Anghraine

I was talking the other day about a LOK AU where Amon is the final boss, and mentioned that it’s a variant on a much older idea I had for rearranging the order of the seasons. And now I’m thinking of that one again.

I have a few pretty long posts about it, but in summary, this other AU reorders the seasons by the threat posed by the villains and their forces (in my judgment): Zaheer, Amon, Kuvira, and Vaatu. It always seemed a bit odd to me to have the most high-stakes battle (against Vaatu) in the middle of the series and then to follow it right up with a handful of anarchists, while the most truly menacing villain starts out the series, and the last has a very abrupt and incomplete arc.

It’s not … entirely motivated by Kuvira/Korvira feelings. I do think that, while complicated to carry off in details, it could help with a lot of the pacing issues, and though it’s a coincidence, I like the idea of the seasons continuing to follow the elemental cycle (the Air season would have an airbender villain fighting for freedom, who would be followed by a waterbender villain fighting for change, who would be followed by an earthbender fighting for stability).

Buuuut can’t lie, giving Kuvira’s arc more space is a major motivator. She’d first show up in Book One, if briefly, be an occasional presence in Book Two as she reports her progress in consolidating control of the Earth Kingdom while Korra is trying to deal with Amon … but with Zaheer coming first, Korra would be in a mental state to deal with Kuvira much earlier in the timeline, preventing some of her later excesses (*cough*and making it easier to accept a redemption arc*cough*).

Anyway, I’m still really attached to the scenario where—although Kuvira’s exploits as the Great Uniter weren’t on the same scale as canon—the non-Korra members of Team Avatar are pretty understandably suspicious of her (esp Mako), and she and Korra amplify each other’s best and worst tendencies so much that she’s definitely disruptive, but they all end up fighting Team Unavaatu together.

(After Korra and Kuvira have shippy adventures in the Spirit World, that is.)

Tagged: #i love korvira and i also love frenemies kuvira and mako and this au gives me both #and also just... things i like #i don't really have the will to write the full thing and i'm not sure how to write a piece of it /without/ writing the full thing #but it's dear to my heart

In the academia AU, I was definitely imagining that Korra realizes her feelings first, while Kuvira is wrapping up her "why do my relationships with men always turn out so badly?!" phase (in all universes, Korra is bi and Kuvira is lesbian).

In the Rearrangement/Final Boss Amon AUs, though, I'm definitely imagining that Kuvira falls like a ton of bricks for Korra and knows it relatively soon (Rearrangement: probably soon after their Spirit World adventures). She sees no point and suppresses her feelings—at first successfully, but ... well. Everyone was, naturally, super suspicious of her at first (even with her exploits scaled down), but her behaviour is so contrary to what they expect that they're kind of ??? about her. Some of them think it's a plot, but eventually almost everyone suspects the truth because it's hard to make sense of Kuvira's behaviour otherwise. So when Korra finally realizes that Kuvira is in love with her (either because it clicks at last or because a situation arises where she's told enough), the others are just like "yes, and...?"

I'm just imagining that Korra's like... wait, you KNEW? 
Mako: Yes?
Korra: !!!!?!
Mako: I mean ... yeah, I knew. And Bolin knew. And Asami. And ... uh, everyone.
Korra: I'm the only one who didn't know?
Mako: Well, you and Tenzin.

OTOH, nobody knows what Korra feels—including Korra herself for a while, and definitely including Kuvira.

(This post isn't going anywhere, it's just a Korvira feelings overflow!)