So I can't actually remember how this idea came about. I started writing it back in April while I was staying with Advocaat (who collaborated with me to write this one), so yeah. This was a joint effort on our parts. I just don't remember why or how we started writing it. Um, yay for crackfics?
Selfies with Aang
Aang had not meant to touch the contraption. It belonged to the Mechanist, and Katara was forever telling him not to touch people's things. It was bad manners. Unfortunately, the thing had just sort of fallen into his hand when he had been exploring the submarine. No, really. He'd just been minding his own business (okay, he had totally bumped into a shelf), and the thing had dropped off and landed right in his palm.
Anyway, it was only natural he examine it after that. The contraption was sleek and made of metal. There was some kind of shiny window on the front that glowed when he touched it. Which he did. A lot. The little window would change faces every time he brushed his finger to the side, showing odd words like 'MESSAGES' and 'CONTACTS'. However, it was when he pushed the button that looked like a box with a circle in the middle that things got really interesting. The little window showed him his own face, as if he were looking into a mirror. His finger accidentally brushed the bottom and there was an odd clicking sound.
"Woah!" Aang exclaimed, almost dropping the contraption.
His face was still being shown in the window, frozen in mid grin. Aang poked the shiny cover. His face became larger, zooming in on one grey eye. This time he did drop the contraption. What the heck had just happened?
Aang raised his arms and flapped them about so he resembled a giant, orange bat, checking to make sure no bits of him had gone missing into the window. He didn't feel like the device had done anything to him. In fact, he felt pretty good. He stared down at the contraption. His own face stared back at him. Suddenly, a wide grin curved Aang's lips.
The next minute he was holding the contraption in front of his face and pulling lots of different expressions, all the while clicking his finger on the little box button. Grinning Aang. Angry Aang. Silly Aang. Squashed Face Aang. Upside down and poking his head between his legs Aang. Pretty much all the Aang expressions he could think of.
"Uh, what are you doing?"
Aang glanced around to see Katara staring at him with one eyebrow raised. "Katara, you gotta see this!"
He dashed over, looped his arm around her shoulders, and then aimed the contraption at their faces. The next second the two of them were frozen in the screen: Aang grinning, while Katara just looked like she'd been stuffed like a dead fox-owl and put on display.
She blinked. "W-what just happened?"
Aang's grin widened. "I don't really know, but I found this thing in the Mechanist's room, and—"
Katara planted her hands on her hips. "Aang, you shouldn't touch people's things. What if you broke it or—"
His smile froze. "Ahhhh, gotta go!"
Aang created an airball and raced away, wiping his forehead in relief to have escaped one of Katara's Team Mum lectures. Much as he had a crush on the waterbender, even he could admit that she wasn't the first person you turned to when you wanted to goof off or indulge in silly shenanigans. Still, the fact remained that he'd discovered a shiny new toy and he was keen to test it out on all sorts of things.
"But what first?" he murmured, bringing a hand to his chin contemplatively. He perked up as an idea hit him. He cupped his hands over his mouth and called out, "Appa! Buddy! C'mere for a sec!"
He heard a low rumbling noise from the nearby field. Aang bounced over to meet his friend, who was munching on grass and did not seem in the mood to play.
"Aw, c'mon, Appa," Aang said, clambering on top of the bison's fluffy head and dangling over the front so that their faces were inches apart. "It'll be fun!"
Appa tilted his head to the side. Bits of grass were sticking out of his mouth. It was in that moment that Aang twisted so that they were both facing the contraption and clicked the button. There was a flash, and then Aang was looking at his brand new window image. Well, he could see his own face and a bit of Appa's shaggy fur, some grass, and a brown eye.
"Hrm," Aang said, rubbing his chin. "You know, I think your head is too big for this thing. Sorry, Appa."
Appa made a rumbling noise that might have been disappointment. Aang petted him in a comforting way and then made his goodbyes. It was time to find Momo.
"Momo!" he called, dashing off back toward the camp. "Momo, come over here!"
He heard a chirruping nearby and then the large-eyed white lemur popped his head out from one of the tents and eyed him curiously.
"Look what I found," Aang told the small animal, coming over next to him and displaying the odd contraption.
Momo chirruped again and tilted his head. He examined the object for a short moment before snatching it from Aang's hands and turning away, much to the young airbender's dismay.
"Hey!" Aang protested, making a grab for the thing.
Momo deftly ducked under his arm and scampered off a few paces, still observing the contraption with interest. Aang made a face and lunged at Momo, attempting once again to retrieve his new toy. The lemur squawked and tried to get away again but Aang grabbed him, preventing his escape.
"Give it back!" he demanded, reaching for the contraption.
Momo stretched out his arm, keeping it firmly out of Aang's reach. A fierce struggle ensued, which ended quite abruptly when the contraption let out a loud clicking sound and a flash. Momo dropped the thing and bolted away in fright.
Aang picked the device up and looked at the front where the shiny window displayed his and Momo's likeness. Their faces were frozen in comically strained expressions.
"What are you doing?" a curious but mostly unimpressed voice sounded from behind him.
Aang scrambled to his feet and whipped around, grin back in place. "Toph! Check out what I found!" He shoved the contraption at her, waving the screen in front of her eyes where he and Momo still graced the window.
"Looks great," Toph said with a wide smile.
"I know, right? I—"
A rock hit him in the chin.
"Ow!" Aang moaned, rubbing his jaw. "Whad'ya do that for?"
Toph blew her fringe out of her face and folded her arms across her chest. He glanced from the window to Toph's glassy green eyes.
"Oh, right," he said, rubbing the base of his neck. "Sorry."
Toph heaved an exaggerated sigh. "So, what is it?"
Aang tried his best to explain, but Toph just raised her eyebrow and planted her hands on her hips. Apparently, she wasn't impressed with his new toy.
"I don't see what you're so excited about," she said in a bored voice. "I can do the same thing with my bending."
To prove her point, she stamped her foot on the ground and raised her arms, creating a life-sized, three-dimensional version of Aang. However, the smooth rock that shaped his imitation's face was lacking the finer details. There were outlines and creases, but it could hardly be said that she had captured his expression. Not like what his shiny new toy could do. Aang pointed out as much, but Toph just rolled her eyes.
"Whatever," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "Rock still beats toy any day."
On these sage words, Toph trundled off to the camp where everyone else was bustling about, getting ready for the upcoming battle. Aang watched her leave with a slight pout, though his expression brightened a second later. He'd just had another brilliant idea. Grinning with mischievous glee, he snuck into the camp and proceeded to 'sneak capture' any unsuspecting people that he came across with his device, so that he and the person were frozen in the window in comical ways. He caught The Hippo picking his nose, Haru admiring his moustache in a hand mirror, The Boulder cuddling a stray rabaroo—on and on went the images, and all the while Aang chuckled and dashed around like a crazy blur of orange.
In the end, it was Sokka who put a stop to Aang's antics. He snatched the device of the airbender and went on a mini lecture about how there was no time to play, because they were about to go fight the Fire Lord, and Aang shouldn't be distracting people from getting the boats ready, and—
"What is this thing anyway?" Sokka asked, pausing in his rant to peer at the device with curiosity. "Some kind of mirror?"
Aang responded by sidling against Sokka and pushing the little box button. There was a flash and then their faces appeared frozen on the screen. The Water Tribe boy made a dramatic sound of surprise and waved his arms about in what Toph had nicknamed Sokka's Dance of Distress. Aang tried to calm the older boy down, but it was a bit difficult when Sokka was declaring that the thing had stolen his soul, and that Aang needed to do something, because the demon mirror thing was evil, and people couldn't exist without their souls, and—
"Sokka, calm down!" Aang said loudly. "Your soul is fine."
Sokka blinked. "It is?"
Aang nodded and explained that the device was just something he had found in the mechanist's cabin. Sokka lost his wide-eyed look of panic and got a bit intrigued. Inventions were right up his alley. He examined the contraption with renewed interest, poking and prodding and testing the different buttons. Once he confirmed for himself that the device only froze his image in place and really wasn't a soul-sucking mechanism of evil, he got just as excited as Aang about the shiny new toy. Indeed, Sokka agreed that it was their duty to test it out—for research purposes and all. They still had some time before they had to set sail for the capital city.
So the two boys picked up where Aang had left off, making it their mission to get a sneak image with every person at the camp. Much fun was had by both, though Sokka soon got a troubled crease on his brow again. Upon some prodding, Sokka confessed that he was trying to think up a name for their new thingy majig, or at least what it could do. They couldn't keep calling the images 'window things' or 'frozen faces'. Sokka thought their new toy was shiny and cool, and it needed an equally shiny and cool name.
"I got it!" Sokka suddenly exclaimed, hitting his fist against his palm. "Selfies!"
"Huh?" Aang blinked a few times. "Why that?"
"Because they are pictures of ourselves," Sokka said, as if it was obvious.
Aang just shrugged. "Selfie it is."
And so the great selfie adventure to defeat the Fire Lord began.
OMAKE
The sky was awash with orange. Aang was covered in blood and grazes and his chest was heaving. Ozai was on the ground, limp like a boneless fish, and his long black hair was everywhere. The war was over. Aang had just used energybending to defeat the self-proclaimed Phoenix King, and now there was only one thing left to do.
Aang whipped out the sleek device from his pocket and leaned down next to Ozai, pulling a peace sign at the screen. "Selfie with Ozai!"