#anti atla renaissance

[sapphic-agent]

As a non-Zutara shipper, one of the worst arguments that came from the wave of Renaissance Kataang shippers was the claim that Zuko and Katara were "barely friends." Like, excuse me? Post Southern Raiders they're practically besties.

Katara opened up to him about exactly what happened when her mother was killed, something she's never done with anyone else (Zuko was also the only one who cared enough to ask)

When she sees Zuko betraying Iroh in the play she asks, in concern, if he really said that and he gives her an open, honest answer

Katara is comfortable enough to tease him about "baby Zuko"

He trusted her- over EVERYONE- to help him fight Azula. He trusted her to have his back (over Sokka, who people claim he's so much closer to)

He was ready and willing to die for her

One thing I absolutely cannot stand in any fandom is making shit up to disparage a ship you don't like and mock its shippers. Katara and Zuko worked hard to build a close bond of trust with one another, that doesn't deserve to be pushed aside because you don't like them together

[katy-89]

I said it again, nothing is more funny to see Zutara fanbase acting like oppressed people

The revisionism is extremely funny

[therossgarden]

The funniest thing ever, to this day, about those “Katara’s rizz” posts, is that they always include Zuko as if he isn’t the biggest simp for his goth gf

Good thing that when I see those posts on TikTok the whole comment section is full of “tf is Zuko doing there” or “get Zuko out of there” comments lmao

[no hate to those who include Zuko in the Katara simps group, it’s just hilariously inaccurate that each one of those posts include Kat’s husband, the guys that simped for her throughout the series, and then Zuko who maybe had a total of five scenes with her where she isn’t chewing him out and he’s not glaring back lol]

[i-d-e-g-a-f]

i already have so many gripes with the original show and how they handle aang’s character arc and his relationship with katara/how they disserviced her by putting her in that relationship and i don’t trust netflix to fix ANY of that in the slightest, in fact i think they’ll probably make things i actually like about the original even worse and the actors are so young too oh my god Kiawentiio get behind me and it’s gonna be another horde of new fans rehashing the same tired old discourse i cannot do this again helpppp

[atla-confessions]

If Zutara had actually become canon it would not be nowhere near as popular as it is now. Especially with the Netflix revolution.

“ the ship that could have been and almost nearly was” why do you think this narrative is so deeply entrenched in the shipping discourse? people want what they can’t have but think they deserved and that dissatisfaction is what fuels a lot of the fandom.

X

[longing-for-rain]

I don’t even understand the character Sokka stans are stanning. It’s not even Sokka. It is like they are taking the big strong tough guy Sokka thinks he is and acting like that is his actual character when it isn’t. I know not all of them are z*kkas but it does seem like atla renaissance and z*kka popularity added to this trend of taking Katara traits and giving them to Sokka instead

Me neither? I honestly don’t dislike Sokka as a character. I never particularly related to him like I do with other characters, but what frustrates me is how the fandom treats him in relation to other characters, especially Katara.

I definitely agree with you that there was a noticeable shift with the ATLA renaissance in 2020. I was in the fandom long before then and the biggest shift I saw was character bashing taking a faux-progressive spin. For example, Mai bashing used to involve calling her ugly and abusive, but shifted into shoving her into sapphic side ships for the aesthetic instead (while still making jabs at her appearance and demeanor, of course, because people can’t be normal about lesbians). As for Katara, it’s even worse. I’ll get into that.

I remember that historically, Katara has been one of the most bashed and hated on characters in the fandom. People would call her bossy and self important, say she was too emotional, that she was too rude, that she didn’t care about other people’s problems, etc. It was blatant back then, but I honestly see the same trends now, just more covertly. People acting like Katara is not as mature as Sokka, not “mom friend,” or otherwise downplaying the responsibilities she had to take on, fundamentally, are operating on the same logic. They do it in a very jokey way a lot of the time or even act like they’re “letting her be a kid” but really it’s just erasing the nuance of her character in the same way overtly misogynistic fans once did.

Because here’s the thing. We can all recognize Katara was forced into a parental role at an early age and that wasn’t fair to her. But acting like that was something that randomly happened on its own is not addressing the problem. But these fans refuse to address the problem by answering the question of why Katara constantly has to take this role…because that would require them to hold Sokka and Aang accountable for their actions and these people will not do that.

I really do think this is tied in with zukka too. I will say that I’m not a zukka anti. I actually really enjoy some zukka content because it can give a refreshing perspective. But I do see a lot of characterizations that are deeply annoying because they really seem like they’re trying to replace Katara. They want the Zutara dynamic but want slash. And I know these characterizations are no longer unique to zukka, but I would agree they were popularized by it.

Just off the top of my head:

The character who is the first of the group to trust Zuko? That was Katara. Sokka was the one in favor of leaving him to die whereas Katara trusted him twice during Book 2.

The character who emotionally connects with Zuko? That’s Katara.

The character who Zuko feels safest letting his guard down around? That’s Katara.

The character who helps Zuko heal from his trauma? That’s Katara.

The character known for showing the most compassion to others? That’s Katara.

The character who primarily bears the burden of having to step up into a parental role? That’s Katara.

The character who represses their emotions to be strong for others? That’s Katara.

And yet, for some reason, there is this new wave of fans who take all of these traits central to Katara and give them to Sokka instead. It’s just frustrating. Sokka is his own character. He’s different. I really just think this is a new brand of misogyny where we take traits like these for granted in female characters but overemphasize them in male characters.

[belle-keys]

My 2024 bookish predictions:

The Dragon Renaissance - With more Fourth Wing sequels in the works and season 2 of HOTD coming out in the summer, I think there's a good chance dragons and dragon-shifters could become the next big thing. Maybe they'll replace the fae as the "big" fictional creature?

The Percy Jackson Renaissance - It will be in full swing, accompanied by a noticeable Greek Mythology Renaissance among locals on Twitter whose knowledge of Greek Mythology is limited to... Percy Jackson. The Hunger Games renaissance will see its last days in January/February or so.

(Poorly written) military fantasy will become popular. Again, I think this will be an unwanted side effect of Fourth Wing's popularity. But I think the Gaza Genocide and institutions endorsing Zionism will play into this as well. I thinks we're about to see a lot of military propaganda in the book world and military-themed books trending.

Dark academia will enter into the beginning stages of its flop era. I say this as someone whose blog is largely dedicated to dark academia, but with Kuang not publishing anything in 2024, with Olivie Blake's Atlas trilogy coming to an end, and ST Gibson's An Education In Malice being... not that good, I can see people moving away from dark academia by the end of the year.

Colleen Hoover will release something. I don't particularly care for this, but I can easily see it happening. She didn't release anything this year so it makes sense she may have a 2024 release (and maybe one designed to improve her reputation).

The ACOTAR series adaptation will get chopped (officially, that is).

People will become less open about enjoying smut and dark romance with all the Twitter radfem discourse and backlash against poor quality romance ruling publishing. There will also be more "discreet" book covers. There will be a lot of anti-erotica discourse.

The Nobel Prize winner will be a POC.

Rivals-to-Lovers will replace Enemies-to-Lovers as the top trope. Less hate and more competition. More academic rivals, magic rivals, popularity rivals, etc. I can see people vibing with this in 2024 instead of the "I hate you but I wanna make out with you" vibes of full-on Enemies-to-Lovers.

JK Rowling will accidentally get herself arrested and/or indicted and she'll be all White Woman about it.

George RR Martin will announce that he "intends" to publish The Winds of Winter before the end of 2025.

A former Disney/Nickelodeon/child star/boyband member will write a memoir describing their trauma and they'll thank Jeannette McCurdy for giving them the courage to do it. The revelations will be insane and unprecedented.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Elizabeth Midford

She started as just a cutie fiancée trying her best, turns out she's also a swordfighting genius, very under pressure to perform feminity in the Victorian Rose type of way. Fandom crucifies her bc she's Ciel's fiancée and they want him to be with his butler, Sebastian, the demon he sold his soul to for revenge

anime was a shitty canon divergent adaptation that butchered her character down to her "cutesy silly girly" persona, which obviously made the 2008 anime fans hate her with a passion (nothing wrong w being girly I'm just saying the adaptation made her super one dimensional) anyways fujoshis used to treat her as a villain because she's the fiance of Ciel,, who as u might know already was HEAVILY shipped with his butler, Sebastian back then (now it's kinda looked badly upon, nice tbh that ship sucks ass xD) She's a bit similar to Misa Amane from death note in the way she was treated. (Like an obstacle the yaoi ship must overcome rather than a person)

she's my silly little rabbit! i could gush about her character but i'll keep it short and just say that she's really well written and one of the best characters in the series. anyways she's ciel's fiance and she's like, rightfully annoying as any other 13 yr old girl would be but the fanbase fucking crucified her for even existing. she gets demonized for being 'annoying', but then ciel gets yaoishipped with an even more annoying guy. there is 100% an argument that lizzie/ciel is weird bc they're cousins (i personally don't ship it) but that falls flat when her detractors then ship the 13 yr old ciel with an eons old demon who Canonically looks like his father. the anime also never reached her main character development until years after its peak and that was only in a movie, so she really got the bad end of the stick here. not me though i had a giant crush on her when i was 12

Katara

Katara is constantly mistreated by the fans in favor of the Zukka ship (Zuko × Sokka.) They make her out to be mean, homophobic, and completely out of character just to add drama to the Zukka ship. In reality, Katara is very compassionate, and would never act that way toward anyone. 

Zutara was a popular ship but when zukka got popular over covid during the atla renaissance there were a million posts about how zutara was problematic while zukka was perfect usually for racist reasons. Meanwhile katara and sokka are siblings so it didn't even make sense. They did not have to be so illogically rude to her to ship zukka and it was weird

Katara is FANTASTIC I fucking love her to pieces she is so cool and yet the entirety of the ATLA fandom treats her like garbage because she “talks about her mom dying too much” (even though she BARELY does & also was parentified from a young age due to her mother’s death) and, of course, because she’s a more feminine women when compared to her counterparts. Even in the show itself she’s mistreated: she’s ALWAYS shown cooking for the rest of the gaang, doing their laundry, any ‘womanly’ task. She ends up with the guy who kissed her twice without her consent & who she never showed any real attraction to and apparently (despite being a badass warrior-doctor!!!) after the show ended she just… settled down in the South Pole and had a bunch of kids and never did anything else. She didn’t even get a statue :( Anyways during the ATLA renaissance, despite Zutara actually not being canon, people felt that Katara threatened the sanctity of the new almost entirely baseless yaoi ship, Zukka. Unfortunately for them, due to the fact that Katara and Sokka are siblings, the usual anti-Zutara arguments didn’t work as well. So they resorted to just… slaughtering her character. If she was lucky, they’d just make Katara a background character, wingwoman, &or throw her together with her canon love interest. If she was unlucky they’d do anything from make her homophobic (??) to killing her off! Fuck’s sake, she never even got a token spare-the-pairs wlw ship! Sorry for getting so heated, that whole debacle made me FUMING MAD.

[im-a-hoping-beetch]

In all honesty, idk what happened with the fandom recently for it to suddenly shit out a ton of crappy takes in ATLA most especially for Zutara. I often find myself defending Zutara because a lot of its antis say the most racist and sexist stuff against it. I'm not even a Zutara fan! I'm a rareshipper.

Can't just antis simply say they don't like Zutara and move on to enjoying their own ships instead? No more stupid holier art thou morality takes that just backfire on their faces.

If they want discourse, then use canon material NOT HEADCANONS, FANONS, OR FANFICS as "evidence" to back up their takes. Antis that do that makes my head spin in exasperation. Then you point that out they start whining how you hurt their feelibgs and get all offended as a "minority".

Actually, let's focus on that last bit. It's pretty rancid too how sometimes they pretend to be part of the "minority" so they can use it as a shield for themselves when their bad behavior gets called out. In fact, this tactic hurts the actual minorities who have valid concerns about Zutara. They get drowned out by all the insanity toxic shippers say and get lumped in with them.

Well, with the new live-action coming, there has obviously, been a revival, making the fandom way much more active. Which leads to people having more time to pay attention to the show and all its intricacies.

This is where ship wars come into play. And in all honesty, atla’s ship wars have definitely left a legacy in a way I don’t think we’ll have to ever witness. With the creators perpetuous jabs at zutara solidifying antis need to hate on it and the fans, fuelling the whole thing to another level. To this day whenever something avatar related gets announced or released you start to see a revival of a not so dead ship war. And while they (probably, not sure) aren’t as brutal as they used to be, they have took another turn, with this faux-progressivism being used to fear monger zutara shippers as well as casual listeners about the ship’s legitimacy. I recommend @i-d-e-g-a-f ‘s post about it to get more insight.

On my part, if I were to pin point the moment where this faux- progressivism started taking space in a lot of anti-zutara takes, I’d say that the atla renaissance isn’t innocent for this phenomenon happening. You need to understand the context in which atla’s release on Netflix took place in. One where the blm movement took the entire world by storm. Resulting in people not having the reservations they’ve probably had in the past when it came to talking about racial issues. This was followed by the emergence of numerous movements involving similar cases (not identical, tho). As well as media and the people consuming said media being ready to offer commentary on and call out harmful depictions of racial minorities as well as the rethorics they carried.

Suddenly, anyone and everyone could offer their piece of mind on harm being caused to racial minorities. And while good, it also came with its downside.

When you take into account this context, I think it exacerbated the already existing phenomenon of people saying things in order to put on this front of being good and virtuous, yet failing or simply not wanting to realize how these things are perpetuating the very harm they claim they want to undo. You know, people perceiving and claiming zutara to be a colonized-colonizer ship. As well as comparing katara to Pocahontas, when talking about these two. Which, if these people actually cared about progress, they would know how incredibly racist and sexist it is to make that comparison.

When it comes to antis obsession with hating on zutara, I think it stems from a certain insecurity. You gotta understand that unlike any other non-canon ship, zutara could’ve legitimately been canon. It was constantly talked about in the writers room, many of the team members seriously considering it (head writers, voice actors etc..) Hence why, the creators felt the need to throw numerous jabs (ie. the ember island play, (2008) comic-con) at the ship and more specifically, its fans. Since they themselves were insecure. @burst-of-iridescent perfectly explains it in this post.

[kataraslove]

I just really hope that the new ATLA movie will be interesting, bright and exciting, that it will pay tribute to all the characters, but especially to Katara. And there will be kataang in it: wonderful, respectful, supportive relationships. And a huge number of pro-Katara, pro-Aang and pro-kataang new fans will come to the fandom. I hope that the time will come when a respectful and competent and deeper gaze of the canon and canonical characters will dominate the fandom, and the toxic z/tara will remain in the minority (I have nothing against zutara as a ship but I am against lying about characters and hatred, and, unfortunately, I saw most of this in the z/tara fandom). Let the era of peace and kindness finally come for the fandom, as Zuko would say.

one can only hope for that, anon! after that leaked image of adult gaang came out, i saw antis do a complete 180 about their perceptions on kataang. so who knows? however, considering that it's been 15 years, i don't think perceptions on here - or in other places - are really going to change much from people who vehemently despise kataang. i think every interaction and scene between katara and aang, no matter how positive it is, will be spun to be made as if it's negative. i mean, we literally saw their reactions to a COOKBOOK that stated that aang liked to cook for katara. "wow, i can't believe you need a cookbook to confirm that aang does the bare minimum," or, my personal favourite, "katara has to literally baby aang by controlling how much sugar he eats!"

that being said, i'm not interested in changing the minds of people who genuinely believe kataang to be an abusive relationship. what i do want instead is for the adult gaang movie to provide a fandom environment in which kataang shippers are not afraid to admit that they ship kataang. for a whole week after the leaked image was released, there was a kataang renaissance that occurred on twitter, with viral kataang tweets and people coming out and admitting that they enjoyed kataang. much like the kataang renaissance that occurred after the legend of korra first aired (with canon confirmation that katara and aang had three children before bryke ripped that perfect family perception to shreds), i want that same thing to happen following the adult gaang movie, except in a much larger scale, with much more fandom content.

at the end of the day, though, what i really want is for katara to be done justice by this movie; for her to receive the recognition that she deserves after 15 long years of absolutely null. i do believe that she will receive justice in the form of good writing and canon recognition - the signs are all there - but at the same time, i am a little cautious just because it is bryke behind the wheels. those two, in their efforts to explore what they believe to be nuance, tend to leave out a whole bunch of details. simply put, they're not the best writers, and even worse, they've been horrible at receiving criticism in the past. so i hope those are attributes of theirs that have changed over the years, as they've matured and gained more industry experience. i think it has, just based on the things that i've heard from the two, and the fact that they're now part of a gigantic hollywood megacorporation and streaming service that is dependent on the success of avatar studios. speaking of which, you have no idea just how much paramount is riding on avatar studios to become a commercial success. the fate and future of avatar studios are absolutely reliant on this adult gaang movie becoming a huge commercial hit.

... which is my other area of concern. just what are bryke willing to do to ensure that the movie will be a huge hit? what plot points will they introduce? what will they do with the characters? i don't think that they're going to pander to fandom demands (have certain ships become romantic) because they said that they're not going to do that. at the same time, however, what exactly are they going to do? katara and aang aren't the most popular characters in the series, their romantic relationship is an area of contention and controversy among the fanbase; from a business standpoint, how exactly will avatar studios handle this? i don't want any cheap, convoluted, soap-opera. i also don't want a marvel movie in the form of avatar. i want fulfilling character arcs and dynamics and plot points that stay true to the themes of avatar the last airbender. as we've seen with the kyoshi novels, we know that the spirit of avatar can be replicated if the right creative voices are in the writing room, holding the pen.

i suppose that's something that bryke will have to deal with and figure out. no use losing sleep over things we know nothing about. just based on the things that i've seen and read, the contextual clues over the years, the new content from avatar studios, i think we can expect the best, especially as kataang shippers. however, i do approach this whole scenario with some (read: a lot of) caution.

but i absolutely agree with you here (and what you said about zutara shippers):

And a huge number of pro-Katara, pro-Aang and pro-kataang new fans will come to the fandom. I hope that the time will come when a respectful and competent and deeper gaze of the canon and canonical characters will dominate the fandom.

i long for a future in which katara fandom analysis isn't essentially, "she's horribly mistreated by the gaang as their resident Mother. that is, until zuko the liberator comes save her. this is why she would be a perfect firelady." if nothing else, please let the outcome of the movie allow for nuanced perspectives of katara's character.

[sapphic-agent]

"We want more complex female characters-" Y'ALL COULDN'T EVEN HANDLE HER

[firelxdykatara]

It's insecurity, plain and simple.

It's funny, because the original insecure Kataang shippers who couldn't help but let that bleed through into their interaction with fandom were Bryke themselves. They were upset and petty manchildren about the fact that their pet canon ship wasn't the general fandom favorite, to the point where they yoinked a bunch of fanart (mostly zutara) to make a video specifically mocking them for daring to "doubt the will of Mike and Bryan", and I truly believe that this attitude is what seeped into the fandom, enabled and exacerbated the ship war at the time, and had a snowball effect through the past fifteen years. It only got worse when the 'anti vs proship' thing kicked off, the salty ex-VLD fandom stumbled on ATLA when the original cartoon was put on Netflix, and the ATLA renaissance saw a marked increase in bitterness and toxicity accordingly.

But what really lit a fire under their asses this time around is fear that the Netflix adaptation might dare to go where the creators wouldn't let the original, particularly after Bryke left (to much derision, even though they already had driven the franchise into the ground with how crappy the comics and LoK were), with many a rumor swirling about how the 'creative differences' they cited were really that Netflix wanted zutara to be canon.

We don't know for sure, of course, and won't until the next two seasons are made, but it is very funny to me that the people who 'won' the original ship war (for some flavor of winning that involves having their ships be endgame in the show and then written terribly in all the post-canon stuff) are very afraid that they won't manage a second time. Even though, on the remotest offchance that the Netflix adaptation will change major things like ships, the original cartoon will still be there and anyone who prefers it can just rewatch that instead.

I never thought Zutara would come back to twist my heartstrings, but ever since the live-action released on Netflix I've been having the exact same feelings I had for it years ago. Including the burning anger at seeing the most maddening fights between Zutara and Kataang.

There are several amazing essays online that explain why Zutara is so good and why so many people love it (Sneezy Reviews' 2-hour-long video is superb), but I don't care to delve into that. After all, it's fictional characters from a cartoon. Shipping is not that serious. Therefore, what really drives me crazy is seeing Kataang shippers and fans in general hate Zutara so passionately and not understand why. What's the point of this shipping war when Kataang won the war years ago? It's literally the canon ship. They constantly brag about it, even. So why do they get so mad and aggressive towards Zutara fans? The ATLA subreddit has more posts complaining and mocking Zutara than posts from Zutara fans discussing the ship. Twitter can't let Zutara fans gush over small scrubs without saying we have a colonizer fetish, an absolutely insane take about a cartoon, and that POC people who enjoy Zutara are sick and must be doing crazy stuff with their white partners at home. Why are people so angry with Zutara and its fanbase? I never see posts and tweets being passionate and gushing over Kataang. Why care so much about the rival ship that lost the war to yours and call its fans the most heinous things and accuse us of all kinds of nonsense?

I'm very happy to see how many of us are still around and loving this ship just as much as we did when we were kids, don't get me wrong! But I think the ship wars in ATLA have got to be one of the most toxic online. Shipping should be fun, but people really ruin it.

--

[situationsoured]

sooner or later you’ll have to s t r i k e b a c k.

[i-d-e-g-a-f]

On one hand I’m really glad the ATLA renaissance is over and on the other hand I’m depressed because it feels like half the people still left in the fandom are creeps

tbh i don’t really interact with the fandom at large anymore. just occasionally scream into void about it and consume fanworks. even during the renaissance when i was more interactive, i filtered so many tags and blocked so many people that i was basically just interacting with the side i knew wouldn’t enrage me. like i curated what i saw to such a degree that i genuinely forgot people who were strongly anti zutara existed. and even those interactions were mostly surface level. like i’ve never really gotten to know anyone in the fandom, i just temporarily bond over a common interest and move on with my day. at most i recognize some blogs that are popular or that i was mutuals with back then. so idrk what you mean by creeps. maybe it’s because i limit my interactions so much but i don’t think i’ve really run into anyone heinous. as far as i’m aware at least. i’m probably out of the loop though tbh. honestly can u elaborate more on what you mean by creeps?

the thing i do genuinely miss about the renaissance was the sheer amount of fanworks being produced, and while there are still many people creating and i appreciate every last one of them, it’s undeniable that the quantity has gone down. but i would still rather it be like this than wtv was going on then. and it’s not like we’re in a drought of fan content either so who am i to complain (i love you fic writers and fan artists and meta bloggers keep doing what ur doing).

[atla-confessions]

If you don't want to do ship wars but still wanna ship, zukka is like, default.

Atrocious take. The migration from Klance made Zukka popular and everyone knows it. 😂😂😂

Zukka stans from the ATLA renaissance made the ship wars worse not better with their toxicity, and there’s nothing default about shipping two characters who have very limited interactions throughout the show and already have their own partners lmao

X

[shiny-pebble-gremlin]

(My DNI is at the very bottom btw!)

Hi I’m Emery!

I’m non-binary! I use they/them pronouns

Im autistic and I have adhd

I have chronic pain/fatigue

Im 18 (even though I don’t really feel like it sometimes 😅)

My little age varies I’m usually around 1-4 or 5-7 but I can regress from anywhere between 0-12 it mostly depends on who I’m with and how comfortable I am. I regress both as a coping mechanism and involuntarily.

I really enjoy books and cartoons, plus quite a few games! Drawing is one of my favorite things and I work at renaissance festivals!

Some of my favorite shows/movies:

Steven universe

The owl house(not caught up)

Matilda

My little pony friendship is magic

Atla

Adventure time (I know what happens still haven’t finished it though)

same situation with gravity falls

Ohshc

Fruits basket (haven’t seen the reboot)

Todoro and Ponyo plus Kiki’s delivery service

Star vs the forces of evil!

DNI:

K!nk, pedo/map, anti Agere or anti petre, anti lgbtq+, ableist, racist, pro Ed, fatspo, anyone nsfw!