did anybody else ever really want to know what happened those few weeks when aang was in his coma? we have it briefly summarized for us, but we never really get to see healer katara and how difficult it must have been for her to keep trying week after week only for aang to remain unconconsious?? plus the amount she would have had to work on her healing abilities and push her knowledge to her limits??? i don't typically write very much kataangst (see what i did there??), but i made an exception for this in-progress fic concept. i present to you some bits and pieces of "i'm no longer a kid, and everything has changed":
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Katara felt the same flood of emotion that had washed over her as her mother fell as she watched Aang crumple and crash to the ground, Azula’s lighting still blazing through his body. For a second, she was back in her tent from years ago in the Southern Water Tribe, trying to waterbend to save her mother, only to realize that she had doomed her. Katara hadn't been able to believe it was real, even when the cloth-covered body’s arm was still wrapped in the bracelet Katara had made her in school only days before. Even when she saw the familiar necklace around her mother's neck.
Even when she had clasped the same necklace around her own neck.
Seeing Aang now, she felt powerless, again, despite all that she had worked through, despite the skills she had gained. Fury rushed through her, and suddenly, she didn’t care who she hurt, who she got in the way of. It didn’t matter. They didn’t matter. He did. She had to get to him.
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He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t moving. That was all she could think about, even as Sokka and Toph joined them, twin looks of horror on their faces as she quickly briefed them on the situation.
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I know I can’t exactly… see it, but…” Toph said, solemnly. “Twinkle-toes looks… seems ... a bit…worse for wear.”
“Can you monitor his heartbeat?” Katara nervously ran her hands through the air above Aang's body. “I’m probably going to need to attempt something a bit experimental. I need to know if I need to stop, if it hurts him.”
“Is this the best idea?” Toph raised an eyebrow sceptically. Katara rested a hand on her lap, hanging her head slightly. “It’s the only idea I have.” Toph nodded sharply, as if she had just received orders, and rested her hand lightly on Aang’s upper arm.
“Heartbeat steady.” She confirmed. “But something’s wrong with his breathing pattern. His lungs aren’t receiving enough blood, I think.” Katara exhaled, shakily, wracking her mind for something that could work. Her thoughts were cut off by the squeak of boots against metal, echoing from the doorway.
Her and Toph turned sharply, nervous that they were harbouring a Fire Nation stowaway, only to visibly relax when they realized it was only Sokka, joining them after setting the ship on its course. “If his blood is a liquid,” Sokka mused, crouching beside Aang,
“Couldn’t you… bend it, Katara?”
*starts talking about kataang* they are kids *starts crying* fighting a war. *sobs uncontrollably* THEY ARE THE LAST BENDERS OF THEIR HOMES *falls on the ground* THEY FELL IN LOVE.
definition of 🤨 & 🙂
Let’s make this scene from Invincible into a meme template, lol.
yeah... me too 😌 my multichap kataang fanfic "the teenager in the iceberg" follows the events of the show, but with only aang aged up, while everyone else remains their canon age.
to put it clearly, katara falls first, and aang falls harder 🤭 (and they both get a lil jealous hehe)
enjoy the excerpts from chapter 6!!! (the jet episode!!)
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“We’ve got a big plan to score big against the Fire Nation.” Jet kept his face straight ahead, his hooks swinging, and Katara could see the bit of wheat he still held between his teeth over his shoulder.
“Sounds…big.” Aang said the words somewhat sarcastically, earning a choked giggle from Katara, but Jet didn’t quite seem to catch the nuance of it all.
“Oh, it will be.” He hacked aside a final overhanging branch. “Here we are.”
“...A bunch of holes in the ground?” Aang shifted his weight and raised an eyebrow, only to immediately drop to a defensive position when Katara swatted him, hard, on the arm and gave him a glare. He raised his hands in a “don’t shoot” position, and schooled his features into neutrality by the time Jet turned around.
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Aang paused his movements at this, letting the water he was bending drop to his feet, coursing through cracks in the rock floor beneath them. “Katara. You can’t genuinely believe that. Sokka is an idiot, but he’s not dumb.”
Katara raised an eyebrow. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“That Sokka can be goofy, sure, but I trust him and his perception, 100%. He doesn’t miss things. If anything, he sees and notices things most people don’t. If he doesn’t trust Jet….” Aang sighed, resuming his bending forms. “I just feel like you’re getting too close to him. Jet, I mean.”
“And what would the problem be with that?” Katara could hear her voice rising, her temper flaring.
“He’s a bad guy, Katara.”
“You don’t know that!”
“He hurt you!” Katara shut her mouth at the raw emotion in Aang’s voice. He was breathing heavily now, his fists clenching as wind whipped around them. He bit his lip, took in some deep breaths. “He hurt you,” he repeated, this time more gently. “I didn’t protect you quickly enough.”
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Tonight was different. She still couldn’t sleep, that much was the same, but as she rose to drill her forms by the river, she felt a hand clamp around her forearm. She almost screamed, but when she whirled around to face her would-be attacker, she exhaled in a whoosh, relieved that it was only Aang.
“My bad,” he whispered, cringing at his choice to grab her arm without warning. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Katara dropped back down onto her sleeping bag, neatly crossing her legs. Aang did his best to ignore that she was only in her wrappings now, that the moonlight was sparkling on her bare skin, like a spirit in a painting of old. “I was just…wanting some air.”
“C’mon, Katara, don’t even try. You’re an awful liar.” He flashed a grin, and in the dark, the starlight set his teeth aglow. “I know you’ve been bending at night.”
Katara blanched at this. “How?”
“Light sleeper?” Aang shrugged. “Plus, you’re not great at sneaking out, either. You’ve stepped on me pretty much every time you’ve gotten up to practise.”
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“I, um…” Aang trailed off, and even in the dark, she could tell he was trying to hide a blush, could tell he was embarrassed. “I got you something.” He quickly backtracked, his voice somewhat frantic. “If you want. You might not. Want it, that is. And you don’t have to, and I’m not sure if it’ll even-”
“Aang.” Katara caught his hands in hers, looking into his eyes earnestly. “What is it?”
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check it out here!! ->
au where Aang gets told he's the Avatar (and subsequently frozen) at 16 like he was supposed to.... I think it would change a lot honestly
"I never understood why Katara was attracted to Aang" you are weak and will not survive the winter
KIT WE NEED TO COOK!!!!
there are lots of people who've wondered what the gaang as a whole would have been like if they'd been older when they went on their world-altering quest, but... what if just aang was older? what if he had been frozen in his iceberg at age 16, instead of age 12?
for starters, i'm sure it'd change the dynamic between him and katara. maybe she'd look at him differently more quickly, maybe we'd get a bit of a reverse crush? he'd be taller than sokka much earlier on, and when zuko found him, he'd be "just a teenager," not "just a child."
essentially, to recap. ATLA aang aged up AU fic. kataang. where she falls first, and he falls harder.
i present to you... excepts from "the teenager in the iceberg", my newest ao3 fic 🤍
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Shining blue eyes. Bright robes made up of strips of fabric coloured in shades of sunset they almost never saw down in the Southern tribes.
The most beautiful boy she’d ever seen .
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“W-Will-” he struggled, the words so hoarse that it was as though he hadn’t used his voice in decades. He cleared his throat, eyes sparkling distractingly, grinning roguishly. “Will you go penguin sledding with me?”
Katara blanched, momentarily caught off guard. She looked back over at Sokka, who had been watching the exchange with narrowed eyes and a suspicious expression as he recrossed his arms over one another.
“I- um-... yes?” she answered, hesitantly, just as Sokka’s voice overlapped hers, yelping the words “She absolutely will not!” Katara shot him a scathing glare as the boy rose to his feet, shaking the snow off of his cloak like a polar-bear dog.
Sokka continued, his voice both indignant and commanding.“We don’t even know your name, Mr. Walking Ice Cube! What were you doing in there? Were you trying to mimic a snow-man and you got too carried away?”
“And you aren’t dressed for the cold,” Katara added appraisingly, giving him a once-over. “You look-”
“Dashingly handsome?” The boy smoothly interjected, accompanied by a grin that felt like it was just for her.
“...Cold.” she said flatly, hoping she wasn’t furiously blushing as she shot him with what she hoped came across as a scathing glare.
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Katara still wasn’t quite sure what to make of Aang. The Water Tribe boys had always been all flashy muscles, seal-jerky breath, and overconfidence, so Katara had never seen someone move, carry themself, the way Aang did.
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Katara had admittedly forgotten how much fun penguin sledding was. “Spirits, I haven’t done this since I was a kid!” she called to Aang as he raced past her, surprisingly skilled considering that he’d never even seen a penguin until half an hour before.
“You still are a kid!” He called back over his shoulder. “A kid who’s losing this race, badly!”
Katara’s competitive streak reared its head, her eyes narrowing as Aang stuck out his tongue. She sat up slightly, no longer gripping the penguin’s fur as tightly. “You wish!” She shouted back the words as she raised her hands, breathing deeply. Her hands moved through the positions she had practised from the few bending scrolls the tribe still held on to, and before Aang knew it, the snow in front of Katara turned to ice, and she shot past him as his own ice trail suddenly became dry snow with too much friction to slide on.
She made it to the bottom of the hill, beaming, breathing heavily. The wind had whipped her hair out of her bun, and she knew without checking that her hair must have looked like a lion-turtle’s mane. She watched as Aang made a show of drying himself off with a gust of wind that he then redirected at her, messing up her curls even more.
“You’re a cheater !” Aang gasped, mockingly clutching imaginary pearls at his throat. “I demand a rematch.”
Katara strode past him, only turning her head to cast him a smug smirk. “Maybe you’re just not as good of a penguin sledder as you thought.”
“Oh, not so fast!” Aang grabbed her wrist, tugging her back towards him, and she internally questioned why the momentary brush of their skin made her heart flip. He tried to trip her, she tried to flip him, and they both ended up on their backs in the snow, giggling, cheeks and noses bright pink from the cold.
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“Gran, I want you to meet Aang, he’s-”
“An airbender.” Her grandmother said the words with complete and utter awe. “The last airbender.”
Aang’s nose wrinkled in confusion, his head tilting and mouth opening to ask for clarification, but Gran’s next words stunned him and the rest of the room into silence.
“The Avatar .”
Sokka and Katara’s jaws dropped, both pivoting to face Aang. Katara looked up at him, expecting to see shock and confusion, but she was met with sheepishness as Aang rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.
“You are .” Katara breathed. “Spirits, you’re the Avatar.”
this is the exact vibe of ATLA when it goes from the gaang escaping horrors beyond human comprehension to aang making goo-goo eyes at katara 😭🤍
it’s monday i’m in the labyrinth
i'm working on a summer olympics atla au oneshot, and while i have picked some of the gaang's sports, i'm struggling a little extra with choosing sports for katara and zuko.
for reference, aang & toph are both rock climbers (for reasons that will be clear upon reading), sokka is a fencer (and yes, sokka calls his fencing sword a "space sword"), mai competes in the shooting event (because c'mon, mai with a gun just makes sense), suki does judo, and azula does volleyball (very competitively, think back to the beach episode).
!link to katara's poll here
hi!!! i'm quill 🕯an a03 writer trying to figure out an entirely new platform!!she/her
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