Regarding Zaheer: I don't think they ever explicitly confirm or deny whether any of the other Red Lotus people can project into the spirit world. (Except we're pretty sure ex-band-member Unalaq could.) Your interpretation, that the others could not, is probably correct. Part of where this fic came from in the first place though was an earlier story idea I was kicking around after the end of the previous season, in which Zaheer is used to having his friends to talk to in the spirit world and so he keeps showing up to pester Korra whenever she tries to go into the spirit world. I couldn't ever get the idea to hang together character-wise but then it totally made sense to me as something Asami was thinking about in the context of being separated from your band. Heck, for all I know Asami is wrong in-story.
Regarding wheelchairs/exoskeletons: I'm sure I still have a lot left to learn but I do read some disability-related stuff and, yeah, am not unaware of the problems with walking as holy grail, wheelchair as some sort of horrid contraption in which one is "bound". (One of the Hugo novellas this year had a related problem, actually, where the POV character is very pitying/disapproving of this alien race using hoverchairs, but keeps bitching about how he doesn't have any shoes.) I guess I was hoping to imply in this story that most of the reasons people might prefer exoskeletons are social/cultural rather than a matter of natural law? Like, for whatever reason, for Mako's colleague it's actually more possible to have Asami-the-exoskeleton-fairy show up than to get his environment changed so that he doesn't have to deal with stairs and high shelves and narrow doorways (but for everyone else that adaptation is now commodified and for-profit). And I wanted to try to show that Asami's initial impulse is totally "stair-climbing robot! with a cupholder! this thing is going to be awesome and tricked out!" and then she realizes that some people are totally going to try to use "sitting" and "standing" as social dominance signals, and there's the fear that Korra won't be taken seriously as the Avatar, or won't feel as confident as the Avatar, if she's in a sitting posture and they can stand and look down on her. And, no, the "right" answer to that isn't really "so she has to stand" any more than the right answer if people were looking down on Korra's darker skin would be for her to lighten it, but, hm, there's maybe a component there of Asami (and Korra, and everyone) expecting a certain amount of sacrifice-of-self on Korra's part to fill the role of Avatar? I mean, not to take my fanfic writing too seriously here but the exoskeleton means several different things over the course of this story, in terms of why Asami thinks she's working on it, whether it's for the Avatar, for Korra personally, or for Asami, to get Korra to come back to her sooner even if that's not what's best for the Avatar or for Korra. (And Korra never uses, or even knows about, the exoskeleton, much as she will never know about or use Asami's airship-for-two designs at the end; it's a blind alley, except that Asami pretty ruthlessly utilizes every tech she handles, so she finds something to do with it after all, but is not particularly sentimental about it.) Blah blah blah, sorry, I often try to write somewhat spare but pack it pretty densely, and then end up all "ooh I will unpack!" at the slightest sign of interest.
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Date: 2014-10-27 01:27 am (UTC)Regarding wheelchairs/exoskeletons: I'm sure I still have a lot left to learn but I do read some disability-related stuff and, yeah, am not unaware of the problems with walking as holy grail, wheelchair as some sort of horrid contraption in which one is "bound". (One of the Hugo novellas this year had a related problem, actually, where the POV character is very pitying/disapproving of this alien race using hoverchairs, but keeps bitching about how he doesn't have any shoes.) I guess I was hoping to imply in this story that most of the reasons people might prefer exoskeletons are social/cultural rather than a matter of natural law? Like, for whatever reason, for Mako's colleague it's actually more possible to have Asami-the-exoskeleton-fairy show up than to get his environment changed so that he doesn't have to deal with stairs and high shelves and narrow doorways (but for everyone else that adaptation is now commodified and for-profit). And I wanted to try to show that Asami's initial impulse is totally "stair-climbing robot! with a cupholder! this thing is going to be awesome and tricked out!" and then she realizes that some people are totally going to try to use "sitting" and "standing" as social dominance signals, and there's the fear that Korra won't be taken seriously as the Avatar, or won't feel as confident as the Avatar, if she's in a sitting posture and they can stand and look down on her. And, no, the "right" answer to that isn't really "so she has to stand" any more than the right answer if people were looking down on Korra's darker skin would be for her to lighten it, but, hm, there's maybe a component there of Asami (and Korra, and everyone) expecting a certain amount of sacrifice-of-self on Korra's part to fill the role of Avatar? I mean, not to take my fanfic writing too seriously here but the exoskeleton means several different things over the course of this story, in terms of why Asami thinks she's working on it, whether it's for the Avatar, for Korra personally, or for Asami, to get Korra to come back to her sooner even if that's not what's best for the Avatar or for Korra. (And Korra never uses, or even knows about, the exoskeleton, much as she will never know about or use Asami's airship-for-two designs at the end; it's a blind alley, except that Asami pretty ruthlessly utilizes every tech she handles, so she finds something to do with it after all, but is not particularly sentimental about it.) Blah blah blah, sorry, I often try to write somewhat spare but pack it pretty densely, and then end up all "ooh I will unpack!" at the slightest sign of interest.