A Supermagnet, A Doctor, and A Twin Walk Into A Bar

[iamnotpolaris]

Milliways. Oh, bless.
Dr. Xavier could have finished her shift, made it home, and buried her head in a pillow if she had to. But this is much easier.
"Hi, Bar, can I have a stimulant that won't interfere with my judgement or dexterity or anything like that?"

Comments

[iamnotpolaris]

"Sounds vaguely arbitrary, but I don't really know enough about your system to judge."

[roc_on]

"It's usually summarized as 'waterbenders derive their powers from the moon and find the sun inhibiting, firebenders derive their power from the sun' with... no scientifically reasonable explanation for the comet."

[iamnotpolaris]

"If waterbenders derive power from the moon, how can you bend here? Milliways doesn't have a moon, so far as I know."

[roc_on]

"I don't know. I can't bend in the spirit world, but I can't actually do much of anything in the spirit world, because I need to airbend to walk and there isn't any air to use there, so not being able to waterbend isn't special. I don't feel particularly weak -" She bends the last of her slush. "...yeah, seems normal. Daytime new moon normal, but that's still functional. Maybe it's because I'm the Avatar, I don't know."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Bar? Any light to shed on the subject? No pun intended."

[alicornucopia]

I can't remember any other waterbenders entering the bar, nor do I have more theory available than does Beila, I'm sorry. Although many people who normally would find their abilities of whatever sort inhibited in an environment like Milliways do not experience that problem here and it may simply be that.

[iamnotpolaris]

"I was wondering if it was something like that. I don't know, though, I can't push off of nonexistent magnetic fields to fly here."

[alicornucopia]

The assistiveness of the premises is incomplete.

[iamnotpolaris]

"Quite. Well, maybe it's because you're the Avatar, who knows."

[roc_on]

"Sometimes things are totally because I'm the Avatar. It's a thing."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I imagine it is! Sounds very Chosen One-y."

[roc_on]

"I guess. I think it's not really a choosingy thing, exactly. It's a beingy thing."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Oh, Chosen One is a sort of trope in literature in my universe. It doesn't literally mean that anything chose you, it just means you've got some sort of specialness that often has arbitrary features that stand in place of a more random Deus or Diabolus Ex Machina."

[roc_on]

"Oh. I'm that, but the name is inapt. Insofar as anything is choosing things about who's the next Avatar, it is The Avatar Spirit, namely the thing that's going around being reincarnated. I wouldn't say I identify with it in a personal sense, but it's certainly not somebody else."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Alas, I do not dictate the names of tropes in literature. I promise you if I did they would be either much more sensible or so silly no one would think they were infacetious."

[roc_on]

[iamnotpolaris]

"Of course, a lot of examples are chosen by something, so it's less a case of misnomer and more of applying the name of a subset to the whole, like calling all Norse people Vikings...and that's a terrible example, you probably have no idea what either of those things mean. Norse is a culture, Viking is a thing that some of those people did."

[roc_on]

"I did indeed have no idea what those things meant. I'm going to translate that as 'calling a Foggy Swamp dweller a swampbender'."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Probably accurate, from context."

[roc_on]

"Not everybody bends. I think it used to be that literally all the air nomads could airbend but no other population has managed that high a concentration, it's more like thirty or forty percent."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I don't have exact figures on what percentage of my population is mutants, but I know it's not that high yet."

[roc_on]

"People with two bending parents aren't guaranteed to be benders - although four bending grandparents will usually do the trick."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I don't think I've heard of anyone with two mutant parents who wasn't themselves a mutant. But then, we've been a public thing for barely half a century."

[roc_on]

"...Really? What, just started happening one day? I mean, Avatars just started happening one day but there were regular benders before that."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Nnnnot exactly. Or rather--we don't know. The oldest known mutant was born about a hundred and thirty years ago, and there were probably others before that. But it was only about fifty years ago that enough found each other to figure out that they were properly a thing and not just a handful of isolated anomalies, and then...stuff happened, and everyone else found out too."