Application for Vertiline_RPG, here for reference
Name: Katu
Age: 19
Username: MAYBE YOU'RE BEYOND
Email: ANCIENT ASIAN POETRY
IM: OR MAYBE IT'S JUST ME
Character name: Sokka
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Timeline: From seconds after the awkward conclusion to the now-infamous "That's Rough, Buddy" conversation during The Boiling Rock: Part 1 in season 3.
Background: Sokka is from the Southern Water Tribe-- his family consists of his younger sister, Katara, his father, chief Hakoda, and his grandmother. His mother, Kya, was captured during a Fire Nation raid when Sokka and Katara were very young (9 and 8 respectively) and killed soon after that. While Katara was more profoundly traumatized by this event, Sokka barely remembers his mother. The whole experience gave him his complete distrust in anything or anyone possibly related to the Fire Nation. However, Sokka's childhood trauma came when his father left to lead all the men of the Southern Water Tribe in the war effort against the Fire Nation. Sokka wanted to fight alongside them, but, at age 12, he was far too young. Hakoda told him that he needed to be where he could protect Katara and the rest of the tribe, something Sokka took to heart.
Fast forward three years, and Sokka is the fearless leader of the warriors remaining in his tribe. Unfortunately, those warriors are all no older than eight or nine and don't like to listen to his battle plans. It's around this time that Sokka and Katara find a boy trapped in an Ice Berg, and everything sort of snowballs from there.
With Aang and Katara, Sokka leaves the south pole for the first time to travel all over the globe in an attempt to help Aang learn how to bend the four elements. Sokka is nothing if not adaptable, it just takes him a little while to start the process of really... adapting. There are a few events in each season that really have profound effects on Sokka. After getting kissed for the first time (BY A GIRL, THANK YOU, KATARA, NOT GRAN-GRAN) and saving the day a handful of times (as well as being the damsel in distress at least twice) they make it to the north pole-- the first real destination-- so Aang and Katara can actually learn Waterbending. There, he falls in love for the first time, and generally stands around and does a lot of nothing until his girlfriend dies. And then he makes a lot of sad faces. IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, THOUGH, realistically, Yue stands as a very early marker of the real sacrifices that will have to be made to win the war against the Fire Nation. Not only does it break Sokka's heart-- he really did fall head-over-heels for her in the three days he knew her-- it stays with him for a long time.
After the Siege of the North, Sokka and company find an Earthbending girl named Toph, a LIBRARY!!!!11 and some secrets and what Sokka basically thinks will be the way to win the war against the Fire Nation-- the day of Black Sun, a solar eclipse, during which, all Firebenders would lose their power. They uncover a secret government plot in Ba Sing Se to hide the war from the king, they bust that. More bad stuff happens-- Aang gets zapped by the bad guys, everyone thinks he's dead for all of twenty seconds and then he's in a coma for a while, the cast goes into hiding, and then they start making plans for The Day of Black Sun.
Which, through a series of events, turns out to be a complete failure. The adults of the group are captured, and the kids escape to the Western Air Temple. Considering the whole plan was Sokka's idea, this leaves a pretty big self-confidence issue for him to deal with. The whole fiasco was his fault, in his mind, even though there were several other factors working against him. While at the Western Air Temple, long-time rival Zuko joins the "Gaang" and in spite of Sokka's long-running distrust of the Fire Nation, he's able to put some modicum of trust in the prince-- especially because Zuko knows the prison where Sokka's father, one of the captured allies, might be held.
So, Sokka and Zuko set off for the Boiling Rock to rescue Hakoda-- and instead, show up on Vertiline.
Personality: In season two, Sokka names himself the "meat and sarcasm guy," and bargains with whatever higher power he wants to think there is to abandon that in favor of getting him out of a sticky situation-- pledging to become the "veggies and straight-talk fellow."
Fortunately, he doesn't make good on that promise.
Sokka's personality is best described is with a quote from his one-episode sword master, Piandao:
"I saw something in you right away. I saw a heart as strong as a Lionturtle and twice as big. And as we trained, it wasn't your skills that impressed me-- no, it certainly wasn't your skills. You showed something beyond that. Creativity, versitility, intelligence. These are the traits that define a great swordsman. And these are the traits that define you." (Episode 44, Sokka's Master)
By season three, Sokka has done a lot of growing up. No longer is he the vaguely sexist, close-minded, xenophobic water tribe brat he was in episode one-- he's become a warrior, a strategist, and a highly valued ally. Sokka exemplifies the adaptability inherent in all members of the Water Tribe, far more so than his sister. Fantastic at improvisation in stressful situations and generally a funny guy, Sokka is well-liked and makes friends pretty easily.
However, for all his versitility and intelligence, Sokka has quite the imagination and is prone to flights of fancy. His sarcasm can get him in trouble sometimes (mostly with his sister when she wants a serious response out of him) and he fails at public speaking when it comes to adults. In fact, Sokka is fabulously competent when compared to the adults in his canon, he just doesn't have the opportunity to prove it to their faces.
Sokka is passionate as well, and he's passionate about a few things: His friends and the people he loves, saving the world and kicking Fire Nation butt and proving himself to those around him. Did I mention how he happened to screw up the entire invasion on the Day of Black Sun? It was because Azula, the bad guy, happened to mention Sokka's girlfriend. He derailed the entire operation in an attempt to grill Suki's location out of Azula-- the boy makes impulsive, stupid decisions in the name of the ones he loves. No one can really begrudge him that. He's dedicated enough to helping Aang save the world that, in a remarkable display of OCD, he created an overly detailed schedule to keep them on track to the invasion. Sokka plans and plans and plans down to minute details-- what he fails to realize that his plans only ever seem to work when he comes up with them on the fly. Finally, he wants nothing more than to prove himself. At fifteen, he has bouts of insecurity, especially being the one normal guy in a group of super-powered teenagers. His big want, other than saving the world, his girlfriend, his dad, etc, is that he just wants to be acknowledged-- he wants to be this warrior wolf archetype that his tribe and his culture have set up for him and he wants nothing more than to just be that guy. He wants to make his dad proud. On this topic, Jack DeSena, Sokka's voice actor, points out that “He’s really striving to be a leader. He’s constantly on the cusp of leadership.” And by season three, Sokka is so close to being that fully-fledged leader that it's almost palpable.
Appearance: SOKKA IS THE MOST HANDSOMEST WARRIOR WOLF TO EVER EXIS-- okay, no, Sokka's a bit of a dweeb. Spindly and gangly, he's put on some muscle by season three. His hair (normally kept shaved on the sides) has gotten scraggly and unkempt, though he still manages to keep his warrior wolf ponytail thingamawhat well-maintained, at the very least. Rarely without a cocky smirk or a deadpan stare, Sokka has expressive eyebrows and bright blue eyes like his sister. He's fairly dark-skinned in complexion and has a tendency towards wearing blue Water Tribe outfits or black and red in the Fire Nation.
Skills/Abilities: Sokka has always been billed as the "badass normal." He has no magical hoo-doo skills like everyone else he knows, and yet manages to hold his ground equally with all of his friends. As far as physical skills go, Sokka can use a boomerang and a sword and can tinker with a mess of other weapons. His father taught him how to build depth charges. Sokka knows a whole bunch about a lot of practical stuff, he can draft weapon designs and design everything from submarines to air balloons. He SUCKS at art but has good enough ideas to make up for a lack of technical skill. Though he can fight and definitely hold his own, Sokka's gift is for strategy and plans. He's got fantastic instincts and tends to be right when he listens to them.
Often portrayed as clumsy for the sake of comedy, Sokka is quick on his feet and while he might slip and fall and tumble around, he's always going to scramble back to his feet and try to press on. He has a decent set of hunting skills, and is pretty good at general survival, having lived in the arctic his entire life.
Spoken/Written languages: He speaks common, but reads it as Hanzi. Life's going to suck for him at Vertiline until someone teaches him to read English.
Items: Nothing but the clothes on his back-- a tunic, a necklace, a hair-tie, arm bandages (for whatever reason), his gloves, pants, and boots. And undergarments.
Third person sample: This was it. The end-all be-all of battles. Armed with only his boomerang and remarkable wit, the amazingly handsome Water Tribe teenager slid into position behind the rock, smoothing back his hair so he would look good if they had to find his body later. Spirits only knew what this would bring. It was an unfair fight, four of them, one of him- and his boomerang, of course. He had to do this, for the good of his tribe, for the good of his world…
It was do or die.
“Well, old pal,” Sokka murmured, holding his boomerang close to his chest, addressing it like a brother, “here we are again. Just you and me. Juuuust the two of us. We can do this, tog-”
“Hey, are you coming out from back there or what?”
And now the enemy was teasing him.
There are some things you just don’t do.
“ALL RIGHT, FINE!” He screamed the strangled war cry only a fifteen-year-old could manage to warble out, throwing himself out from behind the boulder, running full-on into the chaos-
That’s about the time that Suki casually stuck a foot out and tripped him. Moving on an unbidden cue, Toph wrenched her arm around and pulled a nice, knee-high obstacle for Sokka to stumble backwards over, only to be blown back onto his feet by a quick gust of wind. Of course, Aang was having a little too much fun and that nice gust of air carried him up, up and away-right into a hook of water that yanked him down into the river.
Once he finally figured out which way was up-- no thanks to his rotten, no-good sister standing right next to him-he flailed a moment and sputtered for air, gasping and glaring at the four of them.
“Under-under no circumstances, was that fair. At all. I mean, come on, Suki, y-you too? I thought you were on my side for this!” Sokka whined at his girlfriend, smoothing his bangs back out of his face. In typical defiance, they slid back down into his eyes, smacking water into his mouth.
“Well...” Sokka glared at her and at the cute way she shifted her hips and rolled her eyes and her adorable smile as she spoke-oooh, she was on his list, even as perfect as she was- “we all kind of talked about it, and we decided that instead of combat training? It’s Pick on Sokka Day.”
“Pick on Sokka Day?” He parroted, his voice cracking.
“Yeah!” Aang chirped, “it’s just like Avatar day! Except you didn’t kill anyone. Aaaand you don’t really have a whole town celebrating it.”
“It was Toph’s idea!” Katara added with a smile-a cunning attempt to win him over, he sees through your plans, Katara.
Sokka yanked his sopping wet hair out of his face to glare pointedly at Toph, and, remembering that she was blind, groaned. “Thanks, guys. I really mean it.”
He didn’t, of course. Sarcasm was the preferred flavor of Pick on Sokka Day, after all.
First person sample: [Oooookay this is totally not where he just was. Totally a very different place than a war balloon on the way to a prison.]
Zuko?
[Considering Zuko was the last guy he saw, the thought is instinctive. Did they crash? Did he lose his memory? Have they been captured? WHAT'S GOING ON? Thoughts and ideas come and are dismissed as quickly as they come, he's not really sure of what to think. The room is round. That's weird. This is all weird, but-- he grips for his boomerang as he approaches the door and--
it's not here.]
What?! Oh, come on, are you kidding me?
[He pats himself down desperately.]
That's not even fair.
[He's reached his conclusion: He's been kidnapped by the Fire Nation, they've stolen his weapons. Time to improvise.
All that's left is to open the door...]