A:TLA's Awkward Timeline

[nyxelestia]

Okay, so, no secret A:TLA has a ridiculously compressed timeline of less than a year. In writing fanfic, do any of you guys shift things around or otherwise mess around with it a little? i.e. hand-wave the calendar, move things around, ignore how the numbers don't add up, ect

Comments

[acausedusoleil]

I would play around with the timeline. :) After all, it's AU, so you have license to do what you want. Besides, it sounds like a great idea to me, considering that the series timeline is so compressed.

[dark_puck]

I tend to fiddle with the geography rather than the timeline.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, comes from the assumption that the AtLA world is the same size as our own.

Now, it may well be. But the continents might also be smaller. Don't forget that Ba Sing Se, which takes up a goodly portion of the Earth Kingdom, can be crossed in three days on foot. Going out to the real world, the United States can be crossed by car in as little as four days.

Keeping those factors in mind, I doubt that the timeline is as ridiculous as everyone thinks -- especially as the gaang mostly travels via air, and thus manages to avoid a large number of obstacles such as mountains, forests, and so on.

[loopy777]

Lampshade it humorously and just accept it. If you start thinking too hard about this kind of stuff, next you'll be wondering about all the harmless blunt trauma in the series. ;)

Certainly, I've never seen any fanfic that deals with this topic. Most people don't even worry about the geography, and I find that a lot more troublesome than the timeline. (According to the official maps, Iroh and Zuko walked up and down the entire Earth Kingdom continent four times. There's no timeline fix for that.)