The Rift: Postwar

by AnUnknownInkStain

A series of short stories taking place in the The Bending World and The Mechanized World following the events of the end of the Hundred Years War, in the intermediate years prior to LoK. A spin off of "The Rift" series, entailing side stories and showing the impacts and exchanges between the two worlds.

1. Foreword

Foreword:

Hello everyone, AnUnknownInkStain again with another installment in the ongoing and ever-expanding "The Rift" series. As always, thank you for your support and following of the series. It brings me great joy and motivation when reading reviews and PM's discussing the progression of the series.

Let's begin with some important information. This entry will mainly focus on side stories, tales, and short stories, involving the characters of ATLA and the OCs I have written, and have yet to write, from stories in "The Rift". As a result, much of the established lore and world building will stem from information pulled from completed and currently ongoing stories.

This collection of short stories in "The Rift: Postwar" will focus mainly in the time between the end of the first installment of the series, "The Rift: The Eagle, Rising Sun, and Sozin's Comet", and the onset of the beginning of Legend of Korra. The established year for Sozin's Comet, and consequently, the end of the original story and the canonical ATLA story, is set at at 100 AG in the "Bending World", or 1942 AD in our world the, "Mechanized World", since that is the year the Battle of Midway took place. For a quick refresher, the US and Japanese fleets, with the assistance of Avatar Aang and the rest of the Gaang and the Four Nations eventually returned to our own Mechanized World, seven years later in the year 1949. The events of LoK Season 1 are then roughly about 2013 AD in the Mechanized World. If you have read the currently ongoing (as of July 2023) story: "The Rift: Unification Through Steel", you know there has been a lot of inter-worldly influence and change to the avatar world. This collection of stories in that gigantic span of time, will pull on information that I intend to further develop the alternate lore of the ATLA/LoK world and further progress the world building.

Similar to the "Tales from Ba Sing Se" episode, or the Marvel MCU's tv series, I intend most of these stories to occur in the background of the main stories I wrote / am writing / will write, to answer questions left vague or unanswered in the original stories, or even the canonical ATLA world, in the lens of the events of this series. I recall a PM from nearly a year ago saying they'd be interested in stories in the ATLA world following the perspective of the common US / Japanese serviceman. To a degree this is similar, and it is that comment that ultimately inspired this series. There are short story ideas and snippets of information and lore development that I want to include/address, though not always will they add to a central plot, nor would they justify the writing of an entire story. So those ideas I intend to work and deposit here.

These tales and short stories will pull on a lot of information and events that have been mentioned and occurred in the main stories that have been written, or are currently being written. Just like with the launch of "Unification Through Steel" much of the information and setting will not make any sense, or seem unestablished if you have not read "The Eagle, Rising Sun, and Sozin's Comet" first. There will be stories here that will pull from briefly mentioned information in "Unification Through Steel" as well, and likely from future stories that have yet to be written in the future as well. For stuff pertaining from the 2nd story in the series, I will try to work natural refreshers into those short tails.

Posting will be very irregular; more so than with my main stories. This is a collection of short stories and tales, and they randomly spring into my mind; sometimes spontaneously on a whim. As such, the timeline for stories is unpredictable, as is the length of these (theoretically it is endless). If some stories end up spanning a few chapters, I will try my best to keep them all tidily organized for ease of reading.

Again, thank you for your continued support in the ongoing fanfiction series: "The Rift". Writing for myself is fun and all, but it is the support and interest of my valued readers that really tops the personal enjoyment in writing these stories (I personally think my writing style can be rather bland, and I don't think I am by any means an adept story teller…so it's very gratifying to see support and hear interactions and feedback).

Mostly my fanfics loosely follow the events of the canon series, with alternative takes and events along the way. But one of the magic points of the ATLA/LoK universe, for any fanfic writer for that matter, is that currently it is still very vague,and has an endless amount of possibility to write stories that are grounded in the rules of the universe, but can branch out in a direction that is very unique without having to change or oppose much. There will, in the far future, be stories that take place outside of the established lore of the canon series. I hope to see your support then too.