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starlight-bread-blog · 8 months

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Katara is More Patient Then We Give Her Credit for

Katara has been getting a lot of flak for supposedly being hot headed and getting angry at very minor things. Even those who love Katara seem to accept this as the truth. But it's not. In reality, Katara is simply a female character who owns her rage. And I feel like there are two main components that debunk this notion.

Warning: Long, long post.

1. In the instances where Katara is angry it's either justified or makes sense in context.

The Waterbending Scroll

Katara stole, wouldn't you know it, a waterbending scroll. She practices before giving it to Aang, and fails hard. Then Aang who she's supposed to be teaching, gets it right and explains how to do it. Katara has an outburst.

Katara: Will you please shut your air-hole! Believe it or not your infunite wisdom gets a little old sometimes. Why don't we just throw the scroll away since you're so naturally gifted!

Why is Katara that mad here? Why did she have an outburst? Because she was carrying the burden of being the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe her whole life. Because her waterbending is the reason Kya died. Because she have been independently studying waterbending her whole life. And now her student is having it all easy and is trying to teach her.

And wouldn't you know it, she realized what she did immediatly. Literally, a second later.

Katara: Oh my gosh Aang. I am so sorry. I don't know what came over me. But you know what, it won't happen again. Here [the scroll] is yours. I don't wanna have anything to do with it anymore.

She even apologized to Momo. Katara had an isecurity rooted in trauma and pressure. When Aang try to teach her she hit a breaking point and lashed out. And not one second later she's already apologizing.

The Waterbending Master

Katara and Aang are going to see Pakku, the waterbending master. But when Pakku sees she's a girl, he says he won't teach her. This is why Katara gets angry. She flew across seas just to get rejected due Pakku is being a sexist freak. I think we can all agree that being denied something because of sexism is a good reason to get angry. And when Katara realized Pakku won't teach Aang if she'll keep insisting, she drops it abd tells Aang to drop it too.

However, that doesn't mean she won't study in secret. She deserved to learn waterbending and she knew it. She took the consequences into consideration and decided to not make a fuss.

But of course, they both get caught. Pakku says he will no longer teach Aang, the Avatar who absolutly needs to study and still refuses to teach Katara because he's still sexist. Only then Katara challenges him to a duel. Only when they have nothing to lose. She challenged a sexist prick to a duel, one who shamelessly denied her oppretunity because of her gender.

The Chase

At the start of the episode Katara gently hints Toph to help unpack a camp for the night. This is when she's not tired yet, and shows patience.

Katara: So Toph, usually when setting up camp, we try to divide up the work.

Toph: Hey, don't worry about me. I'm good to go.

Katara (still calmly): Well, actually, what I'm trying to say is, some of us might fetch water while someone else might set up the fire pit or put up the tent. *smiles* Even Momo does his fair share.

Toph (slightly irritated): Katara, I'm fine. I can carry my own weight. I don't need a fire. I've already collected my own food. And look. *earth bends a tent* My tent's all set up.

Katara: Well, that's great for you but we still need to finish-

Toph (loudly): I don't understand. What's the problem here??

Katara: Never mind.

Katara then goes to apologize. While also attempting to make sure her and Toph are on good terms by having her acknoledge that she wasn't 100 absolutly in the right.

Katara: Hey Toph, I wanted to apologize for earlier. I think we're all just a little tired and getting on each other's nerves.

Toph: Yeah, you do seem pretty tired.

Katara (slightly irrutated): I meant all of us.

Toph: Well, good night.

Katara: Good night.

By all means, Toph is in the wrong for the sheer refusal for communication. At first Katara calmly explained to her what was needed without even spelling it out. Toph was being passive, so she dropped it. And then she apologizes after doing nothing wrong just so they could be on good terms. Toph was the one being passive agressive. And Katara pretty much let it slide.

This is Katara. The patience she showed right here is her natural, normal self. The rest of the episode is under the context of sleep deprivation and how it's making them all hostile to each other. Including the pacifist Aang. Who's outburst leads Toph to leave. After she does, both Aang and Katara express remorse.

(Side note: I heard people take issue with the line "The stars sure are beautiful tonight, too bad you can't see them, Toph". It's been interpreted as Katara making fun of Toph for being blind, but it's just another instance in the recurring joke of the Gaang forgetting Toph is blind, and listed as such in the official A:TLA Youtube channel).

The Runaway

Update: This section, especially, is majorly outdated.

The episode has a silly opening where Aang is trained by Toph and Katara. Toph misses and accidently hits Katara with a big rock. After Toph doesn't apologize, it leads into a fight which is absolutly not to be taken seriously, that ends with Aang pointing out that it was supposed to be training.

It doesn't work as an exapmle for supposed hot-headedness because the reason this whole thing started because Toph hit Katara with a rock and refused to apologize.

But moving on to the real conflict of these episode, Toph scammed someone and Katara makes it clear that they shouldn't do it again, it'll draw attention to them. Aang promises her it won't happen again but.. um.. you know what happened.

Katara, being responsible, told them to quit because they'd potentially get exposed. Toph didn't reach well, telling her to lighten up. Katara rightfully gets angry, because they really might get exposed and Toph is dismissing her like her concerns are nothing. They have a short argument and Toph storms out.

This is why Katara was angry this episode. Her reasoning for being upset is the Gaang potentially exposing themselves for easy money. That's the conflict.

The Painted Lady

In this episode Katara sees a starving Fire Nation village but Sokka won't allow them to stay due to time limits. So she faked a disease for Appa so they could. Sokka confronts her. At first, she gives up and packs to leave. But since she destroyed the factory that's been polluting the villages water and taking their medicine, the people in charge assumed it was the civilians, and were coming to attack. Sokka and Katara get into a small but intense argument. Important to note, that she doesn't react intensively until Sokka does.

Katara: Well, what was I supposed to do?

Sokka: Leave! Do nothing.

Katara: No! I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me.

Her anger here doesn't highlight hot-headedness, it highlights compassion. Compassion is one of Katara's core traits. She's angry because she's being angrily demanded to see people suffer and stand by. And she will not tolerate it. She will never, ever turn her back on people who need her.

2. In reality, Katara is defined by her patience and compassion.

What I did here was listing off times where Katara did get angry. But Katara is generally a caring, kind person. Rather if it's cheering up Sokka, going shopping with him after he admitted to feeling useless; if it's pulling Aang out of the Avatar state, putting herself at risk when he's out of control; if it's helping deliver a baby of a stranger; or if it's freeing prisoners of the Fire Nation. She demonstrates impressive patience throughout the show.

The Deserter

In this episode Aang was asked to just control fire. Aang gets irrutated himself at this, but Katara assured him that it's probably for a good reaso. But when his master left, he firebent. He was being extremely careless with his new found Fire Bending and burned Katara's hands.

Did she...

A. splashed some water at him.

B. Yelled at him.

C. Ran away crying.

Yeah, she didn't express anger at all. Sokka was who's angry at Aang.

The Desert

The sand benders stole Appa and the Gaang is suck in a desert. Katara demonstrates her patience a lot this episode.

Toph and Aang are arguing about Toph not stopping them.

Aang: You just didn't care! You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone.

Katara: Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives.

Sokka: Who's gonna save our lives now? We'll never make itout of here.

Aang: That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves. You don't care whether Appa is okay or not.

Katara: We're all concerned, but we can't afford to be fighting now.

Aang accused the Gaang of something horrible. Katara told him to stop, but still understood his anger and calmly explained to him that it's important not to fight in a life threatening situation.

Aang then storms out to look for Appa. Katara's response?

Katara: We'd better start walking. We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba Sing Se.

She didn't get angry, she was rational and thought about the greater good.

After Aang comes back, Katara suggest they should try sleeping, gives the Gaang all of her bending water without drinking herself. And then finds a way to get to Ba Sing Se using the locations of star systems.

The Gaang spots a cloud and mistakes it for Appa. But Katara realizes the potential in a cloud. She tells Aang to fly and bend the water from the cloud so they could drink.

Katara (disappoibted): Wow, there's hardly any in here.

Aang (intensively): I'm sorry, okay? It's a desert cloud, I did all I could. What's anyone else doing? *Points at Katara* What are you doing?

After dealing with everyone's tireness, Sokka's high nonsense and Aang's attitude, carrying everyone, thinking of possible solutions to ensure they'd all survive, how did she react to Aang accusing her of not doing enough?

Katara: Trying to keep everyone together. Let's just get moving. We need to head this direction.

And after everything she did for everyone, she pulls Aang out of the Avatar state when he's raging, out of control.

Katara is not so hot headed.

She's sweet, nurturing and caring. She demonstrated incredible patience and perhaps even saved the Gang's life in The Desert with her resilience. Katara's compassion is her defining trait.

But that doesn't mean she's not a human being – she's allowed to be flawed, and in the moments where she does, she's very remorseful. And in the moments where she doesn't, people will still hold her accoutable for simply feeling a justified emotion.

Does it make you oh-so-hot headed to stand up to a sexist denying her opportunity? To make sure your friends don't destroy your chances to win a war? To not tolerate being told to see people in need and do nothing in a middle if an argument she didn't start? Of course it doesn't.

And other characters are allowed to express anger, to be flawed, in ways that are way worse than Katara without being labelled annoying hot headed by the fandom.

Katara is widly known to be irrational, letting her anger get the better of her, but it's simply not true.

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daggerspare-standingby · 4 months

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THE CHASE - PART 4 | Hangman x Reader

first off, HAPPY NEW YEAR!! and second, thank you so so so much for your patience with this next part! As some of you know, I was between 36-37 weeks pregnant when I started writing and posting this story, I gave birth at 39 weeks (Nov 9) and have been soaking up all the time with our little girl that I can. However, I was also suffering from a HUGE bout of writers block - I wasn't happy with how this part was turning out and actually deleted a bunch of it and re-wrote it. On top of that, I was (and still am) going through some PPD and PPA - I am doing better but I know it's still there, so your continued patience is ridiculously appreciated. Then the holidays came and I'm sure you all know how stressful those can be!

Anywho - Here's 1475 words of a little filler and some fluff and Jake realizing his feelings are stronger than what he originally thought.

A frustrated groan slips past your lips as you swipe the clothes hangers in your closet from one side to the other “how am I supposed to dress appropriately if I don’t even know where we’re going.”

After their game of dogfight football, the daggers had brushed off the sand and returned to bar, Jake sidling right up to the nearest barstool to you “so, I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at 7.” for a hot moment, you’d forgotten what he was talking about and cast him a confused look as you were pouring beer for another patron. His smirk didn’t falter “for our date, of course.” You nodded and set the beer down for the other guest and turned to him “beer or whisky tonight?” His grin stretched, showing off his pearly white teeth “Beer, and I’ll see you tomorrow at 7.” He took the opened bottle you handed him and almost strutted over to the remainder of the group by the pool tables.

So here you were, standing in your closet wrapped in a towel from the shower, your hair pinned up in a clip, and wondering what in god's name you were supposed to wear on this date with Jake and it was already 6pm. There was a little black dress that was staring at you from the rack with flutter sleeves and an open back, short but not too short to be deemed too risque, you could never go wrong with a little black dress. You grabbed it, and laid it on your bed as you got to work with your hair and makeup.

Jake was nervous. More nervous than when he realized he was the one who threw his CO out of the bar the night before meeting him officially, more nervous than hearing the mayhem that took place on the dagger’s mission while he was sitting on an aircraft carrier as the spare and unable to do anything about it. He glanced over at the bouquet of flowers in the passenger seat and took a deep breath before pulling up in front of your house. Shutting off the engine he checked the time, just before 7, he was nothing if not prompt. He grabbed the flowers, wiped his hands on his dark jeans once more and got out of the car, making his way up your path to the front door, one more deep breath, and he knocked.

You looked frantically at the clock on your bedside, it was already 7pm, and he was here. “Shit” you hissed as you hastily grabbed a clutch and slipped on a pair of trusty wedge sandals before making your way down the stairs. You opened the door, not fully taking in his appearance “sorry, give me just a second, have to switch some stuff from my purse” you turned so quickly you didn��t even really give him a chance to appreciate your attire either. Grabbing your larger bag, you grabbed your ID and some money from your wallet and slipped it into your clutch, and as you were buttoning it closed you finally looked up to see him standing in your doorway, holding a bouquet of flowers, in a button up that showed off his muscles just enough to know he had them and jeans that you were sure if he turned around would frame his ass perfectly, your mouth went a little dry. “Hi”

Jake felt like he was staring, he probably was, you looked so beautiful. He couldn't help but smile as you fluttered around taking things out of your other purse to put into your smaller one, his tongue swiped across his bottom lip when he saw the open back of your dress and your legs stemming from the tasteful hem of the dress down to your very cute wedges, he could get used to this. When you turned around to finally face him, his smile grew. “Hi” Your eyes widened a little as you took in his appearance as well and he held the flowers out to you “these are for you, should probably go in water before we leave…” You nodded, lips still parted slightly as you approached him and took the flowers from him “of course, come in just a minute.” You turned and walked towards the kitchen, Jake walked into the entryway and closed the door behind him, and he took in your decor as he waited.

Flowers. He got you flowers, and how did he know hydrangeas were your favorite? You took them into the kitchen, smelling them with a small smile on your face as you set them next to the sink and grabbed a vase to put them in. Snipping the ends and setting them in the vase, you left them on the kitchen counter as you picked up your purse and returned to where Jake was standing at the entrance, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He smiled at you as you approached “you look incredible” holding out his arm to you “ready to go?” A light blush covered your cheeks, as you took his arm and he led you out of the house, allowing you to lock up, before leading you down to his truck and opening the passenger door for you.

This was more than you expected, he was being quite the gentleman. The radio was playing softly in the truck when he started it up after closing your door for you. You stole the brief minute it took for him to walk around the front of the truck to take a deep breath and calm yourself. It never occurred to you that Jake would be a complete southern gentleman, even though he’s never shied away from being Texas born and raised. Thinking back to what you’d always heard from everyone, Penny, your predecessors at the bar, several other scorned women, his name on the bathroom stall, Phoenix… Hangman only cared about one thing. But this wasn’t Hangman tonight, this was Jake and you promised to give him a chance. You were shaken from your thoughts as he hopped into the truck himself and turned the engine.

Jake took a deep breath before climbing into the truck and heading towards the San Diego bridge that would bring you both into downtown San Diego. He had made reservations at a restaurant overlooking the marina that wasn’t cheap, he really wanted to impress you. As he drove, the music playing off the radio softly in the background, he looked over at you again “Penny for your thoughts?” Your eyes snapped up to meet his “truthfully? This is a lot more than I expected, the flowers, opening my door, you’re dressed very nicely and not in a cocky way” a very small smile graced his lips for a moment as he turned his attention back to the road “this is a real date, darlin.”

You didn’t know what to expect, when you told him you wanted to be wined and dined you hadn’t expected him to take it seriously. But you were pleasantly surprised with how he was taking it, and before you knew it you were heading across the bridge into downtown San Diego and down the highway towards the Marina. The lights from downtown reflected on the water and you rolled the window down slightly to let the salty air into the cab of the truck and allowed it to calm you as Jake pulled into the parking spot.

Jake’s hands were still sweaty, he was still nervous - uncharacteristically so. But he stilled the engine, and turned to look at you sternly “don’t you dare reach for that door handle, I know you’re an independent woman but my momma would hang me by my bootstraps if I didn’t get the door for any woman - independent or not.” You blinked at him in surprise and stifled a small giggle as he got out of the truck and jogged around the front to get the door for you and unbeknownst to you, wiped his hands on his jeans again before offering one to you to help you out of the truck. “Thank you, Jake” you whispered as you took his hand and stepped down from the truck. As he held your hand and walked into the restaurant, he realized the feeling of your soft hand in his felt better than any throttle of any plane he’d ever sat in, giving him a feeling of euphoria he didn’t want to ever fade. There was no doubt in his mind, as you both followed the waiter to the table near the window set for two, and as he pulled out your chair for you and watched you sit, face alight with the flickering glow from the candlelight, he was totally, utterly, and completely hooked on you, and he never wanted the feeling to end.

Jake's got feels and he's got them bad!!

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