connie_maheswaran | Essay for Angelli status

To start with, Connie likely never intended to become Angelli. The idea of even being able to move and create things without a sort of base explanation was strange to her, and for several weeks, Connie poured over books, trying to grasp the idea of what made Bending a "thing." This resulted in Connie still puzzled about what made Bending happen, and so she sought to understand it from others. Along the way, she was given a small means to navigate throughout the city (Asami's short stay), a bending school to learn her craft, a library so she could further grasp the idea of what magics involved the things people did, and a place to live, the Beach house, where Pearl and Garnet lived.

It would, however, be a few choice people whose presence would lead to Connie being able to bend herself.

The first, whose influence is in Connie's bending to this day, was Master Pakku when the Jedi temple was once the air nomad temple. Through a few choice times at tea and talk, she learned how bending worked in his world, and how that had always been the term for it. Conceptualizing magical bending as an extension of the power within, Connie's first Bending, her strongest Bending, was air related, and through this she learned to do other, simpler things that bending also allowed. Connie, however, had another problem before she would ever become completely ingrained in the Nautilus.

The monthly going ons, with all of the trauma and the confusion it brought,frightened the twelve year old, and there were times she would stay in the house, unwilling to leave, not realizing that she was stagnating her very abilities by being unable to face the vexing and real situations that many others dealt with all the time. Connie had room to evolve, but with her best friend Steven, and then eventually the gems, going to sleep, what Connie didn't have was something stable, a place that she felt she earned in the Nautilus.

This lead to the second person to influence Connie and ultimately change her whole comprehension of her friends and her life in the Nautilus: Denzel Crocker. A former villain turned good and eccentric as all get out, he started out being Connie's mentor as she attempted to foster and strengthen her bending. Crocker was strange and certainly prickly, but over time Connie began to enjoy these quirks, and the two gradually became closer. Connie found herself caring for Mr. Crocker as a daughter would a father figure, and overtime that is exactly what the two evolved into. Through several moves, more learning of bending abilities and being joined by others, Connie found that the Nautilus became home for her, and home meant shouldering the things that came to her doorstep. She became stronger in bending, enough to use water now, and her air Bending had allowed her now to hover now, a mode of transport she uses when applicable (she uses air currents, so certain places like a sparse, desert would be insufficient). Eventually, Connie would move back to the Beach House with Mr. Crocker, Steven again, and a new occupant, Ray Stantz. Together they would remake the place with their bending, personalizing it and giving Connie the opportunity to have the stable family life she needed.

This, sadly, would not last, as one by one, each member of the house would go back to sleep: Steven first, then Mr. Crocker and finally Ray. Connie was barely aimless when a new home would emerge for her, with none other than the Tenth Doctor. Here Connie would again be remaking a room for herself and familiarizing herself with new people. That joy would be cut short, however, when Connie would be akumasized by a butterfly and made an enemy of the people of the Nautilus. This development would not be entirely fruitless: here, Connie would learn what her power would look like, channeled into selfish means, but what would it look like if she became stronger than her current state, fighting for the Nautilus?

Connie has lived in the Nautilus two years. In that time she has fought, cried, laughed and missed many different people, sad to see some go and overjoyed to spend time with others. Power came to her when she applied her way of thinking and making it work for her. Armed with the sword fighting abilities she learned at home, what she further learned here and the magical training she's obtained, Connie is ready to bring her abilities to the next level.