Warning: This installment will contain a fair bit of ranting.
The Gaang eats the tarts and souffles that they made in the previous chaper. Considering the food fighting that went on and the rest of the Gaang's culinary shortcomings, I'm surprised that they actually successfully baked anything.
Katara's getting annoyed with how many people are fussing over her, particularly an unusually quiet Aang (who tripled his previous record for not saying anything, and completed his dare twice over) cuddling in her lap, and her first command with the bell is to give her some space for five minutes.
Katara, not wanting to put a damper on the conclusion to Aang's festival, congratulates Team Boomerang on their victory, although she has to insist that they do their victory lap. Katara gets Zuko to rub her foot and Suki to play the mandolin.
Sokka then asks what actually happened, and Katara understands why, suspecting that Aang told Sokka she was dying and probably exaggerated the whole thing. Katara tells the truth about that, but then lies about how much pain she's in, although she suggests that it's bearable and ignorable. She whispers the truth to Zuko, though, and realizes that she's underestimating her friends' ability to see through her lies.
Zuko then calls Aang into the kitchen, ostensibly to help him make a sun poppy tea, but it's obvious that it's to talk about the incident, and ask Aang why he hadn't firebended at them, since animals are scared of fire.
Aang contends that he didn't want to hurt the animals, and he was more comfortable with airbending. A clattering sound indicates that Zuko does not accept that argument, and says that Katara was very lucky that time, and Aang's reluctance to firebend could have gotten Katara injured or killed had Zuko and Suki not been around. Apparently, Katara feels the need to remind us that Aang hadn't considered that, which for those of us who believe Aang is treated harshly by this fanfic, is like pouring salt on the wound.
Zuko came off as overly harsh on Aang, and it seems too easy for him to come down on Aang as hard as he is when 1)he's speaking from hindsight, and 2)he doesn't have multiple sets of bending to choose from, so for him, firebending's the obvious solution.
Aang is reduced to tears, and believes that Zuko's telling him that he's the one that's at fault, and he shouldn't have had the festival (which is the impression I got from the author, as it seems to be implied that it's something that the rest of the Gaang put up with at best). Zuko calms Aang down, though, and tells him to be more serious about his bending and think about which bending is best for a given situation. Katara finds it odd that Zuko's the one who's telling Aang to think things through, but, sadly, it's all too common for Aang to be told to take things more seriously. In the end, Zuko's not mad at Aang, just disappointed.
While I think Aang got treated overly harshly in this scene, I also have come to understand why the author thinks that hating on Aang is like harming a small and defenseless creature.
Zuko and Aang come back, trying to look natural, and the other members of the Gaang have awkward reactions as they try to pretend that they're going about what they're doing. Aang asks Katara how she's feeling again, to her annoyance, and decides to train with Zuko and Toph. Toph, despite a bit of sarcasm over Aang's sudden eagerness to train, is willing to train him, but Zuko is hesitant. Katara insists that she'll be fine, and that she's not some delicate doll to be pampered. The Gaang then complies and leaves Katara, lest she put herself under more stress than is appropriate...
...only for Katara to realize that she does want people around not long afterward. She wishes she had people to talk to, and that Sokka and Suki weren't snuggling in the hammock. Katara does like how they come when she rings the bell, and is amused when Sokka falls on his "arse" while doing so. Katara chats with them until she gets grumpy and sends them back, then calls them back over a few minutes later for no reason. Apparently her ankle isn't hurting anymore, and thus can't be used as an excuse; she's just bored and listless.
Sokka's reminded of how Katara ordered him around on her birthday, so while Suki plays the mandolin on Katara's command, Sokka takes umbrage at doing pushups, saying that he doesn't have to listen. Katara threatens to tell "Dr. Zuko" that Sokka isn't cooperating, and have him tell him how disappointed he is until he cries. Sokka reluctantly complies, and gets to the pushups.
A one-line paragraph follows, with Katara saying 'I didn't say stop Sokka.'
Sokka gets up and wanders away. Katara's ringing the bell doesn't bring him back, but does get Suki to play Katara whatever song she wants if she stops.
Zuko and Aang return, and Katara follows through on her threat, telling Zuko of Sokka's behavior. Sokka returns and hands Katara a book, possibly LATD, hoping to keep her occupied.
Toph tries to get Sokka to do his push-ups, and he refuse. Aang offers to do them, but Zuko tells him to get back to his training- it's sad that Aang's dedication to his training only lasts a day. Katara doesn't want Aang missing training on his account, so he and the other healthy benders head off for training.
Katara reassures Sokka that she's just messing with him, and realizes that he handed her LATD. Katara's reluctant to read it, but Suki calls it a "brilliant" book. Katara is unconvinced; what Suki describes as "dramatic," Katara believes to be "stupid."
Sokka goes to the market to buy ingredients for kebabs; Zuko's the only remaining cook, and kebabs are the only thing he can make. Katara dissuades Suki from cooking, recapping Suki, Toph and Sokka's shortcomings, while noting that Aang can only make dessert. Zuko may not be the best person, but he's the only viable choice.
Katara begins reading LATD, and finds it too melodramatic for her taste. She's frustrated enough with the characters to want to whack all of them with the commonsense stick, especially Zara and Kizu, who fancy each other and can't admit it. Now think about Zuko and Katara's relationship at this point for a moment.
Sokka returns after dark, and, together with Zuko, makes kebabs in a "manly fashion." Sokka and Suki ask about LATD, and are disappointed when Katara is unimpressed so far, with them asking her to give it a few more chapters. Katara drinks some more sun poppy tea, and has the others play for her.
Zuko carries Katara upstairs and puts her to bed, giving her a glass of water and a sandwich, and sitting down next to her. Katara asks about how he makes the tea, and he mentions that Ursa taught him how to do it, a common painkiller in the Fire Nation. The yellow poppies are good, but the purple ones are too strong, liable to make Katara "loopy" in a way that she wouldn't like.
Katara asks him to elaborate while giving him a tickle. Zuko gives an evasive and answer and asks her to stop tickling him, which backfires, and causes her to tickle him more until he falls out. After getting up and composing himself, Zuko starts to leave, but Katara asks him to come back; if they can't let out steam, they can talk.
Zuko repeats that his mother taught him and Ursa first aid in the hopes of the siblings helping each other, and Katara finds it amusing that Azula would heal anyone, especially someone like Zuko, whom she expressed a desire to kill on multiple occasions. Zuko points out that he and Azula used to get along until Azula was five, and that Azula sometimes shows a softer side.
Apparently, this happened once when Ty Lee was bitten by a scorpidillo, and Ursa treated her; Azula was deeply worried for her friend the entire time Katara finds the story very sweet, until hearing about Ozai's rampage against the scorpidillos, including publicly beheading a few of them, a darkly funny part of the story.
Zuko then mentions that after this incident, his mother taught him and Ursa about how to deal with incidents like that one; it seems a fair amount of Zuko's knowledge can be traced back to Ursa, Iroh or Lu Ten. Katara then says her mother used to sing to her when she was sick, and hints at hoping that Zuko will do the same. Zuko then realizes that Katara sang to him while he was sick and lied about it, prompting a "Bollocks!" reaction from Katara.
Katara realizes that, even though Zuko's imitation of her singing is poor, she can't lie her way out of this one, and feels mortified as Zuko tries to even out the embarrassment. This is mitigated by their snuggling and him singing, but then Zuko asks what else Katara has lied to him about. Katara tries to get out of it, but gets truthbended again, and has to admit about the fireflakes (it's been a while since we've heard about fireflakes in Katara's journal, and an even longer time since the incident she's thinking of). She insists that she hasn't lied about anything important, a statement Zuko accepts, and leaves.
Katara finds herself missing Zuko, and rings the bell to get him. She gets all of the Gaang in the process, with varied reactions from each, and wishes she had a bell for each person. Another author's note follows. One thing I forgot to mention is that the authors' notes tend to congratulate readers for getting through the chapters. They seem fairly long; while Stalking Zuko averages 3,233.55 words per chapter, Not Stalking Zuko is up to 8,586.26 words per chapter, and Not stalking Firelord Zuko is up to 13,550.5 words per chapter; for the latter, I've only written two chapters comparably long, which tend to feature many different sets of characters. But in any case, whether she's congratulating them because the chapters are long, I actually appreciated it this time, since the Aang bashing got to the point where it was hard to tolerate.
The author points out that Katara's a huge nurturer and comforter, and that as such, she's unused to being taken care of by others. She only has two "sad panda" type breakdowns; once in the Crystal cave, and once after Hama manipulates her into learning Bloodbending. As such, she tends to go a bit "bonkers" when being tended to, hence her attempts to insist that she's fine to everyone except Zuko, who seems to be the calmest.
Zuko is bothered, although he's not as touchy-feely, so he doesn't join in the group snuggle. He does get on Aang's case, though, which brings us to him...
The author insists she loves Aang, which is more than a little reminiscent of how Katara keeps insisting that she's not into Zuko, an assertion of one's feelings that she repeats often in hopes of counteracting the evidence against it.
The author suggests that everything comes so easily for Aang and he is so rarely proven wrong, concluding that without being challenged, he never grows. As a result, when Zuko pulls him aside, he wants reassurance that Katara is okay, and is taken aback when he gets a scolding instead. He's overwhelmed with guilt, much like he was when he accidentally injured Katara in "The Deserter," but the author points out that back then, he didn't do anything to help Katara, and she had to get him out of his funk. Apparently, it's not enough for him to feel guilty; he has to pull himself together that very moment in order to get anything more than halfhearted sympathy from this author. And this time, Aang's decision to train is not a way of making up for it, but a way of getting instant gratification. Can't Aang do anything right in the eyes of the author in this fic?
I understand what the author' s point is, but don't like how she's going about doing it, to put it mildly. Regarding how Aang is apparently never proven wrong, it hardly seems like the proper solution to have him almost constantly wrong in this case. And how does the author hope that Aang will grow, especially considering that since this fic follows canon, he'll end up making the same decisions as in canon?
If you read my Fanfic/Team8 liveblog, you may recall that I have identified two forms of bashing characters. The first is essentially leaving the characters in question as unsympathetic individuals and heaping misfortune on them until they die or the story ends. The second, which I call the "Revenge, Repent, Rebuild" cycle, involves heaping misfortune on the characters in question, but only as the first step; the narrative and other characters maintain that the characters in question are at fault, and after apologizing for everything they did to deserve this treatment, the characters are rebuilt into something not quite resembling their old selves.
For example, Kakashi in canon is an eccentric yet serious mentor to Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke(who can dodge his students' attacks without looking up from a book) with many regrets from his past (for example, he shows up late due to visiting his best friend's grave every day), although none of them are things the author believes he should be regretting.
The author of that fic believes that Kakashi favors Sasuke, to Naruto and Sakura's detriment. The fic's premise involves Naruto getting moved to the eponymous Team 8 in place of Kiba, and the fic repeatedly establishes that Kurenai's a better teacher for Naruto (the author doesn't have much sympathy for Sakura, for other reasons). In the Chunin Exams, which the respective teams' teachers see as a bit of a competition between each other, two of Kurenai's students- Naruto and Shino- advance to the finals of the tournament, while all three of Kakashi's students are eliminated, Sasuke getting taken down in one punch by Naruto (in contrast to how he, while still in the hospital, put up a decent fight against Naruto on the roof).
In addition to being seen as a reality check for all three of Kakashi's students, who are portrayed unsympathetically to various extents, it's also portrayed as a bit of a wake-up call for Kakashi himself. Apparently, the humiliation is so great that Kakashi not only starts training his team more seriously (based on a somewhat erroneous assumption that Jonin senseis teach their students everything and as such, Kakashi is slacking in that regard), starts showing up on time regularly, and even stops reading his books. We're meant to believe that his quirks from before are actual flaws, and that there are two prerequisites for him to become a better person- casting aside most of his identifying traits, and undergoing a great deal of humiliation.
So that's what seems to be happening to Aang. But while Team 8 diverges from canon at many points, especially concerning Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi's roles in the plot, Team 8 stays fairly close to canon. If Aang finally learns those lessons, it will be after the Grand Finale, and will involve no shortage of humiliation between now and then, since there are about 30 chapters to go in Not Stalking Zuko.
The author concedes that Zuko is, in part, taking out his anger on Aang, and suggests that it's ironic for him to say what he does (to me, it comes off as a bit self-righteous and hypocritical). He's left at a loss for what to do next when Aang starts crying, but he stands by his main point.
The author points out that Sokka's quite worried about Katara, and as such, canoodles with Suki. It's pointed out that he's not being neglectful, merely annoyed at Katara' s abuse of the bell, although the author points out that Katara's equally frustrated at being couch-bound- both of these are good points.
The author points out that poppies are opiates, so sunpoppies are painkillers. The author also points out that with Katara unable to let out steam, she talks with Zuko, something she enjoys just as much.
The author then begins a mini-essay on the fire nation royal family, particularly Azula, noting that "Everyone's mileage varies when it comes to Azula". She believes she and Zuko were close when they were younger, given how well Azula knows Zuko.
The author points out her use of Zuko's nickname, to indicate that she still sees him as she once did, and proof of her affection for him, lost among negative emotions and insanity, and existing in spite of Ozai's attempts to turn the siblings on each other. I tend to disagree, though, as I found this quote from Azula's Terms of Endangerment entry on her character sheet to be one of the most profound insights into her character, especially as to what "Zuzu" means to her.
- "It could be said this one word sums up what makes Azula a Tragic Villain. It began as a genuine loving nickname from a little sister to her elder brother but by the time she shows up in the series, it's a biting insult to express that she thinks he's beneath her in all ways."
I honestly don't think I could have described Azula's character any better.
It's pointed out that Azula is "not completely inhuman," and that her feelings exist, even if they are buried deep down; this becomes painfully clear during Azula's Villainous Breakdown in the Grand Finale. The author mentions that Azula seems genuinely pained to have hurt Ty Lee's feelings during "The Beach," but with everything Azula-related, it's hard to tell. The author points out that Ty Lee is used to being challenged by her siblings (although, for all Ty Lee feels the need to set herself apart from the others, we never see the other five girls). Ty Lee would know that Azula let the scorpidillo into her own room (which is Harsher in Hindsight ifyou think of it in the context of this fic, and Ty Lee having been bitten), and would be afraid to stand up to her. The author suggests that's why Zuko thinks Azula cares for Ty Lee (although he presumably doesn't know that Ty Lee attacked and chi-blocked Azula to save Mai from being summarily executed). It's an interesting theory, but I think fear is the dominant emotion present in Ty Lee (as well as Mai's) relationship with Azula.
The author points out that Ozai's rampage on the scorpidillos was very much like him, and Zuko remembers the vacation more fondly because his uncle was there.
The author points out that Katara testing Zuko's limits with the singing backfired by causing him to expose her lie, and that there will be more lies to be unraveled in the near future, even if they're not important, and Zuko can tell when she's lying.
The author points out that the song "soft little seal" is the Zutara equivalent of "soft kitty song" (whatever that is), and if Katara had a bell for each member of the Gaang, she would ring the Zuko bell most often, as I suspected.
Next chapter, Katara will read LATD.
What I liked
- Katara bossing Sokka around was quite amusing
- Katara's abuse of the bell backfiring on her.
What I didn't like
- Aang being characterized as over-reliant on airbending
- Aang's decisions almost always being portrayed as in the wrong.
- The author's overcompensating for Aang's lack of harsh lessons.
- The author's belief that Aang doesn't properly learn from his mistakes.
- On a side note, the author seems to give Azula too much credit.
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