#Anti kataang

[atla4art]

people also forget the fact the whole family was a mess, katara, an 8 year old girl stepped up and started acting like the mother. she didn't even have the chance to process kya's death. she stepped up bc no one else would/could

and same it's baffling how people act like these things are wrong. i understand if you initially watched the scene and thought that way but just think about it. this evil monster who might've still been killing innocent people should receive mercy etc? and forgiving them while they could be killing people? forgiving "for your own sake"??? katara felt much better after the mission, no way just forgiveness was going to fix anything about how she feels

No, Zuko did not lead Katara down a "Dark Path" in The Southern Raiders

Watching Southern Raiders again, and it's bizarre to me that people read that episode as, "Zuko leading Katara down a dark path." Zuko just wants her forgiveness. He fucked up with her severely and to a level that's different from the others. She feels betrayed by him--she was betrayed by him. She trusted him and he all but spat that back in her face so yeah, she's mad. Is it selfish using her desire for justice, closure, maybe revenge to get her to stop being mad at him? Idk perhaps, if you read it that way.

But the way I read it, I read it as him using his resources to give her what she wants most, and that's her mother's killer. Since he was the face of the enemy, since he lost her trust, let him earn that trust back by taking her to the real face of her enemy.

It's the literal least he can do.

Then he steps back. Zuko let's Katara lead the mission, let's her defend herself against Aang and sadly Sokka too while only playing support. Zuko got a comment in there or two, but for the most part it's Katara doing all the talking.

Also something important people forget is that, neither Katara nor Zuko brought up revenge, that was all Aang accusing them(meant to type her, but saying them fits more) of seeking revenge. Maybe that was her unconscious motivation, but Aang was the one who brought it to the forefront of their minds. Zuko states that this is about Justice and closure, Aang was the one who made this about revenge.

After all that back and forth is said and done, Zuko is largely quiet the rest of the episode save for like 3 lines, none of them involving him telling Katara what to do or what she should do.

Katara leads the mission, Katara makes the choice to bloodbend even when Zuko was already facing the SR general on the boat. He didn't tell her to do that, he wasn't in a pinch so she would've needed to do that, hell she didn't even have to do any of that at all considering there was still water on the ground.

These were all Katara's decisions, all Zuko did was stand by her side.

This isn't me trying to say that Katara's making bad decisions. Far from it actually, I heavily agree with Katara's decisions. This isn't even a "supporting woman's wrongs" scenario either. Katara's completely in the right in my mind.

This is a mission involving finding the man who killed her mother. Not kidnapped like Appa (comparison courtesy of Aang), not whatever the hell the comics are doing with Ursa, murdered. Kya is never coming back and it's because of Yon Ra. Little Katara had to see her mother's dead body after the act was done and has to live with the pain and guilt of it all knowing Kya died to protect her. She's traumatized, she's hurt, so she's very much justified in wanting revenge and it's disquieting how so many people make this about Zuko leading her down some dark path for saying "I want to find the man who killed my mother and took her away from me." Bryke included.

Again, Zuko stands back, adds support in the fight when needed, but ultimately is there as her backup and sources.

And yet, people see all of this as Zuko leading her down a dark path. Because he dared to stand back and not talk Katara down from wanting to merc the man who took her mother away from her. What a villain, she said sarcastically.

Realistically, why would he stop her?

If anything, the fact that Zuko was the only one in her corner for this says a lot because of everyone there, he gets it. Sokka should've gotten it too, but that's a separate point for separate post.

He too lost his mother to the Fire Nation. Whether she's dead or missing, the Fire Nation and, namely his Father to put a face to it, took his mother away from him. He lost her and he believed that she was never coming back. Katara and Zuko are the same in that regard. Something he verbally empathizes with her in the Crossroads of Destiny episode.

He knows she needs this because he's been there, is there, and very much wants to have done that. If facing the Fire Lord wasnt Aang's destiny (and this wasn't a kids show, along with other in meta perspective) it doesn't feel to far to say Zuko probably would've killed Ozai.

Revenge for his mother is a side goal, but it's out of reach as of this moment. He has no information on what happened to her or where she is, so he can't do a thing. He sees Katara, someone who badly wants to regain trust with, with a similar goal and mindset and he actually has the means of helping her. Of course he takes it, but this is her mission, not his. He just provides the information and helps her getting there. That's all, everything after the fact comes down to Katara's choices.

When the moment of revenge happens and Katara decides to not kill him, does Zuko say anything? Does he asks her "what are you doing? He's right there, get revenge!" No. He doesn't say anything. He lets her leave, stares down Yon Ra for a second and follows after her in silence. You cant apply headcannon like "maybe he tried to convince her after the fact," because that can easily be countered with the head canon of him comforting her telling her she did the right thing. Going soley off what we saw in canon, on screen, Zuko watches Katara spare him from skewering the man with ice.

He does have a shocked expression in the background but that can either be read as "wow she didn't do it," or "holy shit she probably could've killed me 10 times over." Again, nothing verbal from him, only expressions, so it's hard to say firmly what he's thinking.

I got away from my main point for a second, but I'm coming back to it to say, none of this is Zuko's doing. Zuko didn't lead Katara down any path, he didn't encourage her to enact a bloody revenge, what Katara does was all her own actions, all he did was point in the right direction. Kinda shit how by making it seem like Zuko's manipulating her, it takes away from Katara's agency in the situation. She made her decisions and no man influenced her.

The only who actively tried to was her brother and Aang into forgiving their mother's murderer for some insane reason that I still can't fathom. Maybe from doing something she'd regret, possibly, but the in canon reason we get is, "don't do it. It's a dark path, you should forgive him for your own sake. Insert the Appa comparison" I bring that up again, because Appa was kidnapped, and then found again and they were all reunited. Yet Aang compared that to Kya being murdered and left for her daughter and husband to find. There's a stark difference.

Aang's pain in that regard is understandable and dare I say more supported by the fandom and show, while Katara is pratically being told by everyone save for Zuko to sit down and forgive for some inane reason that rings hollow, feels insensitive at the absolute best and takes away her agency by turning it all on Zuko as him making her choices for her.

It's shit, and an absolute misread of what the episode showed us, something Bryke somehow missed too.

I'm gonna conclude this with a quick summary of the end of the episode. Katara doesn't forgive Yon Ra, yet spares his life because he's just pathetic. Aang's weirdly giddy telling her that he's glad she forgave Yon Ra, and Katara having to shut that shit down and tell him that no, she didn't forgive her mother's killer, she never will, and she's conflicted on letting him live. Then Katara gets a soft look and smile for the first time in a good long while in the episode as she tells Zuko that she does forgive him. We get a Zutara hug (iconic) and the episode ends on a happy-ish, bittersweet note for her. Zuko does tell Aang that he's right and violence isn't what she needed (an admittedly weird line considering seconds before she just said she doesn't know if she was too weak to kill him or too strong too, implying she probably would've gone through with killing him, but whatever) but that's when Katara is out of earshot.

Zuko didn't lead her down any dark path, he left himself be lead by her and was willing to let it happen. It being whatever Katara's decision was going to be. Good, bad, middle, whatever would have happened would have all been Katara's decision and her agency shouldn't be ignored because of a bad-take misread of a pretty clear cut episode with very little ambiguity.

[melu-lis]

it's funny seeing kataang shippers argue that zuko and katara have a sibling relationship therefore it's incestuous to ship them considering how bryke described their favorite ship.

[ecoterrorist-katara]

I just saw your post about Toph being the one that brings out Katara’s inner (gremlin) child and my god you’re so right. Katara actually gets to just be a kid when it comes to Toph, she gets to be petty and actually really mean sometimes (saying the stars are beautiful and then telling Toph it’s too bad she can’t see them was CRAZY) but she also gets to pull a scam and go to a spa with her (and then wash three girls down a river after Toph dumped them in there for being mean to her). And I love that we get to see those sides of her that Toph drags out.

Contrast that with the like one time she was kind of mean to Aang in the waterbending scroll episode and had to immediately apologize to him and promise she wouldn’t try to learn from the scroll anymore. Toph brings out what Katara is really like when she gets to just be someone’s friend (and even sister figure) and when she isn’t being forced in one way or another to take on a motherly role for them. (Side note but this is also why I wish we’d gotten to see Katara and Suki interact one on one because I feel that would’ve been another relationship that just allows Katara to be a teenage girl and relate to another girl who would probably understand her pretty well)

Anyway I love your blog and I hope you have a lovely day!

YES absolutely agree w you! Katara is unhinged when it comes to Toph but in like, a not very serious way. One of my fave things about Katara and Toph is how Toph is the first person to reject Katara’s caretaking unequivocally in a way that asserts that they’re on equal ground. it’s not a babysitter situation because like you said, Katara decided to be bratty right back!

And conversely, I think it’s funny that Katara, who is super kind and compassionate and unequivocally the heart of the group, is the person who’s rudest to Toph LOL. Toph really does not want people to treat her like she’s made out of glass, and one of the ways she does that is by being brash to other people, but Katara is the only one who really meets her on that level of sheer belligerence, you know? But Katara can also be pretty thoughtful about what Toph does need, like saying exactly the right thing in Tales of Ba Sing Se. They're just so in sync, yet set each other off. It’s beautiful.

I absolutely agree with you re: Suki too. I want them to swap fighting tips and talk about makeup and other #justgirlythings. But I also want Suki to demonstrate to Katara that leadership and caretaking can happen in combination, because Suki held that joint role with the Kiyoshi Warriors. Katara has so much leadership potential and I think Suki could have been a great mentor to her in that regard. (Uh oh, now I ship Sukitara oops)

I’m honoured you like my blog and I hope you have a lovely day too!!!

[lieuxtenant]

most kat@@ng shippers annoying as fuck but the most annoying of them are the obtuse ones, and oh boy, there are so many of them

you gonna look me in the eyes (or in this case, at the picture of eva noblezada that i have as pfp, almost the same thing) and say there is not a single hint of romance in katara and zuko’s dynamic? no, you can’t! stop lying.

trying to deny the very obvious romantic subtext is so stupid, we all know you don’t really believe that, you can’t be this unaware, the only way the writers could be more obvious about what they were trying to do with those two is if they had put a little momo holding a sign in the corner of every zutara interaction with a text breaking down the meanings of the scene, and there are a lot, just throwing here some ones without really going into it one by one or i would be here all day:

the fact that we have zuko and katara’s main fight in book 1 finale that is also when we learn about tui and la, atlaverse’s version of yin yang

their personal arcs being literally that “in kindness there’s evil and in evil there’s kindness” meme

not only that but they’re basically the catalysts in each other’s arcs (zuko’s in “the crossroads of destiny” and katara’s in “the southern raiders”)

“you rise with the moon, i rise with the sun” (they’re so nasty for this one)

do i really need to extend the “zutara are yin yang” topic? like come on

also tui and la means push and pull, zuko incorporates this waterbending pushing and pulling move he learnt by watching katara to his firebending

blue spirit zuko at book 1: water x painted lady katara at book 3: fire ????? absolute cinema

zutara bonding in a cave designed to resemble the cave of the two lovers (they’re so nasty for this one 2: electric boogaloo)

and wearing the same colors as oma and shu?!!?!! the star-crossed lovers on opposite sides of a war??¿? sounds quite familiar

[atla4art]

look i'm a person with a strong moral compass and i express it. i can argue but honestly eventually it becomes draining

the best decision i've made is blocking people on tumblr, some on tiktok, twitter and reddit. it has helped me so much. no more hate and feeling overwhelmed, no more stupid arguments that are common sense, empathy and simply caring for other human beings

it does have 1 con though... some of the fanart or other content washes away. when i first interacted with punkeropercyjackson it was bc of content i liked. the problem was that they're hypocritical and didn't we ant to deal with facing the truth

it's worth more if you just block people so that you live in peace

Can we like.. normalize skipping contents that we hate or contents that don't align with our opinion? I've seen the most beautiful ship arts in almost every social media platform and there would always be like

"Love the art! Hate the ship!"

Look, I know social media peeps do their best to stay positive but is it really that important to accompany your compliment with a COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY statement? Can people normalize keeping their opinions to themselves when it's not needed? Girl that is obviously a ship post. Why do you feel the need to say you hate it after complimenting?

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the compliment but I'd rather have you not comment on my post at all if you're just gonna leave backhanded compliments. Is it really that hard JUST to say "I love the art!" and be respectful? And if you hate the ship so much then do yourself a favour by scrolling up or down to avoid the content. Trust me, avoiding negativity would be better for your mental health.

It's not just happening in ship arts. Fanarts in general. There'd be like, a fanart of a character or a redesign and there will be comments like "I prefer them with this-that though." or "This-that suits them better!" or "I don't like them with this-that!".

Or there would be contents that talks about how this character is the best character of this show/game/movie or how this character has the best game effects and there would be like, "I prefer this-that character though." or "I don't see anything about *charactername though." or "Nope, *charactername is the best."

An example of this is when I was scrolling through contents about Furina's c6 plunge attack and infusions and how they are the best and there are a bunch of comments saying "I don't see Raiden though" or "Raiden's plunge is the best"

And I was like NO ONE ASKED??? Look, no hate to Raiden Shogun because she's literally one of my favorite characters. I love her plunge attack and I have an undeniable bias when it comes to purple and pink but the video was OBVIOUSLY NOT ABOUT HER. The video was not a misinformation and simply someone's opinion/preference.

It's like going to a room full of people talking about how they like the color red and saying something like "I prefer blue though!" Gosh why would you do that? It's just so EMBARRASSING and SO ATTENTION SEEKING at it's finest. And then when people call them out, they'd pull the "opinion" card and act like s victim. If you want people to respect your opinion, why don't you do it first?

People need to learn that not everything that appears on their feed is about them and to not take everything PERSONALLY because OMG not everything is about you and not everything revolves around you. People can have different opinions and enjoy any content that they want even if those are opposed to your preferences. Being different from you doesn't make them less valid in any way.

If it's not illegal or harmful just keep your mouth shut OMG is it really that hard?

Instead of wasting your time commenting on a content that you don't like (and by doing so, the said content would just appear on your feed more frequently), why not search for contents you enjoy to satisfy yourself, yah?

Why? Because that's the normal thing to do. People have become so brave on whatever they say on the internet because they know they'd never suffer real life consequences.

[earfgoddesss]

Election Day

[illycanary]

Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident

I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.

For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 

We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 

And we saw ourselves in Katara. 

Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 

Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 

Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.

Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?

Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 

After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 

And do better he does not.

The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.

Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.

Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.

The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 

Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.

I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.

I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.

[the-badger-mole]

What I adore about the idea of Katara ending up with Zuko instead of Aang is that in Zuko she would have someone who would support her in her righteous anger. Had he been there when Katara challenged Pakku for her right to learn how fight, he would've backed her up. He would never have tried to tell Pakku that she didn't mean it. And he would've offered to help her dispose of his body if it came to that.

That's the energy that Katara needs. Someone who understands that she's not jumping into a fight for nothing. If she kills someone, she had a darned good reason.

[fanfic-lover-girl]

What happened to the Aang who saw and respected the airbender spirit Teo had?? Shouldn't this be doubled for his own kids??

Bryke failed Aang. It didn't have to be this way but the seeds were sown in ATLA and they were never dealt with. I wonder if Kya ever connected with Aang through waterbending?

"Why do you want to make a deadbeat dad out of Aang?", "Aang wasn't a bad father, he was just flawed!"

No one said this to me personally, but those or similar claims I read coming from people defending Aang and his actions towards his non-airbender children.

The thing is: I and many A:TLA fans don't want to make a deadbeat dad out of Aang. And for the flawed-thing: where do people draw the line?

I draw the line when the non-bender son apologizes to his father's statue for something he had no control over. Because he felt his father's disappointment, likely more than once in his life.

I draw the line when an air acolyte—one of the persons who are supposed to know everything about Aang's life—doesn't know that her messiah has more than one child. That means Aang never, ever talked about his other children. Wanna prove me wrong? Then show me other air acolytes later on in the same episode who indeed know about his other children and love the stories Aang, as a proud father, used to tell them about Kya and Bumi. And his soulmate Katara...

I draw the line when a father, who barely sees his other two children and his wife who is supposed to be his soulmate, decides to take whole vacations with his one airbender son and neglects the rest of his family even in his free time.

So, no, I don't want to make a deadbeat dad out of Aang. The narrative did it. Bryke did it, and, as someone who loves Aang, I was pissed af. Cancel Bumi's apology, the scene with the air acolyte and the vacations, keep Aang travelling with Tenzin alone to the air temples as some kind of duty and show me beautiful memories of Aang hugging and playing around with his whole family, and I believe that he was just flawed.

The family portrait in which Tenzin was a few months old and didn't even show signs of airbending isn't enough evidence—none at all. You find those happy-smiling portraits in every happy and unhappy household (Pink's song "Family Portrait" comes to mind). I never read the comics, but heard they retcon the scene in Korra so far that it would only make sense if Kya and Bumi would have memory loss or dementia.

The Aang I know from A:TLA would've loved to pass on his culture to all of his children, airbenders or not. They don't have to be airbenders to learn about it.

Bryke are great world builders and artists, but no writers, they should let other people do the job. They are literally the only writers I know who refuse to learn from their mistakes, keep on retconning instead, and are defended by some people among the fandom for it.

And surprise, surprise: what Katara thought about it, if she said anything to Aang or if she just sat back and watched, wasn't even mentioned in the talk between the siblings.

TL;DR: Bryke decided to portray Aang's actions as a father and husband to the extent that it comes off as if he isn't interested in his non-airbender children and Katara at all. It isn't me and the other critics who want to portray him as a deadbeat dad, on the contrary: as someone who loves Aang, it pisses me off. A family portrait makes no difference, because it proves nothing. And neither do the comics. Either you manage to convey the message you want to send in this exact scene, or you miss the mark.

[rifari2037]

Zutara are parallels in every possible ways, yet they didn't end up together, and other shipper expect me to not upset about it?

[longing-for-rain]

Look I know people love to act like Zuko is the most dangerous, toxic, and temperamental character… but there is exactly one (1) male character Katara was canonically responsible for calming down from violent, destructive tantrums at risk to herself and it wasn’t Zuko… 🐸☕️

[allnewalldifferentwildspider]

Having read those bits from the Roku novel makes these moments look even worse.

I know people keep trying to excuse Aang withholding the map to Hakoda, but they never address Aang just casually talking shit about Water Tribe culture.

but like I've said before, it's easy to talk shit when you live on a monastery in the mountain where everything is provided for you instead of one of the harshest environments in the world.

[melu-lis]

the reason why i'll never take the argument that "fire lady katara disempowers katara" seriously is because in canon she is reduced to being aang's wife and the mother of his children and has no achievements of her own which actively disempowers her and a lot of the fics i've read with the fire lady katara headcanon have her being involved in politics which demonstrates that for the most part, zutara shippers care more about empowering katara than -GUNSHOTS.

[theweeklydiscourse]

We’re going through this phase of fandom right now where people willfully ignore the sexist implications of female characters being shafted into housewife/mother roles or disempowered by the end of their stories. If you dare to criticize such writing decisions, you will be accused of sexism and be hounded for not “respecting their choices” as though these characters are actual people and not tools of storytelling. As if the cliche of female characters “sacrificing” their powers or having them stripped away exists in a vacuum and isn’t influenced by any larger cultural factors.

They’ll say: “Not every character has to be a girlboss!!” Or “Let women be soft and traditional!!” As if that’s some revolutionary way of thinking and not the norm. It’s an extension of choice feminism, dismissing any dissent about the quality of the narrative to make it make sense and avoid the uncomfortable truth. Diminishing the agency of female characters and cramming them into traditional roles is a common occurrence in many stories, and we should be allowed to criticize them without being silenced.

[lady-iskra]

Today on Reddit: Two non canon-ship related posts on two very different Subreddits.

The first post, where the hero is shipped with another woman than his canon partner (in the books and thus in the OG source), is filled with peaceful conversations.

The other one in the A:TLA sub where the woman is shipped with someone else than her canon hero-boyfriend—so, Katara with Zuko—, people shipping them being ashamed and insulted, because how dare they question canonicity?

Now that I have this comparison, I have to ask myself if it's more often than not misogyny, bc the hero gets the girl, right? It also doesn't help that people worship this hero like some kind of prophet who can do no wrong.

[ecoterrorist-katara]

ok I think my main issue with many Ka/taang shippers is that they just…refuse to take ownership of their fandom experience. By which I mean they continue to engage with Zutara works, Zutara fanon, Zutara discourse etc, and get mad about it and pick fights about it.

I came across a comment by a Ka/taang shipper (on a thread where nobody mentioned Aang btw) in the wild who says they really dislike the way Aang is portrayed in Zutara fics. Fair enough. Here’s the thing though: this person says they’ve read 30+ Zutara fics!!!

you know how many KA fics I’ve read? Zero. I have no idea what fanon Ka/taang dynamics are like, what the headcanons are, or what shippers like about the ship. Because I don’t need every single person in a very large fandom to agree with my interpretation of certain characters, even if I think I’m right, and I don’t seek out their opinions and their creations.

Like…I don’t think it’s that hard to 1) respect other people in fandom, but more importantly 2) respect your own peace of mind and enjoyment. You’ll be happier if you block things you don’t want to see, I promise.