#anti lightskin katara

[survivalove]

i really hope none of you avatar netflix fans come crawling back for the movie, sorry. i don’t wanna share this with people confusing watered down fanfiction with actual canon.

(we already have enough of those in this fandom)

((not to mention the disgusting whitewashed art starting to float around. have y’all no shame?))

[bauliya]

The katara is selfish problem is bigger than z*kka though. The opinion that katara was unnecessarily mean to zuko especially pre-tsr is rather widespread and is constantly showed in fics, including a lot of zutara ones (and I say this as die hard zutara shipper). They expect her to be this infinite well of kindness and generosity that even when she resents people for valid reasons, she is called selfish, or worse, a hypocrite. I cannot tell you how many 'katara is mean to zuko pre-tsr and therefore she has to apologize' fics exist out there. It sounds so much like anger policing - it's like people cannot fathom the idea of a 14 year old girl being angry without chastising her for it.

the idea that katara is mean/selfish/bad has existed since day one. honestly the hatred against brown women is something a part of atla itself, with korra being constantly humiliated and punished for no fucking reason.

but the hatred against her used to be a LOT more explicit and obvious. because if you see older atla fancontent like memes and videos (which... i unfortunately did) they CONSTANTLY mock her for grieving her mom and going off on sokka, while praising the male characters for doing similar things. hell, they don't even criticise azula for being a war criminal as much as they criticize katara for... what? being a traumatised teenager? anyway. and i think this hatred for katara is why there's a lot of anti-zutara sentiment in the fandom, because people are uncomfortable with the idea of her ending with up the fan favourite zuko, especially in a manner that portrays them as equally complex and interesting.

so while yes, the katara hatred is definitely bigger than z*kka, I think z*kka is the latest manifestation of katara hatred in a fandom environment that no longer tolerates explicitly racial and misogynist bashing of female characters. and this really isn't new. look how hard the MCU latched onto thor/hulk the second valkyrie was introduced.

frankly zuko and sokka don't even have much to go on. the closest interaction they had was when they were focusing on their respective girlfriends. and yet the fandom acts like it's this huge obvious ship with lots of canon content and we just didn't spot it when we were homophobic while it aired and it's... just not. they've simply found a convenient way to erase katara while still having fanfic about zuko. that is all.

and yeah, zutara isn't immune from katara-bashing. I personally sideeye any fan content that like, paints her in a negative light. which there is a lot of. but z*kka is based on the fact the fandom hates katara, that the fandom can't stand seeing her as a love interest to most of the male characters in the show (which she is!!! she fucking is!!!) including their fave lightskin broody prince, and that's why they just ship him with their brother. katara hatred is definitely a bigger issue than one ship, but that one ship just embodies it totally.

[paristexaz]

Ok so I’m replying back to this because I was told anons about me was being sent to @royaltealovingkookiness about why making zk and zukka canon is harmful for the rep of darkskinned characters whose arc is wrapped up in oppression and the aftermath of rehabilitation.

So here it goes, again:

You guys love to just miss a point or you do it delibaretly to avoid the realities of what the ship means.

Canon Zutara is full of tension, past physical and mental abuse and it doesn’t matter if they were enemies. They were never on a equal footing as enemies. Katara came from a war torn broken home that was on the regular attacked and tormented by the Fire Nation. She was part of an oppressed group. You cannot ignore the racial politics in it too when we are talking about a darkskinned woman (and let’s not forget Zuko is part of an elite and oppressive privilege status as a lightskinned man of color).

So when you say Zutara was better coded. In what way? In maybe some FANON what if world but this isn’t about Bryke’s shitty romance writing. It’s about how Katara is not and should not be a token woc in ATLA. And neither should Sokka. Canon ATLA is gross for any of those ships and if you cannot realize how shitty it is for darkskinned characters like them then please, educate yourself.

Edit: And you know what, if ZK happened in some alternative ATLA, anti capitalist and anti imperialist Katara would have ended that monarchy who only reminded so many people of their pain. Zuko wouldn’t be Fire Lord anyway.

Edit: Edit: Countries are nothing but drawn borders and made up patriotism for false idols of nothing but dust and earth. Perfect world they don’t exist but anything that is done because of the politics of that nation reflects on the nation and what it would represent to its people. And I remember RTLK mentioning Katara realizes that the Fire Nation didnt kill her mother, false.

Any type of murder or oppression or war approved by the state is carried out by the state. Kya’s death is not a civilian marked death, it was allowed and thought to have been necessary by the Fire Nation to eradicate the waterbending population of their village. A genocide basically. The Fire Nation DID commit those atrocities. That’s why they were supposedly paying up for it in compensation or reparations according to the comics.

Canon material of the show doesn’t support Zutara. Katara is not a token brown woman. I would have loved ZK hadn’t been an uncomfortable mess on ATLA. So saying it was better coded than idk what ship.... Meh, really? 🤔

The people who shipped zutara and thinking that Katara will become fire lady is good didn't like her. Would she feel safe ? Waking up to the flag that reminds her of her trauma? Being clothed in the colors of the Fire Nation and forget her own culture? Or knowing that people don’t like her because of her heritage. Fire Nation just came out of 100 years of fascist rule and the anti watertribe sentiment isn’t washed away with Katara’s presence in the Fire Nation rule. She doesn't deserve it

Most Zutara shippers I know (myself included, even if I’m a multi-shipper) really love Katara and more than anything wanted to see her perspective put to the forefront and give her the agency and choice she deserves. I think people who love and respect her character trust that she can decide for herself what part she wants to play and know that she’s an absolute force of nature when it comes to protecting the people she loves. 

I’m not going to minimize the difficulties of the aftermath of the war. It was not fair on anyone, but these kids drew strength from each other to do what needed to be done, and in my head-canons they continued to do so after the war. None of them deserved the difficulties they had to face; Aang didn’t deserve having to deal with being the last airbender at 13 and have the rebirth of an entire nation put on him, plus being the post-war Avatar. Zuko didn’t deserve to have to shoulder all the problems of a broken nation at 16, having to atone for the sins of his dickhead ancestors. But they did it anyways, because it was the right thing to do.

And I think Sokka, Suki, Toph and Katara all did their parts too to stand up against prejudices, and try to build a different kind of world even when people didn’t make it easy for them (and I wish there was more the story showed us). 

I don’t know what would have been ideal for Katara - after being through everything she has been, I think it would also be suffocating for her to go back to the patriarchy of the Water Tribe and marry someone who grew up in that world and never left (those macho perceptions die hard). If she married outside the tribe, she would have had to face in any case the challenges a mixed marriage brings, built on compromises and trying to see how to accommodate each other’s culture. That challenge is the same if she marries Aang, or Haru or someone else.  It’s not easy, but as someone who lives in a mixed marriage, I can personally say, it’s also extremely rewarding. 

I think it would have taken a lot of adjustment if Katara decided to marry Zuko. But you can’t ignore that her entire arc is based on not walking away from something just because it’s hard, when she feels it’s the right thing. Also, a huge part of her story was slowly understanding, that it’s not the “Fire Nation” who killed her mother. The killer was a person, with individual choices he made, but it was not fair to hate everyone from the Fire Nation, which had good people, bad people, mediocre people, just like any other country. 

People who suffered sometimes very similar traumas that her (like Zuko) or people who seemed just as poor and suffering, as the Southern Water Tribe (like the town she saved as Painted Lady). And she connected and felt compassion to these people despite her loss and pain about her mother. It almost felt like her whole arc led her here where instead of waiting for the only hope of humanity, she becomes the hope. She saves the town. She saves the heir to the throne. 

I think if Katara wanted to be with Zuko she would have gone into that relationship with open eyes, understanding everything it entails, and freely choosing to accept that, because she would have believed that their love was strong enough to face the challenges together.  And maybe in a country, where prejudices ran deep, someone like her becoming the wife of the Fire Lord would have been a healing experience for everyone. Maybe the Fire Nation wouldn’t have deserved her, but she still could have been exactly who they needed in that moment. 

This is Katara we are talking about - the one who when her speech was ignored by the earthbenders just put herself out there and made the speech again. She’s stubborn, driven and incredibly brave. And Zuko is many ways the same and I can definitely see them being able deal with anything that comes their way if they decide to fight for it.

I also don’t think Zuko would have expected her to give up her entire culture or force her to sleep under the flag (actually, in my head, Zuko would get rid of some of the biggest symbols of the Fire Nation empire, to make a clean break with the past, but this is another issue).