Katara wakes up to find Momo in her room; Sokka put Momo in her room to wake her up without incurring her wrath. Despite her annoyance, Katara heads down for breakfast.
Katara sees some decorations and a large amount of food. The rest of the Gaang interrupts their last minute preparations to wish Katara a happy birthday.
Katara talks with Sokka about waking her up, and the others are annoyed, with it being implied that he not only did it too early for her tastes, but too early for theirs, since they weren't done with the decorations. Katara sentences him to ten push-ups for that, prompting Sokka to call it a "birthday dictatorship."
Suki passes Katara some moon peaches with a curtsy, having heard from Sokka that's what she wants people to do for her on her birthday. Katara is annoyed, since this information is four years out of date, and gives Sokka more push-ups to do.
The Gaang mentions that they got Katara's favorite fruits from a market on the other side of the island. Suki mentions that they had sea prunes there, but the others silence her, apparently seeing that as a spoiler for the plan. Zuko changes the subject to whether the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation's passionfruits are better. Aang then presents Katara with his gift- a bowl of dragonberries, a "luxury extravagance" as Katara puts it. The others enjoy the berries, which Suki says are "better than sex" in her words. As the others wonder what would qualify sex-like food, Katara ends the conversation with her birthday powers. It's good to see that Aang's gift went over so well, though.
This reminds me a little of one of those RP Gs in which key terms, emphasized words, and anything the developers want you to pay attention to are bolded. It makes me wonder if it says more about Katara or the author.
Katara wants to find out more about the plan, which she suspects is unrelated to Aang having everyone else stand around while he gathered the berries (or is it that they had him gather the berries while they stood around?) Now various members of the cast have their turns presenting their presents.
Aang Aang apparently is insistent on being the first to present Katara with his present, and comes back with firelilies, the second part of the rare, expensive and special trifecta.
Unfortunately, while Aang doesn't realize it, firelilies remind her of Hama, although she realizes that the ones she saw that time were the common variety. Katara tries to convince herself to stop being silly, and tries harder to convince Aang that she liked the gift. Aang asks if she likes them, but Katara changes the subject to something that's easier to talk about.
It's a bit unfortunate that things turned out this way for Aang, although Katara, to her credit, does acknowledge his good intentions. Still, I do have to wonder why Aang (save for making rarity one of his main criteria for a good gift) would make this mistake, and Zuko, who wasn't part of the Gaang in "The Puppetmaster" did not.
Toph Toph says that the spa is her main present, but gives Katara a little something extra, what looks like a necklace, but turns out to be a pair of lockpicks. Katara is annoyed at the implication that she's sneaky, although the others suggest otherwise, and that it's not a bad thing. Katara thanks Toph for the gift, believing it will come in handy someday. Sokka tries to swing the conversation back to Katara's sneakiness and gets more pushups.
Suki is impressed by Katara being able to sneak up on her despite her stealth training, although I do have to wonder how much stealth training involves detecting stealthy individuals, an offense against stealth's defense, if you will. It's enough of a compliment that Katara is quite touched in spite of her mixed feelings about her own sneakiness. Zuko brings up Katara stalking him as proof of her being stealthy (which Aang does not know about) and brings up his own stealth training. Katara uses her birthday powers to pre-empt an argument.
Suki Suki bought Katara a fan, wanting to make her an honorary Kyoshi Warrior, but unable to find the official fans. She also points out that it's quite hot on the island. Katara loves it.
Sokka Sokka presents what appears to be a painted stick, but what he calls a "commonsense stick.", from all the way back from Chapter 7 of Stalking Zuko. To avoid admitting that he read about it in Katara's stalker journal, Sokka describes it as a Water Tribe in-joke. Zuko is uneasy about how the stick will likely be used on him.
After the gift giving ends, Katara uses the commonsense stick to call things to order and do bonding activities that she could not compel people to do outside her birthday, such as trust falls. Toph is reluctant, worried about being squished.
Katara is paired up with Zuko it's unclear who assigned the groups, but Katara seems most likely), not because she wants to feel him up, but because she wants to improve the trust between them.
Zuko is more than a little nervous, saying he finds it hard to trust people, but Katara reassures him. Meanwhile, the others are already getting to it, with Aang and Toph getting used to it, and Sokka and Suki getting feely with theirs. Katara gets a little "handsy" with Zuko, while admiring his body, but he does it more "gentlemanly" with her.
The author thanks the reviewers, but reveals that her computer ate her rough drafts, resulting in a few more typos than usual, as a result of writing on a laptop.
The author mentions that pets waking people up, like Sokka had Momo do for Katara, is a tradition in her home. It reminds me a little of one story I heard, in which a cat got her human awake when he slept through a smoke alarm, enabling him to escape a house fire.
The author suggests that birthday rules would be a tradition in Katara's family (which seems to be a fairly large family without a family name). Katara orders Sokka around because he's her brother and is used to taking it (she'll get more "birthday-bossy" as she gets closer with the others), and he puts up with it because it's less fuss in the short term, and in the long term, he can make demands of his own on her birthday.
Dragon berries are described as "food orgasm inducing."
The author then goes into detail about the presents.
Aang: The author, in spite of wanting to minimize the serious parts of this chapter (and largely succeeding, which nicely fit), points out that firelilies remind Katara of Hama. This is something Aang doesn't know, since he merely wanted something romantic, but Zuko picks up on Katara's discomfort enough to take them off her hands.
Toph: The author points out that Toph's gift was a way for group acknowledgment of Katara's sneakiness, forcing her out of denial, in a blunt yet affectionate manner.
Suki: The author points out that "Sandalwood fans are awesome!" Not all gifts require much explanation, and this was fairly well explained in the text.
Sokka: The author describes the commonsense stick as a "Sokka present". It starts as a joke, but Katara will take a liking to it, possibly overusing it and having it hidden from her like she hid Zuko's fireflakes from him.
Everyone's presents reveal something about how they see her, as a hopeful optimist(Zuko), a romantic prospect(Aang), an affectionate snooper/busybody(Toph), sister figure (Suki), little sister (Sokka).
All this seems valid so far. But if I extrapolate it a little further, I might get somewhat different results.
- Zuko's gift shows him as someone who understands Katara, has some idea of what she means and doesn't, and fosters a deeper connection with her (he gets an entire scene for his gifts).
- Aang is in love with Katara and has good intentions for her, but is doomed to not only have his feelings unrequited, but also to fall short of understanding Katara when it matters (notice that he's the only person who didn't have some specific purpose in mind with his gift).
- Toph is, as always, someone who gripes about Katara's more maternal side, but considers her a kind individual at hard- it's not too different from canon but doesn't have to be.
- Suki is a friend of Katara who establishes an identify for herself beyond being Sokka's girlfriend by drawing on what we know of Kyoshi.
- And Sokka is the one who cares for Katara, but doesn't hesitate to tease her about many things, such as her stalking Zuko.
The author says trust falls are "lame", but she loves them. They're a good group bonding exercise, but enough people are reluctant to do it so that Katara could only compel them to do so with birthday powers.
The author points out that Zuko has trust issues, and that he's starting to trust Katara in ways that he never trusted Mai. The author doesn't elaborate much on that, which is disappointing; usually she would devote a paragraph, if not an entire rant, to this.
The second of three parts will take place at a spa, with "shenanigans and lady bonding."
What I liked
- Most of the gifts were nice touches showing the givers' personalities.
- Katara's amusing and effective use of her birthday powers.
What I didn't like
- Honestly, there were too many bolded words for my liking.
- Aang's gifts falling flat.
- Aang's gifts being less targeted to Katara than those of the others.
- The author not elaborating on Zuko's lack of trust in Mai.
