#kataang novel

[vlackevil]

Katara always pretend she don’t love Aang, but she can’t hide how much she want his attention and get jealous:

[theladysilvermoon]

Avatar the Last Airbender graphic novels - Paperback omnibus versions

[burst-of-iridescent]

Time after time, the official ATLA community on YouTube conducts ship preference polls, and each time zutara loses to kataang and maiko with a crushing score (among Zuko's ships, zutara even lost to Zuko/Jin). Several hundred thousand people take part in the voting, that is, a huge part of the active ATLA fan base. zutara is really rapidly losing popularity.😭

i'm not trying to be mean or anything, but honestly... i don't care.

you have to remember that kat.aang, mai.ko, and even jinko all have the advantage of canonicity to some extent. casual watchers, people who've only seen a few episodes, childhood nostalgia... all of these play a key role in why many people prefer the canon ships to zutara. the average atla fan isn't doing deep dive meta analysis on tumblr, or watching sneezypeasy's 2h video on why zutara should have been canon (excellent watch by the way, highly recommend). they're just going to go along with what's given to them. it's not a reflection of how good or superior zutara is to have more people shipping them.

besides, shipping polls on youtube are hardly a reliable metric on which to judge zutara's popularity. zutara is the juggernaut ship of the atla fandom. this is the ship that invented ship weeks! the ship that inspired new york times bestselling novels. the atla ship with the highest number of fics on ao3, the ship beloved by almost all of the main cast and most of the writers, the ship that people still make art and stories and analysis and edits for more than fifteen years after it was supposed to have sunk.

and personally, that is what i'm here for. that is what keeps me shipping zuko and katara, and keeps me in this fandom. the community that it's created, and the people that it's inspired, and continues to inspire. that's what counts.

so yeah, kat.aang and mai.ko can keep their atla channel youtube polls lmao. zutara doesn't need it, not when we have everything that actually matters.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Some zutaras put out this argument that s1 interactions between zuko and katara were like..... framed in a... ahem way..

Like the dialouges of "well, aren't you a big girl now?" or "i'll save you from the pirates" or "you rise with the sun i rise with the moon" are like.... intented to be romantic/sexual, like ''a ya smut novel'' (like that's a compliment lol) Personally, I think they were basically just villain lines which also add a bit to zuko's dramatic personality.

I've also heard the shippers mention that dante intentionally delivered those dialouges in a seductive way, which i disagree with. We know dante has a natural raspy/baritone kinda voice so maybe that's the reason it came out as so-called "sexual"?

The only reason they call that stuff "sexual" is because Zuko is the bad guy and Katara was the main "good" girl. EVERY FANDOM has a ship like that, regardless of the characters having any kind chemistry, text and/or subtext.

That why, someone who does like Villain X Hero ships, say that my main criticism of Zutara will always be "This is the most vanilla shit I've ever seen." The trope is the only thing that makes that ship exist, because there's literally nothing else going for it.

Like, compare that Zukaang - a ship I don't care for, but that makes a lot more sense. Aang is the actual first person to give Zuko a chance, and the only one who wants to save him in the North Pole. Zuko sees himself as having turned into Aang during the episode with his fever dreams, and once says to Aang that he was his drive for firebending. Bonus points for the brazilian dub, because in Ember Island Players, when Aang wants to sit next to Katara they replaced Zuko saying "Just sit somewhere else, what's the big deal?" with "Just sit on my lap."

Also it is hilarious that Zutarians have such envy of the Kataang dance in The Headband and go on and on about how much better it would have been if it was a Zutara dance - meanwhile Zuzu was out there dancing with Aang for the dragons, and then REPEATING the dance in front of all of their friends. Zutarians be begging for ONE dance, meanwhile Zukaang just casually got TWO XD

[geotheraider]

ATLA Live Action

Evening ATLA fans and shippers alike, I just wanted to pop in and make a quick post. I've seen a lot of discourse over the past few days and weeks that think both positively and negatively about the Live Action reimagining of the show. I'm personally a Zutara fan, but I've consumed some Kataang content over the years. From a shipping perspective, I think we should all do our best to calm down a bit and try to enjoy whatever is placed before us.

Now - meat and potatoes of this: From an avid enjoyer of ATLA in its various media (no, the comics don't necessarily tickle my fancy, and 2010 didn't exist). Regardless of our shipping backgrounds, Kataang or Zutara mostly, we all enjoy countless retellings of the same story involving the same cast of people. In the past 6 months, I've read around 30 novels worth of the same people falling in love and saving the world alongside incredible friends and family. What's one more fanfiction in the bunch, just one that makes it to a bigger screen? So long as it's good, let's enjoy the content given to us. If this first season is awesome, the big thing we need to be concerned about as a group is whether Netflix produces more episodes.

PS: One thing to note - this is not directed at any one person or post or anything of that sort. I love just about all of ya, and want to encourage you to keep making your loved content of choice. BE CREATIVE! <3

[dukeofdelirium]

you're my fav kataang blogger so i need to give u a fanfic rec i've been OBSESSED with.

their user on tumblr is @quillthrillswriting i think and their ao3 is @/quillthrills but like,,,,, their kataang dynamics are PERFECT they have one abt teen aang and another one where aang is the good dad he should be and like..... its just so so good you need to read them and give ur review PLSSS <3 🫶

I actually read a few of their fics last night! I love the portrayal of kataang that they have, and I especially love any kataang being parents content. I also thought it was funny that they took the whole zvtara trope of Katara having to escape Aang (🤢) and then flipped it on its head bc yknow what? We as a ship fandom deserve it after all we deal with lmao.

I have yet to read the Teenage!Aang fic that’s multi chapter and I haven’t read their one shot titled I’m No Longer A Kid, but I will when I get the time! Maybe tonight 💛

There’s truly so many amazing kataang fics to be found on ao3 and fanfiction.net (that’s the site I wrote my first ever fanfics on and yes they WERE kataang fics). We have some truly amazing artists and writers for this pairing <3

If you’d like recs of my own for kataang, I read a couple last night in addition to the author’s you mentioned. Exchange of Wrath by ArmageddonGeneration was incredible (3 chapters) and a one shot From the Moon to the Ocean by the same author. I also recommend literally any kataang content from chocomd on ao3 and they have some zukaang fics too if you ship that. Highly rec Without Water, Midnight Meditations, and Drag You Down, all are kataang fics!

Hopefully I’ll have the time eventually to write a kataang fic myself! I haven’t gotten around to writing anything for them on my ao3 account, but one day I will 🫶🏻 only gotten to post my twilight fics on there and have tons of WIPs and working on original novel too so just gotta find the time to devote to kataang

[flameohotwife]

We've talked so much about kataang parenthood and the cloud babies, but I'm always up for hearing more of your thoughts on them. Really, I'd just give you that and let you talk away wherever it takes you, but how about this for more of a prompt.

Here's one that's been percolating for me lately. The cloudbabies grow up in a family that's not just their parents, but their entire community. Both Aang and Katara grew up in communities full of extended aunts/uncles/cousins (whether biological or not) surrounding them, and likewise their kids grow up on an island full of Air Acolytes that act as extended family for them. They're emersed in Air Nomad culture as a daily part of their lives. Both Aang and Katara would work to make sure they have traditional Water Tribe culture as part of their upbringing too, of course. (As you know I HC that Uncle Sokka is heavily involved in all their upbingings.)

I'd just love to hear your thoughts on anything extending form that or related.

Oh, absolutely. You knew what to send to make me go off, hahaha. Kataang as parents gets, I think, wholly misrepresented based on a couple one-off lines in LoK that were meant to show that even our favorites weren't perfect in parenthood (really, who is? I try my best but I know I fail my kids in different ways all the time), the same way the writers were able to show that each character had flaws in the original series. Aang has so much on his shoulders that OF COURSE he's not going to be able to balance that perfectly. And sometimes he (AND KATARA) will be too tired at the end of the day to think straight and might not be as attentive as they could/should be. I don't know how much of the criticisms are coming from people who are actually parents, though; who know intimately the constant daily (hourly?) pressures parents of multiple kids with widely varying personalities and needs are under. None of the parents I've talked to have felt this way.

I also love this idea of the cloudbabies being raised in a communal lifestyle, because you're right that both Aang and Katara grew up that way. Everyone always paints that as a point of conflict for Aang and Katara--that Aang wouldn't know anything of a nuclear family structure but really, as much as Katara did know that, her tribe was so close-knit that they were all like family as well. This was only amplified after the men went off to war and only the women and children were left behind. The cloudbabies probably have favorite acolytes that they run to when their parents are busy, and of course Sokka and Suki and Toph and Lin and Su are always around, too, or they're in the city visiting them.

And Aang and Katara take care of Toph's and Zuko's (and potentially Sokka's if he had any) kids like their own, too, whenever they're at their house. Once they're teens/preteens, the kids all cross the bay on the ferry themselves and hang out together when they can, and all the adults just know to feed whoever is there and have extra just in case their parents come looking. I'm reaching this stage with my oldest and I can really see Aang leaning hard into this, giving Bumi's friends a ride over on Appa when he sees them in town, telling stories from the war (maybe embellishing a bit) to Bumi's intense embarrassment but his friends' joy, making sure they have an extra fruit pie to take home to their parents after... Aang might not be anybody's pro-bending coach but you can bet he finds other ways to be involved in his kids' lives and is always so, so proud of the little humans he and Katara created, regardless of bending ability, grades, or anything else (though I hc that all the cloudbabies are pretty brilliant in school). They're going to have insecurities and complaints because they're all HUMAN, but they won't doubt for a second that they are loved ("That's one happy family")

Well that became a novel, haha. Thanks for sending me your kataang thoughts(/thots) and for asking for mine, too!

[kataraslove]

Hi! I hope you have a good day! I love your meta about Katara!

I can't explain the exact reason, but all these concepts of sun\moon, night\day, red\blue, fire\water as symbolism applied to zutara irritate me so much. it just seems so wrong and seems to erase the canonical personalities of Zuko and Katara, reducing them to the level of some boring concepts. What can you say about it?

thank you so much! and well, you’re going to find symbolism in every single shipping fandom, because that’s ultimately what attracts people to ships: symbolism and imagery and aesthetics.

for instance, i LOVE katara and aang’s symbolism and aesthetic. i love fanart and official canon art that highlights their symbolism. i love motifs like sky x sea, water x air, blue x yellow, etc, because i just find them so unique. i can’t think of any other ship that genuinely has this type of symbolism because everyone overhypes fire x water, light x dark to death. how many popular fantasy novels can you think of that already has this symbolism? give me something UNIQUE. give me something that’s never been done before. bryan konietzko dropping these two pictures dripping with symbolism - no matter if it was intentional or not - changed the trajectory of my life forever:

also, i don’t give two fucks about what people say - i love kataang’s aesthetic. i love the fact that aang is a bald pacifist monk, whose design is inspired by tibetan culture, at odds with his identity of being a messiah figure to the world. i love that katara is a revolutionary warrior, whose design is based off the indigenous peoples of the circumpolar region, who jumps headfirst into helping people. i love that they are two genocide survivors who have parallel character arcs. i love that she teaches him waterbending and that they share an element together. i love all of that, because like i said, it’s never been done before. try to find me a story that’s similar to katara and aang’s. try to find me characters that are similar to katara and aang,

zutara and it’s associated imagery, symbolism, story, what have you was definitely unique for its time in the 2000s. as a result of that, everyone attempted to copy the ship’s formula to the point where some authors wrote their knock-off versions of zuko and katara much better than the original, while others probably destroyed the reputation of the trope enemies to lovers forever and doomed us all to some of the worst enemies to lovers relationships known to man. but at the end of the day, all of zutara’s symbolism has been overdone so many times. there was a whole movie based off fire/water just because the creator of the movie thought the idea of fire and water would be harmonious.

fandoms love familiarity, so they will cling onto these concepts and tropes without any interest in exploring other relationships that are outside of their realms of comfort. this is why so many people will froth at the mouth over fire/water, night/day, sun/moon, because people are under the belief that forces of nature that are opposing to each other make for the best stories. fantasy authors are so heavily attached to these types of symbolism because they are convenient and marketable in the form of tropes.

you’re right that it’s overdone to death and quite frankly, boring. I find myself rolling my eyes every time someone’s like “fire and water!!!” what does that tell me, other than the fact that you enjoy opposing dynamics? it lacks all nuance, and fails to capture the true essence of katara and zuko’s characters and dynamic within the story. it just tells me that you’ve seen some pretty art of these characters and at a very surface-level decided to ship these characters. in all fairness, it’s the same argument as someone saying “i like [insert ship] because it’s canon.” okay, but why? “the creators said so” isn’t always the best reasoning and makes for terrible defence when you’re in a debate with someone who thinks that your canon ship shouldn’t have been the endgame option. i’ve encountered one too many kataang shippers who could easily debunk or refute an anti kataang argument with support from the text, but instead they deflect with “well, it’s canon. I don’t really know how to point out why your argument sucks. but just know it sucks because kataang is canon and canon is the sacred text.”

at the end of day, however, i recognize that shipping is a matter of subjectivity. people in fandoms are attracted to characters and ships that they are comfortable with, and characters and ships that are aesthetically pleasing (I think adult kataang is aesthetically pleasing. but I recognize that not that many people will hold my viewpoint). so i can’t really dictate why people are interested in ships because of certain fan-favourite symbolism, other than express my opinion that sometimes concepts and symbolism and imagery and tropes overhyped and overplayed in fandom spaces aren’t as interesting as the less popular and less explored ones.

[itsmoonpeaches]

2023 Year-End Fic Round Up

Thanks to @nyamadermont and @chocomd for the tags!

Words written (published or not, WIPs totally count too!): 86,239 published. I have thousands of unpublished words that I wrote too but I'm not going to count that oops.

Smut scenes written (if applicable): 0

New things I tried: Writing full force and with my whole chest for a new fandom, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Also a new ship, Dimileth. Trying my hand more with found family tropes and dealing with losing family and finding new family in other people. Also breaking a rule I made for myself which is to never write fic for book series...and I broke that hard when I started writing for Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Fic I spent the most time on: That was probably The Silent Prince. Though it's not the longest fic I wrote in 2023, it was the most involved. It was written for Dimileth Goggles and that meant it involved an extensive AU. This fic combined Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters with the world of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. (Mostly BOTW though. TOTK lore is hardly hinted at.) That also meant I needed to do a lot of cross-fandom research atop the general research I needed to conduct on weaponry. That took a lot of time.

Fic I spent the least time on: Honestly, that could be anything in my Fire Emblem Flashes or Percy Jackson Flashes series. Both of which involve 1,000-word fics written for @flashfictionfridayofficial when a prompt that I could work with comes up. These are usually short and sweet and none of them are connected to each other story-wise.

Favourite thing I wrote: It was definitely My Mirror, My Sword, and Shield, which is my extremely emotional and angsty Dimileth AU fic in which Byleth chooses to not become Archbishop at the end of the Azure Moon route in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and instead decides to become his knight. I had so much fun with that one. It was cathartic in a way and also unleashed something out of me. I discovered that I can get very creative with graphic descriptions of violence which should be worrying but I digress.

Favourite thing I read: This is tough. Since I discovered the Fire Emblem fandom, I realized that I've been missing out on fics that were so well written, they might as well be actual published novels. I'm not kidding. I'm completely serious. However, I'll point out 3 different faves from 3 different fandoms:

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Stay With Me, a hanahaki Dimileth fic that destroyed me and I loved it. It is THE hanahaki fic. Take notes.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Better Than Their Fathers by @mrthology which I credit as the fic that made me obsessed with Percy and Poseidon dynamics and honestly I could go on about how this made me cry.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Enough by @chocomd and its sequel The Deal. These 2 need to be together because they're part of the same universe. A Kataang hanahaki fic with beautiful writing I can obsess about for ages.

I'm noticing 2 of these fics are hanahaki. Do I have a problem?

Writing goals for next year:

Continue writing more for FE:3H because I feel like every time I do I grow as both a person and a writer. Is this an exaggeration? Girl, you need to read FE:3H fics then because they are life-changing.

Finally start writing the (so far titled) Sins of My Brother, Felix time-travel AU so that @chocomd can stop bugging me about betaing. (She will get it first, mind you.) Also, I'm scared for this fic because it's probably more ambitious than I'm thinking it actually is? Also time travel? Court politics? FELIX? Sorry FE:3H fandom, you might be disappointed in me but I need to write this.

Focus on actually getting things done lol?

Tagging (no pressure): @northerngoshawk @benwvatt @my-cabbages-gorl @justoceanmyth @flameohotwife @bayalexison @dpsisquared @mysterynoel and anyone else who wants to do it!

[benwvatt]

in which painted lady!katara saves aang

please enjoy this snippet (not published yet!) of a kataang story in which Katara has joined the Kyoshi Warriors, and also goes undercover as the Painted Lady on the island in order to heal and help people. She’s healing people as the Painted Lady one night and all is calm...

Until she comes across a very injured guy who’s nearly been drowned in a fight, and she doesn’t realize it’s Avatar Aang until after she’s healed him (which conveniently involves mouth-to-mouth resuscitation because she’s gotta save his life!!!!)

Rated T. Trigger warnings for brief injuries, mentions of vomiting, blood, etc.

The village boys pull the Painted Lady to a burned tent on the east end of the island. A sky bison lows, mourning; he’d be inside if he could fit.

Inside, a man coughs four, five times, wet and aching breaths crackling within the papery membranes of his lungs. Blood trickles from a deep cut in his side. Someone clever has stuffed the wound with a (formerly) white shirt, occluding the bleed.

He coughs again, chest snapping forward. His lower lip is bruised purple.

“What happened?” Katara asks.

“There was a mixed group. Fire, earth, waterbenders ー only a few of those but they almost drowned him, and the others held him down.”

“Why him? He’s just a nomad.” Katara can barely see his face in the dim room. The men don’t like to burn fires for light; they’d have to open a tent flap to ventilate.

“He saved a group of mothers! They wanted him ‘cause he was shielding them, he might be-”

The man shakes violently with cold, and the sky bison bellows outside.

Katara presses her ear to his heart; all his robes have been burnt or cut off his body by now. They lie singed above his shoulders. At least he has a pillow in his moment of anguish, Katara thinks, and his heartbeat is steady. And there’s little to no blood in his sputum; a lower chance of internal bleeding this way. She’s seen enough casualties to know that the silver linings add up.

The man groans and gives a sharp gasp. His left hand shifts to the gash on his side, nails scraping at rust-red stains.

“Sir. Sir!” Katara presses two fingers to his neck, feeling his dizzy pulse. “Don’t move the cloth - it’s preventing your cut from bleeding further. Is it alright if I help you breathe? I’ll have to put my mouth on yours.”

He’s not stable enough to nod his head or shake ‘no.’

“Sir, I’m sorry - alright, this is experimental, and I don’t know if it’s okay …” she rushes to press her lips to his, breathing cold air into his lungs. She inhales and uses bending to take some of the saltwater out of his chest. Katara spits it into a pail and leans in once more. She hacks up and her eyes twist at the sour taste of brine. (It’s not very glamorous work, is it? At least the reward is saving a life.)

Drawing the water out of his mouth and into hers, it’s a captured intimacy, and yet she’s shared this experience with a stranger.

The boys in the back of the tent are wide-eyed, mouths gaping like fresh-caught trout, at the sight ー the Painted Lady’s kissing the Avatar?!!! Absolutely no one at the graphic novel shop’s gonna believe them.

Katara inhales and leans in, parting softly for more air. Oh, she’s thankful there isn’t a fire burning in the medical tent. This gentleman’s got enough respiratory problems as it is. His cheeks are cold against her face when she leans in to breathe more air in. He’s… he has nice cheekbones; her hands can tell what eyes cannot. He probably has nice tattoos, too, but the tent is so dark and her sight blurs every time she kisses him. His face is a gauzy shape, nothing more.

She’d only taken two workshops on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, yet the pictures in the brochures had been helpful. They’re burnt into her mind now. She races to recall the edges of the photographs. Spirits, she hopes she isn’t fucking this up. She’s lost patients before, mostly older adults, and she couldn’t bear to lose a man this young.

“Are you okay?” she asks, one hand still pressed gently to his neck. His pulse races.

The man coughs again, saltwater and traces of spittle brimming at his lips. 

“Hey, take it slow.” Katara pats his back like he’s a hungover teen vomiting over a toilet bowl. (The Kyoshi Warriors like to have fun on Friday nights.) “There, there, you’re - you’re gonna be alright.” She can’t tell if it’s a lie. “Hi.” She grins at the guy, his complexion considerably less blue. “I’m the Painted Lady.”

He turns away to cough into a rag that probably used to be part of his shirt, and he heaves for air.

Okay, maybe they’ll have time for chit-chat after he’s not drowning on dry land. The man cries out again when Katara gathers a cold draught of water from the bag at her side to heal his cut, pulling the rag out of his abrasion slowly as she goes. He winces, and Katara does too even if she can’t feel it. The healing probably stings.

“Hi,” he rasps to Katara after she’s fixed his cut. “I’m - I’m Av’ter Aang.”

“What?”

Did she hear that correctly?

He coughs twice more, thundering. She wonders if his ribs are rattling in his chest.

“We think he’s the Avatar!” the boys in the tent call.

“Sorry - I was gonna tell you!-” one of them hollers, rubbing the back of his neck, “‘cept I didn’t want to put more pressure on you than I had already-”

Oh.

“I thought you might have an easier time treating him if you didn’t-“

Oh, no.

Time to course-correct and make a good impression. Okay… so she just kissed the Avatar by accident. All in a day’s work, except spitting saltwater into a pail isn’t exactly channeling this cool, serene persona of hers. 

“Hi,” Katara murmurs to him, leaning over his makeshift bed. Hopefully her hat doesn’t fall at this angle. “I’ve heard excellent things about you.”

With one hand, Aang touches a wet lock of her hair and pushes it weakly behind her ear.

“And I you,” he whispers, having achieved everything necessary (number one, don’t die; number two, flirt with the beautiful spirit) before he falls from consciousness.

This fic isn’t published yet but I want to publish it sometime! In the meantime, this is the link to my AO3 account with my other ATLA works.

Anyways, after Katara saves his life, Aang eventually heals in the hospital and starts a yearlong stay with the Kyoshi Warriors so he can learn to fight without bending. And he happens to meet this one warrior named Katara who seems SO familiar, and he just can’t put his finger on the reason as she teaches him how to fight.

(Yes, I did write this fic because I love the delightful ‘I’m going to fight you in hand-to-hand combat and flirt with you the entire time, because I could kill you but I’m not going to’ trope. I’m a simple woman. I have ideas and I spend weekends writing them out.)

[vlackevil]

Twitter have many things very nice and good and this is one of it:

[thebakingqueen5]

KW 2022: Power Couple

Day 5 of Kataang Week 2022 hosted by @kataang-week with the prompt Power Couple!

Links: AO3 || FF.net

Summary: Do I seriously have to come up with a new one of these every year? Kataang Week 2022 Day 5: Katara hated it when people called them a power couple. Aang happened to love it.

Word Count: 2.4K

Katara hated it when people would call her and Aang a power couple.

She knew the magnitude of her hatred was probably undeserved, but something about the phrase never failed to irk her. No matter in what context it was used (save for the people who actually knew them), the comments following always somehow managed to demean both her and Aang (albeit usually more on Katara’s end). 

Now, Katara wasn’t jealous of the fact that her husband was more powerful and well-known than her- that couldn’t be farther from the truth. She loved praising Aang and telling him about the flutters she felt in her stomach after watching him bend, partially for the shade of red his cheeks always seemed to turn afterwards, but just because he deserved more genuine flattery. She wasn’t exactly envious of Aang and the hordes of reporters and fangirls that seemed to follow him wherever he went either, though she was happy to help Aang make a quick escape when his glider wasn’t available. Katara’s hatred lied more in the degradation it caused for the both of them.

Katara had always done her best to remain modest no matter where she resided in the public’s view. If Aang’s complaints of her not giving herself enough credit were any indication, she was quite successful at it too. However, she still knew that she had worked extremely hard to earn the title of Master Waterbender, and she took pride in all that she had accomplished since the war’s end, even if she would never go out of her way to brag about them. 

The specific demographic that seemed to call them a “power couple,” however? 

They made her want to change every philosophy she had ever had on the subject and rub her bending prowess in their smug, likely sexist faces. 

Katara couldn’t name a single journalist or magazine that had called them a power couple without also explicitly referring to Katara as nothing other than “the Avatar’s wife.” She wasn’t asking to be referred to by her formal title of “Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe,” but dammit, she had a name.

She hated feeling reduced to such an ornamental role. It was as if she was just there as the arm candy by Aang’s side for all the formal events and balls and had no personality or value on her own. One article had even gone as far to state that, “if there’s anything the Avatar and the Avatar’s wife are, it’s a power couple! The Avatar adds the power, and his wife adds the couple!” 

The waterbender couldn’t stand it, and she wasn’t even the one to notice it to begin with. In fact, Aang was the first one to bring up the difference in how the media tended to treat the two, expressing his frustration one night after an exceptionally long press conference. 

“Ugh,” Aang had groaned as he walked through the doorway to their bedroom.

“Eep!” Katara yelped, jumping at the noise from her spot on the bed as she was drawn away from the book she’d been reading. 

The airbender winced, his hands quickly stripping his outer clothes off his body as he apologized. “Sorry, sweetie. Didn’t mean to scare you. Was just a long night.”

“It’s fine, my love. Is everything alright?” she tilted her head at him and set the novel on her bedside table, outstretching her arms to welcome him under the covers with her. 

Aang sighed and gratefully accepted her warm embrace, his head immediately burying itself into her softness. He took a deep breath, moaning softly when he smelled the faint but comforting scent of her floral shampoo. 

“It’s nothing,” he mumbled, voice muffled by Katara’s chest. “Just some annoying stuff but I don’t want to upset you.”

“Were you upset by it?”

Aang nodded, rolling onto his side so that his head could lie in the crook of her neck. 

“Then let me be upset with you.”

“Fine,” he conceded, his hand tracing the seams of her nightgown as her hand came up to caress the top of his head. “It was just… I hated how they talked about you.”

Katara furrowed her eyebrows. “What do you mean, Aang?”

“They kept calling us a power couple,” Aang frowned. “Which is great in theory- it’s true! -but it was so… gross the way they kept calling you nothing but ‘the Avatar’s wife,’ like they thought I was the only one making us a power couple, like you were just there for decoration.”

The waterbender couldn’t help but smile and press a kiss to Aang’s forehead. “Have I ever told you how sweet you are?”

“That’s the fourth time today,” Aang chuckled. 

“Well it’s true,” Katara said. “I appreciate it, sweetie, but you don’t have to get upset like that because of me.”

“Weren’t you just the one saying you wanted to be upset with me?” Aang asked pointedly. “Then let me be upset for you.”

Katara sighed in surrender as the airbender continued on his rant about how he was going to draft an executive decree declaring that if an article was going to call him “Avatar Aang, Hero of the Hundred Years’ War” then it would also be obligated to refer to Katara by her full title (a decree which Katara managed to talk him out of, much to her relief). However, the waterbender couldn’t help but notice that he had left something out as the months had progressed. 

He would never admit it aloud, of course, but Katara could tell that the comments about his greatness as the Avatar had started to mess with Aang’s head a little bit. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful or fishing more compliments, far from it, but rather that they always seemed to see him more for his status as the Avatar rather than as a person. 

Katara knew Aang- he hated the thought that being the Avatar was his only purpose in life. If people were going to fawn after him, she knew he’d rather they marvel at his humor or what a good husband and friend he was, not about the latest “amazing” deed he’d done like cutting the ribbon for the new museum’s public opening. The latter especially got on his nerves as the comments and compliments always applied exclusively to him because he was the Avatar, not because of the action itself; they wouldn’t have given someone else doing it a second thought. 

Katara already couldn’t stand the sexist undertones, but the way they treated Aang made the whole thing unforgivable. If it were up to her, she would’ve made sure that Zuko’s firebending task force would’ve gotten an influx of calls about unfreezing a few dozen people from the streets of Republic City. She couldn’t believe how Aang maintained his saintly patience despite having interacted with probably quadruple the reporters she had. Little did she know… 

-------------------

…that Aang loved it when people would call him and Katara a power couple. 

Katara was powerful and brilliant and a lot less well-respected and well-known than she deserved to be, so, in theory, Aang loved the concept of people finally acknowledging his wife’s amazingness and thinking of her in as high a regard as their strangely high thoughts of him. 

Of course he hated it when they would reduce Katara to nothing more than “the Avatar’s wife” or always ask him things about his status as the Avatar, but that was what made the interactions with reporters more fun in his eyes. 

Most, if not all, reporters expected him to agree when they called him and Katara a power couple. After all, Aang was the Avatar, the most powerful man in the world; there was no denying it. What they didn’t expect was Aang to talk so much about the subject. 

He wasn’t talking about himself for hours on end, no no no, but rather something much more interesting in his opinion. It was, in fact, his favorite topic in the world:

Katara. 

The airbender was sure that by now, just about every media outlet in Republic City had a good ten pages (at least!) of notes on nothing more than Aang rambling about how lovely the love of his life was, the reporters all hoping to catch some detail in there about Aang to feed to their audience, not that they ever did. 

If there were any journalists whom Aang hadn’t gotten to yet, he strongly encouraged they come his way and schedule an appointment at City Hall! He was more than happy to detail Katara’s most recent waterbending feats and how she’d come up with her newest move, the Octopus Gear. 

“Avatar Aang! Avatar Aang!” a relatively young reporter asked him on his walk from the docks to his office, a pen, notepad, and voice recorder in hand. 

“Yes, Saizom? How may I help you?” Aang gritted his teeth asking the question. He didn’t get angry easily, but he was familiar with this reporter in particular for all the wrong reasons. This absolute worm of a human being was the one who had the audacity to publish an article calling Katara the “couple” part of their power couple, an article which Aang had gone to quite a lot of trouble with in hopes that Katara would never have to see it. 

“What are your thoughts on the articles going around calling you and your wife a power couple?” he asked eagerly. 

Aang chuckled to himself quietly. This was going to be fun. 

“Well, I wholeheartedly agree,” he began, exaggerating the pitch of his voice to sound more dramatic and passionate to the man walking beside him. “Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe and I are quite the power couple!” 

The airbender devilishly grinned. “In fact, I would even wager that Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe adds the ‘power’ to our power couple. If you’ve seen her in action, you’d surely agree with me that she is nothing less.” 

Saizom frowned, taken aback by the Avatar’s unexpected segue into talking about his wife. “Well, I’m quite sure your wife is skilled, but-”

“Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe is quite the skilled bender indeed!” Aang gushed, not caring whether he interrupted. Saizom deserved nothing less. “Have you heard about her new move, the Octopus Gear? It’s truly a work of art in the field of modern bending; I only wish I had her ability!”

“B-but you are the Avatar, you-”

“Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe was even kind enough to let me witness her entire process of devising such an ingenious tactical form. Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe is the most powerful waterbender in the world- did you know that?”

“Wouldn’t you argue, however, that you’re more powerful? You know, being the Avat-”

“Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe has beaten me in spars numerous times before,” Aang waved him off. “In fact, she usually beats me when we waterbend togther. She could probably even beat me in a fight with both hands tied behind her back!”

Aang had been telling nothing but the full truth in that last segment too- ever since the New Ozai society had had a recent surge of support, Katara had been working extra hard on developing the skill of waterbending with minimal hand movement should they end up in a precarious situation. 

“But what about the difference in your biology? She is only a woma-”

“Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe has been waterbending for over 12 years and has developed and toned quite a lean and muscled physique with all her intensive training. It gives her every possible advantage in waterbending. I am only made worse by my biology, as you say.” 

Though Aang thought he was striking back quite well at what that worm of a reporter was saying, he couldn’t believe that people still thought these types of things. 

“Well, that is all well and good, but in the context of being a power couple-”

“No ‘but’s about it,” Aang shook his head. “Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe is the more powerful one between us two. She is more disciplined, talented, skilled, and any other word you’d like to try and use to argue otherwise, biology or not. Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe has an incredible grasp of her element, though nothing can ever compare to the hold she has on my heart. Some say she is lucky to be with me, given all of my accomplishments, but I assure you it is completely the other way around.”

“But Avatar Aang I-”

“Oh, would you look at that!” the airbender quipped gleefully. “We’ve arrived at my office. So sorry, Saizom, but I really must be going. Toodles!” Aang ran inside and quickly shut the oak door behind him, immediately bursting into laughter as he entered the room.

“What happened to you?” Katara raised an eyebrow at him as she leaned against the wall by his desk, clearly amused.

“Oh, nothing,” Aang chuckled, walking up to her and greeting her with a kiss. “Just a silly reporter.”

“The one that said all the stuff about me putting the ‘couple’ in power couple?”

Aang’s eyes went wide with realization as he facepalmed. “You saw that article?”

Katara hesitated for a moment before cursing under her breath. “Dammit, you weren’t supposed to know.” 

The airbender squinted at her. “Wait a minute… you knew that I tried to make sure you didn’t see the article so that you wouldn’t get upset at all their, excuse my language, bull-pigshit, but you saw it anyways and tried to make sure I wouldn’t know that you had seen it so that I wouldn’t get upset?”

Katara blinked, taking a moment to process what he had just said. “Yep, pretty much.” 

Aang laughed and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “They should just call me ‘Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe’s husband’ all the time- it’s obvious who the smart one is here.” 

The waterbender groaned. “Aang, please tell me you did not refer to me like that the entire time you were with that reporter.”

“The monks told me to never tell a lie,” he sing-songed. 

“I can’t believe you.” 

“You love me for it.”

“I do, and that’s why I can’t believe you.” 

“C’mon,” Aang whined. “They brag about me so I should get to brag about you. Forget Forever Girl. You’re the power to my couple.” 

Katara gave him a look. “Aang.”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“I love you, but that was horrible. Please never say that again.”

“Not even one more time?”

“Aang.”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“I was not asking.”

“But you’re the power to my couple!!” 

“You know, I think I hear Sokka calling from across the building, let me just go see what he needs-”

“No, wait!”

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Of course Zutaras are now using what Azula said in a anger fueled hallucination as the undeniable proof that Zuko DETESTED mai and loved Katara

https://x.com/zukokins/status/1719231596203536518?s=46

https://x.com/azulasmind/status/1719194482422263842?s=46

And plenty more

Ah, yes, the most trust-worthy source on how Zuko feels about Mai: Azula, the girl whose mental health took a major dive after Mai chose to end their toxic friendship and help save Zuko. Her opinion on their relationship totally isn't biased, and her claim that Zuko didn't love Mai isn't just her ego and hurt feelings pushing her to assume Mai was then discarded by an uncaring Zuko and is now totally regretting turning her back on her princess.

And as an Azula fan, it will NEVER cease to amuse me how people are constantly repeating "Azula is crazy, don't take anything she says into account" and "Azula always lies" whenever she reveals something that gives her a little bit of sympathy/makes a popular character look flawed, but then the very second she says something people want to hear they take it as gospel truth - even when it's clear she's lying/has a warped perception of the situation.

Azula implies she did something bad to Suki EXPLICITLY to distract the Gaang long enough for the eclipse to be over? Obviously she was telling the truth, meaning Avatar is not a kid's show, after all it has torture/rape/whatever crime they want to say Azula commited.

Azula clearly doesn't see herself as a victim of her father? That means she cannot possibly be a victim of abuse, nevermind the we see in the finale that he is the one person that can manipulate her, and that in the novelization of the show she's explicitly wondering if Ozai will burn her for raising her voice at him.

Azula says Zuko doesn't love Mai? CLEARLY she knows what she's talking about, she's totally not just trying to cope with the fact her friend was 100% to end their friendship.

Not to mention, even if Zuko had either never loved Mai or stopped loving her after their break up, that does NOT mean he HAS to be in love with someone else, and specifically Katara.

Once again, it's Zutarians assuming their ship just HAD to be the default endgame, and that anything else like Kataang and Maiko were just last minute changes that "got in the way", and if these "obstacles" are removed, naturally Zutara will start. They cannot process the simple fact that their ship was NEVER gonna happen, even if Zuko and Katara both spent the entire show single and having no love interests.

[autistpride]

Thanks for the tag @phantomgrimalkin

three ships:

current favs are moonrose, wolfstar, nottpott, reylo from Star wars, and Zukka and Kataang from atla

first ship:

dramione

last song:

Surface Pressure by Our Last Night

last movie:

Spiderman across the spiderverse

currently reading:

Science textbook

Fanfiction: rereading Sweater Weather

Novel: The Raven Spell

currently watching:

kids playing and watching tellie

last thing I wrote:

text message to @chace-vito

rpg that @siriuslybea and I are doing

10th year science lessons. If you would like a copy of my most recent lesson on space exploration I'll send it to you.

currently writing:

Essay on Evolution for @roomwithanopenfire and @basicallyjustmuggleremuslupin

10th year science lesson on Matter

Update for Bea

my wips... that I havent written on in an embarrassing number of weeks. -cough- 13 -cough-

[blood-starved-beast]

Going out to say first that I’m not accepting spoilers for this so DON’T post them (this is the first time I’m going unspoiled for something I’m obsessed with in a while, so please dont) but I’m reading the Yangchen novel right now and I’m about ~40% done and it’s interesting. Compared with the Kyoshi novels, where I felt the development took off fairly quickly, the Dawn of Yangchen feels a lot slower and less action than in Rise of Kyoshi. I don’t know if it’s intentional (there is a sequel coming up) but everything seems like it’s meant to be read at a slowburn.

Don’t get me wrong, I like it a lot. In fact, Yangchen + Kavik is one of the most compelling Avatar + companion dynamics in a while in Avatar!verse. Compared to Korrasami’s love triangle business, Kataang’s friends until the end, Rangshi’s friends to lovers, this grudging acquitances to friends (to lovers?) with Yangchen and Kavik is very compelling. Yeah, there must’ve been friends of the Avatar that started out like this. And of course it had to be with Yangchen, slight!feral Girlboss extraordinaire. If it’s meant to be relationship (or stay as friends, whatever Yee wants) I hope it builds over the course of the two(+) books.

It’s also possible that cause of the nature of the series being brand new at the time Rise of Kyoshi had to be an independent novel. But now with the success of the first 2 books Yee has more liberty to take his time and draw out arcs and such. Or not, maybe it’s a testament to the differences between Yangchen and Kyoshi idk.

I will keep reading on.

[chocomd]

12, 15, 17 or else

backs away slowly from the knife

12. favorite character to write about this year

I thought the answer to this one was going to be obvious - Aang - but actually, the character I enjoyed writing the most this year was Song in my Song-centric fic, To Owe an Ostrich Horse. As much as I love writing about Aang and Katara, so many people have strong opinions about them and there are so many bad takes and tropes I need to avoid even accidentally implying, that writing them feels a little restrictive sometimes. But since Song is a side character who only shows up in one episode and isn’t a divisive character in fandom, I had a lot more freedom to expand on her personality and her predicament when Zuko steals her family’s ostrich horse. Writing Song was such a satisfying experience, and I’m proud of how that fic turned out!

15. something you learned this year

Hmmm....I’ll talk about what I learned from writing Drag You Down, my Kataang breakup/make up fic. It’s the longest piece of fiction I’ve ever written, and it will clock in at around 134k words after I post the final chapter this Thursday. I learned that even though plotting a long multichapter fic isn’t all that different from plotting a oneshot, it’s a lot harder to do - surprisingly, because I have to keep re-reading earlier chapters to stay inspired and to remember what the heck I even wrote before 💀 Having an outline and notes was helpful, but I still had to frequently re-read 🥲 That was quite literally the hardest part. But I’ve completed the equivalent of a fanfic novel, so now I know what writing a novel to completion feels like! I won’t do something like this again for fanfic, because it’s so time consuming, but I’d like to write an actual original novel someday.

The other thing I learned from writing DYD is how to weave together a romantic storyline with other non-romantic subplots. And I discovered how much I love writing storylines that don’t have anything to do with romance at all. In general, I prefer reading/watching stories that don’t have romance as the focus, but as part of the larger plot. (Fanfic is different, of course - I enjoy the romance-only stories, but sometimes I need something more.) I still have some Kataang ideas, but next year I’d like to explore more aspects of ATLA and other characters besides my two faves.

17. fics you’ll continue next year

Wow, this is a popular question! Answered here and here, but I’ll talk about another one. I’ve had a wip for a fic about Katara fighting Zuko because she’s jealous of his work bromance with Aang. I’ve talked about this fic idea before, but never got around to finishing it. But since I’m done with DYD, I’m thinking I’ll finally get around to writing Katara vs Zuko, aka Blue vs Red, sometime next year!

FANFIC END OF THE YEAR ASKS