#kataang kids

[beifongswh0re]

Kataang children bonding by braiding hair hc

When Kya was a kid, Katara taught Bumi how to braid her hair since she wasn't always around to do it.

Whenever Bumi would braid Kya's hair, they would talk a lot. That time became their bonding sessions when they would talk about literally everything; from how parents annoyed them to their love interests.

Soon before Bumi moved out to join the United Forces, Kya asked him to teach Tenzin how to braid her hair since she couldn't do it herself.

Kya and Tenzin talked too, but it made her even more jealous of how much attention Tenzin was getting from their dad because he'd talk so much about the things he was doing with/learning from Aang.

She'd listen to him anyway. It was a way for her to learn about the Air Nation culture since she's always felt the connection to the Air Nomad traditions but couldn't get Aang to teach her.

After a while, Tenzin helped Lin get her hair in order after their trainings. Since they'd talk while he did so, they realized they liked each other a bit more than just friends.

Tenzin would braid Lin's hair a lot when they were dating; before they'd go out, went to bed, literally everytime there was a chance.

Later in life, Tenzin forgot how to do all of this since Pema never asked him to.

Bumi, on the other hand, didn't forget so everytime he visited his brother, he'd braid his nieces hair. Both Ikki and Jinora enjoyed it a lot, it became one of their favorite things to do with their uncle.

Seeing how much his daughters enyojed it, Tenzin asked Bumi to remind him how to do it. Since Kya was around, she offered to be their "model".

The three had an amazing time while doing this. It was a great come back to their youth, when Bumi first taught Tenzin how to handle Kya's hair.

[btheleaf]

[x]

[fuzzykidney]

Found this on Reddit and now I’m crying.

1.Bumi he was always proud of you so stfu ok.

2. I bet Bumi excelled. He must’ve known some stuff from watching his brother and dad practice. And probably tried countless times to airbend for his dad when he was a child.

3. Even if he wasn’t a bender I am confident Sokka taught him boomerang and sword stuff while fire lady Mai taught him to throw knives.

4. Bumi, you were always part of the air nation ok

ALSO THIS IS SO CUTE, IS THERE A FIC?!

[aangarchy]

Do you know of any metas that disprove the argument of aang being a bad father? :/

I haven't seen any metas but i personally found the argument for Aang being a bad father weak at best

Aang wasn't a perfect father, that much is clear. But imo no Avatar can ever be a perfect parent (no one can be a perfect parent but i digress). The Avatar has a responsibility to the world. There are times where the Avatar isn't allowed to be selfish. For example, think of when Aang had to let go of Katara in order to access the Avatar State. How would Katara feel if he ever told her that this is necessary for him to activate it every time? I'm sure she wouldn't be fond of the idea.

The only thing we have to go on when it comes to Aang and Katara's parenting, is episodes 3 and 4 of Tlok book 2 (at least that i know of). Tenzin tries to recall his childhood memories that he thinks Kya and Bumi were a part of but turns out, they weren't. We don't know the reason for this, and we don't find out. I'm assuming these trips were perhaps intended as "airnomad lessons" or something like that, and that would be a reason for the other siblings to not be present. We do have to remember that Aang has a nation to rebuild. He's the only one in the world that was physically present during the time of the airnomads, and he only has so much time between his Avatar duties. He's the only one that can authentically pass on the customs. That's probably why these trips felt so frequent to Bumi and Kya, the few times Aang was present he was off with Tenzin for airnomad teachings. (Again this is my assumption. The writers never gave us a reason for the other siblings being absent or for the trips to even have occurred.)

(Personally i do feel like this is affected by bad writing. Why on earth would Kya and Bumi not also be considered part of the airnomads, as well as the watertribe? Why would they not learn everything there is to know about their heritage, even though they don't master the element? Instead bryke made Kya a mini Katara, Tenzin a mini Aang and Bumi just kind of floats lost in the middle, and is clearly supposed to be a mini Sokka. It's a very poor example of a mixed family.)

Kya and Bumi's version of the events are obviously going to be biased. They felt like their father was never there, and they're very angry with him for being absent (who wouldn't be). Tenzin's view is also biased, he was the youngest and spent the most time with Aang. It surprises me that throughout this episode, they never once mention what Katara was like as a mother. All of their anger is aimed at Aang (easy target, the mf is dead already) but Katara is also responsible here as the other parent. What were discussions like? Did the kids ever tell Katara how they felt? She was still married to Aang it's not like they had separated and started co parenting. They were a team. Did Katara spend a lot more time with Kya to teach her about the watertribe? Did she take Kya on girltrips? What was Bumi doing during all of this?

At the end of these episodes, when the siblings reconcile, Kya shows them a family photo. They all look back on it fondly. If Aang was truly such a horrible father (or even abusive like some people have claimed bc why not throw every term around) they would not look at this picture like that. They like their family, as flawed as it is. They clearly have good memories too, but because these particular episodes are about how parents aren't perfect (the conflict between Ikki and her siblings mimics that of the one Tenzin has with his) those memories aren't talked about.

Anyway to summarize this into a point: i don't think Aang was a bad or abusive father. I think he was unfortunately an pretty absent father as a byproduct of being the Avatar, and that he committed the ultimate parent sin: picking a favorite. I wonder what type of parent Roku was, or any past Avatars that had children.

[chiefbeifongcanrailme]

Who is kataras favorite child?

I wanna say Bumi.

Katara has always been a mother and the first person to give realization to this characteristic was her first born. Sure, Kya's basically a reflection of her and Tenzin's their new last airbender but Bumi's her special little boy.

[eeriezoundz]

I could be a good mother

[the-badger-mole]

Clouds, Fog and Mists

The scholars and archeologists that Aang had been working with had come out of their museum basements and dimly lit studies with a wealth of Air Nomad histories and artifacts that had been lost during the war. Aang now had access to recipes he hadn't tasted in years, scrolls that gave historical context to the things he had just begun learning at age 12, and objects he had never seen, but was excited to learn the use of. At 22, he was just now learning that the Air Nomads had a variety of subcultures and customs he'd never encountered, even though he had visited every Air Temple that existed back then.

"Did you know..." became as common to his vocabulary as "hello" and "custard tart". Every day, he approached his wife with some new bit of lore he'd learned.

"Did you know that the Southern Air Nomads had a Festival of Remembrance?" he'd excitedly asked as Katara was hanging the laundry out to try. She was only half listening while she tried to keep Bumi, their nearly three year old son out of the basket of wet sheets, but she gave a polite hum of encouragement.

"For a whole week," Aang continued needing no further prompting, "no one was allowed to play music or speak. They even wore velvet over their feet so their footsteps wouldn't be too loud. Then, at the end of it, there was a huge party! Loud as anything with music and plays and games. I think I remember going one of those ending parties, but I didn't know about the vow of silence before it."

"That's fascinating, sweetie," Katara said, rubbing her heavy belly with a look of discomfort. She was seven months along with their second child, and this one was very active. "Bumi, last warning. Do not touch the clean clothes!"

"Okay, Mommy!" Bumi said before swatting at one of the sheets Katara had hung on the line. She sighed and turned to her husband.

"Can you take him?" she asked. "I'm tired, and I'd like to take a nap after I finish this."

"Oh," Aang said reluctantly. "I was going to have an afternoon session with the Acolytes. I'm dying to tell them what I've been learning."

"Aang, please?" Katara sagged tiredly, taking Bumi's hand and pulling him away from all her hard work.

"Alright," Aang sighed. "I'll watch him for a bit. Come on, Bumi! Let's go practice some air katas! I want you to be ready when your airbending kicks in!"

-:-:-:-:-:-

All Air Nomads were airbenders. That's what Aang had always been taught. He had to account for late bloomers, of course, but at age four, going on five, if Bumi was going to be an airbender, there would've been signs by now. Kya was a lost cause. She had started waterbending just before her second birthday, and despite the fact that her father was the Avatar, there was no chance that she would inherit the ability to control more than one element.

"Well, maybe it's not true that all Air Nomads were benders," Katara said with a shrug. "After all, not every Water Tribesman is a waterbender, and not everyone in the Earth Kingdom is an earthbender."

"It's different," Aang insisted. "The monks told me that all Air Nomads were benders because we have a unique connection with our spirituality." Katara didn't quite manage to hide her annoyance from him.

"Then explain our kids," she said. "Unless you're the first Air Nomad in history to have children with a non-Air Nomad, someone somewhere got something wrong." Aang went quiet after that. He had no response.

"Just because the Air Nomads may have had children with people from other nations doesn't mean that their children were Air Nomads," an acolyte named Qiao said. She was one of the most apt and studious of Aang's Air Acolytes, and they had spent many hours together pouring over the newly discovered texts. Sometimes, Aang thought that she had a better grasp of Air Nomad culture than even he did.

"I suppose....I suppose that's true," Aang said thoughtfully, taking a sip of his tea.

"The Air Nomads were mostly not monogamous," Qiao pointed out. "I'm sure there were a lot of Nomads who had understandings with their lovers from other nations. Especially among the Air Acolytes of the day."

Aang pondered that for the rest of the day. Then the next. Then the rest of the week before he finally approached Katara. He found her by the fountain with Kya and Bumi. Kya was busy making imperfect little shapes with the water while Katara was teaching Bumi how to put his hair into a warrior's wolf tail.

"You look just like your uncle Sokka," she laughed, pressing a kiss on her son's cheek. "I bet you'll be a great warrior just like him, too." That twisted Aang's gut uncomfortably. He cleared his throat to get Katara's attention.

"Hey, sweetie," he said.

"Hey," Katara smiled at him. "We're just about to have story time. Do you want to stick around for How Umiak Rowed Her Boat to the Stars?"

"Oh, um..."Aang shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Sure. I was just...thinking of something."

"Yeah?" Katara raised her brow at him. "What?"

"I was just thinking of how all the Air Nomads were benders." Katara didn't bother trying to hide her disgusted snort or the rolling of her eyes.

"Okay, and?" she huffed. "Did you draw any new conclusions?"

"I can't have been the only Air Nomad to have children with someone from a different culture," he said. Katara stared at him blankly for a long moment.

"I told you that," she responded finally. "It's just now sinking in?'

"No, I understood you," Aang told her. He kicked at the ground. There was a loose pebble under his toe and he focused on rolling it back and forth. "It's just...well, the Air Nomads, they weren't strictly monogamous."

"Monogamous," Katara scoffed. "That's a big word for you." Aang bristled a bit at that, but he took a breath and let it go.

"I was just reading," Aang said with a shrug. "It occurred to me that maybe because the Air Nomads weren't monogamous, they just didn't bring their non-bending kids into the Air Nomad society." Katara looked up at Aang with her eyes wide.

"That's awful!" she said. "So because their kids didn't bend the right elements, they had to be cut off from one of their parents?"

"No, I'm sure it wasn't as bad as all that-" Aang started to protest.

"What exactly are you saying, Aang?" There was a dangerous edge to Katara's voice. A warning.

"Nothing, nothing!" he scrambled back, tripping over his tongue, trying to call back his words, and cursing himself for trying to bring up the subject without a plan. Katara eyed him coldly. She was angry and trying not to show it.

"It's time for lunch," she told her children. "Let's go inside and fix something to eat."

"But Mommy," Bumi protested. "I want to hear about Umiak!" Katara turned to him with a tight smile.

"That's okay, sweetie," she said. "I'll tell you while you help me fix lunch." With one last scowl at Aang, she took Bumi's hand and swung Kya up onto her hip and went inside.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Aang felt vindicated when it was discovered that he and Qiao were right. The Air Nomads would often leave non-airbending children with their non-Nomad parents. Sometimes the Air Nomad parent would stay with their non-Nomad partners and build a life with them and their children (something he made a note to tell Katara about). Then it was discovered that they were only partially right.

Some of the Air Nomads stayed and raised mixed heritage families. Some left their non-airbending children behind with their non-Nomad partners. That was expected. Reasonable, even. What Aang was not expecting, however, were the accounts of non-airbending children being given away. Some were adopted, and those adoptions were traceable through documents and letters. Others were sold. Those transactions were traceable, too. By most accounts, those children went into indentured servitude and many of them learned trades and were able to start businesses once their indenture was up. Aang tried to focus on the positives. Katara, however, was horrified.

"What right did they have to sell those children into...into slavery?" she demanded hotly while they were getting ready for bed.

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad," Aang insisted. "After all, the Air Nomads wouldn't have put children into situations where they could've been hurt."

"Yes," Katara sneered. "I'm sure their new owners were very gentle with their exploitation."

"That isn't fair!" Aang protested. "Do you know how difficult it would've been for those kids to live among the Nomads?"

"Probably about as easy as it's been for our kids." Katara glared at Aang meaningly. He felt his cheeks heat as he looked away, pretending not to understand.

Bumi was going on eight now, and Kya was five. They were both old enough to ask questions about why it was so difficult for them to move around their own home. Katara and the Acolytes had an easier time being adults and able to maneuver obstacles that short legs and small hands couldn't without help, but it was still a regular challenge to get around the Air Temple for them. Aang was in the process of building a complex near Republic City where non-airbending Acolytes could live and learn with more ease, but it wouldn't be ready for anyone to move into for another year or so. It would be safer for children with no airbending ability, too. Aang glanced over at Katara from the corner of his eye, at the soft swell of her stomach, already showing signs of pregnancy at her second month.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Tenzin was the last of Aang's children with Katara, and the only airbender. When he was almost one, he airbent for the first time, and Aang couldn't stop celebrating for an entire week. When Tenzin was two, the first of the burial mounds were discovered.

Archaeologists working at the mostly restored Northern Air Temple found it at the base of the mountain. There were several layers to the grave, suggesting generations' worth of use. Most of the bones were small. Infant and toddler sized. The largest bones were about the size of an average eight year old. The bones were all jumbled together, as if they had been tossed in a heap. Some of them wore the clothes they were buried in, but most of the bones were too broken to hang on to any frabric. There were also no signs of any shrouds or anything indicating that they had been given any of the customary funeral rites of the Air Nomads. The fact that they were found at the base of the mountain in itself was unusual. All the different groups of Air Nomads had their own unique funeral customs, but one thing that remained the same was that they were laid to rest as close to the sky as possible.

When the first reports of how the children came to be at the base of the mountain came out, Aang was certain it was the rankest propaganda. None of the Air Nomads, no matter how stringent they were about non-airbenders living among them, would ever harm a child. For a while, he seemed to be right, as all the proof was from secondary and tertiary sources.

"Lies the Fire Nation used to justify genocide," Aang said confidently.

"But how did the children get there?" Katara asked. Aang had no answer for her. Yet. There must have been a good one, though. Maybe a plague had run through the Air Temple, forcing them to bury the bodies at the bottom of the mountain to prevent contamination, or something equally tragic. Aang began talking to the archaeologists about giving the bones a proper burial as soon as they could be sorted. The count at that time was 700 bodies in the pile and there were still so many more to go.

A few months after that, the oldest of the Air Nomad accounts were uncovered. It went back a good 300 years, and it spoke about a surplus of infants born without the gift of airbending. There were too many to be disposed of the normal ways, and many of the non-bending parents were unwilling or unable to raise the children themselves. The anonymous monk wrote of a meeting to discuss the crisis. They wouldn't be able to care for so many that couldn't get around the temple, or travel with the Nomads. There was a food shortage. A water shortage. An everything shortage. So the head monk suggested giving the children to the air. That had been the first time the practice had been recorded, near as anyone could tell. But some of the bones were older than that.

That's what they called it. It sounded lovely. Poetic even. In practice, though, the babies were carried to the edge of the temple grounds and held in the air. A short prayer was said for the souls of the children, and then they just...let go. They were so high up, they probably couldn't hear the children hit the ground.

The public began to call them the Fog Children. They were babies born to Air Nomad parents, but without airbending abilities themselves. People clung to the term and it soon spread all over the world in hushed whispers. Aang hated it. Katara hated it. It was the only thing they could agree on by that time.

"It isn't fair!" Aang bemoaned. "It's like people are using it to justify the Fire Nation killing all the Air Nomads."

"If it bothers you so much," Katara said after she'd put the kids to bed, "then speak up! Condemn what they did."

"I do!" Aang insisted. He had protested, loudly that all of the Air Nomads shouldn't be judged by what one fringe sect did.

"Not just them," Katara said. "All of it. It's just like with the Fire Nation. Remember what Zuko said? You can't expect to move forward without acknowledging the past. All of it was wrong. The Air Nomads treated their non-bending children as if they had no value. Condemn the adoptions and abandonings and the selling of the children!"

"How is it my responsibility to make up for all of that?" Aang demanded.

"You're the only one left," Katara reminded him, trying to be gentle. "I'm not saying you have to call the Air Nomads monsters. They did something wrong. They were human. You can acknowledge that and commit to being better than that."

"How?"

"Start with your children."

It had been a frequent argument between Katara and Aang how Aang treated their children. Bumi was 13 now, well on his way to becoming a man. Kya was 11 and Tenzin was five. Often, Katara would quiz Aang on his children- what Kya's favorite color was, or the name of Bumi's best friend. Aang could admit that he was correct about Tenzin more often than the others, but it was only because Aang had so much he had to teach his youngest. Katara should've understood that. After all, there were things she did with Kya that she couldn't do with Bumi or Tenzin.

"It's not the same," Katara told him. Aang could never remember why, though.

For the next year or so, Aang spent much of his time doing damage control. He did his best to separate the practices at the Northern Air Temple and the particular sect of Air Nomad culture that grew around it from the rest of the Air Nomads. Every criticism of the culture was met sharply by Aang's rebuttals and justifications. Penning article after article espousing the virtues of the Air Nomads at large became his full time job, and obsession. It took him two weeks to notice that Katara had left with all three of his children, and another month for him to find the letter Katara had left in his bedside table telling him she was seeking a divorce.

He got Tenzin three months of the year. It was all he could manage, being completely unused to parenting alone. Aang taught his son what he could of airbending and the Nomad philosophy he could in that time, and did his best to ignore the people whispering fog children in the same breath as his oldest children.

[1v31182m5]

Secret identities

[queen-morgana91]

Yep

I also need people to realize that the first reason katara and aang had children is because.... they loved each other

God forbid a married couple have three kids out of love. Aang and Katara didn't get together to have airbender kids lol

i'm glad that many people are finally speaking up

[firenaition]

atla as random tweets i found in my camera roll

[bluespiritshonour]

Here's kataang art dump. Reprise.

P.S. don't ask me why I handed Katara what looks suspiciously like an electric trimmer.

[btheleaf]

[magnetic-rose]

man as i'm rewatching all of a:tla i really want to make a post about what are (imo at least) common misconceptions about the show and characters.

like a very common one that i see parroted way too often is "katara is too mature/motherly and babies aang," with the implication that her romantic love for him makes no sense.

but i'm more than halfway done with s1 and i think the fandom forgets that katara is a 14 year old girl. she's not a young woman, she's a child. and often times she's mischievous and funny and childish. she's usually right there WITH aang participating in his shenanigans. she even creates her own shenanigans. the show spells it out for the audience in episode one where katara and aang are penguin sliding and she says "i haven't done this since i was a kid" and aang replies "but you are a kid." one of the reasons she was so mad at sokka and gran gran for kicking aang out of the village was because "he brought laughter back."

and that's why they work and that's why she falls for him. he brings levity back to her life. he allows her to be a goofy, silly kid. they often support each other's little games. she cheers on him when he's riding the giant koi fish (until she gets distracted). they play in the river. she wears the necklace he makes her. he wears the goofy hat she makes. he goes along with her fortune-telling obsession.

and if anything, sokka is usually the voice of reason between them, trying to reel aang and katara in. and yet sokka gets the fandom reputation as the chaotic fun guy and katara gets the reputation as the "mom" who's telling people off. she's aang's biggest partner in crime and yet fandom treats her like the exasperated mom friend.

[poisonousquinzel]

little me, we made it.

it took like 15 years, but we made it

[tadpole-art]

Big Brother Bumi <3

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Katara's issue with being seen as motherly coming from the fact it seems to exclude her from being someone who can have fun

and you know who always believes and encourages Katara to have fun, well before this episode happens?