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comradekatara · 2 months

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How do you think the ATLA storyline would change if Yue was the Avatar? (based on the theory that she was meant to be the Avatar if the cycle wasn't thrown off balance by the genocide/aang running away, explaining her birth circumstances)

I've always loved this au idea and was wondering how you think it would play out (yknow, yue being a waterbender, learning the elements and defeating ozai).

okay i mean obviously my immediate thought is “what role do katara and sokka play in this” because i refuse to entertain any AU wherein katara and sokka are not front and center. so i guess i could see kanna encouraging katara to escape to the north after a brush with the fire nation (zuko perhaps? he was in southern waters regardless of whether or not they found aang) leads kanna to realize that they aren’t safe in their village. so katara and sokka go up north (although it’s a lot less comfortable without a bison) and they get there in time for yue’s sixteenth birthday, which is when it’s announced that she is, in fact, the avatar.

katara gets really pissed off that pakku will make an exception to teach yue waterbending but not her, but pakku is just like “well she’s the princess and the avatar. you’re just a southern peasant” and katara goes OFF. at which point pakku realizes that she’s kanna’s granddaughter and is like “oh shit” etc etc. so katara and yue start learning side by side, and katara is like “so when are you going to leave the north pole and fight in the war?” and yue is just like. “the what.”

katara storms into the room she shares with sokka after practice one day and just goes “YUE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT THE WAR” and sokka, who has been hopelessly pining over her with the knowledge that nothing could ever happen between them is just like “NOW’S MY CHANCE.” so he goes to yue and is like “i know this might sound crazy, but please hear me out,” and then explains, with no detail spared, the geopolitical conflict that has been ravaging the rest of the world for the past century. he somehow conveniently leaves out every personal tragedy he’s experienced, but it’s still incredibly comprehensive all told. and then he’s like “wouldn’t you know all this anyway? by being the avatar and being able to talk to your past lives?”

and yue suddenly realizes that the absurd nightmares she’s been plagued with all her life were actually memories, and she feels so guilty that she somehow never realized it sooner. so she goes to her father and tells him that as the avatar, is her duty to master all the elements and fight the firelord, and arnook is like, well as the princess it is your duty to remain safely in agna qel’a. so after yue feels that she has sufficiently mastered waterbending (and that katara can teach her the rest), she escapes with katara and sokka and they go to the earth kingdom to find an earthbending master (and they somehow manage to find toph). and so on and so forth.

ultimately, while i do think there’s something beautiful about yue reclaiming her power and autonomy, i still don’t think it’s more compelling than the original show, or the significance of aang’s central role. i do in fact firmly maintain that the only remotely compelling alternate avatar AUs are sokka, azula, mai, or ty lee. yue’s complicated tragedy is more compelling to me than yue being an empowered girlboss (sideyes natla). but it is kind of fun to think about. if nothing else, katara and yue being classmates is cute.

#yes i had to write out that entire stream of consciousness thought exercise just to realize that it doesn’t really work #idk man. it is what it is #twitterpat #asks #AUs #yue #katara #sokka #katara&yue

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ash-and-starlight · 3 months

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taking the crumbs of venetian agna qel’a chewing biting gnashing on them until there aren’t even bones left and then spitting out. carnevale northern water tribe style

#id in alt text #plus lil zukkini kissini bonus bc this year carnival fell the day before valentine's day #aaand posting it at almost midnight so we get the Perfect meeting point of the two dates #not bc i drew everything in a rabid frenzy & finished it NOW #anyway venetian carnival in the nwt. hi. is this thing on can anyone hear me.#and when i start talking about the marriage to the sea ceremony- [gunshot]#ough i wish i had more time to draw more masks in sakha-venice fusion style but alas. only had time & brain space for the blorbos 😔#hope this is enough to send the Vision Wavelenghts #yue #sokka #katara #zuko #zukka #my art

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pichichustudios · 26 days

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Every girls in Avatar the Last Airbender

#avatar the last airbender #avatar #atla #katara #toph #toph beifong #suki #atla suki #azula #princess azula #avatar mai #atla mai #ty lee #ty lee atla #princess yue

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opens-up-4-nobody · 2 months

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:-P

#after watching the terror 10billion times seeing the southern water tribe outfits make me feel insane #they look like they've never ever ever been worn. siln4s outfits are well worn and thats what makes them beautiful #the make me insane for the live action avatar i mean...#also penguin seals r cute as fuck #atla #avatar the last airbender #sokka #katara #aang #princess yue #zuko

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tobiasdrake · 2 months

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*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.

I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.

But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.

Katara

So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.

They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.

And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.

Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.

This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."

"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.

Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.

In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.

But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?

No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.

And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.

In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.

Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.

Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.

The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.

Suki

Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.

They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.

Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.

Yue

Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.

"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."

Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.

They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.

Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?

June

June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.

Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.

She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.

Kyoshi

And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"

She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.

Azula

Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.

There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.

This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.

They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.

This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.

Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.

Conclusion

The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.

Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.

But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.

The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.

"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."

The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.

#avatar the last airbender #drake watches netflix last airbender #kyoshi #katara #azula #suki #yue #june

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carebooks · 2 months

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overlooking all the other reasons why the show went downhill: katara’s feminine rage missing, aang getting guilt punched every episode, bumi being ooc, almost zero gaang bonding episodes, three episodes compiled into one (done twice), azula being introduced too early + given too much screen time, the cave of two lovers being in s1 when it was a s2 episode— all of that is valid but the show can really be pointed out in two ways where they went downhill:

aang never waterbended once during a season where it is literally called book one: water.

yue’s wig.

#thats it #everything else can be fixed by the next season (hopefully)#there’s still hope #maybe #but these two things can never be undone and i wont forgive them for it #avatar the last airbender #aang #katara #sokka #zuko #prince zuko #azula #princess azula #uncle iroh #princess yue #toph beifong #atla #atla netflix #that’s rough buddy

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chiptrillino-art · 4 months

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Hello! Wellcome to my sort of 2023 recap!

ID in ALT text shockingly i drew more zukos then sokkas this year.... which is weird to me personally? although... i did have a sudden 'i have no clue how to draw zuko?!?!?" moment this year. oh also..uh... i was wondering if i drew egnouth faces to make them 'turn around' and well...

kind of?

#atla #chip recap 2023 #zuko #sokka #jet #aang #yue #bato #hakoda #katara #kya #iroh #izumi #chit sang #still wild i drew more zuko then sokka...#well i am not counting the conzept doodles...#the turn arounds are silly hahah

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bananahkim · 4 months

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Atla icons !!!!!

You can tell I had fun drawing each background of the characters. Also I got to draw a lot of Zukos and fire.

Please credit me when you use these. Don’t edit my icons!

#atla #avatar the last airbender #art #my art #artists on tumblr #Christmas #aang #katara #Simms #toph #jet #suki #Ty lee #mai #Azula #zuko #iroh #yue #atla fanart #atla icons #icons #holiday

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bookdragonideas · 28 days

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Here's the thing. I'm a girl, and as a girl, I really like it when girls are portrayed in fiction. Especially fantasy.

But so much fiction/fantasy mixes up 'girls' with 'unstoppable forces of female badass' and there's not necessarily anything wrong with having a character who is an 'unstoppable forces of female badass'. But it gets old real quick. And it is not the same as portraying normal girls, or having good female characters.

And that's one of the many reasons I love Avatar the Last Airbender.

Because all the girl characters have flaws and weaknesses and sometimes act like idiots or jerks. They get emotional and make mistakes. They lose fights or arguments or are just wrong sometimes. Some of them are amazing warriors, and some aren't. Some are powerful or special and some are normal, with nothing special about them.

And I Love that.

I was around the same age as Katara when I first watched Atla. And I instantly connected with her as a character. I loved her optimistic attitude and her fighting spirit. And I could relate with her anger, and with her maternal instinct. I admired her fighting skills of course, but I loved how the show portrayed her compassion and kindness, the way she could both beat up a bunch of bullies AND enjoy a relaxing day at the spa. She was a baddass warrior that should never be crossed. But she was also a normal teenage girl who had a lot of the same internal struggles and problems that I did.

(I never connected to Toph on the same level, but I did relate to her on a few things. She's an adorable trash gremlin who would commit any crime for fun and I love that. But she struggles with being both independent and letting people help her, and I still struggle with that sometimes. I've learned that sometimes, you can help others by letting them help you.)

Yue is, in my opinion, a perfect example of a type of hero that seems to be disappearing. She is not a warrior. She is not a fighter. She's not even a bender.

Yue is a perfect princess, a perfect daughter. She is extremely feminine in a rather older sense.

And she was the only one who could save the world. She gave up everything for her people. She saved everything, everyone, the entire world. Without ever becoming a fighter.

Yue is a perfect example of a girl who was never more than a girl, and how that's okay. Not every girl has to be rough and tumble and fight for her rights in order to change everything. Sometimes it's okay to just be a quiet obedient girly girl. Sometimes that's all it takes to be a hero.

And I love that. Yue is strong in her own way. She is unique and interesting. She appears in only a few episodes and yet manages to be one of my favorite characters.

Song is another great example of this. Song is a healer in a small town. We don't see much of her but we see her compassion and empathy. She is gentle and generous. A healer not a fighter.

She watches Zuko steal her ostrich horse and does nothing.

Is that because she's kind and generous and knows he needs it more? Or is it because she's a healer girl who knows she can't actually stop those two from taking the horse? Maybe neither, maybe both. I have always thought that the scene where Zuko steals the horse and only the audience knows she saw it is one of the most thought-provoking in the series.

Suki is a badass warrior woman who is an awesome fighter and good leader. She is one of the best non bender fighter we see in the entire show. She was one of the smartest, most efficient, and powerful characters we ever saw.

She kissed a boy she had just met because she thought he was cute.

Now don't get me wrong I love SokkaxSuki. Its one of the best couples in the show.

But Suki totally did the old 'love at first sight' thing. And that is awesome. Because when she kisses him she delivers one of the best lines, not only from her, but, I think, in the entire show.

"I AM a warrior, but I'm a girl too."

Being a warrior doesn't mean that she isn't also a teenage girl. She might be a fighter, but she still gets crushes and likes to flirt with cute boys. And hey, she picked a good one. Not every boy is going to come break you out of prison.

Anyways, let's have more realistic girls in fiction. And please enjoy the next 24 hours.

#bookdragonideas #atla #katara #suki #yue #princess yue #avatar the last airbender

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mini-minish · 1 month

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🤍 so i read my first zukka fic in all the 19 years i've been in this fandom!! it's the moon spirit sokka fic and it slaps go read it ->

#an excuse to draw a bunch of potato zukos #zukka #atla #avatar the last airbender #sokka #zuko #princess yue #katara #whats the yue x katara ship called #also introduced to in this fic and honestly? slay #fic art #in the soft light #dood #moon spirit sokka #yuetara #? perhaps ??#i have no idea if the author is on tumblr or something but if they are hi op ur fic is amazing ty

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comradekatara · 2 months

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what's up hakoda with in the modern au? also anything on yue would be appreciated ^·^

okay so hakoda basically disappears from their lives at the same point as he leaves in canon. and he’s like “you can’t be upset, sokka, you have to hold it together because you’re the Man of the house now and it’s your job to take care of your little sister” (which of course, sokka takes very seriously. perhaps too seriously considering he lives in a suburb) and “you can’t be upset katara, you have to soldier through this heroically and bravely because you are so strong” (which only somewhat calms her down. because she’s a child, and her mom died in front of her like a year ago). and then he’s gone. for years they have no clue where he went or whether he’s even alive.

and then. he inexplicably returns once they’re both in high school. sokka is just a few months away from graduating. and suddenly a man they barely remember is standing in their doorway. sokka is elated. it’s his dad!!! his dad came back!!! he fully thought his dad had killed himself. he wouldn’t have even resented him if he had. he also tried wanted contemplated suicide after yue died. and if hakoda loved kya even half as much as sokka loved yue, he gets it. like, he wasn’t very pleasant to be around after kya’s death anyway. he was sullen and irritable and distracted. but now he’s back! and he seems really happy to see his kids again. and sokka is equally overjoyed to see him, because he was gone, and now he’s not.

katara is less enthused. why is he back?? where even was he??? is sokka just not going to acknowledge how fucked up it was that he disappeared for years???? normally sokka is a miserable little hater, why is he acting like a fool??? they have dinner, the four of them (kanna is also there), and katara is snippy the entire time. “you know sokka got a full ride to princeton. no thanks to you.” “can you pass the beans?” “why? do you feel like the beans abandoned you????”

hakoda’s not an idiot. he certainly anticipated this possibility. so he pulls katara aside and tells her what happened. after kya was murdered, her killer went to trial. katara was technically the only eyewitness, but she was way too young and traumatized to testify, so hakoda testified for her. and then, a couple years later, he escaped from prison. and tried to kill hakoda. it was a very near miss. and then, he effectively disappeared off the face of the earth. hakoda was put in witness protection. he figured that he should take his kids with him, since they wouldn’t be safe, but since he hadn’t come for them, the authorities assured him that his kids would be safe as long as hakoda never contacted them. it took years, but eventually they caught him again. and so hakoda came home.

katara’s just like “wow…… that is…… an absolutely ridiculous story.” it’s not that she doesn’t believe him, but like. what????? WHAT??????? also. “does sokka know about this?” “no, I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.” “then how is he just fine with this situation?????” hakoda shrugs. “you know sokka, he’s very…… easygoing.” katara just laughs in his face.

eventually, hakoda tells sokka too. he has a lot of follow up questions, but he accepts it. and so for the next couple months, they cram as many father son bonding activities in as humanly possible. hakoda goes to one of sokka’s baseball games and realizes that he’s some kind of baseball prodigy, which infuriates katara to no end (hakoda didn’t even realize that sokka wasn’t allowed to be good at sports in their house. he has a lot to catch up on). after that first game sokka just lies and says the baseball season is over. hakoda goes to all of katara’s games too, of course. he meets all their friends. he’s kind of confused about whether or not suki is dating his son?? (“we’re all confused about that,” assures katara.) sokka is happier than anyone has ever seen him. katara wonders how he can just be so…accepting of this situation.

like, yes, it’s technically not their father’s fault that he was gone from their lives for years and forced both of them to work multiple jobs while in high school and wasn’t there for them when yue died and missed so many important milestones and never contacted them to let him know where he was or whether he was even alive. but katara saw her mother murdered in front of her as a child. and then her father disappeared. and then one of her best friends died a few years later, and had to watch her brother become a hollow husk of himself who wanted nothing more than to join her. and now sokka and hakoda are just….. blithely pretending that none of this wrong???? they’re not even willing to recognize the deep injustice of this tragedy???? everything is just suddenly fine????

katara simmers for a while, but it’s never taken long for her to boil. it happens at, arguably, the worst possible time. sokka is giving a surprisingly beautiful valedictory speech (everyone had just kind of assumed that he was gonna say “fuck you you’re all idiots” or something along those lines, but he actually gets really poignant and sincere with it) and hakoda sheds a tear. katara sees this tear, and it pierces her heart. she scoffs, but remains silent.

then, graduation is over, and katara goes to hug sokka. she might find him endlessly frustrating, but after spending a not insignificant period of time his sophomore year keeping him on suicide watch and forcing him to eat and bathe regularly, she feels like she’s earned this, that this is her victory too. she wants to tell him how proud she is, and how pleasantly surprised she was that his speech didn’t quote derrida, or artaud, or even benjamin. but before she can reach him, hakoda wraps his arms around her brother and says “im so proud of you.” and naturally, katara blows up.

sokka doesn’t actually want to be here for this, so he goes to find suki…to take his mind off things. meanwhile katara is causing a veritable scene yelling with no compunctions about disturbing the other families attempting to celebrate their children’s graduations. “how can you be proud of him when you haven’t even done anything for him, when you haven’t seen how much he’s suffered, how much i’ve suffered?? you don’t have any idea of how difficult it’s been because we’re all just supposed to pretend that everything is fine now and nothing bad ever happened and we’re just a perfect happy family” and so on and so forth.

once she’s finally out of breath, hakoda takes her aside to somewhere more private, and those tears he shed at sokka’s speech turn into a flood. he tells katara that not being able to be there with her was the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, that he thought about her and sokka every single day, and wanted nothing more than to return to them. even tried to, at times, but was caught by the feds. and he finally apologizes to her, understanding that even if it wasn’t his fault and was never his intention to, he did nonetheless still hurt her deeply, and sokka too, even if sokka won’t acknowledge it. they’re hugging, they’re crying, they’re forgiving each other, they’re making an attempt to move forward. and for the next year, before katara herself goes off to college, katara is once again close with her dad.

they cook together, play sports in the park together, watch tv together, enjoy each other’s company. hakoda helps katara with her math homework (now that sokka is out of the house and cannot just. do it for her), and katara starts to realize where sokka got his brains from. he gets a job, and katara gets the opportunity to work fewer shifts at the claire’s at the mall and actually spend time with all her two friends (technically zuko was her third friend, but he’s not there anymore so). hakoda helps her polish her speech for student body president, and finds that katara is actually an incredible orator (even if he doesn’t think that “abolishing math” is a particularly reasonable platform). it’s just like old times. before kya died, and they stopped communicating. it’s like reconnecting with an old friend.

as for yue, she was of course sokka’s best friend in the whole wide world, his first love, and his only girlfriend (depending on who you ask), but she also one of katara’s best friends too. not her ultimate best friend, because obviously aang has always filled that role, but she’s like a sort of. big sister to her. at first, yue doesn’t really understand katara. she’s an only child, and seeing the way katara antagonizes sokka kind of horrifies her, even as sokka attempts to explain to her that this is just normal sibling behavior. but after hakoda leaves, sokka starts working more, and yue gets to talking to katara when sokka isn’t around. and it’s strange how different katara is when she isn’t around her brother. she’s actually quite pleasant. sweet, even.

yue and katara bond over different things than yue and sokka do. yue and sokka can talk science, math, even poetry, but sokka doesn’t read genre fiction, won’t watch all ten bajillion hours of the lord of the rings director’s cut with her. yue gets katara into terry pratchett, tolkien, ursula le guin (who quickly becomes one of katara’s all time favorite authors). katara gets yue into octavia butler, tamora pierce. they start an unofficial book club (aang occasionally joins in). katara actually enjoys discussing literature for the first time in her life. who knew that something so similar to english class could actually be fun? sokka thinks it’s nice that yue is making more friends, even if those friends do happen to be limited to the kids he happens to know.

it’s not that yue is unpopular, in fact, everyone likes her because she is so lovely, gentle, smart, and beautiful. it’s just that yue met sokka on the first day of school, and promptly decided that she had no need to befriend anyone else. as you can imagine, they are extremely codependent. not a day goes by that they do not spend time together. even when yue is too sick to leave her room, sokka comes over to bring her the homework, and reads to her, or just sits with her. on days where yue is doing better, they sit on the porch of aang’s backyard and eat almonds while katara and toph wrestle in the grass and aang attempts to perform tricks on a far too small trampoline. sokka and yue are just in their own little world where the only thing that matters is being together. they don’t need anyone else.

that said, aang, katara, and toph all adore yue. for someone who fancies herself a loner, she is incredibly friendly and funny and outgoing and kind. she reads sff with katara, talks disability with toph, makes up fun little games with aang. technically only sokka is getting paid to babysit aang and tutor toph, but yue just enjoys their company. they’re all devastated when she dies. especially toph. katara and aang have both experienced immense, world-shattering grief before, but this is the first real tragedy in toph’s life. and yue was a confidante, someone who could directly empathize with her experiences and problems. yue was incredibly important to all of them. she was their big sister.

but after a while, they all learn to stop mentioning yue altogether. even though they want to talk about her, because she left such an indelible mark on each of them, they can’t. it’s just an unspoken rule that any mention of yue is taboo. katara thinks it’s kind of silly that sokka has placed a moratorium on any kind of discussion of the most important person in his life, but steadfastly pretending that she never existed is the only thing that actually gets him to function, and so it’s far preferable to the alternative (breaking his leg because he “slipped and fell” off yue’s roof while drunk, for example). there’s a giant yue-shaped hole in their group dynamic. and nothing can fill it, so they just pretend not to see it.

unfortunately just because katara, aang, and toph adhere to this rule doesn’t mean that the rest of the school does. of course the fact that a student died is a hot button topic for the rest of the year. the gossip train jumps from the fact that sokka was there (true) and the paramedics found him in the middle of the street holding yue’s dead body in his arms (also true) to the notion that sokka actually killed her (insane) because he found out that she was cheating on him (also insane) and then staged it as an accident (thanks hahn). katara makes it her mission to beat up anyone she hears spreading these horrific rumors to a pulp, and spends a lot of her freshman year in detention as a result. and then she spends the next four years wondering why everyone is scared of her.

after a while, katara lets herself indulge in fantasies. she thinks about what life would be like if yue were still alive. if kya were still alive. would they have gotten along? (of course they would have.) would she and sokka still be together? (also yes, of course.) would she have gone on to be a biochemist like she’d always planned? (probably. she was brilliant.) would she have gotten along with suki and zuko and the rest of their new friends? (yes, they would have adored one another.) if sokka knew that katara thought about this, he would no doubt dismiss it as some kind of futile exercise in despair. but as a thought exercise, it actually soothes katara, gives her hope that there exists a parallel universe where her parents and friends are still alive and her brother is still happy and her knuckles aren’t bloody from beating the shit out of random asshole kids every day. sokka never quite understood that fantasies can be real too.

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