#(because the same with kataang)

[mugentakeda]

[leantailean]

Its the best description of antimaiko i have ever seen

[shadelorde]

it’s really really funny being in the avatar fandom and seeing people be like “this ship is so underappreciated it’s so hard being a shipper for it…” and the ship is like. kataang. or makorra.

[kacievvbbbb]

They walked so they could run

[gotticalavera]

Aang: Katar, I feel... hot

Aang: I think I'm-...

Sometime in the KatAang, Aang got sick and Katar/a misunderstood his/her words, but realized due to her/his partner's symptoms.

Continuing with the series of drawings I have of Fem!Aang x All, today it was a GB!KatAang.

<<Prev || Next>>

[sapphic-agent]

(Sorry for the small text at the bottom)

[burst-of-iridescent]

people who say zutara can't be canon because "they only became friends in the last five episodes!" irritate me so much like my dude are we watching the same show? zuko and katara’s arcs mirror each other from book 1, they share parallel after parallel and have layers upon layers of symbolism, their backgrounds and personalities and morals are so similar that we the audience can see how compatible they are and how well they would understand each other even without explicit interaction between them, so that by the time the southern raiders rolls around, it simply serves as proof of what we already know about zutara.

tsr, eip and sozin's comet are, narratively speaking, the culmination of zuko and katara’s arc together, not the beginning! they're the fruit that’s borne from the seeds that were sowed since the very first season, and naturally viewers would pick up on that! of course people who love these two characters would see the connection between them and the similarities they share and the thematic significance of their relationship, and then the show itself validates this audience interpretation in the catacombs, in tsr, in the finale! that’s what zk shippers mean when we say that zuko and katara were meant to be together, because their relationship is threaded so deeply into their own personal narratives and that of the show overall that they don’t even need a lot of screentime together for the audience to know that a) they would be a good couple and b) the direction of the story was naturally leading to a romance between them.

zuko and katara’s relationship extends above and beyond their moments of direct interaction, so that their scenes together after they become friends are really just the payoff for the buildup of the past three seasons - because the narrative foundation for zutara was laid all the way back in book 1, not in the southern raiders or any of the episodes that followed.

[sad-endings-suck]

“Zuko would have jumped in front of Azula’s lighting bolt for anyone!”

Yes! And? Katara would’ve given the “I’ll make sure your destiny ends right then and there, permanently.” speech, to anyone who threatened the life of a loved one. Whether it be Aang, Sokka, Toph, Hakota, etc. Hell, she’d defend an innocent stranger that way, and she has. Besides, it’s not like we haven’t seen Zuko take a lightning bolt for someone else besides Katara— oh wait, we haven’t (he still would though ofc).

Regardless, it’s the same point, inverted.

“Zuko would die for any of his friends” and “Katara would kill for any of her friends” are foil characterization traits; not opposing arguments.

[shadowjinx626]

How is it that a lot of ATLA shippers who have good meta on characters and ships they like, but also have terrible/questionable takes on ships and characters they don't like?

[howhow326]

Wait a minuet

Why dosen't she do this???

[the-badger-mole]

Sorta Monthly Zutara Playlist: Anti-Kataang Edition

I Should Be...- Dru Hill

You're what I'm lookin' for. Our love can mean much more than what he's givin' you. But you must let him know that you can't take no more. Replace him with me

Water Runs Dry - Boyz II Men

Now, they can see the tears in our eyes, yeah. But we deny the pain that lies deep in our hearts. Well maybe that's a pain we can't hide. 'Cause everybody knows that we're both torn apart.

Fast Car - Tracy Chapman

You got a fast car. I got a job that pays all our bills. You stay out drinking late at the bar. See more of your friends than you do of your kids. I'd always hoped for better. Thought maybe together you and me'd find it. I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere. Take your fast car and keep on driving

Landslide - Fleetwood Mac

Well, I've been afraid of changin', 'cause I've built my life around you. But time makes you bolder, even children get older. And I'm getting older too.

Just to See You Smile - Tim McGraw

When you said time was all you really needed, I walked away and let you have your space. 'Cause leavin' didn't hurt me near as badly as the tears I saw rollin' down your face. And yesterday I knew just what you wanted when you came walkin' up to me with him. So I told you that I was happy for you and given the chance, I'd lie again

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Updating to explain how Ra Min and Rozin are also coded as this.

Ra Min: Because Ta Min is dropping nuclear hints, but thinks Roku isn't into her and thus feels discouraged and doesn't wanna push it. Roku is just an idiot who isn't picking up on the messages. u_u

Rozin: Both are just idiots and are missing each other's messages they aren't aware they are sending. TT0TT Like "both are a book but neither can read" energy.

God I love Rangshi and Yangvik so fucking much. They're all so stupid. Not a braincell between the 4. They're both "Won't say I'm in love" coded but for different reasons.

Rangshi: Won't say it because they are CONVINCED the other doesn't like them, and don't want to be an *~inconvenience~*

Yangvik: Won't say it because they're so in denial, they manifested Egypt and the Nile on the ATLA map TT0TT

[kg-day]

I'm so tired of people telling those of us who are upset about the LA atla remake that we are "being too dramatic" or are just "finding things to be upset about". We are allowed to be upset that something that we love so dearly has been butchered, AGAIN. If you liked it, then that's your personal opinion, but don't sit here and tell those of us who didn't that we're the problem.

I personally think the CGI, costumes, and sets all look terrible. None of it is immersive. Sure, it LOOKS like atla, but it doesn't FEEL like atla. The heart of the og is gone, and people are allowed to be upset about this. They've altered characters to the point that they aren't the character anymore (looking at you Aang and Katara), which is a huge upset for me personally because Katara is one of my favorite characters ever. So watching her be turned into someone meek and docile is more than a slap to the face. Not to mention them removing her as the narrator as if Bryke themselves didn't state that Katara is the person the story is being told through. And before you start telling me that Aang is the same. No, he isn't. Major parts of his development through season 1 (him coming to terms with the fact that he's the avatar and embracing that role, and him also accepting the fact that he RAN AWAY and how he is never going to do that again, which is also pivotal to his character later on) are completely removed. And don't even get me started on what they did to Kataang. Regardless of whether you ship them or not, those 2 are deeply connected to one another from the start, and their relationship is a big part of the show, so to see that butchered is heartbreaking for me.

This isn't just about them "making some changes" or it not being a 1:1 adaptation. I'm fine with adaptations that aren't 1:1. What I'm upset about is that the changes they are making are VITAL changes to characters and dynamics between characters. They're rushing through the plot and condensing the story (and I will scream if I hear one more person say that it's because they couldn't fit it all in with their runtime. The runtime is an HOUR LONGER than the og, so yes, they did have the time). The changes they are making make it evident that they do not understand the og show, and if you don't feel like that, fine, once again, that's YOUR opinion, just as this is MY opinion. So stop telling us we have no right to be upset and that we just want to hate everything. That's not true. What is true is that we are expressing valid complaints about another bad adaptation of something dear to us.

Edit: If you also come at people who are upset bc they were expecting a faithful adaptation and didn't get it bc "its not supposed to be the cartoon," you're missing the whole point. An adaptation is ADAPTING SOMETHING from one medium to the other, not rewriting it. "Yall expected it to be just like the cartoon." No, I expected a FAITHFUL ADAPTATION and was met with poorly written fanfiction.

[shawandran]

Kataang really asked what if we both uniquely shared the most devastating loss of our people, what if we both lost our guardian to the same war and found their bodies, what if we both experienced uncontrollable rage and pain at the reminder? What if we were each other’s hope anyway? What if we reminded each other that we were children, and you offered to take a Water Tribe girl you barely knew halfway across the world so she could learn how to bend water? What if you gave me back my mother’s necklace and always supported my water bending and fused with the ocean spirit to save the Northern Water Tribe, because you valued my people and my bending that much, because you refused to let what happened to you happen to me? What if I represent the ocean and you represent the moon, the sky, and we were always meant to circle each other, push and pull? What if I’m what tethers you to the world, what if I’m the embodiment of your people’s love? What if my face was the first you saw when you woke up and the last thing you gaze upon in the series? What if we both have access to unbelievable power, what if we both succumb to our anger, but we were able to ground each other in a way no one else could? What if I loved you through your worst, what if we both loved each other when our souls were dark enough to hurt others? What if we were both terrified of the other being hurt, and you tried so hard to protect me, but I couldn’t protect you? What if despite everything you died in my arms and I had to gaze upon the dead body of my loved one once again, but I refused to let it happen, and I brought you back to life? What if we paralleled Oma and Shu, Tui and La, lovers who performed powerful feats of bending after the other died? What if we asked why our story has to end that way, what if we dared to live? What if we can’t be separated, not by space or time or even death? What if the last time you use the Avatar State in the series, the closing move of the Hundred Year War, is a waterbending move, specifically the first move I ever taught you? That simple push and pull? What i

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Why I feel like Ka/taang is one-sided, despite textual evidence 

ATLA does try to convince us that Katara has romantic feelings for Aang. For example: she seems thoughtful when she realizes that Aang is a powerful bender; she’s offended that he didn’t want to kiss her in the Cave of Two Lovers; she gets jealous when Sokka says On Ji and Aang look good together.

So…what’s wrong with anti-Kataangers? Do we just lack media comprehension? 

To be clear, on their own, these gestures can indicate romantic interest. But at the same time, we have stuff like “Aang is a sweet little guy, like Momo.” We have her ambivalent facial expression after he kisses her before the eclipse, and her hedging during Ember Island Players, and her anger when he kisses her anyway. In the context of these conflicting cues, Katara’s possibly romantic reactions can absolutely be interpreted in a different way, because: 

Acknowledging a friend as a potential romantic interest is not the same as actually being romantically interested in them. (Imo this is something young women struggle with, due to a combination of romance-centrism and heteronormativity that make women feel like they should be in romantic relationships, and that boys and girls who share intimate and deep feelings for one another must be romantically into each other) 

Wanting someone to find you desirable is not the same as desiring that person. (Which is something a lot of women, especially young women, struggle with. Remember all the discourse around Cat Person back in 2017?) 

Being jealous when someone flirts with your friend is not the same as wanting to be with your friend. (Especially when you see your friends as family, or if you’re accustomed to a specific type of devotion from that friend. It is jealousy, and it is possessiveness, but it doesn’t always arise from romantic feelings) 

Growing up in a patriarchal society means that your desires are always filtered through what men want from you, sometimes in an abstract male gaze-y way, and sometimes in a very visceral and interpersonal way when a boy wants you specifically. And Katara’s reactions are just that — reactions. Reactions to what other people — including Aunt Wu, Sokka, Aang himself — have insinuated about her and Aang. She’s not really proactive in her interest in Aang: we don’t really see Aang, romantically, from Katara’s POV. Under the framework of “Katara is reacting to a romantic prospect she’s kind of uncertain about,” it is completely plausible — and indeed likely — that she would sometimes act in ways that indicate romantic interest, in addition to moments where she indicates the opposite. 

Ka/taang shippers often bring up other evidence, like Katara’s despair when Azula hits Aang with lightning, or how protective she is of him when Zuko joins the Gaang. The thing is, these pieces of evidence aren’t necessarily indicative of romantic love. The fact that Katara genuinely loves Aang makes the whole thing more complicated, not less, because — especially at that age, especially when Aang is twelve years old and grew up in a sex-segregated society of monks — it is really difficult to tell the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Their mutual devotion is layered and complex yet straightforward in its sincerity. What was not straightforward, until the last five minutes of the show, is whether this devotion on Katara’s end is romantic. The romantic arc for Katara and Aang is not really an arc, as Sneezy discusses in this classic ZK video. Katara actually becomes more conflicted over time and we never see an event that clarifies her feelings. She seems more interested in him in The Headband than on the Day of the Black Sun, and she has never been more hostile to his romantic overtures than in the penultimate episode. 

And in light of this, it’s pretty easy for fans to fill in the blanks with a different interpretation: maybe Katara’s weird expression after their kiss at the invasion means she didn’t enjoy it; maybe the kiss made her realize that she doesn’t actually feel that way about Aang; maybe against her will and her better judgement, she’s developing feelings for another person, a person who hurt her and whom she fervently tried to hate until he pulled off what is in my opinion the greatest grovel of all time in the form of a life-changing field trip. Maybe. Am I saying that Zutara has more romantic interactions than Ka/taang? Of course not. But ironically, the lack of romantic interactions means that it’s not inherently one-sided, the way Ka/taang became in the latter half of season 3.

I’m not arguing that Katara’s unequivocally not into Aang. Obviously the text declares that she is, because they get married and have kids. But I am saying that there’s a very good reason that so many people, especially women, see Katara’s interest in Aang as ambiguous. It’s not because we can’t pick up “subtle” hints of growing affection. It’s because we know not all affection is romantic, and it’s really easy for someone else’s insistent romantic intentions to muddle what you want.

P.S. I first started thinking about these topics (platonic vs romantic love, desiring someone vs wanting to be desired, etc) in the context of compulsory heterosexuality, a term describing how queer women contort themselves into relationships with men even if they’re not really into men. I saw a post a few days ago joking about why so many queer women seem to be into Zutara. I wonder if part of the reason is because as queer women, we are very sensitive to the ways in which we can talk ourselves into wanting things we don’t actually want, and Katara’s romantic interest in Aang can be easily seen that way. 

[myimaginationplain]

I think the biggest problem with how so many in this fandom approach The Southern Raiders is that they exclusively see it as proof for why their chosen boy (usually Zuko) is ideologically & emotionally superior to their "rival", & thus is a better fit for Katara. Rather than seeing The Southern Raiders & it's ending for what it is; a synthesis between two disparate ideologies.

Aang & Zuko were both equally incorrect as they were correct about what Katara needed. Aang was correct that Katara shouldn't kill Yon Rha, & that she would regret doing so if she had; he was incorrect about Katara needing to forgive the man in order to move on. In my opinion, Zuko was correct about Katara needing to confront Yon Rha for the sake of closure; Katara is a very external person, & a fairly confrontational one at that. Those are traits that Zuko shares & can easily understand, versus Aang, who internalizes most of his "bad" emotions. Zuko was, however, wrong about the confrontation needing to be a violent one. That immediate jump to violence as the be-all-end-all is the result of his abusive upbringing & the imperial indoctrination he was brought up on; it's one of the most important things for Zuko to unlearn.

Ultimately, both Aang & Zuko can intimately empathize with Katara in some capacity, & they were both projecting their own hang-ups onto her because of that. It's a mutual character flaw of theirs.

The Southern Raiders discourse is, I think, ultimately coming from the same place that a lot of the worse ATLA discourse does: some fans over-identifying with the Fire Nation the point where they seem to actually disdain ATLA's anti-imperialist themes. Or maybe it's the other way around. But either way, there's a not-so-small sect of fans who either fundamentally disagree with ATLA's anti-violence stance, or just disagree with it because they want their favorite character to be right when the show said that they were wrong.

Hmm, while there is a grain of truth in the popular zutarian take on "Southern Raiders" ("Aang is preachy and Zuko cares for Katara's feelings"), reading this episode as an evidence that Zuko is a right partner for Katara still doesn't sit quite well with me (and I'm a zutara trash, mind you!)

The problem with this ep in general is what it mixes too many complex topics together, and it becomes difficult to entangle the mess.

Basically, Aang was wrong talking in terms of "revenge" and "forgiveness" and "Jet" and "Appa" instead of "Katara's mental health", but he was right in his general concern. Hatred is not some precious right a person needs to hold on. It's a destructive feeling which is better to manage adequately for the sake of a person's own well-being.

But wait, someone may ask, isn't that exactly what Zuko was offering? To help Katara manage her hatred?

Well, yes and no. Yes, he was trying. No, this wasn't a good way to achieve it.

What many people don't seem to understand is that you don't need to confront the actual physical person you hate to deal with your hatred. Quite the opposite, actually. It's the person's imprint within your psyche what keeps destroying you from inside, and facing the person himself doesn't dissipate this imprint magically. It will only make things worse (*the only exception is when the both sides are genuinely interested in fixing things between them). You need to work with the imprint, and it's much easier to achieve when an object of your hatred is physically distant. No matter what kind of person you are, or what your moral/religious beliefs are, this is universal.

(It's a complex psychological topic I'm not really an expert on, so I'm not gonna go into much detail here. I'll just say what therapists have their ways to work with it).

I suspect Aang intuitively realized the problem, but with him being a 12-year-old monk and not having the needed skills or categorical apparatus, "forgiveness" was the best approximation to a right solution he could think of (I have no way of proving it though, so take it with a grain of salt as well as this whole post in general, lol).

While some idealization (and a lot of preaching) on Aang's part may have taken place, he saw "Katara's inner darkness" for what it was - a self-destructive tendency. She may think confronting Yon Rha is what she needs (although before Zuko introduced the idea, she didn't even think of the possibility), but it wouldn't be good for her. Sometimes, your loved ones are not right. Sometimes, they're about to hurt themselves. And it's not disrespectful to try and dissuade them from this (You'd think post-redemption Zuko of all people would agree with the sentiment).

Now, Zuko. While it's not his fault by any means I'm looking at you royal family, the way he dealt with the problem wasn't exactly the healthiest (or most selfless, as some people insist). He meant well, but offered a wrong method, and held on this specific method because it was something he personally could help Katara with. "It's the same as doing nothing!" - these are the words that kinda gave him away. I suspect it's not Katara's revenge or justice he was so passionate about, but his own chance of action. He was desperate for it. He didn't even stop to listen to her brother's and best friend's perspective, because it was interfering with his opportunity to be helpful, to be on the same side as Katara. In general, when your partner is too eager to side with you against your loving family, it's not a good sign, even when the family isn't perfect. (Well, okay, Aang's spectacularly poor choice of words had something to do with it as well. And where were you, Sokka-with-the-beard, when you were most needed?)

No one really offered a better practical solution to Katara's problem than Zuko though, that's the sad truth. And to be fair, after Katara had agreed to his plan enthusiastically, where was no better option for him than to go with it, I guess.

But... The bar was so low that offering nothing in the first place would be a better solution than this, honestly. Because no matter what the actual script of the episode says, I don't think this "life-changing field trip" would realistically do much good for Katara and result in her forgiveness. I think it would only hurt her more and would add to her list of irrational reasons to hate Zuko.

It may hurt, but as Katara herself made clear, there was nothing Zuko really could do at this point to help her or earn her forgiveness. It was something out of his control. He had to accept this and keep trying to do the right thing, simple as that.

I'm still a zutara trash, but not thanks to their interaction in this episode, I have to conclude.

(I guess what I'm really saying is that all those kids just need their therapy, lol)

Still typing on my phone and ignoring tumblr notifications. I wonder If anyone reads this at all lol