#anti ehasz

[vlackevil]

The interview with Aaron Ehasz about Aang and Katara relationship:

“We decided to do that in symbolism and actions instead of words”

In short words, the writers have been showing Aang and Katara romance in all series with actions, not words.

Oh, and Aaron ships Sokka and Toph.

And Aaron supports Kataang with this:

[icedsodapop]

It's always been rather amusing to me how the more toxic Zutara shippers have adopted Aaron Ehasz as "their guy", worshipping him and calling him what made ATLA great while shitting on Bryke, when Ehasz has never even seemed to ship Zutara at all:

Here he is in 2024 basically saying Zuko and Katara are sibling-coded:

And there's a bit of frustration seeing how these stans also spread the idea that Ehasz is a feminist king who understands female gaze becos he "ships" Zutara as opposed to Bryke when Ehasz has literally been accused of sexist behaviour by two employees on The Dragon Prince. (Not saying Bryke aren't sexist or can't ever be sexist. But, just pointing the irony of lionizing Ehasz)

[herbluefire]

aaron ehasz and faith erin hicks are the only ones who can write azula. bryke hate women and can't write for shit

[atla-confessions]

I think it’s really funny that the god on which Zutara Stan’s have built all their hatred for Bryke on Aaron Ehasz is the one accused of real life misogyny against his female staffers but that’s fine I guess.

They’ve got their trigger finger in the word misogynist for everything except the mistreatment of real women.

X

[ccgg112]

Aaron Ehasz just posted a video revealing his “true endgame” for ALTA (Kataang vs Zutara): the TLDR

This is the TLDR for those who are too lazy to watch it or who don’t want to watch Aaron (multiple women have come forward to talk about how he is misogynistic, abusive, and consistently shuts down their points of view).

It’s pretty much a troll video.

He basically spends most of the video plugging TDP. The entire video is also said in a very trolly/joking manner, but he does say this interesting tidbit. Take of it what you will:

“When it comes to romance, I’ve always believed there has to be something magical and magnetic in the best ships. And like the positive and negative of a magnet are drawn together like an invisible force so it is Fire and Water”

Then he reveals he’s not talking about Zutara, but actually Katara and Azula, Kazula, the true OTP.

[tarisilmarwen]

Lmaaaooooooooo @ Aaron Ehasz taking the piss out of certain Avatar shippers and once again debunking their "secret fourth season that would have made our ship canon" trash conspiracy.

[survivalove]

one day we’ll talk about how this fandom continues to hype aaron ehasz, the writer with several allegations of horrible treatment from women he’s worked with over the years, to put down bryke

i just love how y’all are suddenly not feminists when it comes to the writer with a misogynistic track record. and we all know why.

[ididgettomeetyou]

i think aaron ehasz is overrated tbh.. his idea for azula/lu ten were terrible and a season 4 wasn't needed

[rosafloera]

I swear it always gotta be something man, as a new fan I just got into researching ATLA and everytime I think 'oh this guy staff did/said something I can get behind!' I'm just shooting myself in the foot for them to turn around and do sexist and godawful things

[stargirl-judooz]

Not Aaron Ehaz making clear how ridiculous this sort of a request is for someone to make.

And agree to.

[ultraericthered]

Live by dark magic, die by dark magic, I guess? It all goes back to what I said here. If Aaron and the writing team just stopped beating around the bush and established firmly and clearly "No, dark magic itself is not inherently pure evil, and neither is Aaravos who created it and gave it to humans", we'd not be having conversations like this.

It's a nice sequence.

Just. One thing. Why is Viren's last moment using dark magic again?

If dark magic is so wrong and evil, why is this shown as heroic for him? Why is Aaravos not taking over him?

I'm guessing that maybe sacrificing something of oneself is an acceptable way of doing dark magic? Or alternatively: something another person offered? Maybe?

Anyway, this is overall a good farewell to the character, and while it's not quite what I was hoping for (aiding the heroes more directly against Aaravos), I'm still pretty happy with it.

[vlackevil]

Zutara shippers: “Aaron Ehasz was make zutara canon but evil Bryke don’t let him and the writers”

Meanwhile Aaron Ehasz about shipping:

[icedsodapop]

So sick of the ATLA fandom hero-worshipping Aaron Ehasz. Yes, Michael and Bryan have their problems and blindspots, as expected of White American men, but I'm so done with this fandom demonizing them to prop up Aaron Ehasz as some kind of respectful feminist king, Aaron fucking Ehasz who has literally been accused by female employees of his Dragon Prince show of creating an abusive work environment for them.

[atla-confessions]

wheexing because youre just saying. "diversity win! non-kataang shippers are telling zutara shipping victims of abuse that they deserve what happened to them, that it should happen again, and that they should die."

Some children really did get left behind huh?

I need you to point out exactly at what point my ask said any of that? Like what were the words used? What was the phrasing? At what point did I even bring up the current round in the never ending fuckfest that y’all got going on?

Stop projecting your shit onto other people and actually exercise some reading ability, I brought up the irony in the fact that a lot of ZKs love Aaron Ehasz the actual real life misogynist to women in his work place despite being so fucking quick to call anybody misogynist on behalf of a female character. That’s fucking hypocrisy. Do you need a dictionary definition?

Please at what point in all that did I even once say that they deserve rape or death threats? Or even bring up this current round of nonsense and inhumanity? Imma actually need some of y’all to open the brains you claim to have and fucking think for a moment or at least try and get some fucking context before you look like massive fools.

I was accused of being a KA and so therefore also a hypocrite and then I said I’m not a KA and have no involvement in the shipping war case fucking closed. please learn to fucking read, it will improve your fandom experience drastically

Y’all are such fucking ingrates I swear. Everybody in this fucking ship war needs to go back to 7th grade English

X

[themattress]

Again, this is Aaron Ehasz trying to recapture Azula and his plans for her: she reaches this kind of breaking point and you think she's hit rock bottom, but somehow it turns out that she hasn't bottomed out yet and spirals further instead. Whether this was a wise direction to take Azula is unknown given that we never saw it happen since Mike and Bryan (rightfully) stuck to their guns and ended Avatar at 3 seasons as planned, but I can safely say that it has not worked for Claudia. The thing about Azula's breakdown is that it was tragic because it felt inevitable: Ozai's choices and Azula's choices as characters both added up and worked to bring about this conclusion. But Viren's choices and Claudia's choices have not added up, because many of them went against their established characters. And on top of that, we have other characters impacting the outcome in a way we didn't with Azula: characters like Soren, Terry, Callum, Ezran and Rayla. Their choices feel forced so that this specific breakdown can occur, thus it doesn't feel inevitable; it feels wholly preventable and more frustrating than sad.

Okay so Claudia sobbing there was really hard to watch in the same way as Azula

[crienselt]

So a few days ago I saw someone (elsewhere) questioning Zutara fans’ excitement about the scarf scene. It wasn't a mean comment, more general curiosity. And well, I didn't have time to get my thoughts out then. But they haven't gone away, so I'm getting them out here:

Here’s what everyone need to understand about Zutara shippers. We were baited baaaad during the initial run of the show–from the magazines to the shorts to the trailers and how they were cut. And Zuko and Katara’s relationship on the show certainly underwent a lot of development and featured objectively emotional–if not overtly romantic–moments between the two. We were well fed, and we had reason to hope. Right up to the end, we had reason to hope.

The shipping wars were the shipping wars, of course, with all the usual tensions; there are always going to be overzealous fans of each (and any) pairing willing to get toxic. Generally, I think Kataang fans were always jealous of Zutara’s popularity and Zutara fans, post finale, were jealous of Kataang’s, well, canon status. But really it operated much the same as any other large fandom’s shipping wars.

And then came Bryke and the panel where they showed and mocked Zutara fan art, some of which had been created by teens if not straight up children. Then came their, “Come on, kids! It was never going to work. Zutara is just dark and intriguing.”* And the pièce de résistance, their telling Zutara shippers (specifically girls/women) that they were doomed to have failed romantic relationships. Like, what? The thing with the art was arguably cruel, and the rest of it was oh, so condescending. Just all around not well done. 

The after effect was that Zutara went from being simply a fanon pairing to a wrong pairing. The ATLA fandom at large became a far more hostile place for Zutara fans, who were now more commonly deemed delusional and viewed as lesser fans. The vitriol only got worse when the show came to Netfilx and the next wave of antis rolled up with their co-opting of legitimate socio-political terms to paint Zutara not just as wrong but morally corrupt if not evil. It’s all very puritanical.**

So Zutara fans need to be reminded that we weren’t delusional, and we aren’t alone. It’s why it means so much to know that Dante Basco and Mae Whitman shipped their characters. And that so many other VAs came out as Zutara supporters too: Jack De Sena, Michaela Jill Murphy, Grey DeLisle, Janet Varney--even the cabbage man. For it to be revealed that it was discussed in the writers room; that the writers fought over it; that it WAS a canon possibility. (And that writers Joshua Hamilton and John O’Bryan are perfectly comfortable admitting their preference for Zutara.) To know that the Elizabeth Welch Ehasz described Zuko and Katara as an “Avatar-style Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” in the script for The Southern Raiders, and used the phrase “Zutara-feuling synchronicity and cooperation” to describe their action sequences. To see Giancarlo Volpe, a Kataanger, admit Zutara might been the better pairing in retrospect and choose a quiet scene between them (to see their “chemistry”) as what he’d most look forward to in the live action adaptation. It’s why we cling to the artwork done by Korean animation director. We aren’t delusional. We aren’t alone.

But try telling that to the general fandom, right? Most are ignorant of a lot of this, particularly Hamilton and O’Bryan’s revelations re: the writers room. A lot of Zutara fans don't even seem to know. But being baited by Netflix on their official accounts? Oh, people see that. And we are reminded in a big way that we aren't delusional and we aren't alone. And everyone else has to remember it too.

So, of course, we're having fun clowning over the scarf scene. And I think most Zutara fans know we are clowning. I don't think most expect to get canon Zutara in live action because of one little scene or the fact that their Netflix icons are facing each other. (I headcanon that that was totally the doing of Zutara shipper on staff, though, lol. Because there are a lot of us, and we are everywhere.)

And this is okay. Zutara has been doing just fine as a fanon ship. Meanwhile, NATLA might actually do Kataang justice. It always worked better as a future ship. (Really all the pairings do. But I especially don't ever need to see another 12 year old kissing let alone making out, in animation or live action, ever again.) There's a reason Padme and Anakin don't get together in Phantom Menace, after all. Also, there's always the chance they could give us Dante's or Mae's headcanon of them basically suppressing their feelings and choosing duty over love/right person-wrong time. And the odds of getting some more moments to clown over are high enough. 

Anyway, TLDR: Zutara has been made to feel like an out-of-nowhere crack ship and the live action crumbs remind us that it is not. And this is at least partially why we are enjoying it. (Because, also, it's just fun!)

*Side tangent: I’ve never gotten this dark and intriguing comment. Even during Season 1, the height of the capture fic era, Zutara was always a ship fundamentally about hope, predicated on Zuko's redemption. (Back in the day, there were also plenty of antis arguing that there was no way Zuko would ever be one of the gaang.) And they say “intriguing” like it’s a bad thing? Are we not supposed to be interested in the relationships of their characters???

**There have been some very good think pieces written lately on late stage capitalism and consumption as morality. Worth googling.