#anti pakku

[stardust948]

Forever upset that Kanna reunited with her misogynistic ex-fiance who never learned his lesson and not her friend that was kidnapped right in front of her.

[phoukanamedpookie]

I know fandom likes to joke about Azula or Katara being homophobic, but let's take it seriously for a moment.

Based on what the show has them actually say and do, which characters are most likely to be homophobic?

To be fair, none of the characters says anything overtly homophobic. ATLA is a TV-Y7 show that aired on Nickelodeon in 2005-2008, so any kind of queer content was not gonna happen, and talking about queer people and their relationships was extremely unlikely.

The only thing we have to go on are what the characters say about what is normal or appropriate for specific genders as well as how they interact with characters of specific genders. Again, none of the characters say anything overtly transphobic or misogynistic because this is a TV-Y7 show. But some characters say and do things that suggest a... less enlightened understanding of gender, which is directly linked to homophobic beliefs and attitudes.

So who would that be? Of the named characters, we have...

Pakku. 'Nuff said.

Sokka had a whole episode about him unlearning his toxic gender bullshit. Thank you, Suki.

Iroh is the man who sent Azula a fucking doll as a gift, misgendered Smellerbee before "complimenting" her by calling her a lovely young lady, and sings a song that waxed poetically about nameless girls of Ba Sing Se who exist just to be pretty. And then we see him getting handsy with June...

Zuko actually came out his mouth with, "I saw it, and I thought it was pretty. Don't girls like stuff like this?" to Mai, whose hobbies include giving zero fucks and throwing knives at people.

Now, this doesn't mean these characters would be homophobic in the vein of Westboro Baptist Church. I honestly think the homophobia they express would mostly benignly ignorant than outright malicious, like:

Telling a queer person they know that they're not queer, just confused

Asking or assuming who "the man" or "the woman" is in same-sex relationships

Saying that a queer person they know doesn't look queer or is too [insert normative gender trait] to be queer

Except for Pakku, who's more likely to openly ask what the queer person's parents did wrong.

(Why are they all male?)

[atla4art]

Hell

I hope this message finds you well. My name is Hashem. My wife Sumer, our young son Omar, and I have faced unimaginable difficulties.

Currently, my extended family and I—11 people in total—are living in a tent. Every day is a struggle as we try to meet our basic needs for food, water, and medicine amidst rising prices and instability.

We are in urgent need of your help. We are working to raise funds to escape this dire situation and seek safety in Egypt, where we can start anew and rebuild our lives away from the fear and ongoing suffering.

Your support can make a significant difference. Please consider donating to help us secure our future and restore hope to our lives.

Thank you.

Best regards

https://gofund.me/5b6f1940

my heart goes out to you ❤️🍉🇵🇸

[theduckeminence]

To my atla fans, particularly the ones that hate Pakku — I have a question.

Does anyone know any anti-Pakku fics? Where he’s just a downright sexist/misogynist?

[dramaisthelifebloodofgoodstories]

AU where Katara just gets so mad at Pakku's sexism that she just leaves. She finds another teacher (The swampbenders or Hama) and/or she just continues self-training herself.

[stardust948]

Not to mention he married Kanna off screen without learning a single thing 😡

as much as I adore avatar the last airbender, nothing grinds my gears more than watching Pakku decide he's going to teach Katara waterbending because she's his first love's granddaughter, and not because of her talent

Like I cannot describe how inimaginably stupid it is that the North dares to have the gall to deny Katara acess to half of her culture which has been systematically erased on the grounds that she's a woman, but where were they when the South was being destroyed? where was the aid when the raids stopped? the very least they could've done would be to teach the last southern waterbender everything about her own damn culture

Fuck Pakku

[starlight-bread-blog]

Katara is More Patient Then We Give Her Credit for

Katara has been getting a lot of flak for supposedly being hot headed and getting angry at very minor things. Even those who love Katara seem to accept this as the truth. But it's not. In reality, Katara is simply a female character who owns her rage. And I feel like there are two main components that debunk this notion.

Warning: Long, long post.

1. In the instances where Katara is angry it's either justified or makes sense in context.

The Waterbending Scroll

Katara stole, wouldn't you know it, a waterbending scroll. She practices before giving it to Aang, and fails hard. Then Aang who she's supposed to be teaching, gets it right and explains how to do it. Katara has an outburst.

Katara: Will you please shut your air-hole! Believe it or not your infunite wisdom gets a little old sometimes. Why don't we just throw the scroll away since you're so naturally gifted!

Why is Katara that mad here? Why did she have an outburst? Because she was carrying the burden of being the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe her whole life. Because her waterbending is the reason Kya died. Because she have been independently studying waterbending her whole life. And now her student is having it all easy and is trying to teach her.

And wouldn't you know it, she realized what she did immediatly. Literally, a second later.

Katara: Oh my gosh Aang. I am so sorry. I don't know what came over me. But you know what, it won't happen again. Here [the scroll] is yours. I don't wanna have anything to do with it anymore.

She even apologized to Momo. Katara had an isecurity rooted in trauma and pressure. When Aang try to teach her she hit a breaking point and lashed out. And not one second later she's already apologizing.

The Waterbending Master

Katara and Aang are going to see Pakku, the waterbending master. But when Pakku sees she's a girl, he says he won't teach her. This is why Katara gets angry. She flew across seas just to get rejected due Pakku is being a sexist freak. I think we can all agree that being denied something because of sexism is a good reason to get angry. And when Katara realized Pakku won't teach Aang if she'll keep insisting, she drops it abd tells Aang to drop it too.

However, that doesn't mean she won't study in secret. She deserved to learn waterbending and she knew it. She took the consequences into consideration and decided to not make a fuss.

But of course, they both get caught. Pakku says he will no longer teach Aang, the Avatar who absolutly needs to study and still refuses to teach Katara because he's still sexist. Only then Katara challenges him to a duel. Only when they have nothing to lose. She challenged a sexist prick to a duel, one who shamelessly denied her oppretunity because of her gender.

The Chase

At the start of the episode Katara gently hints Toph to help unpack a camp for the night. This is when she's not tired yet, and shows patience.

Katara: So Toph, usually when setting up camp, we try to divide up the work.

Toph: Hey, don't worry about me. I'm good to go.

Katara (still calmly): Well, actually, what I'm trying to say is, some of us might fetch water while someone else might set up the fire pit or put up the tent. *smiles* Even Momo does his fair share.

Toph (slightly irritated): Katara, I'm fine. I can carry my own weight. I don't need a fire. I've already collected my own food. And look. *earth bends a tent* My tent's all set up.

Katara: Well, that's great for you but we still need to finish-

Toph (loudly): I don't understand. What's the problem here??

Katara: Never mind.

Katara then goes to apologize. While also attempting to make sure her and Toph are on good terms by having her acknoledge that she wasn't 100 absolutly in the right.

Katara: Hey Toph, I wanted to apologize for earlier. I think we're all just a little tired and getting on each other's nerves.

Toph: Yeah, you do seem pretty tired.

Katara (slightly irrutated): I meant all of us.

Toph: Well, good night.

Katara: Good night.

By all means, Toph is in the wrong for the sheer refusal for communication. At first Katara calmly explained to her what was needed without even spelling it out. Toph was being passive, so she dropped it. And then she apologizes after doing nothing wrong just so they could be on good terms. Toph was the one being passive agressive. And Katara pretty much let it slide.

This is Katara. The patience she showed right here is her natural, normal self. The rest of the episode is under the context of sleep deprivation and how it's making them all hostile to each other. Including the pacifist Aang. Who's outburst leads Toph to leave. After she does, both Aang and Katara express remorse.

(Side note: I heard people take issue with the line "The stars sure are beautiful tonight, too bad you can't see them, Toph". It's been interpreted as Katara making fun of Toph for being blind, but it's just another instance in the recurring joke of the Gaang forgetting Toph is blind, and listed as such in the official A:TLA Youtube channel).

The Runaway

Update: This section, especially, is majorly outdated.

The episode has a silly opening where Aang is trained by Toph and Katara. Toph misses and accidently hits Katara with a big rock. After Toph doesn't apologize, it leads into a fight which is absolutly not to be taken seriously, that ends with Aang pointing out that it was supposed to be training.

It doesn't work as an exapmle for supposed hot-headedness because the reason this whole thing started because Toph hit Katara with a rock and refused to apologize.

But moving on to the real conflict of these episode, Toph scammed someone and Katara makes it clear that they shouldn't do it again, it'll draw attention to them. Aang promises her it won't happen again but.. um.. you know what happened.

Katara, being responsible, told them to quit because they'd potentially get exposed. Toph didn't reach well, telling her to lighten up. Katara rightfully gets angry, because they really might get exposed and Toph is dismissing her like her concerns are nothing. They have a short argument and Toph storms out.

This is why Katara was angry this episode. Her reasoning for being upset is the Gaang potentially exposing themselves for easy money. That's the conflict.

The Painted Lady

In this episode Katara sees a starving Fire Nation village but Sokka won't allow them to stay due to time limits. So she faked a disease for Appa so they could. Sokka confronts her. At first, she gives up and packs to leave. But since she destroyed the factory that's been polluting the villages water and taking their medicine, the people in charge assumed it was the civilians, and were coming to attack. Sokka and Katara get into a small but intense argument. Important to note, that she doesn't react intensively until Sokka does.

Katara: Well, what was I supposed to do?

Sokka: Leave! Do nothing.

Katara: No! I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me.

Her anger here doesn't highlight hot-headedness, it highlights compassion. Compassion is one of Katara's core traits. She's angry because she's being angrily demanded to see people suffer and stand by. And she will not tolerate it. She will never, ever turn her back on people who need her.

2. In reality, Katara is defined by her patience and compassion.

What I did here was listing off times where Katara did get angry. But Katara is generally a caring, kind person. Rather if it's cheering up Sokka, going shopping with him after he admitted to feeling useless; if it's pulling Aang out of the Avatar state, putting herself at risk when he's out of control; if it's helping deliver a baby of a stranger; or if it's freeing prisoners of the Fire Nation. She demonstrates impressive patience throughout the show.

The Deserter

In this episode Aang was asked to just control fire. Aang gets irrutated himself at this, but Katara assured him that it's probably for a good reaso. But when his master left, he firebent. He was being extremely careless with his new found Fire Bending and burned Katara's hands.

Did she...

A. splashed some water at him.

B. Yelled at him.

C. Ran away crying.

Yeah, she didn't express anger at all. Sokka was who's angry at Aang.

The Desert

The sand benders stole Appa and the Gaang is suck in a desert. Katara demonstrates her patience a lot this episode.

Toph and Aang are arguing about Toph not stopping them.

Aang: You just didn't care! You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone.

Katara: Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives.

Sokka: Who's gonna save our lives now? We'll never make itout of here.

Aang: That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves. You don't care whether Appa is okay or not.

Katara: We're all concerned, but we can't afford to be fighting now.

Aang accused the Gaang of something horrible. Katara told him to stop, but still understood his anger and calmly explained to him that it's important not to fight in a life threatening situation.

Aang then storms out to look for Appa. Katara's response?

Katara: We'd better start walking. We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba Sing Se.

She didn't get angry, she was rational and thought about the greater good.

After Aang comes back, Katara suggest they should try sleeping, gives the Gaang all of her bending water without drinking herself. And then finds a way to get to Ba Sing Se using the locations of star systems.

The Gaang spots a cloud and mistakes it for Appa. But Katara realizes the potential in a cloud. She tells Aang to fly and bend the water from the cloud so they could drink.

Katara (disappoibted): Wow, there's hardly any in here.

Aang (intensively): I'm sorry, okay? It's a desert cloud, I did all I could. What's anyone else doing? *Points at Katara* What are you doing?

After dealing with everyone's tireness, Sokka's high nonsense and Aang's attitude, carrying everyone, thinking of possible solutions to ensure they'd all survive, how did she react to Aang accusing her of not doing enough?

Katara: Trying to keep everyone together. Let's just get moving. We need to head this direction.

And after everything she did for everyone, she pulls Aang out of the Avatar state when he's raging, out of control.

Katara is not so hot headed.

She's sweet, nurturing and caring. She demonstrated incredible patience and perhaps even saved the Gang's life in The Desert with her resilience. Katara's compassion is her defining trait.

But that doesn't mean she's not a human being – she's allowed to be flawed, and in the moments where she does, she's very remorseful. And in the moments where she doesn't, people will still hold her accoutable for simply feeling a justified emotion.

Does it make you oh-so-hot headed to stand up to a sexist denying her opportunity? To make sure your friends don't destroy your chances to win a war? To not tolerate being told to see people in need and do nothing in a middle if an argument she didn't start? Of course it doesn't.

And other characters are allowed to express anger, to be flawed, in ways that are way worse than Katara without being labelled annoying hot headed by the fandom.

Katara is widly known to be irrational, letting her anger get the better of her, but it's simply not true.

[lesviolyn]

unpopular opinion

tlok ending >>>> atla ending

[ljf613]

9 and 13, your pick of thing and its fandom

Let's go with ATLA.

9. worst part of canon This week I've been thinking a lot about the episode "The Waterbending Master" (S1:E18) and some of things that have always bothered me about it. My issues are rooted in the scene where Pakku tells Katara that he won't teach her:

First of all, he says it's forbidden for women to learn waterbending, but then he says that women learn healing. The phrasing here is kind of bizarre-- he seems to be saying that healing and waterbending are two completely different things that have nothing to do with each other, which is absurd; healing is one kind of waterbending, and fighting is another. (It bothers me in general whenever characters act like fighting is the only real kind of bending, because we literally see so many different applications of bending in the show beyond fighting, and acting like people who use their bending for building or art or healing or anything other than battle aren't real benders is absurd. Not all benders are soldiers, nor should they be!) Second, I dislike the false dichotomy presented here. Katara claims that she wants to fight, not heal, implying that it's one or the other. Not only does this suggest that she must choose between the two (and that she's chosen fighting over healing), it doesn't match what we see both before and after this arc: throughout the show, Katara uses her waterbending for both healing and fighting, sometimes in the same scene, and aside from this one episode, the narrative never treats this as anomalous. (Jeong Jeong even told her a couple of episodes back that healing was something done by "great waterbenders" and envied her for it, but now that's being retconned and we're told that it's a sex distinction and not even real waterbending?) Finally, I have a general problem with the difference between how modern society tends to treat traditionally feminine roles and skills compared to those that are traditionally masculine: things and behaviors that are generally viewed as masculine (in this case, fighting) are worthy of envy and emulation and everyone should be able and allowed to do regardless of sex, while those that are feminine (in this case, healing) are viewed as inherently degrading and pathetic (not to mention often unnatural and wrong) and only done by sad and unfortunate women who have no other options and are pressured into it. I find this entire mindset to be extremely sexist and, frankly, rather insulting to every woman in history. Imagine if the episode had been about Aang wanting to learn healing and being told only women got to do that, while boys should just stick with fighting. Now that might have been an interesting episode that would actually be perfectly in-character for Aang, as opposed to Katara "saves her friends' lives multiple times using her healing abilities" acting like learning to heal is a waste of time. (Ever notice that while we see several female waterbending fighters throught the franchise, there's not a single instance of a male waterbending healer? Is that because guys are incapable of healing, or are girls the only ones allowed to diversify their skillsets?) And none of this is to say that Katara was wrong for wanting to learn to fight or anything like that-- I just dislike the way the whole situation was framed.

13. worst blorboficiation The easy answer, obviously, is Zuko. I don't think I need to elaborate any more on that-- plenty of people have gone into this in the past, I don't think I have anything new to add there. (Although maybe that's more "woobification" than "blorbofication," if we're getting specific.) The one I find more personally grating is actually Kyoshi. I don't hate her, but I do hate the way people idolize her and act like she was the most amazing and wonderful Avatar ever-- usually while contrasting her with Roku, who gets such undeserved hate for... *checks notes* not wanting to kill his best friend.

Send me an ask that may incite violence.

[stardust948]

Hakoda and Kya adopt Azula AU

[Water Tribe school enrollment interview]

Yagoda, internally: This family is very elegant. They'll truly make a good fit.

Pakku: Okay, last question.

Pakku: If you were to compare your new "mama" to your old mama, who would you rank higher?

Yagoda: Pakku!

Baby Azula: M...M...

Hakoda: Azula?

Baby Azula: Mama...*starts crying*

Hakoda and Kya: !!!

Pakku: So it's true. You do prefer your old mother.

Kya, comforting Azula: This is too cruel!

Pakku: What's your problem? You're not her real mother who she clearly wants more than you. Don't take it out on me for pointing out the obvious.

Kya: *prepares to kill Pakku*

Hakoda: *swings at Pakku but punches the table last second and shatters it*

Pakku: !!!

Hakoda: There was a fly. *cracks knuckles*

Pakku: O_O

Hakoda: Thank you for your time, but if making light of a child's feelings is part of your educational polices then we want nothing to do with. *puts arms around Kya and Azula and leaves*

Pakku: Y-You can't just walk out! We're not done yet! How dare you disgrace the academy making a scene over that ash-maker brat!

Yagoda: Pakku!

Pakku: Watch your mouth! Now bring the next family in.

Yagoda: Who truly disgraced the good name our school?

Pakku: What-

Yagoda: *Punches him in the face* Elegant, I must say.

[cantpickonefandoms]

So apparently in the ATLA remake, Sokka isn’t going to be sexist at all 🤦🏽‍♀️ I’m sorry did these people watch the original show? Sokka unlearns those sexist beliefs in the FOURTH EPISODE OF THE SERIES, ITS APART OF SOKKA’S CHARACTER ARC! There is literally no point in the series where it’s implied that Sokka’s sexist beliefs are ok, it’s a stupid thing to change about Sokka, also if they’re changing that about Sokka, then what are they planning to do with the Nothern Water Tribe? Is Pakku just gonna be like ‘Ah yes Katara, you can learn how to fight, it’s all good, we’re chill.’ Is Yue’s boyfriend the only one who is going stay a sexist ass?

[withgirl-sq]

For the send a character game Katara

Thank you!

1: sexuality headcanon - Bi-sexual

2: otp - Azutara (Azula + Katara)

3: brotp - Either Katara with Toph or Zuko after they deal with their 'issues' lol

4: notp - In terms of romance, Zutara and anyone that she is related to - I also dislike Kataang (not sure if this is controversial?)

5: first headcanon that pops into my head - Katara hates that she is the 'mom' of the group but she can't help being worried about everyone

6: favorite line from this character - A simple one but it's 'You can't knock me down' from her fight with Pakku

7: one way in which I relate to this character - I also worry unnecessarily about everyone else in my life

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character - Her attempts to make jokes lol

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave? - Cinnamon roll

[wilcze-kudly]

The white lotus weren't forced into child soldierhood at 12 to 14, weren't made to leave their homes and change the world as traumatised preteens, weren't forced to resculpt the political lanscape around them after almost dying multiple times, hadn't endured being hunted by the most well developed militia in the entire world at the time.

The White Lotus didn't have to go through the life ruining trauma of being so let down by all the adults in your life that you had to save and then reshape everything about the world because it was destroying itself.

Because the white lotus were the adults who let the gaang down.

Bumi couldn't be fucked to actually guide his people and city. Pindao was busy chilling out and blocking the world out in his lil fortress. Pakku spent his years being misogynistic and bitter about his fiancée rightfully leaving his ass. Jeong Jeong fucked off to the swamp to assumedly stare at candles all day. And don't get me started on Uncle warcrimes who chose to redeem himself by roadtripping across the world with his extremely traumatised nephew onto whom he's projecting his love for his dead son.

The least this coalition of deadbeats could do was secure an ultimately small in the grand theme of things victory while they sent SIX CHILDREN to fight: an armada of war baloons, an unstable and incredibly volatile child prodigy (who Uncle Iroh also completely fucked over thanks for that one buddy) and the fucking FIRELORD. Have at the, kiddos, you'll do swimmingly.

"Oooh but they were doing stuff behind the scenes" the only time we see any implications of a net of conspiracy or anything of the sort it's when uncle Iroh needs a solid. How bout they do something useful instead of helping the relatively recently 'redeemed' war criminal sneak into the site of his greatest military defeat?

Pipe the fuck down with that 'oooh but the white lotus...' shit. These situations aren't even remotely similar.

Haven't the gaang done enough? Aren't they allowed to enjoy the remainder of their sad, tragic lives in peace?

Excuse Katara for wanting to live her life out peacefully healing and mourning her dead brother and husband, after her entire childhood has been saturated with rage and combat and war.

Excuse Zuko for wanting to stay at his daughter's side after having to restructure an entire country, going against everything he knew and almost his entire family. (While uncle iroh fucked off to his tea shop might i add)

Excuse Toph for wanting to live her remaining days with no strings attached, after being forced into a war at age 12 and becoming responsible for hundreds if not thousands of lives while acting as law enforcement in the new frontier that Republic City was. After all she ever wanted was freedom from her fucked up parents???

God, let them rest.

Actually I get really annoyed when people are like 'Katara, Zuko and Toph should've helped more during legend of korra ' like bitch they're like 80 leave them alone they have arthritis.

[burst-of-iridescent]

No, Shipping Zutara Is Not Supporting Amatonormativity (Please Use Some Fucking Braincells For Once)

- a treatise by a severely pissed off aroace zutara shipper

since words don’t mean anything anymore (if they ever did on the esteemed piss-on-the-poor website), let’s start with a definition.

amatonormativity: the set of social assumptions that everyone prospers with a romantic relationship, thereby positioning marriage as a universal goal of adult life. amatonormativity forms the basis of several institutional structures that are built to cater to romantic bonds over all others, also manifesting in social pressure on individuals to find a romantic partner by pushing the false narrative that those who do not experience romance are automatically lonely, unhappy and unfulfilled. it is usually characterized by the prioritization of romantic love over other forms of love, particularly platonic.

the anti-zutara argument based on this is as follows: wanting zutara to happen is amatonormative because it a) devalues zuko and katara’s platonic bond b) pushes the idea that men and women can’t be friends and c) doesn’t align with the themes of the show, as romantic love was never the point of atla.

i would like to take the time today to tell you that this is some fucking bullshit, for the following reasons:

one, this may come as a shock to some of you, but zutara shippers did not invent the concept of romantic love in avatar: the last airbender. you are more than welcome to criticize the pairings of suki/sokka, katara/aang, mai/zuko, yue/sokka, jin/zuko, jet/katara, and even kanna/pakku for perpetuating amatonormativity through their unnecessary romantic subplots. and if you don’t have anything to say about any of those pairings, then here’s a word for you: hypocrite.

zk shippers are not introducing the taint of romantic love into some kind of wholesome platonic utopia where it never existed. when we say zutara should have been canon, it is a statement that ends with the implicit instead of kat.aang and mai.ko tacked on at the back because if we were going to get a romantic relationship anyway, it might as well have been one that was well-developed, narratively impactful, and thematically relevant.

two, saying zutara is amatonormative is fucking rich when the main “romance” of atla is a three season long struggle to get out of the friendzone. aang’s desire to be in a romantic relationship with katara is one of his primary motivations throughout the show, and not once does either he or the narrative ever entertain the thought that just being katara’s friend might be enough. to the contrary, aang’s crush and the potential of its reciprocation is a fundamental part of how the story gets its audience to invest in both his character and the kat.aang relationship. they want you to want him to get the girl, and that’s the driving force of the ship’s development from start to finish.

you can see the influence of this in the way people defend why kat.aang had to happen: “aang would be crushed!” “it would break aang’s heart!” “aang deserves to be happy!” and that in and of itself is more amatonormative than any version of romantic zutara, as if this idea that aang is somehow doomed to a life of misery and loneliness just because he can’t be with the girl he likes isn’t inherently based on the assumption that platonic love can’t be as meaningful and satisfying as romantic love.

three, let’s be so fucking fr: a show written by cishet men in the early 2000s was not “subverting amatonormativity” by not making zutara happen, especially not when they went for the fucking olympic gold of romantic cliches — the hero gets the girl trope — instead. otherwise, why did the entire show end with an uncomfortably long liplock? if romance would’ve devalued zuko and katara’s platonic bond, then what the everloving fuck happened to their friendship in the comics and the legend of korra?

it is blatantly false to say that zutara shippers are the ones devaluing their platonic bond when the creators did it first. they evidently don’t view zutara’s platonic bond as equal to kat.aang’s romantic one, judging by their treatment of both relationships in the comics and LOK and the fact that they talked about kat.aang “winning” the ship war in the first place. because if the two relationships were of equivalent standing, why would there be a winner and a loser at all?

amatonormativity is baked into the DNA of atla, and while some people choose to reject this framework entirely (zk friendship >>> ka romance anyday), it is also not wrong for zk shippers to be annoyed at the treatment zutara received within the context of said framework. since the creators clearly thought a romantic relationship was better than a platonic one, they could at least have picked the couple that actually made sense instead of adding insult to injury by making that romance kat.aang. it is not amatonormative to acknowledge that zutara was not afforded the distinction it should have been in the eyes of those who wrote it, because it’s obvious that the decision to keep zuko and katara’s relationship platonic wasn’t to respect their friendship, but to position them as inferior to kat.aang.

four, detractors of romantic zutara often argue that their platonic relationship is inherently better & i’ve discussed before why that isn’t the case, but i also hate this argument because it’s perpetuating the very thing that aromantic people are trying to get rid of in the first place: the hierarchization of love. it is not the “gotcha!” you think it is to genuinely state that platonic love is better than romantic love, because it’s still buying into the idea that there’s some kind of order to categorizing human relationships. the solution to amatonormativity isn’t changing what form of love gets to be at the top of the list — it’s doing away with the hierarchy entirely.

i ship zuko and katara because canon already gave me their friendship. i already know what their platonic relationship looks like and that gives me more room for imagination in developing their romantic one because it’s a place canon didn’t go.

at the end of the day, friendship and romance are just different avenues of exploring intimacy. neither is inherently more valuable than the other, and neither is inherently more problematic. and if you truly believe in dismantling amatonormative beliefs, you would recognize that making a distinction between the two is only perpetuating the problem, not challenging it.

[blastaway2004]

These Anti-Aang Zutara Southern Raider Fics Are Too Funny!

I love transparently this person hates Aang and tries to paint him in the worst way possible.

We got another “Zuko’s the only one who understands Katara”, it’s not like Aang didn’t lose his whole nation, but hey he likes to fun, characters who grieve have to be one-notes who feel nothing but sadness.

It’s like a bad-take Zutara bingo “Aang idealizes Katara”, if he did, won’t he always agree with whatever she wanted? Disagreeing with someone you care about means you DON’T idealize them.

I like how they bring up “Aang is a child” like that’s an insult. HOW DARE YOU CALL A 12 YEAR OLD A CHILD! Also Zuko being calm in this situation is surreal to me, like he’s the most quick to anger of The Gaang.

People who whine and exaggerate about Aang mentioning his culture belong in the same tier of doofus as the people who whine and exaggerate about Katara mentioning her mom, y’all are stupid. Also Katara is giving Angry Tyra Banks energy.

Aang cheered for Katara as she beat the misogynistic out of Pakku, he helped her commit eco-terorism, he didn’t react negatively when he saw her bloodbend and actively comforted her. I guarantee these folks never watched this show and just looked up fan-art on Devaintart.

RIGHT… Aang totally got over his people. It’s not like he had to live with genocide and survivors guilt. Honestly this don’t even feel like Katara, it’s a blatant self-insert that wants to yell at Aang, make him cry and make out with Zuko.

Aang literally wanted Zuko to join them. At this point Aang and Zuzu were best buds. He probably shoot fire at the weirdo who wrote this.

But in serious this fic was great, genuinely one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long-time. Right up there with My Immortal, Trapped in an Island with Josh Hucherson, or any one of those One Direction fanfics. -1000 out of 10.

Would read again.

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

one thing that bugs me about atla's feminism is that it kind of does that thing where it encourages women to break roles but still treats the traditionally feminine thing as inferior. like women should learn to fight but there's no corrollary of men should learn to heal, even though that would fit really well with aang's struggle to maintain his peaceful values in a war-torn world. he'd love to learn water-healing! this is a spot where i could genuinely see a new adaptation improving the show, whether by adding an arc of aang learning or even just a background shot of men joining water-healing classes.

but natla somehow did this worse. when water-healing is first introduced in atla, it's as an impressive new power that great benders have, and it feels emotionally significant, as a metaphor for the ability to heal from the fire nation's damage or for being able to heal and forgive a friend who hurt you unintentionally. but in natla, katara gets bait-and-switched, thinks yagoda's just another waterbending master with more openings or something and is kinda interested in healing for .2 seconds before being pissed that that's all she's expected to do. healing is just a thing that waterbenders can do, a magic power, there's no meaning behind it. in the original, katara and the audience see water healing as a cool impressive ability before learning how it's perceived, and it's pakku who tells her that and pakku who she rages at, not yagoda. when she's kicked out of pakku's class and goes into yagoda's class she looks at all the women and girls in the class and we see some conflicted feelings on her face, like she wants to learn fighting but she doesn't want to be disrespectful to these kind women offering to teach her a sacred art of her culture. part of the injustice is that we the audience know water-healing is a great power and don't think it should be seen as lesser. pakku says women are forbidden from learning waterbending and then says that women learn to use their bending to heal - does he think that's not real bending? what an asshole!

and then katara's healing abilities are crucial to two of the show's biggest episodes. we see how wrong it is to treat it as a lesser ability. in fact, we consistantly see non-violent uses of bending (e.g. healing, seismic sense, lightning redirection) portrayed as incredible and special powers, because it's an anti-war show with a pacifist protagonist who ends up refusing to fight on the terms of his oppressors, who refuses to abandon his beliefs and give into violence. that's a major part of the show.

but in natla, all the women abandon the healing huts to fight in the battle - despite nothing showing that they've been trained in fighting, and as if healing doesn't matter on a goddamn battlefield. as if healing doesn't matter period. atla wasn't perfect on this front but at least it established that this non-violent and viewed-as-feminine ability was valuable and powerful and not something to be thrown aside for violence