#atla ship wars

[atla-confessions]

I'm a katoph shipper, so I don't really care about the ship wars, but I do like watching them, and the more I watch them, the more Zutara Kataang and Zukaang feel like siblings. Zutara and Kataang feel like the twins that are constantly fighting and starting drama and refusing to acknowledge how similar they are to eachother, and sometimes I watch them and think "why can't you be more like your brother, zukaang, look at him, he just chillin." But zukaang also has older sibling vibes in that, they usually won't say they're better, at least not as often, but you can definitely tell they think they're better than everyone else. It feels like they think they're being subtle, but they're really not.

Zukka feels like a cousin

X

[captlok]

Lost it at “all those long cold windy nights” XD XD

still can’t believe people are mad about this satire after a literally a decade and a half ...... like get over it, some people genuinely have no life.

An oldie, but goodie… We made this silly little video for the Avatar panel at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. It occurred to me that the only versions out there on YouTube were videotaped from the crowd, so I thought I’d post a clean version here (if one can refer to this as “clean”).

Now, I don’t want to cast aspersions or hurt any feelings, but for some of you I feel the need to explain that this is all a joke.

joke |jōk| noun

a thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, esp. a story with a funny punchline: she was in a mood to tell jokes. • a trick played on someone for fun.

Who’s going to San Diego Comic Con this year? It is coming up fast. We’re cooking up a really cool panel that, while not a unique format, is different from anything we’ve offered in the past. Looking forward to seeing you there!

[gascreates]

this is the only relationship that matters actually.

[captainkirkk]

I don't have any strong opinions about ATLA ships, however I desperately want Zuko/Sokka/Suki to be a thing so that centuries later historians will be pulling their hair out trying to figure out what the fuck was up with these three

[yikes-kachowski]

Drew this years ago. Based on very funny red, white, and royal blue fanart I think? I'm sorry I didn't save when I first drew it 😔

It's also a real quick drawing, sorry to kataras hair and fit. I love u queen I swear.

Sokkas not a zk hater he's just in shock lol

[xwonderlandresidentx]

I feel like I've been seeing a lot more posts about how both the Kat//ng and Zutara fandoms should stop fighting and tolerate each other more, and while I understand, and to an extent, agree with the sentiment, it bothers me a little because these posts tend to make it out like both fandoms are equally as toxic, when in my experience, that simply isn't true.

I am a multishipper, and even though I mostly just participate in the fandoms for my absolute favorites, I still enjoy lots of different ships, including ships that "contradict" each other.

In AtLA, even though Zutara is my favorite now, I also used to ship Kat//ng. Kat//ng used to be my favorite, and only ship for the series that I actively engaged with. I saw the appeal of Zutara (and others), but for a long time my opinion on it was "it's not canon, so why bother?" and I mostly just ignored it.

But one of the biggest reason I stopped enjoying interacting with the KA side of the fandom was because I saw a vastly disproportionate amount of other KA shippers going out of their way to harass Zutara shippers. And I don't mean simply talking badly about the ship itself, or the characters involved, but personal attacks against the real life people who ship Zutara.

Have I seen Zutara shippers harass Kat//ngers? Yes, of course. But not nearly as much as the other way around. Literally not even half as much. And not just here on Tumblr, but Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Deviantart. All across the internet, I saw KA shippers constantly badmouthing Zutara and Zutara shippers, even in the comments of Kat//ng art and fics, completely unprompted.

It bummed me out, and while it isn't the reason I stopped liking the ship itself, it did make me feel uncomfortable interacting with it's fandom. Kat//ng shippers are, ironically, a big part of the reason I started actively shipping Zutara. Because after seeing the way they went on about it and it's fandom, I thought "Surely, Zutara and the people who like it can't be that bad." So I took a deeper look at the ship and it's fandom, and.... I was right. They weren't as bad as other Kat//ngers had told me they were. Not even close.

[poisonousquinzel]

little me, we made it.

it took like 15 years, but we made it

[livslunar]

jin n lee

[linootte]

Experimenting. Toph and Sokka are hanging out & chilling somewhere else

[torturedpoetskywalker]

pls send me some for any fandom !! :)

(made by @versegm)

[mfshipbracket]

[atla-confessions]

Hi chat I wanted to check out the Zutara shippers always mistag claim to do so I looked at 30 days of Kataang tagged posts starting from Aug 1st and here's what I found:

58 posts properly tagged anti Zutara - 8 from this blog

107 posts properly tagged anti Kataang, anti Kataang shipper, anti Kataang stans OR Kataang critical - 30 from this blog

2 improperly tagged anti Kataang posts

2 improperly tagged Zutara posts - 1 fanart which was previously discussed and kicked off this claim, 1 fanfic

17 anti ka & anti zk posts - 13 from this blog

8 multishipper posts - 2 from this blog

6 porn posts

If you want to avoid Zutara posts block Zutara, anti anti zutara and pro Zutara.

If you want to avoid posts that are critical of Kataang block anti Kataang, antikataang and kataang critical.

If you want to avoid posts critical of Aang, block anti aang, antiaang and aang critical.

If you want to avoid posts critical of Kataang shippers block anti Kataang shippers and anti Kataang stans

Of the anti Kataang tags, anti Kataang shippers/stans appeared to be the most used.

X

[jumumo]

There's something so sinister about the fact that Katara is shunted away from the story when she should be way more involved in Korra's arc. Korra's seemingly main conflict is her sheltered life with her fiery passion for enacting justice and learning to temper it with diplomacy. Who's an old person in the series that has dealt with injustice, who always took direct action to correct them in any way she can and had moved to a more diplomatic role once there wasn't an active war?

Katara fits so well in Korra's story it's not even funny. Imagine Korra having a mentor from the devastated but resilient Southern Water Tribes that was the THE last water bender at a point and can absolutely do girl talk with? Imagine Korra having a tangible connection to the history of her Tribe. Imagine writing Korra to have connections to the place that was the next most affected by the war. Imagine writing a Korra where that mattered to her character.

The way she was canonically written, she don't really give a damn. And that's heartbreaking. And most likely a blind spot with the writers. Especially when passing down cultural traditions and respecting elders is one the most important things to happen to communities where there were attempts to erase them.

[idolomantises]

Have/do you watch atla? If so, who's your favorite character?

I love ATLA. Katara remains a strong favorite but after rewatching it in March, i think Aang is almost tied with her.

[nartml]

Nah, you know what makes my blood boil?

Seeing characters degraded, vilified, and desecrated in the name of ship wars.

No, Aang did not strip Katara of her agency nor did he only accept the "digestible" parts of her, leave my baby alone.

No, Zuko isn't just a selfish colonizer, bro did not have one of the greatest arcs of all time for you to reduce him to that.

No, Katara wasn't just a mother to everyone, for fuck's sake, did we watch the same show?

I can go on and on and fucking on, but all I'm gonna say is I'm fucking tired of y'all's shipping discourse.

It was never that serious, it will never be that serious.

I think that both Zutara and Kataang are great ships in their own right, with their respective pros and cons. I also think it comes down to personal taste.

Of course, people can have differing opinions on characters, regardless of the inclusion of ships or not. But at the very least, stick to your own.

Ship and let ship. Remember when this was fun?

Don't invade spaces that aren't yours to start trouble, and stay appropriate with the tags. Fandom etiquette, it's pretty neat.

Y'all suck the joy out of everything.

[breached-containment-script]

Some arguments KA shippers make are valid and true. But that they don't necessarily do anything nearly enough to be valid anti-zutara arguments!

Stuff like, that quick burns probably wouldn't scar (Katara's hands) or that if she had gotten scarred, that Toph's feet should have gotten scarred too. This is valid.

That it's true that when Aang's negative aspects get developed to their final extreme forms in theories and fanfiction, it can feel weird and offputting to people who naturally gravitate towards staying approximately around canon vibes; that some descriptions of behaviour sound too strong to some people which results in pushing them away from zutara as a negative reaction to associated criticisms of Aang. But that also personal headcanon developments (even those with strong foundation in canon) are individual preferences and people are able to choose which headcanons to like, without using disliked ones to paint an entire show interpretation negative.

It'a true that most of Aang's bad behaviour in the show can be attributed to him being just a kid and not being self-aware enough yet. He's not intentionally malicious in most cases. His negative reaction towards Water Tribe culture and food is a depiction of a kid not knowing how to respect something that makes him uncomfortable, even if this kinda clashes with him having already had friends from all over the world. Unfortunatey, canon progression doesn't depict him learning as many lessons as he should nor does it show him outgrowing negative traits even though it should have. THIS is the source of headcanons which appreciate intentionally exploring main character developing in a negative light. His negative traits constantly repeat and have a common stay in his canon character. This is a fact, especially with his claim that he'd be in the Avatar state had it not been blocked, out of frustration that actors on a stage implied Katara doesn't feel the same way about him. This is a very bad thing, we've seen both him and others being afraid of it, it causing massive destruction and Katara having the burden of calming him down. How would she theoretically calm him down in the case he did enter the Avatar state because of this reason? Assuming she didn't have romantic feelings for him (which should always exist as a valid option for any character, to test if they have a healthy interaction) - she could pray he'd accept it and calm down on his own, or be under extreme pressure to lie that she likes him back. Even if she did like him back, having to admit under the threat of a destructive force being unleashed, IS NOT GOOD. Especially as the characters never addressed this later.

Yes, Zuko did a lot of bad things but not only are they overblown by KA-fans and Zuko-antis, they constantly purposefully ignore that he got punished repeatedly, suffered in canon for his actions and kept doing very risky and selfless things to make up for his past, they also forget that time flows FORWARD and that WHEN events happened on a timeline MATTERS. It's not an argument that Zuko burned Suki's village in book 1 when he helped rescue her and others by risking his life in book 3 and she forgave him. One thing is collateral damage in a cartoon filled with cartoon violence, and another when for example Long Feng kills Jet. Viewers should be able to discern the tone difference, because shows (or any creative work) especially with multiple writers, aren't homogenous, and aren't tonally or message-wise completely unified. Don't start your deduction argument from the idea that a show is fully consistent and is absolutely sending a singular message, start an inductive analysis from ideas about what a show's context is, what its goals are, what the tone feels like in each section, did it accomplish what it was aiming for, etc. Likewise Zuko could have been written even better in some areas and with more context!

However him hunting down heroes, knocking out Katara etc. isn't a gotcha argument some people think it is, because Katara knocked him out as well, twice even so badly he didn't wake up for quite some time; and he was struck, rejected, ignored, mocked and criticised by both Iroh, the gaang and Katara especially after he sided with Azula under Ba Sing Se, but then they forgave him as he actively worked to atone, and Katara herself forgave him for what he did. She then risked her life to save him back. The writing is very logical and consistent in this.