#avatarfandompolice

[corpsedisturbed]

im well aware there is a problem of racism within the zutara shipp community, i won't pretend to be dumb and say i don't notice how a lot of fanworks have katara abandon her culture in order to become fire lady or how zuko protects her from "the evil misogynist men from the water tribes" and how the fire nation is sm cooler than the southern water tribe, the whitewashing, etc. those are real things, it's disgusting and as a POC, it makes me feel insecure in the fandom. there is a problem w nsfw fanarts and fanfics of zutara as minors too

but all of this isn't limited to the zutara shippers and this isn't a defense but a plea for all of you to look closely with what and who u interact w. literally this week we saw a kataang shipper be exposed as a racist and a harasser. I'm on twitter again and her interactions w other kataang shippers are many but the warnings coming from other people come a long way too and i barely saw any ka addressing the situation. there was a exposed of a zk group chat some months ago who were actually proshippers and the exposed was created by a zutara shipper who was even harasseed by zk shippers (the ones in the gc and others too)

avatarfandompolice is another racist user who receives a lot of attention too. zvtara-was-never-canon is managed by a zucest shipper. hell there is a literal zionist lurking around both the zk and ka fandoms (starlight-bread-blog)

a lot of the anti zutara discourse i see the majority of time doesnt actually focus on the racism the fans have towards katara but go on to call it a toxic shipp and a colonizer/colonized shipp. funny thing is, these people praise zuko's arc and his friendship w the gaang. if u actually think zuko is a colonizer and he shouldnt be w katara romantically, he shouldnt have a friendship w any of the gaang either. they all suffered under the FN's imperialism but this discourse only appears when romance is brought up and specifically w zutara. as i said before, there is a problem of racism within the zk shippers but it isn't inherent to the shipp. a lot of times this anti discourse comes from a need to have moral high ground. but honestly, do u think u have moral high ground while stanning kuvira, a grown ass woman who put waterbenders and firebenders in concentration camps? do u think u have moral high ground when u insist zutara is ass but ship zukaang, a boy who is 12 and the other who is 16? do u think u have moral high ground when u ship azula and zuko, the siblings? do u think u have moral high ground while u shipp zukka and doesnt think it is colonized/colonizer bc "sokka doesnt care ab his culture"?

and it goes both ways btw. zk shippers, do u think u have moral high ground when u interact w racists fanworks and refuses to aknowledge their existence but at the same time say kataang is inherently misogynist and their shippers too? do u think u have moral high ground when u attack zukka by being homophobic? do u think u have moral high ground ignoring that by having a redemption's arc, zuko needs to have smth to redeem about and that something is his horrible fucking choices a lot of yall try to woobify? do u think u have moral high ground when u try to justify zuko being a bad and possessive boyfriend just bc u don't like mai?

there is a problem of racism, misogyny and homophobia in the fandom and im tired of everyone pretending their little bubble is perfect and never a part of the problem. i love avatar but anyone w half a brain knows the show is racist and stereotyping at times, just like the creators. yk, the two white men who appropriated a lot of things.

it was a long rant and i don't expect people to read it but I just needed to rant ab it anyway

[atla4art]

yk what’s really funny? having my moots talk about a certain crazy kataang shipper that i blocked a long time ago and seeing their weird takes again like punkeropercyjackson and avatarfandompolice

😹😹

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

https://www.tumblr.com/avatarfandompolice/769851936620019712/i-want-to-see-one-singular-person-actually-explain?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/avatarfandompolice/773486082468790272/just-saying-that-i-find-it-interesting-that-the?source=share

I know this blog is mostly anti-zutara and I'm sorry if this is bothersome, but I just wanted to vent about comic defenders somewhere. Like, I thought most of that died out since Smoke and Shadows because it was so awful.

I don't know what you're talking about and I don't see any links. What comics, anon? There are no comics in Ba Sing Se. There's no Gene Yang in the list of writers of anything Avatar related. Nothing to see here.

[yourhighness6]

please don't waste your time with avatar's fandom biggest clown (avatarfandompolice) just block them

Yeah I'm going to. I generally sort of have a three strikes and you're out sort of policy on blocking but I think this situation might be the exception.

[redwiccanrobin]

avatarfandompolice throwing a temper tantrum every time someone mildly critiques the show is… so weird.

[aangwasrobbed]

i liked a few fanart things of comradekatara, is the hate really as bad as avatarfandompolice? (bc then i’ll just ss the fanart and block them)

they were the ones who spearheaded the homophobic katara headcanon during the pandemic lockdown (aka when everyone was terminally online lol), so in my book, i don't like them. they propped up the ship with her brother because colonizer x colonized ships are bad unless it's gay. it was a giant mess of misogyny, racism, and radfeminism in that 'oh, katara has to defend herself 24/7 from zuko's evil but her brother doesn't need to do that because i subscribe to patriarchal thinking'

ck aren't like. harassing levels of afp because they didn't try to block evade like he does as far as i remember, but i personally just don't care for someone who has headcanons like that, especially for one of my fave characters.

ck having that headcanon and making beautiful art is so sad too, because they made some gorgeous harutara fanart (and fanart in general), but their takes about katara are rancid and i just don't fuck with them

[sokkastyles]

User avatarfandompolice trying to accuse other people of "going on the warpath" and pretending to be more knowledgeable about the show than others is hilarious.

Also, this idea that you can be antagonistic towards a show or fictional characters or even show creators who have vast amounts of money and status and are unharmed by criticism is so bonkers, yet avatarfandompolice and others like them feel real comfortable being antagonistic towards zutara fans for existing.

How come I never saw this shit when I was fucking tagged ?!

Apparently there are only 10-15 of us Zutara fans? And obviously, we just like Zutara for the aesthetics and not the characters. Of course. And yeah... we are the most toxic part of the fandom... of course. 🙄

Oh and I took a look at this tumblr and it's probably the most nauseating thing I've seen in a long time !

[corpsedisturbed]

two of the most famous anti zutara blogs here are a racist (avatarfandompolice) and a zucest shipper (zvtara-was-never-canon) and this is actually very insane to me bc theyre everything antis accuse ZK shippers of being and antis still choose to interact w them

[kittenfangirl20]

I absolutely can’t stand this blog, in fact I would put it on the same level as sonofthesaiyans when it comes to toxic fans. It all starts with the name, fandom policing like that is just gross and rather toxic. Also they aren’t actually calling out anything toxic, they are calling out all Zutara fans by pointing out anything bad that Zutara fans may have done and even then most of it isn’t calling out bad things done by Zutara fans. Calling out how there are toxic elements Kataang or pointing out that Maiko during Season 3 wasn’t the best for either of them isn’t toxic. I like Maiko, but only after they have done a lot of work with each other and learned better communication with each other. Pointing out elements in canon material that you aren’t very happy with doesn’t make you toxic, being an ass to fans over opinions like what this blog does is toxic.

[tepkunset]

@avatarfandompolice​​​ is a blog that likes to misuse progressive language in attempt to make ignorant, racist posts sound more intelligent than they are. While most of their blog consists of arguing about ‘zutara,’ (which I recently learned is a ship name for Zuko and Katara from an anon), there is also a large number of posts and reblogs under the premise of being “hot takes” on how unfair it is to address racism in fandom and in media.

Avatarfandompolice is very sensitive about people pointing out that Avatar: The Last Airbender is not, in fact, flawless. That a show made by two white men featuring Asian and Indigenous characters and influences is fully capable of getting things wrong. That their western colonial views are influences all on their own, and it shows. Rather than listen to fans of colour point out things like these posts for example: [Link] [Link] [Link], avatarfandompolice has decided that such things must simply be fake, and has made multiple posts complaining it. This is not just regular ignorance, this is wilful ignorance. The dismissal of critique simply because they cannot fathom not everyone being able to handle the amount of issues they are freely educating others on, or people holding the ability to like something overall while also pointing out where it could be better.

It is my firm belief that you should never absorb media with an uncritical eye. If this was the case, if people just accepted everything given to them, then we would never see any progress. We need to be able to look back at something and say here’s what we did right, and here’s what we need to do better with.

The argument that A:TLA was made in 2012 and therefore should not be analyzed with a modern understanding of the world is downright hilarious, too. As if we aren’t taught to write literature analysis on books and plays that are centuries old in school. In particular regards to the whole cop thing... if anyone reading this seriously thinks that hate and fear of the police is just a 2020 trend, you can meet me in the pit. I was four years old when I learned how terrifying cops are. If your experiences differ, let me tell you that does not make them universal. And as for all the 20-somethings talking about it today, well, gentle reminder that as said by avatarfandompolice right here, the show aired in 2012. Little 10-year-old kids don’t have social media, (at least I hope they don’t,) and unless they grew up experiencing first-hand police terror, probably were not aware of it at that age. I do not know why avatarfandompolice insults people's ability to grow and learn. I can only guess it’s jealously from their lack of ability to do so.

Now let’s address their defences of whitewashing, which is easily the most backwards reaching I’ve seen on this issue in a while. Primarily their defence relies on four repetitive “points” —

Fake minuscule percentages to downplay the high prevalence and extremity of whitewashing in the fandom

Deflecting the addressing of whitewashing with rapid-fire fake scenarios and claims of “reverse racism” / “blackwashing”

Claiming whitewashing isn’t real because people only care about it with Katara

Claiming that calling out whitewashing in fandom is wrong because it hurts artists

I have only so much as dipped my toes into the A:TLA fandom, and even I have seen a lot of whitewashed fan art. If you do an image search for fan art, I guarantee within the first couple rows of results, there will be in the absolute least, a few examples. The idea of these artworks not substantially lightening skin is also just plain inaccurate. Just from a quick Google search, this is literally the first result for ‘Avatar The Last Airbender Katara fan art’:

Avatarfandompolice is also hyper-focused on the lightening of skin, and seems to be under the impression that this is the only component of whitewashing. I come to this conclusion because when someone pointed out the equal prevalence of depicting these characters of colour with Western European features instead of their actual eyes, noses, etc., they rip a giant turd out of their ass and scrawl the words “but stereotyping” over it. No, not all Asian peoples and Indigenous peoples look the same. The original poster made no such claim of this at all. Avatarfandompolice jumped to this conclusion all on their own... (which really says a lot in itself). It is entirely unrelated to the point. The point being the erasure of how these characters look, in favour of giving them whiter features. And guess what? This does hurt. But I’ll get to that below.

The lack of understanding of whitewashing is on full display when avatarfandompolice talks about “blackwashing”; the idea that colouring characters with darker skin is just like whitewashing. Firstly, there is no such thing as “blackwashing.” “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is re-imagined as a racial minority, whereas when racial minorities are re-imagined as white people, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where the statistics of representation were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people. As for specifically depicting characters like Sokka and Katara with darker skin than what they have in the show, the same applies, (so long as it’s not racebending them as we really shouldn’t be taking representation away from each other, and the artist avatarfandompolice ridicules above has done no such thing,) because colourism also exists within nonwhite communities as well.

As for the fake questions about cosplaying, the answer is really simple: Cosplay however you want, but don’t make pretending to be a different race part of your cosplay. If you want to cosplay Katara, you can do it without painting your skin darker, aka brownface. If you want to cosplay Zuko, you can do it without editing yourself to look East Asian, aka digital yellowface. The racist history behind this is an internet search away, but I suppose that is too difficult for avatarfandompolice to do.

Avatarfandompolice has made multiple claims that people must not really care about whitewashing if they only call it out for Katara. It is laughable at best, and sad at worst, that this is the conclusion they come to, and not the fact that unfortunately Katara just happens to be subjected to more whitewashing than other characters. I assume this is from a mix of her popularity as well as being a WOC and not MOC. This is not to say that whitewashing does not exist with male characters—not in the slightest. Half the images on this “10 fan art pictures of Sokka that are just the best” list from CBR are whitewashed. Only that across fandoms, whitewashing is more prevalent in female characters, by my observations at least.

Finally��and this one pisses me off the most—avatarfandompolice claims that whitewashing is no big deal, but calling out whitewashing is too harmful to justify. How fucking dare you put the feelings of artists who can’t handle critique of their work (that they publicly share) over fans of colour, who are constantly subjected to seeing our identities and looks not being worth respecting. As if it doesn’t imprint on your mind from a very young age how only villains ever have your facial features, because they’re ugly and I guess that means you’re ugly. As if there is something wrong with you. As if respecting you is regarded as extra effort, and not just common courtesy.

Whitewashing is a form of colourism, which is a form of racism. It is the favouritism, unconscious or not, of white features and the erasure of visible characters of colour. It is not fandom drama. It is not being too lazy to focus on “real issues” because it is part of a real issue. It is yet another part of why fandom spaces are so uninviting to POC. We live in a society that favours lighter skin. Corporations make fortunes from selling products to bleach your skin, products to contour your features away or go as far as surgery, all to meet beauty standards set by and influenced by white colonizers. That does not exist in A:TLA, and that’s called refreshing escapism. But it’s hard to escape that when the fandom constantly reminds you otherwise. It is a perfect example of how the classic “just let people enjoy things” complaint is nothing but disguised racism, because it’s only ever said regarding white fans’ enjoyment, at the expense of fans of colour.

None of the characters in A:TLA are white. Redesigning them and recolouring them as if they are, be it out of accident or intent is wrong. If you get called out for it, apologize, learn from the experience and do better going forward. You’ll also improve your art this way.

Beyond excusing whitewashing, avatarfandompolice has overt racist posts as well. A Black fan said they like to headcanon Katara as being partially Black; “I swear Katara was a sister. Im convinced there ain't no way she didn't have some black in her.” Avatarfandompolice jumps in saying “She's literally an Inuit but ok” as if being an Inuk person means Katara can’t possibly also be Black. The OP never claimed Katara was not Indigenous, simply that they also saw her as Black. Black Indigenous peoples exist. Black Inuk peoples exist. It is overtly anti-Black to say otherwise. But what even is the point of talking to avatarfandompolice about that? You know, you would think in trying to put such a front up of caring about the Inuit, they would do the most basic learning of the proper grammatical use of Inuit and Inuk. (As is the case with a great many Indigenous Nations, Inuit is both the Nation and plural. Inuk is singular. “An Inuit” / “Inuits” as avatarfandompolice has used just makes their dressed-up racism all the more pathetic. It’s similar to as if you said “Chinas” instead of “Chinese”.)

But all this is nothing, nothing compared to the worst post I had the displeasure of seeing. In a single post, avatarfandompolice manages to squeeze in insult against low income people, Mexican people, Jewish people, and Black people in a mockery of financial help posts. Absolutely disgusting, childish behaviour from a place of privilege. As someone who has had no option but to make such a post before, more than once, let me fucking tell you that the embarrassment and desperation when in that situation is unparalleled. It is not done lightly. It is done when you are at the last resort of having nothing but hope that the combined generosity of others will be enough to save you and your family. And what adds a whole other level to the odiousness of avatarfandompolice’s post is that they specifically targeting low income minorities to boot. Because we’re all poor beggars, right?

All in all, for someone who prides themselves in calling others ignorant, avatarfandompolice has to be one of the most obtuse fandom blogs I have ever scrolled through. They are as vile as they are pathetic, and my sincere sympathy for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to interact with them. It has been a while since I so strongly recommend blocking someone.

[themattress]

The only thing I disagree with @avatarfandompolice on regarding Azula (and matters apart from her, really) is their defense on Gene Yang's comics. Bryke's ideas behind those comics tended to be solid (except for "North and South", wtf even was that?), but Yang's execution was dreadful and Azula was indeed done dirty by it. I can't blame fans for missing the point when Yang did such a bad job making the point. With that said, they're right about how many Azula stans do her just as big a disservice, if not more, with their particular expectations. I never expected Azula redeemed in any of the comics, regardless of who wrote them or how well-written or not they were. I just expected progress to be made on a potential path to redemption, which has happened, and as I expected it required self-introspection from her because the onus of redemption will ultimately be on her. I'm almost certain her redemption will transpire in the Avatar Studios films with the GAang as adults, which makes perfect sense: it took around a decade to shape Azula into a monster, so it will take that same length to un-shape her. None of that is "bad writing", at all. It's realistic and true to the character.

Okay so I've been re-watching AtLA and it is apparent just how far off fanon!Azula really is.

Canon Azula is cruel, mean, savage, and has absolutely no mercy toward her enemies, firing lightning at them without a care in the word and with zero hesitation. Idk how so many people have convinced themselves she's a precious little meow meow who did nothing wrong. Do y'all even like the real Azula at all or do you just like your idea of a "redeemed" version of her?

[ee-to-the-mah-to-the]

@avatarfandompolice Also, because so many damn creators off of Nickelodeon/Hollywood have turned out to be pedophiles — yeah: I am going to slightly question it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[meow-chiato]

you know i’m not really a part of any fandom community but i do love tapping the glass on the enclosures from time to time and watching the apes fight over peanuts I chuck over the fence

[valariecomet]

Yeah no. Again, I don't know if I agree with the Gaang being out of character in the comics. I haven't read them, so I can't comment on that.

I am commenting on the original posts claim. "Yeah they were set a few years after the war..." That was what I was commenting on. The implications characters being out of character ooc with no explanation is okay since there has been a time skip . That what I was commenting on. Since it's not good writing for anything! I wasn't claiming that it was accurate for ATLA since for the last time I haven't read the comics.

And I'm not gonna read the comics since I know that I'm going to mad. Thanks for proving my point that the ATLA fandom can't handle criticism btw! Here's some advice for you (since suprise suprise, the blog called avatarfandompolice has difficulty accepting that their oh so precious show has flaws) block the ATLA critical tag. Period. Trust me, you'd be much less of sad asshole then! Hope you take my advice but hey I doubt you will. Anyways, I'm bored so I'm gonna block you. I hope you become less miserable, I mean it.

Right. Because that's how story's work. When a plotline happens off screen that is amazinggggg writing. Absolutely great. I love it when characters randomly start acting entirely different to how they usually do! It's sooooo much fun!

Seriously? I haven't read much of the comics and I don't plan to since from what I have seen they're shit, I read the promise years ago and I tried to read imbalance before giving up on it (the only comic I enjoyed was Katara and the pirates silver), so I'm not even sure if this criticism is justified. However, that doesn't mean this defense is right. If a character grows or changes, show it on screen or give an explanation, if not it's bad writing. Simple.

This isn't the real world, it's fiction so while in real life they should change over that time, in a fictional setting they shouldn't grow off screen because you have to suspend your disbelief and be able to easily follow along. If a character randomly changes it disrupts this flow of the story and messes with the audience. If this happens on the comics (which again, I'm not saying it does) it's bad writing. Plain and simple.

If this seems salty it's because I am. I am genuinely so tired of this fandom, it can't handle any fucking criticism against this show or any of the related bloody comics. Please just accept that nothing is perfect (except Katara) and no piece of media is entirely great. I'm not saying you have to engage with the criticism, just acknowledge there is stuff to critique.

[swordbending]

sorry for the discourse but lmao they're blatantly contradicting themselves now

here, afp says this is what their original post was saying. this says intent doesn't matter in determining whether something has been whitewashed

here, afp says intent is what determines something has been whitewashed, meaning if the person didn't mean to whitewash, regardless of how light they've made a character's skin tone, it's not whitewashing (something I think we all can agree is bullshit)

going back to the ask afp says they agree with, it says whitewashing is more discriminatory than calling people out for it

and here we have afp's original post saying calling people out for whitewashing is more discriminatory than whitewashing itself

so either they just unfounded their entire argument or they don't know how to read skfhskfjsk @bizukos

@avatarfandompolice since some people want to have problems with my not tagging them

[mateushonrado]

Status Post #8035: Won't tag this person for the sake of it but avatarfandompolice really shouldn't insult or attack people who either don't like the comics, ship Zutara, don't like VLD, don't like ATLOK or like TDP.