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thethiefandtheairbender · 2 months

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I think the biggest difference for me between projects (like to be clear I think NATLA is not good as an adaptation or a show, and I think the PJO tv show works as an adaptation and a show) is something that feels so basic, but shocked me when it clicked, which is that

NATLA has no actual visual storytelling going on

Which sounds ridiculous, but let me explain what I mean. "Visual storytelling" is how you communicate aspects of character or relationship through visual framing, parallels, that kind of thing, usually to indicate progression or a character's viewpoint. Many people have noticed that NATLA's cinematography leaves much to be desired, there are some shots that are good particularly in episode 6 (the Zuko transition shots between past and present, and one of the ending shots between him and Aang) but that's by and large the exception.

What I mean when I say "visual storytelling" is that NATLA doesn't have visual motifs. It doesn't really have parallels happening that much in the text or in the visuals. And this is something that ATLA did really, really well, all the time, particularly with Zuko's scar. Just take this framing of Zuko and Aang, in particular, from The Storm and The Blue Spirit.

They even have consistent colour tones of Aang having a warmer, lighter yellow (Air Nomad) and Zuko having a darker, deeper red (Fire Nation).

And this is something I think Percy Jackson does pretty well. They have consistent motifs / descriptions if it were, particularly when it comes to Percy and Annabeth's relationship and her character.

Percy: [Choosing Annabeth] And if the mission required someone to push me down a flight of stairs for it to succeed, you want someone who won't hesitate when they do it.

Percy: [literally pushes her down the stairs but to save her life]

Ares: You're new to the family, young one, so let me fill you in on how we work. [...] Olympians fight. We betray. We backstab. We will push anyone down a flight of stairs to get ahead. Annabeth: This isn't the Arch, Seaweed Brain. You're not pushing me into the stairwell aagain. Percy: Yes I am! [...] It's why you're here. When I was choosing my team, I told Chiron I needed someone who wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice me if the quest required it. He agreed. That was you. [...] You're better at this than me. You just are.

Annabeth: [Refusing to get back in Athena's good graces] It isn't how it should be! It isn't. Eat or be eaten [referencing the Kronos story Ares said earlier]. Power and glory and nothing else matters. Ares is that way. Zeus is that way. My mother is that way. He isn't that way. He's better than that. Maybe I was that way once. But I don't wanna be that way anymore. I won't be like all of you. I just won't.

But we also see this visually.

And to be clear I think it's well done, I'm not saying this kind of thing is a Masterpiece™ but what I am saying is that if you do these things, it's a great way to convey information to your audience visually and a sense of progress both in individual characterization and relationship development. And it just makes sense to lean on things visually if you're a visual medium, because prose can't do framing like this to the same degree.

And NATLA just... never does it. There's almost no real parallels, there's very little framing happening, and the even more intense overload of exposition does not help matters in this way either. The original series had a lot of parallels steadily built up (i.e. Aang's presence in the SWT and Sokka's plotline in Jet -- hell, even some of the lines he gets at Roku's Fire Sage temple -- were to show how Sokka was moving away from a more xenophobic worldview even if it was still a work in progress). There were also more overt ones, such as Sokka dressing himself for battle versus Zuko having guards/servants do it for him, but both ultimately tether the two together into having to put on a performance of confidence, manhood, and war more so than being the children they actually are.

And NATLA just has... no real visual parallels. The closest we get is the parallels between Sokka-Yue, Tui and La, and Kataang in the finale, but that's about it.

There's not a lot of scenes where a character is presented the chance to make a similar choice only to then make a different one. Even Aang wanting to go to the NWT to make a difference is muted because he never actually ran away in the first place; when you rip away character flaws or mistakes, you also gut their room for growth. When you strip away visual storytelling, it means that what you see on screen is a 1:1 of exactly what you're getting, and that is just a lot more Boring to watch as well as gutting your chances to show more character exposition. And it's just - it's just not good

#natla critical #natla #pjo tv show #the one that kills me the most is when hahn is like 'you have something the rest of us don't [in fighting the FN]: experience'#and it's like. sokka has not fought zuko or barely any firebenders since the pilot #the only other time his fighting skills got developed was with suki. also at the beginning #he has not done basically anything since then warrior wise. nvm with the fire nation directly #analysis series #analysis #sincerely a very tired nb english major #pjo

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spirantization · 2 months

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I'm surprised at the hate that Sokka's character arc from NATLA is receiving. To me, Sokka's development and characterization was one of the strongest adaptations the series made.

In the original ATLA, Sokka's character arc revolves around him unlearning his own misogyny. He makes pointedly sexist comments throughout the early episodes like "Leave it to a girl to screw things up!", "There's no way a bunch of girls took us down!", etc.

Sokka's comments have a strong narrative purpose: they give a platform for women in the show (Katara & Suki mostly) to refute his attitude. Katara emphasizes traditional "women's work" (cleaning, cooking, sewing, etc), which forces Sokka to confront its inherent value. Suki is able to prove to him that women can fight too and he learns to respect female warriors. It's a great character arc and it's well-executed.

It's also characterization that is in direct response to the culture and feminism of the 90s and early 00s. The representation of women in the media at that time was...oof. It was not great. One-dimensional love interests whose only purpose is being saved by the male protagonist, mostly. Female protagonists were not as common, and certainly not ones who were depicted as being able to fight, and certainly not in cartoons. Female protagonists in animation were almost exclusively princesses.

ATLA was progressive in this regard. Katara was a complex female character in a time when there were not a lot of them, in media in general but especially in animation and kid's shows. (I grew up in the 90s; there were no characters like Katara in animation on screen for me.) ATLA incorporated the zeitgeist directly into the story, which is why we have Sokka learning to overcome his sexism in his interactions with Strong Female Characters.

If you go back and watch the original cartoon now, Sokka's sexism feels a bit dated. It's a very 90s, Girl Power, "girls can fight too" style of social commentary. It doesn't match with the media landscape of today. We've got 20 years of media with female superheroes behind us. If your message is "girls can fight too!" the response for the most part is going to be "yes, we know that. And?"

So imagine you're adapting the original ATLA for a live-action remake. You want to keep Sokka's character arc intact, but you want to update it for the 2020s. So what do you do? You look at the conversations that are happening today.

The 90s were about "girls can do everything boys can do", but the 20s are over that. The conversation is more about gender: gender expression, gender roles, gender dynamics. What does is mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man?

Sokka's character arc in NATLA is focused on this question: What does it mean to be a man? At the beginning of the series, it's his identity as a warrior that defines him. He needs to be the warrior, the protector, the leader. He's constantly trying to reaffirm this part of his identity, and it's completely tied up in his perception of his value as a man. Instead of his interactions with Suki being about "how could girls possibly be warriors", it shifts to Sokka saying "I'm ALSO a warrior" and trying to justify that to Suki (and mostly himself).

His arc over the series is about him accepting other aspects of himself and relearning how to define his masculinity. He can still have value as man without being the greatest warrior. He can still have value as a man by using his skills as an engineer. He can still have value as a man by offering compassion and kindness to others, like the little girl with the doll & Yue in her final moments. Instead of rigidly defining himself by a specific set of gender roles & expectations, he learns how to define himself through his own strengths and qualities.

I know there are a lot of people who are upset at this change to Sokka's characterization, and the most common thing I see is that it results in changes to Katara's character and her anger in response to Sokka's comments. I think there are valid criticisms to be made about how the show handled the adaptation of Katara's character, but I won't go there with this. In terms of Sokka and his characterization, it was well-done and thematically consistent with the original. It's not an exact port, and it never needed to be. It's still a feminist arc that centres on unlearning harmful misogynistic worldviews, but the focus has shifted from external (roles of women) to internal (his role as a man). And his journey is one that people would benefit from seeing represented.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #natla #netflix avatar #atla meta #there are many criticisms to make about the adaptation but this just isn't one of them

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burst-of-iridescent · 7 months

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As great and narratively significant as Zutara is. It really wouldn't work organically without a book 4: air. I can see it having 30 episodes.

It can feature Guru Patik as Aang's new sifu and he teaches Aang more abstract parts of airbending, such as flight, cloud gliding, astral projection, and of course, chakra mastery. We can then get flashbacks with Gyatso teaching tattooless Aang basic airbending. Aang can also learn to come to terms with the fact he has taken over a dozen lives, as did Gyatso and whoever else, and find out any other dark secrets the air nomads have hidden from Aang. They can feature Ty Lee's potential relations to the air nomads and hint/tease at the possibility that she can be an airbender herself.

Due to Azula being a descendant of Aang's past life Roku, (and/or due to Ozai being Vaatu in disguise) Aang and Azula become spiritually, connected, linked, and bonded with each other. This bond is created after Aang had let go of Katara and embraced his last chakra twice. This bond unites them as fate, allowing them to understand each other, derive character development from each other, and grow closest to each other despite being on opposite sides of the war. Aang would even be able to know when Azula lies and vice versa. This connection grows stronger over time. It reaches its apex after Azula has opened and mastered her own chakras.

Of course, there can be the revelation of where Ursa is but instead of what was shown in the comics, Ikem and Kiyi do not exist and while Ursa changes her face, it doesn't cost her her memories. She can hide out in the white lotus and meets up with Aunt Wu who's also a member along with Guru Patik.

The season doesn't have to be post-war though. The comet can arrive by the end of Fall instead of Summer. Season 3 ends with only the final agni kai but everything else is moved to the end of season 4. Or, Aang's year can be the 10,000th year and harmonic convergence arrives by the end of fall. The comet can arrive by the end of summer like originally, but Ozai fights the lion turtle instead of Aang, Ozai wins by slaying the beast. Aang loses his past lives, but Raava is able to make up for it by becoming the avatar spirit of darkness/chaos/yin and light/peace/yang simultaneously and will embody/control the sources of any/all bending.

Speaking of Ozai. For the former, Ursa and Iroh can be rewritten as bio-siblings while Ozai replaces Sozin in time/place of birth. Ozai will basically have all of Sozin and Azulon's characteristics/experiences/atrocities/lifespans while keeping all of his own. Or, for the latter, Ozai's secret/true identity is actually Vaatu. It's Vaatu who used the solstices and his time tree prison's cosmic energy to directly orchestrate the 100-year war through Sozin. He also manipulated Iroh's mother, Ilah, into escaping but at the cost of his dark power and status, which he can only get back via harmonic convergence. Ozaatu slays the lion turtle by absorbing its soul, he gains all elements, plus all non-bender skills, in the opposite order to Aang's cycle by absorbing the souls of all original benders, every member of the white lotus, all Kysohi warriors except for Suki and Ty Lee, and Hakoda.

Do you agree with any of this or do you have something completely different in mind for book 4: air?

i agree with you. when i say zutara should have been canon, it's only in a world where book 4 happened and we got the post-war slowburn we deserved. that's why my stance has always been that if we only had three seasons, the show should have ended with no canonical romances or with only a hint of future zutara. zuko and katara at the end of book 3 are in the perfect place to begin falling in love with each other, having formed a solid, beautiful friendship upon which the ideal romance could have been built.

personally, i'm not a fan of the raava/vaatu plotline that lok introduced (but my problems with it are too long to get into here, so i'll leave it to another time) so i wouldn't incorporate it into my ideal book 4. but i like the ideas about aang going back to guru pathik to learn more about airbending and his spirituality, and i'm always here for secret airbender ty lee.

i would prefer book 4 to be set post-war for two reasons: 1) i think most fantasy stories always end with defeating the Big Bad, so it would have been interesting for ATLA to actually explore a world after war, and how peace doesn't instantly solve all problems, and 2) character work is one of ATLA's biggest strength, and i would've enjoyed a season focusing solely on more introspective struggles (aang struggling to come to terms with the consequences of energybending, toph's conflict with her parents, zuko finding his mother, azula's redemption etc etc) than deal with the Great Evil that has to be vanquished.

but ofc everyone is free to visualize book 4 however they want, and i strongly encourage you to write your version of book 4 if you wish to! that's what fanfiction is for, after all, to play with a thousand different versions of what canon could have been.

#zutara asks #zutara

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jettingtothemoon · 3 years

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can you do 75, 93, and 100 with Sokka? THAT WOULD BE AMAZING!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! - ✌ anon

➳ pairing: sokka x f!reader ➳ genre: fluff, a smidge of angst ➳ warnings: injury, kissing, suggestive? ➳ word count: 1679 ➳ rating: pg-15 ➳ summary: in which your daily training with sokka goes a little wrong. ➳ prompts: 75 - ‘i’ll just kiss you until you feel better, then.’, 93 - ‘you’re so cute when you’re struggling.’, 100 - ‘i’m scared okay? i- i’m afraid of losing you.’

Sokka was very adamant that the two of you needed to train twice as hard as everyone else, as two non-benders, if you were ever going to stand a chance against the Fire Nation. He truly was a warrior at heart and you really did love him for it, but sometimes he pushed you a little too hard.

“Come on y/n! You can do it. Climb like you mean it!”

Today, your over-enthusiastic boyfriend had you climbing a small cliff face. Of course, he had come up with the idea when presented with the issue of every bender in your team being able to whisk themselves up to wherever they needed to be in a matter of seconds. The two fo you, however, were not so lucky and had to train your bodies so that you could climb to such height.

It was a useful skill to have, that was true, but the likelihood of you ever actually needing it was somewhat slim. Of course, Sokka still saw it as an essential development that could be the difference between life and death in one of the battles to come.

“Sokka, we’ve been at this all day. Can’t I please come down now?”

The boy hummed, finger pressed to his chin as if he were thinking, before shaking his head and yelling up at you, “No, you can’t. Keep climbing until you reach the top.”

You sighed, rolling your eyes as you reached up for the next part of the rock.

From below, Sokka watched with pride as you climbed. Despite being a girl, you were quite capable. Suki’s influence no doubt. The two of you had shown Sokka what it really meant to be a girl, that girls could just as strong as men if they wanted to be. It was safe to say that he was in awe of both of you. Although, that didn’t stop him from woking you to the bone.

Your fingers hurt by the time you could see the top, not that it was that high. You’d climbed higher before. In fact, you had already climbed this very cliff face several times in the past few hours and every time you climbed it again it seemed just that little bit higher.

When you reached the top, you stood with your hands placed on your hips, wiping the sweat from your forehead. A victory pose of sorts as you realised in the feeling of finally being done with training for the day.

You leaned forward and cupped your hands around your mouth, shouting down at your obnoxious boyfriend. He was a nuisance, but he was your nuisance.

“Your turn!”

He looked up at you with a smug grin. “I’ll be there in less than a minute, watch me!”

Just like that, he was clambering up the side of the small cliff. You chuckled, watching as he puffed all the air out of his lungs only to quickly suck it back in, a strange way to regulate his breathing but it seemed to work for him.

He was determined to show you that he wasn’t tired, that he could keep going even after such a long day. For the most part, he was determined and would push past any hardship or obstacle that got in his way. However, it was usually Sokka that would complain and moan about his exhaustion after a long day of training. Well, when it was the others who are pushing him to his limits.

When he was in charge, like today, he never quite had to push himself too far. You had climbed the cliff twice as many times as him at least, all due to him insisting that it was more important for you to build up your stamina since he was already an ace at climbing. A lie, but you knew better than to complain. After all, it really would benefit you to train but, that being said, it would have benefitted him to work a little harder today too.

He looked almost like a spider as he climbed, long limbs moving far too quickly as he scrambled up.

“Sokka, you should slow down. You need to look at what you’re grabbing,” You warned, hoping he would heed your warning.

Of course, however, he didn’t. Why would he listen to you when he had this in the bag? He was going to impress you and beat his best time. Or, at least, that’s what he thought.

It all happened so suddenly really, although it also seemed to pass in slow motion at the same time when Sokka grabbed onto an unstable rock. It crumbled and broke apart from the cliff, his hand falling as it lost the grip that had been supporting him. In a panic, he fell backwards and soon he was plummeting down.

“Sokka!”

When he came to, Sokka found himself in his tent. He went to sit up only for the stabbing pain in his ribs to force him back down.

“Careful, I only just bandaged your wounds.” Katara scowled at her brother, clearly unimpressed that he had managed to cause himself so much harm thanks to his carelessness.

“Where’s y/n?”

The waterbender sighed, “Outside worrying about you. I’ll go get her, she can look after you now since you’re awake.”

You rushed into the tent the second Katara told you he was awake, only to find him forcing himself through the pain it caused him to sit up. Before he could blink you were by his side, hand resting gently on his bandaged back as you helped him.

“You okay? That was quite a fall. If Katara wasn’t here-”

“I’m fine, just a- a scratch,” He insisted, hissing once again as you lightly pushed a finger to the bruise on the side of his head.

You raised a brow. “Fine? You’ve been out cold for hours, and here I was thinking the fall would have knocked some sense into you.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha. I know, I should have listened to you and taken it slow, it’s my fault. I’m sorry, okay?”

With a hum, you nodded. You were just worried, not angry. Well, maybe you were a little angry at him but not as much as Katara.

When he breathed a sigh of relief, you pushed your finger a little harder into the bruise, causing him to whine in pain and swat your hand away, before walking over to the other side of the tent.

“It’s going to be cold tonight, put this on.” You threw him a new shirt, one without stains of his own blood, to wear since Katara had taken the other one to wash it.

What was funny was that Sokka couldn’t even raise his arms high enough to pull it over his head and, instead, ended up carefully twisting his body this way and that to try and find a way to do it that wouldn’t hurt.

You rolled your eyes and sat beside him, cooing, “You’re so cute when you’re struggling.”

He stopped trying altogether and scowled at you. “Are you going to help me or not?”

With a giggle, you reached out and helped him put it on, pulling his arms through it carefully so that you wouldn’t cause him any more pain.

“There, better?”

He hummed but soon seemed to change his mind. “It might stop hurting if you kiss it better.”

You chuckled again at his weak attempt to flirt but gave in nonetheless. “I’ll just have to kiss you until you feel better then.”

You started with the bruise on his head, pressing your lips to it ever so lightly. Then, your fingers lifted the material of his shirt so that you could place a gentle kiss against his bandaged torso.

When you were done with that, you were not surprised to find Sokka with his lips puckered as he waited for you. Sighing at his silliness, you shook your head but gave him what he wanted regardless.

Your lips connected for a brief, sweet moment and his hand came up to cup the back of your head. When you parted, he smiled widely. “I don’t think that was enough, I think I need more.”

The cheek of this boy even when he was pretty badly injured would never fail to amaze you. He could so easily push aside any pain and ignore any danger just to try and cheer you up. He could see the look in your eyes, he knew something was off from the moment you walked in.

As much as that cheeky grin and playful personality helped, however, this time it just wasn’t enough.

You looked away, gathering your thoughts as the conversation quickly turned from light to heavy.

His hand reached out, fingers gently turning you back to face him as he tilted his head. “What is it?”

“I just- I was really worried today,” he was silent, waiting for you to go on, “You were lucky; if Aang didn’t jump in to slow the impact, you could have died. Don’t you get that? You could have died today.”

His expression softened and he reached out for your hand, holding it in his own. “I know, I’m sorry. But it’s fine because Aang was there to catch me, just about, and Katara was there to bandage me up and-”

“You don’t get it Sokka. You could have died. Not fighting the Fire Nation, just falling from a cliff. Why did you have to be so careless? You knew that you could have fallen but you acted recklessly anyway!”

You pulled your hand away from him and turned away once again, anger bubbling inside you. It all slipped away, however, when he mumbled one more quiet apology.

“Sorry. I just- I’m scared, okay? I- I’m afraid of losing you.”

His head rested against your shoulder as he wrapped his arms around you, holding your warmth close. “I’m sorry, I know it must have scared you. I didn’t mean to get hurt, I won’t be so careless again.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

#sokka x reader #sokka angst #sokka fluff #atla #avatar the last airbender #sokka avatar #anon #sokka avatar the last airbender #✌#request #✌ anon

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azenkii · 4 years

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Sokka Headcanons

because he is CRIMINALLY underappreciated

he taught Katara to swim (which might be weird, seeing as she's the waterbender, but it's how things turned out)

his boomerang is his father's (actually canon)

he made his necklace himself, with whale bone from the first hunt he ever went on. as he grows, he adds more pieces of bone to it from various different hunts

as we all know, his art skills could use a little work. BUT he’s freakishly good at drawing things like schematics and blueprints and plans? he draws perfect circles and straight lines like it’s nothing and everyone is a little bit terrified of him

he's also good at face paint. he's not good at normal paint, but he's a goddamn master with face paint. it's weird

really good at math (also pretty much canon)

his favourite colour is not, surprisingly, blue. it’s white. he is locked in an endless debate with zuko over whether or not white counts as a colour

accidentally invents things on the daily

he's scarily good at rote memorization

can crack his knuckles really loudly

he has opinions on things that shouldn't be opinionated. for instance: he has a favourite cardinal direction (surprisingly, it's not south. it's north) and a favourite kind of cloud (cirrus)

he has really long fingers. they're long and thin and spindly and sokka no stop sokka stop making the spider hands–

Because of the aforementioned long fingers, he's the best at making shadow puppets

he's good at recognising faces, but not names

he dreams a lot but he never remembers it

he can whistle. when he left the south pole, he wasn't very good at it, but by the time he was made southern water tribe ambassador he could whistle like a bird

when the war was over, the first thing he bought was a thick leather journal and a ton of ink. while everyone recovered, he went off into the wilderness surrounding the fire nation capital and documented every animal and plant he thought looked cool

he went back to look for his boomerang and space sword in the forest. he found them!

he visits and trains with master piandao regularly, and is now considered a swordfighting master

he does actually know how to sew. his mother taught him. he just doesn't like doing it because he always pricks himself with the needle, and after his mother died it felt a bit like sacrilege

whenever he goes out on a trip with someone from the original gaang, and they end up on the road, he insists on stopping so he can go hunt something. It's become a tradition by now

when he was eight, he got a fishhook stuck in his hand. it was Not Fun

when he's nervous or stressed, he bites his nails. if he's really nervous or stressed, he taps out rhythms against his necklace

he can keep up a beat pretty well, but dont try giving him an actual instrument to play. It doesn't matter what instrument it is, he will break it somehow

the first time he grew a beard, he grew it all the way out until it looked exactly like his wang fire beard. Zuko threatened to burn it off. Katara threatened to freeze it until it got so heavy his head fell off his neck. Sokka kept it for a grand total of one week before he caved and shaved it

he has a surprisingly high heat tolerance (as opposed to katara, who only ever visits the fire nation in winter)

he can jump really high. actually, in most cases, it's easier for him to jump than to climb

he can cook, but he's not very good. He can make something edible, but not tasty

he holds the record in the southern water tribe for most sea prunes held in mouth at one time

he snuck into ba sing se university for a day and taught nonsense history under the guise of being a guest professor. when he was discovered, he simply bowed and announced, "and that's why you always check your facts for yourselves, kids!"

similarly, he once posed as a philosopher named Wan Fai-Ah. he had almost two hundred people listening rapturously to one of his spiels when katara climbed onto a nearby roof and yelled "SOKKA STOP MANIPULATING THE PUBLIC"

he once went searching for wan shi tong's library again. He didn't find it.

he's bisexual and i'm not saying jet was his sexual awakening but jet was his sexual awakening

(psst his taste in men is just as bad as his sister's)

suki's the only person in their group who likes men and has decent taste, because zuko's got garbage taste in men too and aang likes everyone

he gets really bad morning breath

he shaves his own hair (also canon!)

despite his best efforts, he never develops anything more than an average tolerance for spicy food

he and zuko constantly compare their height. when sokka grows taller, he doesn't stop gloating for three days

he's really good at braiding hair

he can't sing or dance to save his life

he decided to get into poetry after the war. it didn't work out. At all.

he once worked at the jasmine dragon for a month, just to unwind. it was mostly relaxing, except for the entitled upper-class customers who came in every now and again. Sokka may or may not have 'accidentally' dumped a cup of tea over Lady Huamei's dress.

he regularly takes zuko to the theatre for no reason other than to force him to watch horrible, terrible plays. Sometimes toph tags along too. Zuko's suffering is the best entertainment they've got.

He and katara have a running Sibling Thing™ where, instead of greeting each other like normal people, they step on each other's toes. this sometimes results in a five-minute long tussle as they fight to be the first one to step. yes, they once did this in front of a delegation of national officials. yes, sokka ended up on the floor with katara standing over him triumphantly.

after the war, he learned how to use every weapon he could get his hands on. He also learned that he's terrible at scythes and war hammers.

he prefers night to day. Especially when there's a full moon out.

In conclusion, stan sokka

#he deserves Everything #give him respect he's earned it #atla #avatar #sokka #headcanons

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chaoticevilbean · 3 years

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Firebender!Sokka AU

Just a Scene Part 1/?

Pakku and Katara separated from their hug, smiles still firmly in place. Katara opened her mouth to continue their conversation, but snapped it shut as a realization hit her.

“Where’s Sokka,” she asked, her head swiveling to look for the other. Pakku’s brow furrowed as the waterbending master came to the same thought. The boy hadn’t come over, despite his sister’s exclamation at the sight of her old teacher and now grandfather.

“He’s over there, Sugar Queen,” Toph pointed from where she stood by Zuko and Suki. All three seemed at least slightly confused and waiting for some sort of explanation. Katara glanced over at where Toph pointed, seeing her brother speaking with the masters, and strode over to the rest of the team. It would be better to clarify the situation now instead of waiting.

Master Pakku did not walk over to another person. He did not call after his student and granddaughter. He did not move in any way besides turning to face the other adults. His mind was reeling at the sight before him.

Sokka was speaking to Piandao with more respect than the waterbender had ever seen the boy use. He spoke in a similar manner to Jeong Jeong, but he was also looser with the former admiral, occasionally nudging the man on the shoulder in a playful way. Bumi did not receive any formality or the respect he might elicit as a king. Instead, the royal threw his arm around Sokka, and even from his distanced position, Pakku could hear the terrible jokes his colleague was interjecting with. All four of the people were acting friendly with each other, and Sokka fit in with them like the winning move in a game of Pai Sho.

Pakku had heard about the other masters’ experiences with the Avatar and his friends. He had shared his own at the same meeting. He would’ve joined the group if it had just been the strange behaviors. He was not in any way prepared for when Jeong Jeong threw a fireball at Sokka’s head and the teen caught it, laughing like it was an inside joke.

His grandson… his Water Tribe grandson… was a firebender. A strong one if he could catch such a close attack with the ease he did. And had he not been informed from the others about the firebender of non-Fire Nation heritage? The very same men now conversing as though there had been no fire, no strangeness to the situation. His grandson, the very same he had passed off as an annoyance; who he’d assumed was as idiotic as his actions; who was cocky and was cut from the very mission he’d joined despite having a team to protect; that very same boy was one of the most powerful, if not the most, powerful firebender in the world.

And the boy hadn’t even greeted Pakku in passing. He’d simply joined the other elders and struck up easy conversation. It hit home in him more than learning that he’d attacked his granddaughter. More than finding out that Kanna had left him and married another. It somehow even hit harder than realizing he had driven his love further away by not fighting for what she’d believed in so passionately. Sokka had no reason to greet the waterbender. When had Pakku been anything but brusque with him? Shown any interest in the boy or his life? He’d ignored him for Katara and her strong bending.

It seemed Pakku was destined to keep driving his family away.

~_~_~_~_~_~

Sokka wasn’t paying attention to his sister’s reunion with her teacher. He knew she’d missed the grouchy old man despite the fact that he was, well, grouchy. Sokka could now understand it better himself, having missed Jeong Jeong after their group had had to flee. So he gave the two space and instead moved over to greet his friends and masters.

“Master Piandao,” he greeted, bowing to his mentors, “Master Jeong Jeong… Bumi.” For the last man, he changed the bow to that of the Earth Kingdom, beaming at the King as he did so. It really was just for show when it came to the royal.

The bows were instantly returned, despite the superior positions of the elders not demanding it. Jeong Jeong rose swiftly from his, making intense eye contact as he did. Sokka remained calm, remembering the first time he’d been subject to the almost-glare.

“Is there something you need, Master Jeong Jeong?” he tried. It was apparently the wrong move as the deserter’s gaze hardened sharply.

“You’re injured.”

“No…”

“Then why did you call me by name?” Sokka frowned before the question clicked.

“You seriously think I’m injured just because I didn’t call you J2?”

“J2,” Piandao repeated, a grin forming quickly at the nickname.

“We can discuss my questionable naming skills later,” the younger firebender intervened before the conversation could wander. “Now is the time to discuss what is going on and what is going to happen before we try to avoid dying tomorrow.”

“When did you develop aangxiety?” Bumi asked as he threw his arm across the teen’s shoulders. A few chuckles escaped before he could stop them, not that he was trying that hard.

“I’ve always had anxiety. Then I got a little airhead and suddenly I can’t go a day with aangst.”

“Agni, there’s two of them,” Piandao muttered, running a hand down his face. Jeong Jeong let out a huff of amusement at the duo, who were giggling at the puns. “What is it you wished to talk about, Sokka?” the master swordsman continued, now making his own attempt at changing the subject. The Water Tribe warrior raised an eyebrow at the mock pain in his master’s expression but obliged the man.

“I wanted to discuss what you’re all doing together, as well as the plan for Sozin’s Comet. Both Aang and Momo,” Sokka directed that last part at Bumi, “have disappeared. We know that Aang will likely show up when the Comet comes to fight the Firelord, but we don’t have a solid plan. Until Zuko informed us of Ozai’s plan to wipe out the Earth Kingdom, Aang was going to wait for the Comet to pass before he fought.”

“So our intel was correct,” Jeong Jeong stated solemnly. “Ozai plans to destroy the other nations as his grandfather destroyed the Air Nomads.”

“It will be easier to thwart the plan if Aang handles the Loserlord,” Bumi earned himself a couple of snickers at that, “and we have these kids to help.”

“I believe it would be best to discuss this with the other masters.”

“There are more of you?” Sokka asked curiously, wondering what other old people had gathered.

“There are a few, but only one will likely be available with all of our preparations. General Iroh, the Dragon of the West.” The teen nodded at that. It fit with what he had seen of the group's apparent association.

“I’ll go get the others and then you can lead us to your camp. I’m guessing you’re going to take back Ba Sing Se?”

“Yes. We will wait,” Piandao told his former pupil. Sokka bowed once more to the trio before hurrying back to his team. He passed Pakku again, surprised that the old man had not joined his companions seeing as Katara was no longer speaking to him. He ignored the thought in favor of addressing his friends.

“Gaang, pack up quickly. We’re gonna head to the old people camp and plan for tomorrow. Do any of you want to forgo the meeting?”

“I’m coming and you can’t stop me,” Toph stated firmly. Sokka nodded and looked to the others.

“I’ll sit this one out,” Suki said. “I think I’d be better with helping preparations.”

“I’ll sit out, too,” Katara added, drawing surprised faces from her comrades. “I don’t think I’ll be much help with the planning.”

“Alright. Zuko?”

“I don’t know. I’m not one for planning but I know more about the Fire Nation.”

“Well, your uncle is here, and he’ll be at the meeting.” The prince startled slightly at the comment, likely remembering their parting. He’d never mentioned the terms they ended on, but the group assumed they weren’t good ones.

“I’ll go,” Zuko finally decided. “But I might leave.”

“Understandable. I’ll keep that in mind. Now put the gear away and we’ll head out.” The team split up seamlessly, heading to do the jobs they each unspokenly had. The only ones who didn’t move to join were Toph and Sokka, the latter because the earthbender had latched onto his arm.

“Not so fast, Snoozles.”

“What’s the matter, Toph?” Sokka studied his younger companion. For the first time in a long while, she appeared uncertain or uneasy. The firebender couldn’t figure out which.

“Why don’t you like your grandfather?” she inquired quietly. It was so uncharacteristic of her and, coupled with the weird question, caused the young chief to pause.

“My grandfather? Both my grandfathers are dead,” he informed the girl before him.

“Pakku’s marrying your Gran-Gran, at least according to Katara.”

“Oh.” He paused again. “I don’t… not like Pakku. It’s just that I don’t really have anything to talk to him about. He’s closer to Katara than me.”

“But you ignored him.”

“He was talking to Katara.” Toph opened her mouth to continue, but Sokka cut her off, feeling the conversation was going nowhere. “Is this all you were concerned about? Because he’s a good man, if still a little sexist. And I have no problems with him. So let’s help the others and then we can head out. If you’re still worried, talk to him on the way over.” The preteen huffed, blowing her bangs to the side as she turned on her heel and stomped away. Sokka sighed as he went over to pack up his tent and help Katara with the sleeping roll. He would definitely need to watch how he acted around his apparent-grandfather.

~_~_~_~_~_~

The Gaang were at the large camp where the Order of the White Lotus, the group that the masters belonged to, had set up for the taking back of Ba Sing Se. Suki and Katara quickly left to lead Appa to a safe place and begin aiding in the preparations. Zuko and Toph noticeably pressed closer to Sokka, drawing comfort from the father of the group. He noticed their tension and discreetly started rolling his tile, knowing that the motion would likely only draw attention from his teammates. Predictably, the flanking duo relaxed at the sight of the round piece of wood. Sokka would need to paint it again after the meeting.

Piandao walked off to wake up Iroh, who had taken an early night, while the others entered a large tent with a table and exactly eight chairs within, one on each end and three on either side. A map was weighted on the wooden surface, several Pai Sho tiles marking different spots of the world. Jeong Jeong and Bumi sat on the right side of the table with Pakku across from them, a seat saved for Piandao next to the waterbender. Sokka moved to sit near Jeong Jeong but found Toph pushing Zuko into the chair. Upon moving to sit across from the prince, Sokka was shoved out of the way by Toph, who smirked as she made herself a rock stool.

“Toph, from the bottom of my heart, why?” She smirked more.

“You’re forgetting that I’m nobility. I know how we’re supposed to be seated, Snoozles.”

“Yeah, I do, too,” he retorted. “The most important people go on either end, and the ones on their right are the second most important. But I’m not the highest in position. Zuko is.”

“Zuko’s a prince,” Toph smiled smugly. “And I’m a lady.”

“Exactly. So why did you reverse our positions?”

“You are absolutely right. I’ll fix that for you.” With a stomp, the stool was pushed back into the ground and Toph stalked over to Zuko. She tugged him up and dragged him over to the other side of the table, pressing him into the chair she’d just vacated. With yet another smirk, she sat in his old seat, feet once again propped up.

“Toph, I’m not higher than a lady, and definitely not a prince.”

“Oh really?” Sokka did not like that look. “Remember when you and Katara told us about the Southern Water Tribe’s hierarchy? Well, I do. Actually really interesting to learn about the Water Tribe since no one ever thought to teach me. You’re going to teach me more when Loserlord’s dead. Anyways, you and Katara are royalty by your Tribe’s standards. You’re the children of the Chief. Only, Katara told us something after you left to meditate.”

“She didn’t,” the firebender groaned out, throwing his head back in annoyance.

“She did,” the little earthbender responded proudly. “You, Snoozles, are the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, which means you not only outrank me, but also everyone else here including our resident prince.”

Sokka didn’t attempt to fight it at that point. He simply sat down at the head of the table between his two friends, resigned to just accept Toph’s unusual behavior. Normally, she would take any opportunity to be the one in charge, but here she was, pushing the lead onto the older kid.

“Sokka, are you really the Chief?” Pakku’s questions caught three adolescents off guard, Zuko having been fully invested in seeing who would win the argument.

“Yeah,” the boy confirmed, settling back as they waited for Piandao and Iroh. “Dad left with the other warriors, so I was made Chief. Gran-Gran’s Chief in Absence.”

“She told me such, but I assumed her son was still leading.”

“That was Dad. He knew that they weren’t going to be back for a long time, so he seceded the position to me. He was following tradition and passing it to me as I was the eldest male and his son. Should’ve just given it to Gran-Gran.”

“But you’re fifteen,” Jeong Jeong interrupted, leaning forward with a glare. “How long ago did you become Chief?”

“It was about four years ago. I was eleven.”

“Wait, you ran a nation at eleven?”

“Not you, too! C’mon Zuko!”

“You ran a nation at eleven! Yet when I came for Aang, you said you were a warrior, not a chief!”

“Why are you all shouting?”

Everyone sitting at the table jerked towards the entrance to the tent, staring in surprise at the duo standing there. Piandao walked in first, sitting between Pakku and Zuko and peering around the prince at his old student. General Iroh entered after, moving to take his place across from Sokka, at the other head of the table.

“Apparently no one but the Gaang knew Sokka’s a king.”

“Toph! Chief, not king!”

“Same thing.” There was a loud thud as the teen’s forehead hit the wood, which was repeated at a lower volume as he began to bang lightly with his skull against the surface. It continued for about thirty seconds with the others staring amusedly at him, before Zuko slid his hand between the two opposing forces. Sokka looked up at his friend with a tiny pout before exhaling and pulling himself upright.

“Whatever, let’s just start this meeting. General Iroh, what are your plans for tomorrow?” The atmosphere snapped into a tenser feel, a seriousness falling over the group.

“Earthbenders will aid in our entrance, with all firebenders directly behind. Once we are within, we masters and the more experience benders will combat those aided by the Comet. All other warriors will begin taking down the lesser threats, such as nonbenders and earthbenders. We assumed your team would have a plan for fighting my brother.” Sokka nodded, lips pursed in concentration as he studied the map. He was able to figure out what most of the pieces marked, and it was with that that his mind worked out a strategy. He began rolling his tile again, something he had stopped when entering the tent. It was a movement done under the table but still visible to his friends.

“There’s going to be an airfleet, correct?” Iroh tipped his head in confirmation at the inquiry. “That means that they can travel far and fast in the relatively short time of the Comet. And they could split up easily to cover more area. It’s a given that Ozai will be there with the fleet. When Aang comes to fight, that will separate them from the ships. We’ll then need to take them out, or else the destruction will be exponentially larger.”

“No one but powerful and loyal Fire Nation engineers ever saw the blueprints,” Piandao commented. “We don’t have the time to get them and figure out how to take them down or find a way around the crew.”

“Why would you- oh, you guys don’t know. Makes sense.”

“What don’t we know?”

“I invented airships. You won’t need to get blueprints, I’ll just go there myself. They’re made of metal, so Toph will need to come as well. A smaller team will be better, so us and maybe one or two more people. That will nullify the fleet and prevent most of the destruction. Someone will need to take out Azula as well. She’ll be controlling the Fire Nation while Ozai makes the attack. I would suggest Zuko for that, as he’s got the best knowledge of the Caldera and Azula’s tactics.”

“Regarding your attack, I think that it would be best if you sent your most powerful earthbenders underground with a strong group of warriors. If you go deep enough, only the Dai Li could possibly sense you and you could make an attack from within the city, forcing the soldiers to fight on two fronts. From what Zuko told me, most of the Dai Li went with Azula. Maybe all of them but it’s better to assume some are there. They could be defeated easily by Bumi, so he definitely should go. If the nonbenders went through the tunnels after the main group, then some of the weaker earthbenders could make separate paths and pop up at different places throughout Ba Sing Se. Not only would that ensure that they aren’t attacked by Dai Li, it would also allow them to sneak up on the nonbenders and any other combatants they might meet. Warn them that some people have been brainwashed. We don’t have a way to figure out who and with the Fire Nation, who knows what they did with that technology.”

“Healers and medics should remain behind for the first ten minutes or so before following the second group underground. That way they won’t be attacked. They should wear something to distinguish them from soldiers. Maybe have them wear white, as it’s not going to be a color that blends in. If they help everyone regardless of the side they’re on, then they also won’t be attacked.”

“When did you have the time to plan this?” Jeong Jeong asked, his tone shocked.

“He’s the Schedule Master,” Toph spoke up in glee. She always loved seeing people on the opposite side of Sokka’s plans.

“Right now, it doesn’t matter when I made the plan. We just need to figure out who will go and where they’ll go to. Toph and I for the airfleet, Aang fighting Ozai, and Zuko with someone else against Azula. Katara can take on the role of both healer and fighter, so she can fit anywhere, and Suki’s a great warrior.”

“Very well.” Iroh moved a few of the markers around, rearranging them to represent the modified plan. A white tile in the Caldera’s location was moved to the center instead of the outer edge and a yellow one was placed on top of a red. Zuko and Aang. Without waiting to see the tile that Iroh would move for himself, Sokka took his white lotus and placed it on the coast of the Earth Kingdom most likely to be attacked.

“I see you kept the tile,” Piandao mused, a proud look in his eyes.

“Yes. You gave it to me, after all.” It came to the boy’s realization that the Order of the White Lotus probably had some special meaning to the tile, especially since they held Pai Sho in such a high regard that even Jeong Jeong had a board.

“Piandao was right to do so,” Bumi stated with a finality that moved them back to the plan.

“The strategies would work, and it is a thought none of us had to include healers in our battle. A fine idea to lessen any causalities on both sides. However, we need to decide on the whereabouts of your team. And we need to discuss the effects the Comet might have on you, given your peculiarity.”

“Katara can go with Zuko. She’ll fight with him and keep him alive. That’s extremely necessary, both because he’s a friend and because he’s next in line. Zuko, you’ll need to take over as fast as possible. The Fire Sages should be there due to Azula’s possible coronation. I don’t really understand how all that works, but if they’re there and you defeat her, you still have the most right to the throne outside of your father and any position held by Azula is rightfully yours. They’ll listen to you if Katara’s there to yell at them.”

“Are you sure we can take my sister? She’s insane and incredibly powerful.”

“Who knows dragon fire? Not her. Who is the only person Lan stays with besides myself? Not her. You are powerful enough to stop her in a fight, and you have the world’s greatest waterbender to aid you if anything goes wrong, which it will. You can do this.”

“Who is Lan?” Sokka, Toph, and Zuko all stared at Pakku for a moment, before their expressions changed. Toph was grinning with mischief, knowing perfectly well how the reactions would go. Zuko became utterly embarrassed as he would have to admit he was special when it came to the little Bluey. Sokka was grinning like Toph, but his was in pride at the thought of showing off his baby. With steady hands, the Spirit-touched boy reached into his shirt and withdrew the complacent being.

What occurred next was hysterical in many different ways. Jeong Jeong tipped over his chair as he jumped back in his seat, and Bumi barely managed to get out of his own before it, too, was knocked over. Piandao fell into Pakku, who caught the man and tilted back as far as he could go. Iroh sat frozen and tense at the end, eyes unbelieving. A huge slew of expletives exploded into the air from various masters, drawing Toph into a cackling fit. Sokka was clutching Lan protectively against his chest, angry at how no one seemed to appreciate his baby, and Zuko was trying to comfort the boy without breaking down into laughter.

Lan, sensing her caretaker’s distress and woken from her nap, wrapped carefully around Sokka’s neck and growled. When the attention was successfully drawn her way, she moved further up into the black hair above her, and hit her small paws against the firebender’s head. It was an action that somehow conveyed “be nice” without any previous knowledge of Lan’s antics.

“You all need to be nicer to my baby,” Sokka pouted, gently tugging said baby into his arms again. “She deserves better.”

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punkinroses · 4 years

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Alright gang I got two rounds of next gen kids done, let's move onto the ones who names I struggled the most with. The previous two posts can be found here and here, showing Zuko and Kataras family, and Sokka and Sukis families, respectively. So, here's the next family on the list:

Taang Kids

Jai Bei Fong is the eldest child of Avatar Aang and Toph Bei Fong. An Earthbender trained in the art of Metalbending by his mother, he has been requested numerous times to take over her school by others. He has simply refuted numrrous times that those running it now are more than capable and prefers to keep to a more minor teaching role in coaching. He has become a Pro Bender instead and has become a part of a very famous team -- and boy does he love to showboat, even if just a little. He does coach minor league and junior teams. He uses a lot of his jovial cockiness for the purpose of getting people to underestimate him and his skills, and to aggravate his opponents to cause them to mess up so he can strike at the perfect time. He has, however, been dealing with a lot of frustration in his own personal life with relationships that never seem to lead anywhere, the struggles of a single father and feeling a responsibility to try and help his family more with his own father gone and them all being...not really about it. Jai is considered the most handsome between him and his brother, with styled black (greying) hair, green eyes and fair skin with his fair share of scarring from fighting. He chooses to wear a lot of darker greens and silvers to match his metal, always wearing a metal cuff with him presented to him from his wife.

Jai lost his wife Reilah a mere few years sgo but it has felt like an eternity without her. She was his biggest supporter in his matches...and a bit of a rival for him, as they had been Pro Benders on separate teams. They always made playful bets on what would happen if one lost -- and one of those times he used to propose to her. He still lost that fight, but she told him that she wouls have said yes regardless. She was mischievous and free spirited, and a little hotheaded. But she was a very formidable Firebender who picked up some tips to better her bending from her in laws. Her career, however, would be cut after she fell ill. Her illness spread slowly and try as they might, there was no permanent solution to heal her and she eventually succumbed to it, breaking his and their daughters hearts. She had short dark brown hair, piercing golden eyes and tanned skin and had an intricate tattoo sleeve that included Jais name and their daughters name.

He has tried to find love again after her, as that was something she was very poignant on. "Don't you dare try and shut your heart off. Don't swear off finding someone who can make you happy. Or I'm coming back and lighting a fire under your ass." But, so far, all of those attempts have failed, either because of a lack of chemistry between the two and from rifts between his daughter and some of his potential girlfriends.

Their only child is named Anzu. She is a rough and tumble, bright eyed Earthbender who has her Dad wrapped around her finger, especially after the loss of her mother. She struggles connecting her extended family, however, as it feels like they all grew apart way back when, but she idolizes her Grandma and Toph is rather close to her as well. She's been struggling to learn Metalbending, but she's stubborn and does not want to give it up. She's also very adventurous, loving every "life changing field trip" she and her Dad go on, and has a collection of various souvenirs on a shelf in her room. She's on her own Pro Bender team that she's currently struggling to whip into shape and has been dealing with that stress on top of trying to be happy for her dad finding love again...but with the ones he brings home constantly trying to replace her Mom. Anzu has shoulder length black hair that she keeps in a messy ponytail, gold-green hazel eyes, and tan skin.

Nyima Bei Fong is the second born child of Aang and Toph. A skilled Earthbender who found herself drawn to the art of Sandbending as well as Metalbending, she has pushed herself to make her own lot in life. She has opened her own resorts across the Earth Kingdom, and one that'll be opening on Ember Island soon. She has wanted to open one close to one of the Air Temples as a way to find a reconnection with her Dad, but her sisters are absolutely against it. She's a very business savy woman who also wants to expand into other new horizons. She's also a complete smartass and doesn't take anyone's nonsense. In her youth, she, like her sisters, was very vocal in reformation to make better changes across all four nations and Republic City, and she was always the most ready to go full out for a cause, even if it stressed both of her parents out. She's claimed she's held herself to a higher standard in recent years and wants to find success while creating a relaxing environment for everyone. Though, if you press the right buttons, her old streak may come out. She's got short, curled black hair, grey eyes and fair skin, and wears muted colors that's topped off with a colorful, stylish scarf.

She has been in an on/off relationship with her childhood romance, Bo. The two have been almost married on four separate occasions, but things have always put a stop to it -- usually things started by Nyima and what people have suggested could be a fear of commitment. Bo is a good humored, free spirited boy raised in the Air Acolytes by his father Teo and has always had a passion for romance and making a positive change in the world. And he's always been able to pull her old spirit out of her when she needs it. He has medium length brown hair with some pulled back in a ponytail, grey-brown eyes and fair skin.

Their eldest child is their daughter Jesa. She is a happy go lucky girl who is very close to her Dad and trying to develop a closer relationship with her Mom, but sometimes feels like she can be too busy and lost a sense of herself, especially when finding old pictures of how her Mom used to be. The two have gotten a bit of a closer bond upon the discovery that she is an Airbender, like her Grandfather before her, though it's lead to even more tension between her parents and aunts who have polar oppositr ideas as to what Jesas' furure should be. She wants to define her own future, like her Mother did for herself and how her Grandmother did. Her best friend in the world is Lian, who she's always felt a big connection to. And after she finds out she's the Avatar...it leads to a whole new world of adventure. She has long dark brown hair, grey-green eyes and fair skin and she wears bright colors, namely golds and greens to honor both her heritages and and she wears a headband similar to her Grandmothers.

Their youngest child is their toddler son Bisang. He's a rambunctious little boy who loves wandering around the resorts and getting to be strapped up in a baby sling while his Dad air glides through the air. He knows no fear and loves to be unabashedly himself. He also is a bit of Mamas boy and clings to her and has been showing promising signs of being an Earthbender.

Tophs final pregnancy shockingly resulted in the birth of triplets. The eldest of three being Hien Bei Fong. A gifted Airbender, she was the first to get her Airbending tattoos after mastering the 37 levels of the practice and it's something she holds in great reverence. She has since gone on to become a leader amongst the reborn nation of Air Nomads and sits among the council, residing on Air Temple Island in Republic City. She works with the newest wave of Airbenders to teach them the old ways and do what she can to revitalize the culture her father almost lost. She was once far more free spirited as a teenager and even though she was a very loud advocate for change, she could find when she could relax and enjoy life. Now her top priority is the politics to keep the balance and to preserve history in the name of her Father -- something that has put a strain between her and Toph, who reminds her that Aang wanted her to be her own person and to have fun. She keeps her bangs shaved off to show her arrows, and the rest of her black hair pulled into a side braid, and has piercing grey eyes, and many remark her glare reminds them of an owl.

Hien has no spouse and prefers not to find someone to be married to. She actually used to date a lot in her youth, but as the years have gone by, she does not want to settle down with someone, feeling they'd never be able to selflessly love all of her and her responsibilities, nor could she do the same.

She does, however, have two children of her own from very brief, unknown relationships.

Her eldest child is probably the eldest out of all of the next generation, her daughter Dema. Dema has struck out on her own, away from her mother's strict thumb and rigid traditionalist nature. She ran with a circus for a time after first running away, before finding herself starring in the new and upcoming phenomenon of Movers. Her actress life has landed her a cushy life in Republic City, which has lead to awkward encounters with her mother, but she stands her ground on the decisions she has made for herself. And Toph always tells her "I think you looked amazing in your new film!" And she always laughs along. Currently, Dema is engaged to one of her more frequent costars, a nonbender named Raiden. She has long black hair, with long bangs, dark blue-grey eyes and and olive skin.

Her youngest is her teenaged son Tenki. Tenki is an Airbender wise beyond his years and is an avid bookworm. He's also the most relaxed member of the family and is very go with the flow, and wants to simply travel around, experience the world with his nothing but his books, and maybe rediscover Wan Shi Tongs library. He has a shaved head, having just gotten his arrows and dresses in typical Air Nomad clothes, with a prayer bead necklace on him at all times.

The second born of the triplets is Hayato Bei Fong. Nobody really knows why Hayato always had a chip on his shoulder. Born with the same airbending abilities as his sisters, he found himself struggling with it and his spiritual side, having more of a stubborn, hardheaded side to him. He rejected getting his tattoos and took to heart the idea of going out on your own and making a name for yourself, though it broke Aangs heart when he left after a fight and never fully reconciled with him. A fact that hit harder following Aangs untimely death. Hayato has since gone off to work in his mothers home town of Gaoling to help bring in industry and has been working on his own company to produce automobiles and motorcycles, rathering to focus on making waves towards the future than tapping into the past and to the spiritual side. Now if he could just get his mother to stop trying to drive one of his automobiles... Hayato has shoulder length black hair, usually pulled back into a bun, dark grey eyes and a small scar going through his left brow. He's discarded any bright Air Nomad colorings for blacks, greys, silvers, and dark greens.

Hayato has a husband named Kazu. He's a nonbender, and an author out to publish his own books and also writes news reports as a gig to bring home money. He has a taste for the darker fashion style of his husband and writing about the struggles and triumphs of mankind in a post war world. He has layered black hair, hazel eyes and pale skin.

The two are looking to adopt in the near future!

For now though, they are quite happy with their Crococat, Boots.

Born the last amongst the triplets and the subsequent youngest child, Huuro Bei Fong is her own terror twister of an Airbender. She was the wild child of her siblings, always getting into her own antics and probably the protestor that almost got her and her sisters arrested numerous times in their youth. She gained her tattoos after the creation of her own move. She has since moved to the restored Southern Air Temple and is always causing trouble for the new elders to show the newest generation how to have fun. She's also been known to be quite skilled on the Sungi Horn, much to somes delight...and others dismay. Huuro wants to help the Air Nomads to find fun, lively and searching for new purpose, to establish new traditions and celebrations while acclimating to the modern world. She keeps her black hair long, flowing and down, and her grey eyes always are full of life.

Huuro is here and looking for love around every corner! She wants to find someone who loves life as much as her and wants a life full of new experiences.

#atla #atla ocs #avatar oc #avatar the last airbender #avatar lian #atla oc #avatar ocs #taang #taang kids #avatar #zutara au #atla au #avatar au #toph bei fong #aang

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legendary-defender-of-fandoms · 5 years

Text

Avatar Hunk AU Sneak Peek

So, I wanted to have a few Avatar Hunk stories ready for @hunk-appreciation-week , but I bit off more than I could chew & don’t have any of them done. To compensate, I thought I would share some backstory, Headcanon, story ideas, and other stuff that I want to put in my Avatar Hunk AU.

Part 1 - The Premise

Before I get too far, I need to give credit where credit is due. @avatarpabu97 was the one who originated the idea of Hunk being the new Avatar. I thought it was cute at first, but the more they shared about their Headcanon & the more I thought about it, the more I realized how it was a fantastic idea. It fit with the cycle of the preceding Avatar shows, it gave our favorite sunshine boi a chance to shine, and it could lead to some awesome stories that combine the best of Voltron AND Avatar! @avatarpabu97 had a lot of cool ideas for what kind of Bender everyone would be and who would be where, and our ideas might overlap in some spots. But I had a few ideas of my own for how the Voltron folks would fit in the Avatar universe.

Anyway, the Premise. For my Avatar Hunk AU, it would be set in the world of Avatar about 70-80 years after the events of Legend of Korra. The tech levels would be more advanced than what we have (given their access to Spirit Energy, Bending, etc.), but not quite on, say, Star Trek levels. Korra has died (of old age, or at least peacefully in her home), and the world has started to look for the new Avatar. But given the technological advancements made since Korra’s time, this is seen as more of a side quest by the general public. The White Lotus & the New Air Nation dispatch a few teams, and some ambitious mover producers decide to create game shows to find the new Avatar, but for the rest of the world, life moves on. A new research and development corporation, Galra Tech, starts to make serious advances in harnessing Spirit Energy. The CEO, Zarkon Daibazaal, is a suave businessman who started his company to help people. But having all this power at his disposal leads to corruption, and the chief scientist for his company - his wife, Honerva - has been performing more and more unsettling experiments. They may have plans to invade the Spirit World to reap untold power, conquer the world, yadda yadda yadda. So the Avatar will be needed once more to prevent the exploitation of the Spirit World, another Spirits vs Humans war, and possibly the destruction of the planet? Haven’t planned that far yet.

Part 2 - The Characters

Hunk - Born and raised in Zhao Fu, Tsuyoshi Hershel Seidou Garrett is the only son of Tsuyoshi Garrett, an Earthbender (and a distant descendant of Haru from the original series), and Lisa Seidou, whose family immigrated from the Northern Water Tribe after the Earth Empire dissolved. His nickname was a misnomer, since he was a very small baby, but he quickly grew into it. His parents always knew their child was special (Spirits used to gravitate towards him when he was a baby, he took to Earthbending like a turtle duck to water when he was five, he started Metalbending & helping his father in the family Satomobile shop when he was ten, and he’s always been the sort to end disputes & help those in need), but they wanted Hunk to discover his destiny on his own, let him decide if he should let the world know he is the Avatar. Hunk earns an academic scholarship to the Hiroshi Sato School of Technology & Exploration at Republic City University, where he meets a colorful group of friends & discovers the dangers of Galra Tech’s Spirit Energy experiments. When Hunk starts to realize he’s the Avatar, he’s not sure what to think. I mean, the Avatar is supposed to save the world every other week, isn’t he? And the Avatar’s always been some confident badass who can take out armies by themselves & never backs down from a fight. Hunk wants to help however he can, but he’s not sure he has what it takes to be the Avatar. Until he realizes just how much is on the line, in which case Hunk decides it doesn’t matter if the Spirits made a mistake or if someone else should be the Avatar. He has the ability to help others, and he’ll do whatever he can to save the people he loves.

Gyrgan - Hunk’s animal companion, an Armadillo Lion. Hunk saved him from poachers when he was a cub, and the two have been inseparable ever since. Gyrgan is slow to trust new people, but once he has accepted someone in his life he becomes a giant lap kitty. Threatening those he loves, however, can lead to a death more terrifying than failing an Altean linguistics class. Hunk has taught him proper manners, so he’s not a menace & is permitted to be boarded at RCU. Much like Naga and Appa, he’s huge & can be ridden by Hunk, but typically won’t let others ride.

Lance McClain - A Waterbending mischief maker from Whale Tail Island, Lance and his family move to Zhao Fu when Lance is 12 years old. The two instantly bond over their love of “Nuktuk, Hero of the South” (who, much like Captain America and Wonder Woman, has evolved past his propaganda origins into a pop culture hero with multiple reboots, spinoffs, and Saturday morning cartoons). Lance isn’t quite the scholar Hunk is, but he does manage to get into RCU on a Probending scholarship & is excited to go to his sister Veronica’s alma mater. Until he finds a certain big-eyed mullet boy is on his Probending team & in his classes (not sure how far the Klance stuff is going to go, because I have little writing experience & even less experience with LGBT+ rep. But I want it to keep true to the 30+ years of Klance sexual tension that dates back to GoLion.) Still, when the world starts to fall apart, Lance won’t be left out of the action. (Might also make Lance a descendant of Sokka and Suki, but not sure how to work that into the story)

Katie “Pidge” Holt - The daughter of the head of the Technology department at RCU, Pidge is a child prodigy when it comes to computers. She manages to skip a few grades & get into the Hiroshi Sato School of Technology at the age of 15. Pidge has a pet Owl Cat named Rover who becomes instant besties with Gyrgan. Pidge’s mother was the daughter of Air Acolytes, and Pidge is a skilled Airbender. However, Pidge doesn’t really connect well with others. Until she gets to Computer Algorhithms class and meets Hunk, the first person close to her age who not only understands her techno jargon, but contributes with his own tech knowledge instead of scoffing & calling her a nerd or teacher’s kid. She’s not so sure about his buddy/roommate Lance, but he kind of grows on her & they eventually bond over their love of Space Sword video games. Pidge’s brother Matt was interning at Galra Tech when their experiments in the Spirit World started to spiral out of control, and Pidge will do whatever it takes to bring him home. Even if it means fighting the entirety of the Spirit World.

Keith Kogane - You know how Mako & Bolin had it rough, growing up on the streets after their parents were killed by a Firebender? Now imagine if either one had to do it alone & never knew what happened to their mother because she took off when they were babies. After Keith’s father is killed in a freak industrial accident, the young Firebender falls in with the Blade of Marmora Triad. He’s caught during a raid by Detective Takashi Shirogane and his partner Ulaz, a former Blade, but instead of putting him juvenile detention Shiro decides to give the kid a shot at a new life (maybe he shows mercy to someone the Blades ordered him to kill, or he has impressive Firebending skills, or Shiro’s a sucker for mullets). Keith starts channeling his aggression into Probending, playing against a certain hotshot from Whale Tail Island over the years, and he eventually gets into the Lin Beifong School of Criminal Justice at RCU. He’s less than thrilled to be on the school’s Probending team with Lance, and after Shiro disappears Keith considers dropping out. But when Shiro reappears (backstory below), Keith will put aside his petty rivalry with Lance and help Shiro with taking down Galra Tech once and for all.

Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane - A skilled Metalbender & brilliant detective, Shiro is everything Hunk thinks an Avatar should be. Intuitive, compassionate, a great leader, skilled in a fight - is there any chance Raava can pick this guy to save the world? But one night, Shiro & his partner Ulaz (not sure if they’re just platonic partners or if they’re also partner-partners, also not sure where Adam & Curtis will come in if they exist at all) are sneaking through a Galra Tech laboratory after receiving anonymous tips that Honerva was capturing Spirits to experiment on, an explosion destroys the building. Shiro loses his partner, his arm, and six months of his life (which Honerva May or May not be responsible for). When he finally returns to his Republic City apartment, he’s visibly distraught by the lost time & a vague memory of something horrible coming. Pidge & Hunk work together to make Shiro a prosthetic he controls with Metalbending, at which point Shiro realizes Hunk is the Avatar & warns him about the Spiritpocalypse. Hunk isn’t sure what Shiro expects him to do about it, and Shiro promises to stand by his side in the coming war to defend humanity & avenge Ulaz.

Allura & Coran will also be part of the story, but I haven’t quite figured out their motivations or backstories yet. Allura will be a powerful Healer from the Northern Water Tribe (not sure if she’ll be a Princess or the daughter of Alfor of Altea Industries, a company that was bought out by Galra Tech through shady deals, corporate espionage, and some old friend backstabbing), and Coran will be Varrick’s grandson & heir to Varrick Industries.

Part 3 - The Stories

I’ve only got a couple of plots right now, but more are coming.

1) A New Beginning - this will be a prologue for the series, confirming the death of Avatar Korra & introducing everyone to baby Hunk. We’ll also get to see Tsuyoshi, Lisa, and a bit of their extended family. Expect maximum cuteness. This is the only story I’ve started so far, and I have it all figured out in my head. I just need to transcribe it.

2) The Boy and the Armadillo Lion - this will be how Hunk meets Gyrgan & when he starts to suspect he might be the Avatar. There will be some tough stuff in here regarding poaching, but most of the animal torture will be implied. One of those “this guy needs to be returned to his mother/oh, don’t worry, he’ll be with his mother soon enough” situations. We’ll see “a boy and his future pet” bonding similar to Hiccup & Toothless, lots of fighting & chasing, and Baby’s First Avatar State. Also debating if I want Old Man Meelo to make a cameo. I love the idea of Meelo deciding to be a hermit in the Swamp because the Avatar’s going to need a cooky wise old mentor in the swamp, but it may raise too many questions if he watches Hunk fight off the poachers without doing anything to help. Maybe Hunk will ride through the Swamp on his way to RCU while wrestling with his insecurities about being the Avatar, and after fighting a few Swamp Hallucinations in the form of past Korra baddies Meelo will pop out of nowhere like Rafiki saying something like “You forgot to be the leaf!”

3) A series of vignettes about young Hunk developing his Bending skills. Earthbending sand castles with his dad, figuring out Metalbending while watching him work on his uncle’s racing Satomobile (oh, he has an Uncle Filo who races Satomobiles professionally), thinking he’s using Lavabending to weld a broken pipe (but Tsuyoshi realizes it’s Firebending), healing his friend Lance when he gets scraped up after trying to pull off a Nuktuk dive while their families vacation at Lake Laogai (which, without the Dai Lee hideout, is a fairly popular vacation spot), that sort of thing.

#dreamworks #voltron legendary defender #hunk garrett #keith kogane #lance mcclain #pidge gunderson #katie holt #takashi shirogane #avatar the last airbender #avatar hunk #legend of korra #au

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shtish · 5 years

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Just do the whole 1 through 35 of the dnd asks, you know you want to

@alextblue said: “For the DnD ask: 1, 2, 31, 32, 33″

So you’re both getting what you want, let’s get into this thing! I’ll put it under a readmore, because holy shit will this thing get long.

1. A favorite character you have playedIf I really have to choose… I loved playing Thora Snowfoot, my 11ft tall, draft horse-based centaur. Started out as a life cleric, but in the end killed her goddess and became one herself. (Long story short, the original goddess was basically lying to part of her worshippers and also causing the world to die, so Thora and the rest of her party decided to put a stop to it, and succeeded!) Although I’ve also recently enjoyed playing Bottle-O-Wine, a grumpy Kobold who has a drinking problem and a giant rivalry with another party member. Also Margret, the escaped biological experiment (dragonborn but reflavored) and a bardlock whose idea of being smooth when teleporting into a room she shouldn’t be in is saying “I was looking for the toilet?” before teleporting out again.

2. Your favorite character that someone else has playedEmmmmm… I think Tizen would be my favorite. Also from the Thora campaign (which was called Sever btw), but he was a very edgy warlock, whose patron was Thora’s goddess in her not-lying form. We called his race Fiends, basically a fancy way of saying “satyr” (minus the horny connotations… Well technically he had horns BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN)

3. Your favorite side questOkay, so this wasn’t technically a side quest in the traditional sense, but it was one of the most emotional moments from the Sever campaign to me. You need to know a bit of background about Thora for this: Thora became a cleric of Epona because of her mentor Rotlaus, an elderly centaur who saved her after she pissed off a moose. The animal broke her hind leg, and if it hadn’t been for Rotlaus stepping in and scaring it off she would have died. He then introduced her to Epona, and she learned pretty much everything from him. This was all fine and dandy, until the mindflayer invasion happened, and we all needed to storm a castle to get to the next barrier. We made the mistake of storming the wrong one, and Rotlaus died a horrible death while our party was teleported to safety. But what we did not know, was that the Stillborn God (god of death) gave Rotlaus the choice to return as a revenant, and to go around the country killing people to create a mindless undead army. Thora learned about someone killing entire villages, and heard murmurs of this killer being Rotlaus. She tried to contact him through Sending, which worked, but not well enough to actually have a long conversation. So she went to him on her own, to understand what had happened. It was at this point she learned he was a revenant, and she could not get him to stop murdering whoever was around to create this army. She left very distressed and feeling super guilty, and Rotlaus took his army to the city of Aesengaard. Thora swore to herself that come what may, she would find the way to fix this, asking her goddess for help. Epona went “No can do, he’s the Stillborn God’s property now”, and Thora got more determined to Fix This Shit.Fast forward to a few months later, when she learns that Epona is also Shub Niggorath, who used to be a powehungry Alhun named Glyoc. Thora gets very fucked up about this because she’s spent almost all of her life serving a lie, loses most of her magical power, and has to realize that she is her own power. Goddess or no goddess, Thora is the one that protected her friends, not Epona. She undergoes a ritual with the help of her friends (fucking emotional moment as well, as they have to give their favorite memories of Thora to help her stay grounded and herself and UGH MY HEART), which ends in her ascending to fucking godhood on her own.-This is where the favorite side quest comes in. Because Thora goes back to Aesengaard. Back to the army of shadows, back to her revenant mentor, and stands before them all. And she offers them a choice. Because they were murdered where they stood, and raised again to become an army to fight an enemy without getting a chance to say no. Because Rotlaus was given a choice with strings attached that he did not fully understand. Because he would never have gone around murdering people if he had had a proper choice. Because it was not fair. She could now offer them the choice. No strings attached. If they wanted to continue and fight, they could. If they wanted to go home, they could. No conditions. No fine print. “Under whose authority?” asks her mentor.”Mine.” Thora lifts her staff, and brings it down on the ground. A wave of energy comes off of her, weaving through the crowd of silent shadows, rippling outward through the ruins of Aesengaard.Nothing stirs. Until something does. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a shimmer of color come back into the form of a shade. And slowly, flesh starts to knit together. Some figures hesitate, but then they too begin to materialize. Clothes are torn, but visible. Hair flutters in the soft breeze, and feet shuffle on the floor. She is surrounded by a crowd of breathing, living people. There is no divine presence here. It’s just her, and them. An army of former shadows. Who have a choice now. And then someone collapses. And another. And another. They stop breathing and close their eyes, and simply fall to the ground. Her heart stops in her chest as she looks at what is happening around her. Has she done something wrong? Is Shub behind this? Did she make a mistake?And then she looks at their faces. They are peaceful. And as Rotlaus sinks to the ground, he looks up and smiles at her. His old smile. The one she hasn’t seen in a long time.”Thank you…”-Thora Snowfoot lifts her staff and brings it down on the ground again, harder. The earth begins to rumble as the buildings of the abandoned city begin to collapse into fissures that pull apart all around her. The bodies fall too. A perfect 200 foot circle of rubble forms around her, finally bringing the dead to rest. She lifts her head, smiles, and sends a message to her home.There is peace in Aesengaard.

4. Your current campaignThe newest one we’re playing and planning on keeping going long term is called Four Color Engine, but we’re also playing one called Happy Trails (which is underwater, pirate-ish, and definitely dark in many places). Another friend of mine is also running one placed in the MtG universe, which is also great fun.

5. Favorite NPCI think that spot goes to Tezzeret in the Kaladesh campaign (the MtG one). In that campaign, we had a joke session where we would NOT deal with the boss, due to some of our players being out. So the rest of us decided we’d use magic to pretend to send him a letter from Tezzeret’s future self, so he would allow our super powerful allies to join us in a dinner at his place. He gets the letter, kiiind of believes it due to our swashbuckler’s mad forgery skills, and casts commune with planes… And promptly loses his entire memory because the spell misfires. We took him in, then some random vampire ripped his arm off, and my first character gets to the scene first and frantically tries to stop the bleeding. Later that evening, she brings him a cup of tea and they have a long talk about how you can change for the better, even if you have done terrible things. This later turned into her becoming his secretary, them fleeing from the cops, and eventually settling in a cottage with goats on another plane… Only to promptly get targeted by an assassin and having to find Tezzeret new legs due to assassin-removal. /The shenanigans of Suki and Tezzeret caused him to shift from evil to neutral, and I really love that development. He’s great in our campaign.

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc)The best death was Shub Niggorath’s (lying goddess from Sever). Bitch cast invulnerability on herself when she was almost down, but Thora ripped it away with a dispel magic. AND THEN WE MURDERED HER WITH THE HELP OF THE COMPUTER PROGRAM RUNNING THE WORLD!!! Very satisfying to finally murder that one and save the entire world to boot.

7. Your favorite downtime activityGetting to know my party members and the NPCs around us is definitely my favorite thing to do. ^^

8. Your favorite fight/encounterHmmmmm… We had a very funny one with a wizard called Tavorlin the Passable, who was a fan of our party and gave us all nicknames. That was a fun one. I also really like ones where I can work around the encounter and turn it into not-a-fight. The one with the monster that Giggle and Bubbles had would qualify as well. We chose to talk to it instead, and Giggle even wrestled it for fun.

9. Your favorite thing about D&DI think my all time favorite thing is exploring the relationships between characters, and seeing them grow and overcome obstacles.

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the mostMy most hated enemy… Anything that can kill me or my party with no save. My favorite ones would probably be the ones that I don’t need to kill to win.

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?Depends on the campaign. We’ve got one currently going once every week, and a bunch of others that happen whenever there is time. I’d love to play twice a week though, or even more often, but alas. University is a thing.

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came fromThere’s a bunch of them, but the one that was written on my door due to poor timing is the following:Tezzeret: -struggles to put coat on due to having lost an arm-Suki: “Do you need a hand- I mean help?” There’s also the “[X] happens. “Tizen squints”My friend who plays Tizen tends to squint suspiciously a lot. So now when someone squints at something that happens, we say “Tizen stop possessing them”.

13. Introduce your current partyLet’s introduce the Happy Trails one, since that’s what I’m playing every week!1. Jack. The Pirate captain of the ship we all sail on. 16 years old, somehow the owner of a ship, dumbass who finds everything cool and does not take the responsibility as captain very seriously. He’s damn good at stabbing shit though, and tends to find everything his crew does just fine. Very chaotic neutral.2. N’chastacha Atsee (me). A piebald Yuan Ti Fighter/Pugilist, who takes pride in her position as Quartermaster. Speaks with long “s”, uses the rigging to grapple and throw her enemies overboard, and defends the NPC crew fiercely (although she might hang people from the rigging for a night if they offend her, so it’s best to tread cautiously). Probably one of the more responsible people on the ship, and does not seem to have a whole bunch of humor. Used to date a princess, but only learned about her ex’s identity recently. Probably lawful neutral in alignment.3. Paranoia (played by @creepygoblin). A Tiefling Rogue with tight leather pants and a very heavy French accent. Most likely to use weird ritualistic sacrifice or sell people into slavery with Jack, and has given the captain drugs and too much alcohol on multiple occasions. But hey, she’s very good at what she does. Alignment wise she’s some sort of evil, but I can’t quite remember what. 4. Theo. Our Triton Ranger, who used to be a whaler. He’s a bit racist towards Knotsmen, but otherwise one of the more stable people on the ship. He is up for adventure, as long as he does not need to leave his best mate Otto behind. Very good at shooting harpoons and setting chocolate factories on fire. No clue what his alignment is, but I think Neutral.5. Otto Kuchenheim. The ship’s cook, human Emergent/Physician, and with a very boisterous laugh that is used about every other sentence. Also the host to a weird creature that telepathically yells “REAP BREAK SOW” every time it gets out and rips our enemies apart. Which happens when Otto gets too fearful, generally. It’s a bit touch and go with him, but hey, he’s part of the crew now, and the thing hasn’t taken an arm from anyone of the crew… yet. Some sort of Neutral as well I think.

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-edThat will take forever tbh… I’ll introduce the Sever one, since that is over now and probably the most fun. 1. Thora Snowfoot, Clan of Blacksock (me). Life Cleric Goddess, originally worshipping the Goddess of Life, Epona, before learning she and Shub Niggorath were the same and deciding to become her own god. Snowfoot centaur, a bit on the serious side, but fiercely loyal and protective over those she considers close. She spent most of her life with her family, but had to leave them on their treks due to a bad hind leg. This is when she got roped into trying to stop first a Mindflayer invasion, and then a Beholder invasion, and then ultimately saving the world from Shub Niggorath. She spent that time keeping the group together, making sure her friends survived the fights with her healing, and make sure to not give up on the world. It was never an option to flee and leave it to die.2. Aelin Naïlo Xylia and Fayre. Played by @alextblue. Aelin was a Hideling (homebrew race) Ranger/Druid, with Fayre the white panther as her beast companion. Aelin lost her family when she was very young to a big abberation they tried to slay, and spent most of her life around the small village of Sigrholm in Sever, borrowing books from the library and carrying out some hunting for the villagers on occasion. Arguably the most “childlike” in her enthusiasm about many things, but also the one that ended up imprisoning Cthulhu in a vault that she controls. She also managed to get her feet turned into hands over the course of the campaign. In the end, took the role of goddess of nature, and started a giantass wildlife sanctuary.3. Rin Velvetmane. Rogue Trickster Cleric Falabella-based centaur. She got kicked out of the community that she lived in under the mountains, and found her way to the surface very angry, distrustful, and only moments away from stabbing people’s kneecaps. A pro at hiding for at least 33, and later learned she used to be a mountain elemental who joined a pact to reincarnate continuously to attempt to save the world from the corruption Shub Niggorath brought to it. This also led to us discovering that Rin used to be Aelin’s mother, a plot point that we then all refused to further investigate because it was Hella Weird. Rin ended up usurping the god of death by forcing him to take on her form through evoking duplicity on him, and basically turning him into herself permanently. She still visits her parents, and actually told them (almost) all about what happened. They’re supportive of her, but she has left out that she now rules death itself.4. Tizen. The vampire goatman of Eldritch Warlock-ness. He’s part of the Fiend race (homebrew), which was cursed by Shub Niggorath to have infertile females, and males that could only mate with humans. The race is bound to her so tightly, that there is an entire organization of warlocks that have her as their patron, called the Favored. Tizen is part of this group, however unwillingly, and is highly suspicious of many things. He is sarcastic, a touch arrogant, but also came to care for the world throughout the whole “saving it” business. When Thora died, he chose to take curses upon himself to save her, and had to be turned into a vampire in order to not lose his mind and become a monster. In the end, he killed the creature who had ruined the lives of many Fiends, took her realm for his own, and became the shadow ruler of the city of Kvidbelgr. What kind of a god he is is unknown, though we all refer to him as the god of sass.

15. Do you have snacks during game times? Fuck yeah, snacks are the best. We have all kinds, although we do try to make sure there are low-sugar options since one of us has to watch that. Hummus and carrots are usually there, along with chips and chocolate.

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?In person all the way. Although since we all go to an international university, and some have graduated/dropped out, and the rest is graduating in a few weeks, it’s highly likely we’ll have to move to online. But in person is the best, there are so many ques that you miss when you play online. I have a character called Ink-And-Blade and he communicates through message and not much else. We have a list of the words he spoke out loud. It’s 22 over 3 multiple hour sessions. Ink is impossible to translate satisfactory to online, because so much of his communication is non-verbal.

17. What are some house rules that your group has?Ummmm… The rule of cool is one we employ every now and then. I don’t think we have strict ones, we tend to go with the very Barbossa attitude of “The PB and DMG are more like guidelines anyway”, plus our DM is always homebrewing things and changing the rules around. So I suppose our house rule is that if you can justify it, you can try.

18. Does your party keep any pets?Hmm… Familiars I guess. And we recently picked up a Cambriman who doesn’t really do too much. He’s kinda sentient, but not the brightest. He keeps calling everyone his “prisoner”, even though he’s tiny and made of soft flubbery goop. He’s cute.

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?Oh hell yes. Some of us are worse then others, but I’ve had dice roll consistently below 10 and switched over for the session. A friend of mine has a dice jail that she puts bad rollers into (for the duration of a session). We all tend to switch dice around if they keep rolling low.

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?I wanted to play DnD for a long time, but I did not have the right people around me so my first exposure to it was through podcasts. The first one was something called TableTop RPG, though I can’t currently find it. After that I got roped into actual DnD at my university, about 2.5 years ago, when the gaming society held an introductory event. I played for a bit with a very old school DM in 3.5, which was hard and confusing, and then fell into Sever with my friends, which was a 5e game. So I’ve been playing for 2.5 years, and I will not stop any time soon.

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?Oof… Well, yes, I very much regret taking the luck feat after I forced a boss to reroll a nat 20, which rolled up as another nat 20, and then attempted to reroll a nat 1, which came up as ANOTHER nat 1. I regretted that a lot. Other than that… Hmmm… In character, I think Margret really regrets teleporting into a dragon’s room. OH, WAITSo Bottle-O-Wine the kobold was very angry at a party member, and threw him into the harbor. Then, as he was running away, he accidentally set the crowd on the rest of the party. He didn’t realize the crowd became a mob of racists who wanted to murder them all. The party got away luckily, and Bottle has since apologized. For the first time in his life. So yeah, that was regrettable, if very fun for us all OoC.

22. What color was your first dragon?I think the first ones I ever had to deal with were two green and red hatchlings, who were playing with coins. My character spoke draconic at the time, so it did not end in bloodshed but instead with me polishing the coins and being led to their parents, who were metallic dragons. Because adoption.

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns? I mean, most of what I’ve played has been homebrew, although I am attempting to run the Tomb of Annihilation, and we played a bit of Curse of Strahd. But I think I love homebrew the most.

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?Depends. I do think out my character’s backstory and develop it further between sessions, but sometimes I do small RPs with my DM pre-session to get a feel for my character a bit more.

For DMs

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?My players decided to go shopping when I had not prepared any type of store due to it being a small oneshot. They then decided to try and steal a dress, which the shopkeep nat20 noticed, the tried to flirt her way out of it only to learn the shopkeep was a gay elf who had the hots for the dragonborn fighter. They got the dress by paying him “in natura” with the Dragonborn taking his shirt off and playing a little tune on his lute. He got pulled into the backroom and had a lovely few hours, came out with a sparkly costume, and it had the table in stitches. Me included.

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your charactersI haven’t written that many scenes myself yet, but I had great fun portraying an Eyewitness who had been locked up for 100 years, and who just couldn’t wait to get out. She was slightly… well, she talked to floating lights and really really REALLY wanted to go see the world. She made a deal with the adventurers that if they could wait a day, she would let them take the treasure she was watching over for free, since her contract would be over at that point. I pretended my hands were eyestalks for that one and portrayed her body with my head. That was a good time.Another good one was when I had Gnoll NPCs who attacked the party with wild laughter, acting out the motions while screeching at the top of my lungs was fun. Freaked my table out pretty well too. :P

27. Do you allow homebrew content?Hell yeah, I love homebrew. I try to keep it balanced though, but I am all for coming up with your own stuff.

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?Not that often? I started it up in the ToA, but I haven’t gotten to actively use the guide yet.

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions? RP heavy sessions definitely. Combat can be fun to run, but I much prefer atmosphere over crunching numbers. Although describing finishing moves is really good.

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?Most of mine are diplomatic, I think the closest I got to a murder hobo was the flirting bard who tried to undress everyone. So actually, all of them prefer not to fight.

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?I honestly loooooove the beast races. All of them. Class-wise I love me a caster, although monks are also good. I haven’t played every single class yet, so I’m still seeing whether there is one I truly dislike.

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)Healer. But tank is also fun.

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?I write backstories for every character I’ve got. How they come about varies, sometimes it’s the idea that comes first and then build a character around it, and sometimes it’s “I want to play this” and I continue from there. I generally come up with it myself, but I have rolled up a backstory with Xanathar’s guide as well. The importance of the backstory depends on what kind of campaign I’m playing though. One of my DMs is really fucking good at making backstory matter in-game, whereas others I’ve played with didn’t work it in that well.

34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?A mix of both. Margret used to chase a thief around, so her pre-party spells are very much useful for this purpose, but fit in with her backstory as well. Thora has all her spells, but she picked whatever was most useful for the situations they were going to be in.

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?ALL. OF. IT.

#Anonymous #Alextblue #Ask #Whew that took me three hours to answer #I hope you all have a good time!#:D #DnD #Shtiya talks #A LOT #A whole lot #like 4k+ a lot #fuck if I had spent this much time on my essay I'd be a lot further along #XD #oh welllllllllllllllllllllllll #If anyone wants pictures of my characters hit me up and I shall provide

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jaggedcliffs · 6 years

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I finished Avatar season 2 about a day and a half ago - the library was thankfully quick in getting those DVDs in. And then by the time I got the last DVD volume, seasons 2 and 3 appeared on Netflix (but of course, only after I took the DVD with me to Vancouver to watch while packed up and moved back home -_- The car could be one DVD lighter if I'd known beforehand!). Packing logistics aside, I have a lot of feelings about this season:

I FEEL SO BETRAYED BY THE ENDING

But I’ll start with the other stuff first:

I was really worried that they were doubling down on the Aang/Katara romance, which would lead to Katara’s characterization and plotlines taking a hit. And...I think I was kind of right?

I mean, yes, there's that episode in the desert where sHE TAKES CHARGE AND GETS EVERYONE THROUGH LIKE THE LEADER SHE IS - both emotionally, with calming down Aang and trying to keep up morale, and practically by trying to keep everyone alive.

And then in the Serpent’s Pass, she gets to show off her mad waterbending/surfboard skills like WOAH

But for a lot of the show, it felt like she was taking a backseat. Like when she was left behind to help the Earth King, I thought we'd get to see more of her taking charge and planning, but all she did was make a joke, take a scroll, fail to regonize that the Kyoshi warrior was Azula, not Suki, and get captured.

It would also be nice if her and Toph had a bit more interaction and friendship, and we didn't get introduced to their relationship with them fighting.

Speaking of Toph, when I saw episode 6′s thumbnail (which is Toph), my brain began chanting TOPH TOPH TOPH TOPH.

I think I still like Katara more, but Toph's such a powerhouse, and she's so much fun.

This is something I forgot to mention for last season as well, but the paralleling of Aang's and Zuko's stories throughout these 2 seasons (with the exception of maybe the last few episodes) has been really cool.

Also, the music that they have when Aang goes into the Avatar state in both seasons? Appropriately badass yet supremely chilling, especially at the end of last season after the moon spirit koi fish was killed.

Oh hey, Zuko's and Azula's mom exists! I was hoping she'd be at least mentioned at some point, and not just waved away as "dead a long time ago". And what do you know, I got a whole character!

Man, I can’t believe Zuko managed to get onto the Fire Nation’s Most Wanted list twice - once as himself, once as the Blue Spirit. Now that’s dedication.

A good liar, however, he is not.

While Zuko didn't have as many chances to show off his hardcore-ness this season, he did manage to find and release Appa in, like, 2 hours, whereas it took the gang at least 2 weeks to do the same. It goes to show that if you set your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.

I have not given up on my Zuko is ace headcanon

The fact that his first thought that the girl was suspicious of him and Iroh, rather than checking him out, lends credence to my theory.

And that date didn’t help - loudly insisting that the girl isn't his girlfriend, holding a gift certificate as a distraction when she tries to go in for a kiss, and only showing light, short kisses when they do go in for the kiss.

I'd say that Zuko literally getting sick after he frees Appa like a gentleman in a Victorian novel is incredibly dramatic, but this is also a world where swords or a wooden stick can break rocks, and teens can get thrown 20 feet in the air, land in a heap, and still be okay. I don't know these people's abilities, I don't know their lives. You do you, red and blue spirit dragons inside Zuko's head.

Honestly, Zuko’s character development in the last 4 episodes is such a fucking wild ride I don’t even know what to say, except I think I have severe case of emotional whiplash from that last one (but more on that below). I think he goes through 5 different states of being in the last episode alone.

They’re doing some really neat things this season, with the Zuko-centric episode, the Appa-centric episode, and that one episode that was comprised of tales of all the mains. Just to shake things up a bit!

Azula and her friends: great villains, and finally more women!

Sokka: keep on keepin' on with those good ideas, man.

I like the further inclusion of Jet, Longshot, and Smellerbee. Longbow is the definition of a look is worth a thousand words, and was the implication that Smellerbee was trans? Or just a girl in boy's clothing? Either way, they were all cool to have, and I hope they've miraculously survived somehow.

I also like how they explore the different problems with each of the element nations: aside from the aggression and imperialism of the Fire Nation (complete with the menacing and destructive machinery of imperialism), there’s the patriarchy of the Northern Water tribe, and then the bureaucracy and corruption at various points throughout the Earth Kingdom. And that doesn't even cover the insular-ness, segregation, conspiracy, and straight-up brainwashing of Ba Sing Se.

I think Aang finally broke that poor cabbage guy for real this time.

So that one scene with the gang and the Earth King in episode 18 is just that scene from that one Simpson's Halloween special: "The doll is cursed" "That's bad". "The doll comes with free frozen yogurt, which I call Frogurt!", "That's good!". "The Frogurt is also cursed". "Can I go now?"

“Wow, Iroh sure does love his tea,” I think to myself, chuckling, as I sip from my third cup of tea that afternoon.

Okay, now back to that ending:

I FEEL SO BETRAYED

Let’s start with Aang

When the Guru was asking Aang to think about what he loves in the present day, and I was like, oh hey, the friendship and love he's found now, so yes there's Katara, and now there's going to be Sokka and Toph and - oh no, it's Katara again. But now it's going to be Appa - nope, it's Katara again. Katara over and over, as if Aang didn't spend 6 episodes looking for Appa, and 2 of those episodes reacting poorly enough to go into the Avatar state, yell at his friends, and try to cut himself off from emotions. Or as if his friendship with Sokka and Toph aren't important enough to him, as things he loves, or things he would need to let go of.

Couldn’t they have shown that Aang’s attachments aren’t just his crush on Katara, but, y’know the love and friendship between himself and all his friends? Just, please, he’s 12, stop telling me Katara is the love of his life.

The Guru telling Aang he needed to let go of attachments to complete his training, but Aang deciding to save his friends instead, was very Luke on Dagobah-esque (though without the trap). But Aang and Luke are both right about friends and attachments and loves being important, because the Old Jedi Order was terrible in that regard, and because we've learned throughout this season that letting go of your loved ones isn't good. And so I thought it was a good thing Aang turned away from the Guru. But then that doesn't matter, because he lets go of his attachments to go into the Avatar state anyway. So...I don't really know what that was all about in the first place?

Now to the Zuko of it all:

That final decision of his to help Azula was just...frustrating.

It's frustrating because after all that character development (that only really we as the audience see, mind you, not Aang and his friends, and not even Iroh the whole time), after his big change of character after the fever, in an episode called "The Crossroads of Destiny" which seems to apply to Zuko more than Aang...his big decision happens offscreen.

It's frustrating because it felt like Zuko already went through this big character-deciding, "Crossroads of Destiny" moment 2 episodes ago underneath the lake, and he already chose the Aang's side when he freed Appa and went at war with himself.

Or maybe it's frustrating because he's back where he was at the beginning of the season, turning his back in his uncle to go with his sister because he thinks his father wants him back.

Or maybe it's frustrating because if this was Game of Thrones, I'd call Zuko's face heel turn a shocking plot twist for the sake of only being a shocking plot twist for the audience only, designed to be a shocking plot twist that no one will guess because they didn't lead up to it, without the nuance, foreshadowing, characterization, character exploration, and purpose that I know George R.R. Martin has written and will write in the books

Like, I know he joins Aang's gang (the Aangang? Team Avatar? Aang and the Avatarettes?) next season, but this...just didn't feel like it fit.

Welp, seeing as I just finished my MA degree, am moving back home, and was too busy trying to finish my research and paper and pack to look for a job, I can binge season 3 once I'm unpacked, since I haven't got much else to do at the moment. Except, y'know, update my resume and send it out, but that just sounds exhausting.

#jagged watches a:tla #avatar: the last airbender #zuko #katara #aang #toph beifong #posting this hopefully before i lose wifi in the mountains

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seyaryminamoto · 7 years

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Azula Ship Challenge: Day 4 - Bad Joke

OTP: Sokkla ; BroTP: Azula + Gaang

Rated: T

The red standards flew in the air along with the blue ones. Horses charged without any restraint, weapons shining in each warrior’s hands. Resistance was futile: every military unit was being wiped out systematically by the powerful siege weapons that tore down buildings, walls and guard towers. Nothing could slow down the destruction of an entire civilization, as the winds of conquest swept by. Time was running out already, but the untimely demise of the Japanese civilization could not be slowed, not when all their castles and samurai had been slain…

“Ugh! I quit!” Toph shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. Suki groaned.

“Come on, just a little further, we have resources…!”

“They’ll have wiped out our buildings before we can do a damn thing. Leave it be! Quit and let them celebrate already!”

Suki sighed and resigned from the game, and on cue, the red and blue team started their mandatory celebration, laughing and kissing as the rest of the competition sighed in defeat.

“Well, you should be glad you guys were the last to fall, if anything,” Katara told Toph and Suki, pouting.

“Yeah, well, your team was very easy to target once we realized Aang had no military forces,” Sokka laughed at Katara, with Azula’s arms still around his neck.

“We are most grateful for that, Aang,” she said, smirking at the bald, defeated boy who scowled a little at her. “A population limit of two hundred, and you made a hundred and eighty villagers… did you just want to be wiped out, really?”

“Well, as much as he only had villagers, at least he wasn’t the first to fall. Next time we’re not getting paired with Zuko,” Toph pouted. Zuko jumped.

“Hey! I was working just as hard as everyone else here!” Zuko exclaimed, blushing.

“Zuko, you know as well as everyone else that your strategy skills were, uh… lacking,” Suki said, eyes wide. Azula snorted.

“Poor, innocent Zuzu, too unprepared, too lacking to practice the art of war on Age of Empires…” she snickered. Zuko huffed and glared at her.

“Shut up. That joke’s not nearly as good as you think it is,” he grunted.

“Well, the bad joke of the day really is the whole lot of you, I’d say. Beating you didn’t even take an hour,” Azula smirked. Sokka chuckled next to her.

“In all fairness, Azula, we’re just too smart for them to handle,” he said. Azula sighed in agreement.

“Indeed. Whatever they may do, there’s no contest against us,” she said, with a contented smile. “We ought to invite Ty Lee and Mai the next time.”

“Oh? Think they might be better competition?” Sokka asked, squeezing her shoulder gently. Azula snorted.

“No, I simply want more people to crush,” she said. He laughed again.

“You’re unbelievable,” he whispered, kissing her cheek.

“I don’t know what’s more gross about the two of you, your displays of affection or your teamwork,” Toph growled, shaking her head. “Maybe a mix of both.”

Sokka only smiled proudly at his girlfriend and she gave him one of her trademark smirks too. Too often their displays of affection were over the top, just to make their friends uncomfortable, but the teamwork was something they took pride of beyond most anything else about their relationship.

It was to be expected for them to pull off such remarkable victories over their friends, seeing as they had spent the better part of two years playing games together, even before they were dating. Before they knew who the other was, too.

But while they loved playing in Dannan, they had other games they rather enjoyed, too. And Age of Empires, a game of strategic warfare, was certainly one of their favorites.

While Sokka and Azula usually spent most their free time alone together, this weekend was different. After Toph had badgered them enough about wanting to play with them, Sokka and Azula finally had decided that the best game they could play with her was Age of Empires, rather than Dannan. Yet Toph suffered from the obvious problem regarding games: she couldn’t see. So that had brought her to ask her friends if any of them wanted to help her play against the gamer pair, and that had stirred everyone’s curiosity quite a bit. Katara was the first to volunteer, but Toph had decided to pick Suki as her proxy instead, as she was more likely to listen to Toph’s orders, instead of stubbornly doing whatever she thought was best.

The conversation had caught Zuko and Aang’s interest too, and in the end, everyone had showed up that Saturday with their respective laptops, ready to install and play the game. Sokka and Azula hadn’t been expecting such a turnout, but they were far from displeased: it would be much more fun with more players.

They set up their computers in Sokka’s living room, some of them sitting on the couches, others with the computers on the coffee table. After a quick rundown of how to play, they had set up the first game between them all: a seven-player game, where Sokka and Azula had comprised the red-and-blue team, Katara and Aang had been the yellow-and-turquoise one, and Zuko had joined Suki and Toph’s unit, playing as the orange-and-green team.

Sending two teams of rookies against two experienced players could only result in total annihilation. And the pair responsible for such a feat were clearly quite proud of themselves.

“You know, we just need practice,” said Katara, scowling at Azula. “We’re going to be much stronger eventually and then we’ll fight evenly, you know we will.”

“Say what you will, I think we’ll have the upper hand no matter what,” said Azula, smirking proudly.

“Only because you’re paired with each other,” said Suki, shaking her head. “You two have been working together for ages now, of course you’d know how to beat everyone else at this game.”

“Yeah, I bet you’d stop being so smug if you got paired with Zuko instead,” said Toph, smirking.

“Uh, possibly, but really, even Zuzu can’t be so bad that he’d cause me to lose,” said Azula, shaking her head. “I’d still win.”

“Are you sure?” Aang chimed in, with a small smirk of his own. “Even… if Sokka’s in the opposite team?”

Those words were the first to make Sokka and Azula tense up in the entire day. They frowned, looking at Aang with uncertainty.

“I’m just saying…” he said, but Katara stepped forward and looked at them with amusement.

“He’s suggesting something really good, actually,” she said, with amusement. “How well would you two fare against each other, instead of being on the same team, for a change?”

“That… is a terrible idea,” said Sokka, looking at his sister pointedly. “It might end up being a twelve-hour game, or so…”

“Oh, I think watching you two destroy each other will be well worth twelve hours,” said Katara, with amusement.

“Well, unless they’re scared of doing it because, you know, they might break up because of it?” said Toph, smirking and shrugging. “Seeing how competitive they both are…”

“Please,” said Sokka, rolling his eyes. “We wouldn’t break up over something like this, of course we wouldn’t. Right?”

He looked at Azula, but she remained silent, a thoughtful look on her eyes. Sokka’s eyes widened and he nudged her with his elbow.

“Right?!”

“Uh, heh? Depends on how the fight goes, really…” Azula said, with a dry grin. Sokka’s jaw dropped.

“Say what?!”

The others laughed at Sokka’s response. Azula simply shrugged apologetically.

“What can I say? I don’t like losing and I know neither do you, but one of us is going to lose anyways…” she said. Sokka snorted, in disbelief.

“Fine then,” he said, shaking his head and standing up. Azula watched him as he picked up his laptop.

Her eyes followed him as he moved to sit opposite to her, their tilted screens in light contact. He fixed her with a steady gaze, to the brim with determination. Soon enough Azula smirked.

“Well, then… we’re doing this for real?” she asked. Sokka nodded.

“You bet we are. Though if you want to break up after I kick your ass, well, I won’t stop you, but I would’ve thought you wouldn’t be such a sore loser…” he smirked, as he started setting up the game. It was Azula’s turn to laugh in disbelief.

“Ah, well, if you’re so confident, I do hope you won’t come crying to me once I make you bite my dust,” she said, shaking her head as she leaned forward towards her computer too.

On cue, everyone else gathered behind the two players of this round, filled with perverse curiosity. Zuko and Katara drifted to Sokka’s side, while Suki, Aang and Toph moved towards Azula’s. Yet neither of the competitors took much notice to how the groups had distributed. They were too busy trying to intimidate each other before their battle.

“I’m picking the Byzantines,” Sokka declared. Azula smirked.

“Good luck. My Spanish shall blow you to smithereens,” she said. He scoffed.

“You can’t break the best civilization of the game with a few guns, I thought you already knew that,” he said, shaking his head. “But I suppose Gilded Fire has always put too much faith in firearms…”

She laughed again and looked at him with skepticism. Sokka smirked back at her, his mouse hovering over the button to start the fight.

“Ready?” he asked. She smirked.

“To write your epitaph? Afraid so. You were loved dearly, Sokka,” she said, mockingly. He couldn’t help but laugh again before starting the battle with one click.

It had been a brutal, fierce fight. The Nomad mode of the game was harsh, and without their awareness, they had set up camp far too close to each other. Battles had ensued, conflicts had arisen, but Sokka had been able to respond well at first. He built up a strong army, with large groups of priests that quite often converted Azula’s units and caused quite a lot of trouble for her.

Yet as Sokka took three relics for himself, Azula took the last two. And where Sokka walled himself in his territory, while also seeking to destroy Azula’s initial base, she set up a new base elsewhere, and waited patiently, quietly. The red soldiers were building their strengths, and she focused on developing all the technology she needed to fight back, even as Sokka frequently sought to siege her new base. But it wasn’t enough. Not even his best units could tear through the full defenses of Azula’s own walled territories.

After a few scouting missions that he couldn’t stop, she found his monastery. And with a massive army of paladins, conquistadors and trebuchets, she tore through his lands without breaking a sweat and destroyed his army, along with his every military building. Just as she was stealing the relics from his fallen monastery, the unsurprising message had blinked in her screen: Sokka had surrendered.

“Woah! That was amazing!” Toph shouted, laughing and patting Azula’s shoulder. Suki had narrated everything for her as it happened. “Damn, you kicked his ass!”

Sokka groaned and dropped his head on the keyboard as even Zuko and Katara went around the table to congratulate the winner. Azula was beaming with pride, hearing them recount the most impressive of her tactics.

“So wait, she had already set up elsewhere on that area while Sokka was busy wrecking her first base?” Katara asked, impressed. As she had been at Sokka’s side, she hadn’t seen any of what Azula was doing.

“I don’t know how she did it, but she did it,” said Aang, with an amazed laugh. “Though he almost got her at a few points…”

“He’s good at quick responses,” said Azula, smiling fondly at her sulking boyfriend. “But it’s hard to outdo me when it comes to long-term plans, and he knew that. He tried to strike first to stop me from doing what I did, but… it was too late already.”

“Yeah, well…” said Sokka, grimacing and lifting his head only to bow towards her. “Good game, good game…”

“Why, thank you,” said Azula, smirking. “Though you ought to address me with more respect, now, Sokka…”

“Huh?” he said, raising an eyebrow. Her smirk only widened as he grimaced. “What, you don’t want me to call you empress or something, do you…?”

“She did win at the Age of Empires…” Aang said innocently. Azula laughed as Sokka snorted.

“Heh, well, fine, I’ll humor you,” he said, with narrow eyes. “Empress Azula… conqueror of my heart!”

“Oh god, Sokka!” Katara groaned, as Toph made a face of disgust. The others laughed while Azula blushed but smiled, shaking her head at him.

“What? It’s still true, I wasn’t going to break up with her because she beat me!” he said, beaming proudly.

“You should kick his ass again, Azula, please.” said Katara. “Make him stop being so corny.”

“If you want me to, gladly,” said Azula, smirking at Sokka. “What’s it going to be now? Fortress? Arena…?”

“Team Islands,” Sokka said, with a raised eyebrow. Azula tensed up.

“N-no, you can’t…”

“Oh, yeah, I can,” he said, with a proud smirk.

She wasn’t very good at maps with water. Sokka was far too talented in them, better suited for water-based warfare than anything else. But she couldn’t falter. She shouldn’t.

“Fine. Fine,” she said, raising her hands before glancing at everyone else. “Well? Are you lot going to join in this time, or not?”

“Woah, are we?” Aang asked, looking at Sokka with unease. “I thought you two were going to have it out again…”

“Oh, we can. On opposing teams,” said Sokka, smirking.

“Huh, well, then I’ll join Sokka this time,” said Zuko, beaming. Sokka tensed up.

“Heh? Don’t you want to join Azula instead…?”

“Oh no, you keep Zuko, I’ll take Aang,” said Azula, smiling as Aang jumped to his computer. Katara looked at Toph and Suki.

“So I guess we’re going together this time?” she asked. Toph smirked and Suki nodded in approval.

“Let’s do this!” Toph exclaimed.

Their day was drifting by rather quickly, but the group of friends were far too entertained to notice the passage of time. As much as they spent most their time bickering through their games, this experience only seemed to bring all of them closer together.

#azulashipchallenge #azula #sokkla #sokka #aang #katara #zuko #toph #suki #gaang #this is actually aaaaaaaaaaaa...#modern AU #if any of you wanted more of IHTBY #here's a tiny thing :D #it's not the huge sequel I promised but #it's something?

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itstimetowritecl · 7 years

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Character Arcs of ‘Clever Strategist’ Archetypes: Nara Shikamaru and Sokka

One of my favorite character archetypes is the ‘clever strategist’: the tactician who is poised during battle, and yet has a developed sense of humor that prevents them from taking life too seriously. It is no surprise then that Shikamaru Nara (Naruto) and Sokka (ATLA) are two of my favorite cartoon characters.

Though Shikamaru is naturally smarter given his 200 IQ and has a more aloof and relaxed personality, Sokka is more innately humorous and has a personality seeking out social avenues that draws attention. Shikamaru is strong side character, while Sokka is a main character.

However, there are several things these two have in common, even down to their similar appearance:

Sons of leaders who hold high expectations for them

Are talented with blade, think outside the box during conflict

A more realistic outlook on life, sarcastic and dry humor

The ‘warrior’s wolf tail’ like ponytail

Strongly influenced by women in their lives

Below, I will discuss how their character arcs both mirror foil each other in regards to development. In the end, they both become capable leaders because they are able to come full circle.

The Need For Growth- Mindsets Preventing Shikamaru and Sokka From Reaching Their Potential

Shikamaru, the boy who did not care enough.

“Lazy because I don’t care.”

Shikamaru right off the bat is an intelligent child that does not want to be burdened by responsibility and working hard- he would much rather look at the clouds and daydream than spend hours training. It is said in the Naruto manga during the Chunnin Exams that Shikamaru could become the next Hokage, only if he applied himself. Thus, Shikamaru needed to grow in regards of his work ethic and lazy streak, as shown by his ‘giving up’ against Temari (she is no slouch though!).

Where Shikamaru does well, and is something Sokka actually lacked at first, is a strong sense of self. When Choji as a youth was made fun of for his weight, Shikamaru defended him and cited that he was a friend. The advice he provided Choji, and inevitably many others, is that “..being yourself is important.” Shikamaru never cared what other people thought and always sought to instill this mantra in others. So while in this case ‘not caring’ is a good thing since many often worry about conforming, Shikamaru had to learn a lesson in caring enough to grow as a ninja.

Sokka, the boy who cared too much.

“Maybe its better to sometime call it quits before you fail.”

Sokka has the opposite start to his character arc- he cares too much about what others think of him, which may not always be evident, However, this is explicitly made known when he brings up wanting to be a warrior like his father, and being denied that opportunity early on. This stems into his joking about his waterbending sister Katara, compensating for his lack of bending skills. Sokka throughout the series would rather call it quits than fail miserably simply because he lacks complete confidence in himself.

“Meat and sarcasm that’s all I got,” is a mantra that Sokka humorously uses throughout the ATLA series. While on one hand, his humor provides the group great relief and leadership keeps them organized and ready, it also displays Sokka at first has more initiative and drive compared to Shikamaru. He may joke now and then about certain things, but Sokka was always very protective of Katara and this reflected in his need to be protective of others. Though Sokka needed to develop confidence, his care for others was beneficial.

Women, You Say? Having Their Worldview Changed Due to Headstrong, Female Characters

According to Shikamaru, women are troublesome. He is correct.

Shikamaru’s outlook regarding women begins when he watches his parents’ relationship, noting that his mother is nagging his father. In his usual detached manner, he states that ‘relationships are too burdensome,’ and that ‘women are troublesome.’ He grew up with a headstrong mother, and decided early on that relationships weren’t him. His stubbornness, however, was challenged when he met Temari.

Temari is a definitely a confident girl who has no problems speaking her mind. She is first introduced to Shikamaru during the Chunnin exams, to which she takes down a lazy Shikamaru who wasn’t giving his best efforts. He later comments on her scary, but beautiful smile, a similar message that his father once described as why he loved his mother despite being nagged at. She ends up saving him during a mission, and later goes to the hospital when he’s hurt to see if he’s okay.

In a way, Shikamaru is correct that women can be troublesome, but they will “show their softer sides to a man they love.” What Shikamaru really means is that he wanted to avoid being challenged to grow, which is what Temari pushed him to do, sometimes forcing. She showed kindness and care for him alongside her wit, allowing for Shikamaru to be emotionally vulnerable and let his guard down. He needs a motivator and sort of push sometimes to get going, which over time, Shikamaru secretly found enjoyable.

According to Sokka, women cannot be warriors. He is incorrect.

Sokka, similar to Shikamaru, held a false view of women, only for him it was a bit more sexist. He believed that women could not be warriors, which of course didn’t go over too well with Katara. Having Katara for a sister, he eventually came to realize, did so much for him in absence of his mother. Despite her waterbending prowess, it was not until meeting Suki and the Kyoshi warriors did his stance regarding female societal roles change.

Suki was the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors when Sokka met her, and boy did she kick his ass. After being humiliated by her in combat, Sokka swallowed his pride, admitting that she was the better warrior and asked for her assistance. Because of her presence, Sokka’s viewpoints were challenged and made him gain much respect for a female’s fighting capacity.

Sokka also came to be good friends with Toph, a rough around the edges girl of the upper Earth Kingdom society that didn’t fit into the traditional feminine norms. Having Toph on his team also reinforced the notion that not only are women just as capable as men at bending/fighting, but also that femininity and gender roles cannot be pigeonholed into one definition. Like Shikamaru, Sokka was incorrect about his viewpoint on women, but the difference here is that he had to allow himself to be mentally open and challenge his internalized belief system.

The Catalyst For Change- The Events That Invoked Shikamaru’s and Sokka’s Leadership Potential

External circumstances out of Shikamaru’s control drive him to change.

External circumstances drove Shikamaru’s character to develop further, and the main one being was the loss of his team leader, Asuma. Asuma died in battle against Hidan in order to save his team, and no one took the loss more than Shikamaru. In fact, he ended up smoking for a bit in honor of his fallen mentor and refused to stop smoking until he got revenge on Hidan. With Asuma’s death, he learned that what we care about can be taken away in an instant.

In a way, his battle against Hidan, a seemingly immortal being, proved Shikamaru’s prowess on the battle field, but really showed his potential as a leader. Being driven by Asuma’s death allowed for him to find a groove and realize that we cannot run away from our responsibilities. Responsibilities will always follow us, but they do not have to be burdensome. And working hard, he came to realize, would help him protect better those he cared about.

The pivotal moment after he defeated Hidan is when he visited Asuma’s pregnant wife Kurenai, a talented ninja in her own right. While meeting with Kurenai, Shikamaru points out in a touching scene that he would be there for her and Asuma’s child and offer support. The once distant and reluctant to lead Shikamaru stepped into his leadership role by understanding that lives will be at stake during conflict, and we cannot keep our head in the clouds forever when challenges arise.

Internal circumstances within Sokka’s control drive him to change.

A lot of Sokka’s strife is internal, relating to his concerns over not being a bender and what his role is in the group. Things come to a head while they are traveling in the Fire Nation, finding himself yet again the butt of jokes and feeling as though he’s the odd man out. After expressing his concerns to the group, Sokka decides to tackle his worries of becoming a warrior (namely caring too much about what others think), by trying to train with Master Piandao, a renowned swordman.

Though Sokka lucks his way into getting Piandao to agree, he still doubts his skills and even after training with Piandao a bit doubts that he could be a swordsman. But, through his clever thinking and patience, Sokka learns during his painting sessions and forging his meteor sword that he doesn’t have to be ‘what others want him to be’ but rather, who he would like to be. This gives Sokka the revelation that although he is not a bender, that does not make him less valuable than the rest of the team.

His new confidence allows for him to beat Master Piandao in a sword fight, finally admitting that he’s from the Water Tribe and just wanted help. Here is where Sokka learns what it means to be a true warrior- one that fully understands and accepts themselves. He did not have to gain any skills other than realizing that his unique skills make him valuable. By the time he rejoins the group, Sokka is much more confident and begins to lay the plans down to end the Fire Nation’s scheming.

Clever Strategists Who Come Full Circle and Make a Difference

The lazy but brilliant boy who became the seventh Hokage’s main advisor: Shikamaru.

During the start the Shinobi World War, Shikamaru is asked by a council to discuss potential war strategies, showing that his reputation as an intelligent leader had grown. He becomes the Fourth Division’s co-leader, which is something his former self would have complained and been reluctant to take on. Having to take on his former teacher proved daunting, but Shikamaru was the one ending a resurrected and possessed Asuma- he kept his word.

And of course, Asuma again imparts advice to him, proud of his leadership. Tragedy strikes when he finds out his father has passed during the war, but in a touching moment, he thanks his father for being a good example and takes on the duty of becoming the chief war strategist. Having to deal with a father’s death is tough enough, but when the Ten Tails emerges, Shikamaru is able to lay down a plan and make sure the Ten Tails is delayed to prevent it from killing countless shinobi.

In the end, Shikamaru becomes the seventh Hokage’s main advisor. With his analytics and organization, Shikamaru is able to keep Naruto more organized and often handles duties to lessen the Hokage’s load. Not bad for a guy who simply wanted to stare at the clouds and be lazy.

The goofy meat and sarcasm guy who became a warrior leading the SWT and a Republic City councilman: Sokka.

After forging his meteorite sword, Sokka is able to find some peace within and accepts himself as a competent leader that has his own quirks and ways about doing things. His true leadership potential is shown during the Day of Black Sun. Sokka’s investigative work and determination helped to prevent many from being captured by Azula’s trap. Though Sokka wasn’t able to free the prisoners, he resolved to do it in the future, which he helped do. Unlike previous times, he does not dwell as much on his failures, but convinces himself he can do it.

Being in charge of destroying the Fire Nation airfleet was Sokka’s big moment. When things got tense, he steered the airship they were on in a particular manner, then having the crew through the floor hatch. This clever move allowed for the abandoned airship to collide with others, while him Toph, and Suki escaped at the ship’s top. He is able to save Toph from a falling death with his sword, while having a broken leg. And despite that, he kept fighting outnumbered until Suki arrived with help.

Sokka, after the war, became the Southern Water Tribe’s leader and a Republic City councilman. And based on the Legend of Korra references, Sokka was able to remain influential in both his homeland and the outside world. Not bad for a guy who only had sarcasm, meat, and a boomerang.

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