal Family, including when the elderly Zuko, Azula, and Mai along with Izumi and Iroh deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to the Red Lotus when they attempt to assassinate Iroh.
- Broken Pedestal: As Book One progresses, Korra becomes more disillusioned with the Red Lotus until by the end of the Book she no longer feels any affection for them and sees them purely as enemies.
- The Caligula: The Earth Queen in the story is perhaps even more of a tyrant than in canon. Refugees flee from her regime in the Earth Kingdom in droves, and the economies of the other nations are stretched thin trying to accommodate them.
- Combat Pragmatist: The fighting ideology that Zaheer promotes, Korra is initially opposed to the practice as a child but by the time she is an adult she also practices it. Asami later realizes that she won't be able to defeat Zaheer in a fair fight so she also adopts this approach.
- Conflicting Loyalty: While it is understandable that Asami does not want to leave her father, she questions her decision to deny the Kyoshi Warriors help, as this makes her seem like she is aiding the Equalists. But she also knows the alternative is to leave her father in the hands of Amon, who will most likely let him die.
- Crapsack World: This appears to be an accurate description for the Earth Kingdom in this story as a result of the Earth Queen's tyranny, see The Caligula above.
- Crazy-Prepared: Zaheer, this is even lampshaded by Ming Hua.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: There are a few in the story. Perhaps most notable is that anyone who tries to fight Korra, and is not one of her Red Lotus mentors, tends to end up on the receiving end of this.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Every member of Team Avatar and the Red Lotus have their own tragic backstory to tell.
- Darker and Edgier: Throughout the course of the story the reader learns of what a Crapsack World this fic takes place in. Also shown with the characters, the Red Lotus have already crossed the
Moral Event Horizon by assassinating several royal heirs and kidnapping Korra as a child, the heroes also have a Good Is Not Soft approach to problems. - Easily Forgiven: Most of the characters forgive Korra for her actions during the later events of Book One after she turned against the Red Lotus. However, they all give understandable reasons for why they are forgiving to Korra.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Red Lotus kidnapped a great deal of children to search for the Avatar. When they left, the kids had blankets and supplies for several more days.
- Everyone Is Bi: In addition to Korra and Asami maintaining their canonical bisexuality, most other major female characters get Adaptational Sexuality and are confirmed to be bisexual.
- For Want Of A Nail: While the biggest change is that Korra was kidnapped by the Red Lotus, there are apparently several other "nails". They include:
- Korra and Asami met as children when the Sato family went to the North Pole to establish a research station.
- Unalaq apparently has Adaptational Heroism.
- Kya joined the United Forces and is now a General.
- Mako and Bolin both still worked for the Triads when the main story started.
- Good Is Not Soft: Team Avatar has this approach.
- Mako is willing to resort to torture via firebending to obtain information if it's needed.
- Asami, who was initially opposed to the trope becomes a Combat Pragmatist to better fight against Zaheer.
- Korra and her friends are willing to use lethal force against the Red Lotus in the final battle. Korra in particular kills P'Li and Ghazan.
- Not quite true; editing of the chapter and Word of God in the footnotes states that Korra never killed Ghazan directly. Ghazan was killed when the magma he was fighting with weakened the ground he was standing on, subsequently breaking up and having him fall into the flow.
- Hoist By Their Own Petard: The overall fate of the Red Lotus, their teachings have made Korra an extremely skilled and powerful fighter. During the final fight, Korra uses her teacher's own techniques against them in order to defeat them.
- In Spite of a Nail: Korra still runs away from her guardians and has Naga.
- She also still becomes friends and teammates to Mako and Bolin (and friends with Asami).
- Amon is still active with the Equalists, and Hiroshi Sato is apparently still aiding them.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Korra is purposefully kept in the dark about a lot of things by the Red Lotus, and is even outright lied to about a few things, like the survival of the Air Nomad culture through Aang's descendants (plus the air acolytes) and the very nature of the Avatar Cycle. She is also completely ignorant about more mundane things, like bras.
- Love Dodecahedron: There's a lot of Ship Tease (so much so that it has its own page), and while a lot of it involves Korra, there's still a few other pairings teased.
- Manipulative Bastard: Zaheer is this in his interactions with Korra.
- More than Mind Control: Even though Book 2 has the now apparently defunct Red Lotus be a Broken Pedestal to Korra, she still shows a bit of their ideology mixed with her natural heroic instincts (though she's aware of their residual influence.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Korra after she realizes that her "mentors" made her attack her relatives.
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- P'li has an attack of this briefly when she realizes the Red Lotus was acting very similarly to the warlord that captured her as a child, but rationalizes it.
- After finding out Korra was kidnapped as a child, Mako tells Katara he thinks Korra and he have a lot in common.Mako: And... Korra and I have more in common than I thought.Katara: Oh?Mako: We both had a hard life.
- Sadist Teacher: Ming Hua is this, but she uses the nearby otter-penguins instead of Korra...
- The Shrink: Mako, Asami and Bolin are seeing a therapist in Book 2.
- Sibling Team: Mako and Bolin
- Spirit Advisor: Aang is trying to do this, but he has yet to truly connect to Korra.
- Take That!:
- In "Crystal Skies" Korra tells Mako about a book she bought with the gift certificate that he gave to her about a girl entering into a relationship with a guy who practically stalks her and ties her up and whips her a lot. Sound familiar?
- Also in "Crystal Skies" when Bolin is talking to Kuvira about her plans for the future and he asks her about Chin the Conqueror, she calls the historical figure stupid for challenging the Avatar to a duel and expecting to win. One can imagine that this Kuvira would have some choice words about some of the actions of her canon counterpart.
- Token Good Teammate: Ghazan is the nicest of the Lotus members towards Korra, befitting with his canon status.
- Tyke Bomb: The Red Lotus intended to do this to Korra. It wasn't (entirely) successful.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Red Lotus, though the "extremist" part is touched on more.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Bolin briefly thinks that his "story" with Korra is largely over once Asami helps him and Mako get stable jobs and a place to stay; a happy-ish ending to the story of two poor boys becoming The Ones Who Made It Out and having a bright future ahead of them, with a Did Not Get the Girl element as a Sequel Hook. This is in chapter 11 out of 20, in Book 1.
