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inspired by anon in the "characters you love but will never play" thread.

general tips? i'm thinking of playing her from when she doesn't have her bending.

as far as playing her without her bending, there are some huge things to keep in mind. i'm not sure if it's as prevalent as it was while the show was airing, or how you feel about it, but i think the fandom underestimates how important a person's bending is to someone.

a lot of benders spend their lives honing it. they build careers and, in a lot of cases, identities around it. hopefully they would be surrounded by good people who love them for who they are and not because they're a bender, but of course how they see themselves and measure their own worth is totally different (you can pretty much replace the word 'bender' with anyone else and the same situation applies: artist, author, athlete). you take someone's bending away, you're not just taking away their ability to do fancy tricks with elements, you're taking away a huge spiritual part of them. you're taking away their livelihood, you're taking away all that time and effort they spent improving their bending, and in some extreme cases you're basically taking their identities.

so, how does lin handle it? in my opinion, very, very badly. remember how it utterly destroyed tahno and korra? well, they're teenagers. lin is 50 years old. that's 50 years of bending, of building and working and just 50 years of LIN herself, all gone within a split second. sure, we didn't get to really see lin dealing without having her bending, except in the last episode. remember how, after korra left the healing room with katara, EVERYONE except lin was looking at her? it's because lin can relate to korra -- both of them feel that they've lost their identities. like korra, lin is also someone else's legacy, toph's. toph beifong, the woman who at 12 years old developed a new form of bending and helped the avatar win the 100 years war. toph beifong, who was BLIND and the only way she would be able to see her daughter would be with earthbending. that alone says earthbending is much, much more to lin that just being able to hurl a rock or two at someone. even though toph is probably dead by then, it doesn't erase the tie between her and lin that earthbending represented.

anyway, i think that like korra lin was trying to keep it all together until they got to see katara. i'm not sure how this would translate into the game, i guess it would depend on which point you want to take her from? not to say that lin would have a tearful breakdown on the network or in public or anything, i think she would be private about her mourning. also i don't think she would breakdown and become a total mess within a few days like tahno did, but i could see her being very restless, maybe having trouble sleeping and becoming a bit of a night owl. unless you have castmates or she manages to develop close cr with someone from a different canon, i don't think she's privy to let someone in on her situation. i think she'll be somewhat despondent, but she'll still try to be how she usually is with maybe giving off the vibe that there's something wrong.

also please, PLEASE don't just glaze over this by giving lin a new way to fight or a shiny weapon. obviously it's something she can learn, but it's not going to erase the damage amon did, only at best provide a distraction by giving her something to do. being around characters who wouldn't know who toph is might alleviate the burden somewhat, but again, i really don't think that this is something any bender, not just lin, can get over in a matter of months.

thanks, anon, this was some awesome food for thought! especially the bit about earthbending being the way her mother saw her; for some reason i hadn't yet considered it (ah, early days of character pondering). i got into korra very late and haven't really dipped my toe into the fandom so i don't know the prevalant view on the personal importance of bending, but i wanted to explore that in rp over the longterm without necessarily immediately having canonmates to offer hope or a spiritbending korra around to immediately fix it. so, yeah, i definitely wasn't planning for her to tell randoms she just met about it. while i was thinking of giving her a new way to fight, there's no way it'd be good enough in her eyes to totally replace her bending or provide much comfort - just a distraction, like you said.

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Lin Beifong | Avatar: Legend of Korra

Re: Lin Beifong | Avatar: Legend of Korra

Re: Lin Beifong | Avatar: Legend of Korra