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ljwritesOnce in a while I just glom onto someone's archive and go through it with the dumb determination of a housecat dismembering a beetle. No doubt this is a horrifying event for said person, suddenly inundated with overly long and often nitpicky comments from some stranger they don't know from Eve, so I understand if I don't get replies. No doubt the author is busy turning off her email notifications, hiding under the bed, or moving to Timbuktu. (Random example is random. I'm sure it's a lovely place.)
For the past few months my victim has been one meltinglacier (Lynn), who has posted numerous short stories for fandoms including Teen Titans, Harry Potter, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I've gone through her ATLA archive and found some real gems. I won't do a full profile since there's no longer story to serve as a flagship title and because the author is probably in Timbuktu by now, but I did find three stories about Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee that I particularly liked.
Lynn seems to have a knack for exploring her subjects' emotional states, particularly feelings of discomfort and repression. I liked the intensity of the descriptions and the connections drawn from canon clues on top of real-life emotional and psychological phenomena. To wit:
Life Lessons is about Azula's relationship to and upbringing under Ozai. It is just about the only abused!Azula story I could get through, and not only tolerated but loved. Maybe the story affected me so deeply because I had at the time finished the book If You Had Controlling Parents and had come to some realizations about my own upbringing. When I read Lessons I could see exactly what Ozai was doing to Azula, unbalancing her, isolating her, making her unable to trust the world or herself so she would be totally dependent on him and his judgment of her. It's the exact reverse of a healthy upbringing, in other words, because in a healthy home the parent helps the child grow more independent and balanced, not less. As I watched Azula's mind being warped I wanted to make it stop but knew I couldn't, and the strange beauty in the telling drew me in even while it tied my insides into knots. It was that kind of story for me.
Saving Face centers around a horrific scenario where Mai encounters Koh in the woods and... well, just read it. Lots of fan stories explore Mai and her issues with repression, but this is the only one I have seen where the repression takes center stage and becomes her strength as well as her burden. Few stories made me admire Mai so greatly as Face did, for her wit, resourcefulness, and resilience in the face of unbearable terror.
Koh is the other gem in the story. The story delves deep into his nature and character while still leaving the unsettling sense that there is more to be uncovered. Mai is a good foil for him, and the interplay between these two was fraught with creepy brilliance.
I'm still not sure how to feel about the ending. It's either a complete letdown or completely appropriate, you'll have to decide that for yourself. I've been going back and forth on it, but one thing is for sure, I felt the story's dark tendrils reach into my life due to the way it ended.
Airhead and Her Choice are both Ty Lee-centric one shots. Airhead is definitely the more mature work both in craft and subject matter, dealing with Ty Lee's internal turmoil and self-deceptions in a depressing AU. I have seen few works of short fiction that explored the issue of psychological evasion so well. Though I think Airhead is objectively the better work, Her Choice, about Ty Lee at that pivotal moment on Boiling Rock, also held the kind of piercing psychological insight that would be the basis for Lynn's later works. Or maybe I'm just throwing in Choice to balance out the uncomfortable sensation of remembering Airhead.
There is other good stuff in Lynn's archive, including Like Glass which is a fitting "after" to the "before" of Lessons. If you like your messed-up Fire Nation royals there's Acceptable Lies from Ursa's point of view and Practice Makes, about Ursa and Zuko. Cold Sleep presents a different view of Hama, and Lady Justice gives Katara's encounter with Yon Rha a different ending. Milestones is a really sweet Toph story to read if all the messy family dynamics and psychological horror wear you out.
I found meltinglacier/Lynn's archive really interesting with lots of good stories and a few outstanding ones. It's a great pleasure of archive-trawling when I discover stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise. And now I can recommend these stories to my friends, and tell them to scare the author with comments from strangers. How's that for psychological horror?
For the past few months my victim has been one meltinglacier (Lynn), who has posted numerous short stories for fandoms including Teen Titans, Harry Potter, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I've gone through her ATLA archive and found some real gems. I won't do a full profile since there's no longer story to serve as a flagship title and because the author is probably in Timbuktu by now, but I did find three stories about Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee that I particularly liked.
Lynn seems to have a knack for exploring her subjects' emotional states, particularly feelings of discomfort and repression. I liked the intensity of the descriptions and the connections drawn from canon clues on top of real-life emotional and psychological phenomena. To wit:
Life Lessons is about Azula's relationship to and upbringing under Ozai. It is just about the only abused!Azula story I could get through, and not only tolerated but loved. Maybe the story affected me so deeply because I had at the time finished the book If You Had Controlling Parents and had come to some realizations about my own upbringing. When I read Lessons I could see exactly what Ozai was doing to Azula, unbalancing her, isolating her, making her unable to trust the world or herself so she would be totally dependent on him and his judgment of her. It's the exact reverse of a healthy upbringing, in other words, because in a healthy home the parent helps the child grow more independent and balanced, not less. As I watched Azula's mind being warped I wanted to make it stop but knew I couldn't, and the strange beauty in the telling drew me in even while it tied my insides into knots. It was that kind of story for me.
Saving Face centers around a horrific scenario where Mai encounters Koh in the woods and... well, just read it. Lots of fan stories explore Mai and her issues with repression, but this is the only one I have seen where the repression takes center stage and becomes her strength as well as her burden. Few stories made me admire Mai so greatly as Face did, for her wit, resourcefulness, and resilience in the face of unbearable terror.
Koh is the other gem in the story. The story delves deep into his nature and character while still leaving the unsettling sense that there is more to be uncovered. Mai is a good foil for him, and the interplay between these two was fraught with creepy brilliance.
I'm still not sure how to feel about the ending. It's either a complete letdown or completely appropriate, you'll have to decide that for yourself. I've been going back and forth on it, but one thing is for sure, I felt the story's dark tendrils reach into my life due to the way it ended.
Airhead and Her Choice are both Ty Lee-centric one shots. Airhead is definitely the more mature work both in craft and subject matter, dealing with Ty Lee's internal turmoil and self-deceptions in a depressing AU. I have seen few works of short fiction that explored the issue of psychological evasion so well. Though I think Airhead is objectively the better work, Her Choice, about Ty Lee at that pivotal moment on Boiling Rock, also held the kind of piercing psychological insight that would be the basis for Lynn's later works. Or maybe I'm just throwing in Choice to balance out the uncomfortable sensation of remembering Airhead.
There is other good stuff in Lynn's archive, including Like Glass which is a fitting "after" to the "before" of Lessons. If you like your messed-up Fire Nation royals there's Acceptable Lies from Ursa's point of view and Practice Makes, about Ursa and Zuko. Cold Sleep presents a different view of Hama, and Lady Justice gives Katara's encounter with Yon Rha a different ending. Milestones is a really sweet Toph story to read if all the messy family dynamics and psychological horror wear you out.
I found meltinglacier/Lynn's archive really interesting with lots of good stories and a few outstanding ones. It's a great pleasure of archive-trawling when I discover stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise. And now I can recommend these stories to my friends, and tell them to scare the author with comments from strangers. How's that for psychological horror?
