Trail Mix

oh SHOOT well i cant swing 100 but how bout

Me:

animators, adding six little blush lines:

animators, adding six little blush lines:

 Hakoda was a textbook Cool Parent and on top of that he was a single dad raising the only waterbender in the south pole and Sokka (who is wonderful, but you cannot convince me he would have been easy to raise). We know that Katara and Sokka love and respect him and everything, but we know that Katara has absolutely no qualms about talking back to him and we know Katara and Sokka fought constantly. Hakoda’s the type of parent that would let his kids call him by his first name in an argument. 

Enter the gaang. Aang is an absolute sweetheart and is, of course, super nice to Hakoda at all times. But he’s also been raised with the mentalities of ‘adults are your friends’ and ‘you’re the avatar and have more responsibility and importance than all adults combined.’ It’s kind of hard to be casual around the Avatar who is also dating your daughter no matter how sweet he is. Toph has absolutely no respect for authority and she likes Hakoda because he’s not overbearing or shitty like her parents, but she’s an independent child who doesn’t want a dad figure, thank you very much. 

Then we have Zuko: aside from the whole ‘helped bust him out of prison’ thing, let’s be real, this boy would be the favorite. Hakoda was a cool parent and subsequently ended up with two kids who love him but are also The Product Of Cool Parenting Wild Kids. Zuko on the other hand was raised in the ways of Respect Your Elder or Perish By Their Hand (which wasn’t good by any means) and as a result is Level 20 polite and respectful to deserving authority/dad figures. This kid would ‘yes sir’ and ‘thank you, sir’ all over the place and Hakoda would be like “a teenager with manners??? sign me the fuck up????”. Not to mention Zuko spent as much time on the sea as Hakoda did and has all that naval knowledge and of course there’s the whole Ending the War upon becoming Firelord thing. 

Like, Zuko would spend time with Hakoda and be his people-pleasing self and Hakoda would turn to his kids like “why is your friend more polite to me than you guys are?” (in a joking way) and they would be like “FUCK Zuko you gave him standards.” And at first Zuko would be super fucking anxious around the man for several obvious reasons, but eventually they’d all get to the point where Sokka’s getting messenger hawks that say ‘I’m at your house and if you’re not here in 10 minutes me and Hakoda are starting dinner without you -Firelord Zuko’