Niva stumbled out of Master Fala’s compound, unbalanced and upset. It had been another disaster of a lesson. Another day spent trying to make earth move on her own while being sneered at by Fala’s other students until everything exploded. This time she’d cracked some poor kid’s sternum and the question of if he’d recover without lasting damage hung over her like the shadow of a mountain.
Right out the gate we're going to have a problem.
Niva is so anxious that she is prone to wild bouts of power incontinence. For some reason she insists that she's a really bad Earthbender, but her bending is powerful and precise enough that when she's 'scared' (although it seems more like when she's angry) he is capable of greivously injuring people around her. This might be kind of an interesting conflict, and a much better reason for the White Lotus to insist that she be trained with them, but Lily just uses it to make Niva seem like a sympathetic underdog when it does anything but. I'll get into this more a little further through.
Immediately, however, there is a problem. Lily describes the other students as 'sneering' at her, but she is apparently prone to almost constantly injuring others very, very badly. This isn't the kind of person you openly bully; it's the kind of person everybody should be walking on eggshells around, treating with kid gloves lest she explode and hurt them in turn. Certainly they would talk about her behind her back, but no way would they make fun of her to her face when she regularly shatters bones.
So, she took a breath, did her damndest to hold her chin up, and walked the rest of the way home. Maybe she sulked the rest of the way instead, but whatever.
This feels like it could have been some fun wordplay ('walked' and 'sulked' being only two letters different) but Lily couldn't figure out how to pull it off. Her 'but whatever' as part of the narrative prose just kills me. It would work (if still be a bit obnoxious) if Lily actually stuck to third person limited and the prose were meant to be in Navi's voice (I'm being generous and assuming Navi has a unique voice), but she jumps around to viewpoints constantly so I really can't grant her that. 'But whatever' is not appropriate for what should be a relatively neutral narrator.
It was as if time froze around Niva.
Avatar? No, that was impossible. There was no way she was the Avatar. She could barely earthbend, she couldn’t be the Avatar. All that responsibility. All those people looking up to her. She wanted to burrow into the dirt and never come out
This is her entire reaction to hearing she's the Avatar. No real sense of disbelief, she just immediately jumps to how she doesn't want the responsibility. I really don't mind this as a starting point for a reluctant hero, but it strikes me that Niva barely even processes this information outside of 'that sounds hard, I don't wanna'.
Which is what she'll repeat multiple times through the rest of this vignette. 'That sounds hard, I don't wanna.'
Lavi shook her head. “You don’t know Niva. And forcing your protocol on her without really knowing her is only going to make things harder for everyone.["]
"You forcing your protocol on her" could we get a little more stilted, please? Lavi
almost sounds like a human being.
“Your… devotion to your sister is commendable,” the robed man said thinly. “But the Avatar’s duty is to the world. No one person can claim ownership of them.”
“It’s not ownership! Niva needs someone in her corner who understands her!” Lavi said firmly.
“And you believe that person is you?” the robed man asked.
“Of course it’s me! I’ve been looking out for her since she was born!” Lavi said. “Ask her when she gets home who she’d want coming with her, and she’ll tell you she wants me!”
Unfortunate phrasing there.
But I want to reiterate that I don't understand why the White Lotus insists on this isolation, and it won't be explained at any point in this vignette. Her
parents make a point about her dependency, but why would the White Lotus say anything? They
don't know anything about Niva. They
don't have a reason to demand her isolation.
We know why it would be a bad thing (her raging co-dependency issues) but the White Lotus shouldn't really have a problem. At least not until they see how needy and worthless Niva is without Lavi, anyway.
“But… I’m the Avatar,” Niva said quietly, her lip quivering. “And… and you’re getting ready to join the army soon.”
This drives me up a wall. This point is going to be reiterated several times but Lily apparently doesn't realize that Lavi joining the army means she... would have left Niva? For years? She even later admits that Lavi wanted to join the army specifically to see the world, which means traveling while Niva was presumably going to stay int he village. In other words,
Lavi was perfectly fine with leaving her.
Why is there so much contention about them being separated when Lavi
was going to separate them herself? Why is there such a difference from ''Lavi was going to join the army and leave Niva' and 'Niva goes to train with the White Lotus without Lavi'? The issue that Niva apparently has is being separated from Lavi, so why was she okay with her going into the army but it's not okay for Niva to leave without her?
This probably goes back to how Lavi has
no commitments to Niva. Lavi gets to wander around, flirt with women all day, have her own friends, do whatever, while Niva has a nervous breakdown if they're separated for too long. One of the sisters is allowed independence. The other is incapable of it.
“If I have to, I’ll back out of the Army and go with you,” Lavi said, cupping Niva’s face. “You’re more important. You always have been.”
A painful sob escaped Niva as she clung to Lavi. “But I don’t want to go anywhere!”
Why not? She hates everybody in the village and they all seem to hate her.
“I know you don’t,” Lavi said softly. She hated it when her sister was so upset. And she resented the White Lotus for being the cause of it. Since Niva was born, Lavi had always been looking out for her. Even when she was a toddler whose only concern was ‘more juice.’ When she cried, Lavi would beat her mother to the crib. When Niva had gotten older and proved to be timid, skittish, and wracked with anxiety, Lavi had always been there to catch her when she fell.
And why is Niva 'wracked with anxiety? Her life up to this point has been unremarkable, other than her propensity for brutalizing her sister. I understand being anxious about
that, but Niva never even attempts to curtail her powers. She briefly feels bad about hurting somebody in the class (again, for the umpteenth time, apparently) but doesn't feel bad enough to actually
try not to hurt people.
I personally don't mind characters that have powers they have difficulty controlling. It's an obstacle to overcome, it's an anxiety that they have to deal with, they can wind up truly wracked with guilt, afraid to act-- not because they simply refuse to or are just plain afraid, but because they care for those around them and don't want to hurt them. They have to overcome their fear, or else dedicate themselves to personal betterment. There's a story behind this.
Lily just uses it for... well, we'll get to that soon.
An optimally trained avatar is necessary for the world.
This is the reason the White Lotus give for their proposed training and isolation, which is... weak.
I'd love to know how they learned about Niva, since nobody in the village seemed to be aware of it. The Air Nomads had a test for their children, and Korra was bending three of the elements by the time she was five and making a big fuss about it. The Earth Kingdom is far too large to possibly test every child to see if they're the Avatar, and Niva too unassuming to catch their attention.
Unless they heard about somebody injuring students at the rate that Niva was and went to investigate.
The White Lotus should be using Niva's inability to control her powers as a reason for training her, and training her
immediately. Especially after:
“I said no!” Niva yelled, stomping a foot to the ground. In tandem with her strike, stone and dust burst from beneath the floorboards, striking everyone. The White Lotus, her parents and Lavi were all knocked back. The White Lotus were hurled straight into the far wall before hitting the floor with a crumple. Her parents were knocked off their feet and onto the couch. Lavi was struck with the same force, but because Niva still had a death-grip on her arm she wasn’t hurled far until there was a nausea-inducing ‘snap’ as her humerus broke like a twig.
Niva was shaking as she looked around at the destruction she’d caused, and then her eyes fell on Lavi. Seeing the awkward way her arm was bent made her gasp and she stumbled back before turning and sprinting out the door.
“Ngh! N-Niva!” Lavi called out, scrambling to rise to her feet until a sharp bolt of pain sent her entire world spinning. “Ohh, that’s not good,” she gurgled out, her lunch threatening to come back up as she fell to her knees. With a clenched jaw and a snarl of effort, she worked to push past it. ‘Suck it up. Niva needs you!’
The White Lotus were getting to their feet, along with her parents. Lavi’s mother got up and rushed to her daughter’s side. “What happened?!”
“Niva broke my arm,” Lavi grimaced.
Ma cringed as she rolled up Lavi’s sleeve. “Oh no, there’s bone…”
Yeah so Niva just nearly kills everybody in the room and then runs away. She even leaves Lavi with a compound fracture. I don't think the logistics of this actually make sense (her grip would have to be impossibly powerful to hold her in place against the force of the stones she's bending) but this is what Lily decided the result was. THIS should be the moment where the White Lotus really impress how dangerous and unstable Niva is without training and how she
must be taught how to control her abilities-- for her own sake, and for those she loves.
Instead:
Her mother deflated. She wasn't wrong, but she could tell that being the Avatar had nothing to do with it. Niva had a tight grip on Lavi’s heart from the moment she was born. Even when they were little Lavi would drop everything if Niva cried, and the two never fought and bickered like she was always told siblings would. Niva had broken nearly every bone in Lavi’s body with her outbursts, and Lavi never once held it against her. Lavi would lie down on a sword for her sister without hesitation.
Niva has broken
almost every bone in Lavi's body. I said this the last time it came up, but that doesn't magically leave Lavi with a high pain tolerance (as Lily claims a little bit earlier). That should leave Lavi
permanently disabled.
Even discounting that, THIS is the purpose of Niva's outbursts; this is Lily communicating unconditional love.
Niva can brutalize Lavi all day every day and Lavi will never get upset, never snap at her, always be understanding. Niva can hurt Lavi however she likes, constantly, and Lavi will always just smile and tell her it's okay. Because they have unconditional love, you see. That's the ideal relationship-- one party can do ANYTHING to the other, no matter how grievous, but will always be loved and forgiven. The other person will never get mad at them. And because they never get mad, the first party -- the one who injures, who abuses -- never has to work to better themselves. This kind of love is a one-way street. Lavi will always love Niva no matter what, and Niva's love for Lavi is so shallow and surface level that she sees no need to change herself for Lavi's sake.
This is pretty consistent with the way Lily seems to prefer her relationships. Oh, Lizzy was going through some rough shit and wanted some time alone? Uh, that's no excuse not to PAY ATTENTION TO LILY. LILY has problems, too, you HAVE to drop everything YOU'RE going through to be there for HER or else you DON'T. ACTUALLY. LOVE. HER.
There is no give and take, there is no being better for each other. Just 'unconditional devotion'.
Niva shakily got to her feet and rushed into her sister’s outstretched arms, squeezing her tightly as she tried to hide in her chest. “Don’t let them take me away…”
“I’m not going to,” Lavi said softly, rubbing small circles over Niva’s back.
Ick.
This kind of weird focus on how they're touching each other comes up a few more times and it's skeevy each time. This is not how you describe siblings 'being affectionate' with each other. There's such a huge difference between "She drew her in close for a hug and held her until she stopped trembling" and "She rubbed small circles over Niva's back".
I know we
all know she's into incest and not even trying to hide it anymore, but this shit is why even normies following Lily are raising eyebrows. Bad touch.
I'll be honest, I had to force myself to finish this one. It feels longer than most of her vignettes and she just repeats the same points, like, three to five times each. 'Niva doesn't want to leave!' "Lavi will give up her dreams of joining the army for her!' 'They're going to travel like a real Avatar should!' Yeah, we get it. Look, I know that you might get caught in loops of thought if you're working on something over the course of a few days -- you forget what you already said, it happens -- but this is
absurd. How does her audience slog through this? Do they even bother or do they just reblog and reply with their generic 'UwU luv dem!' bullshit without even bothering to read?