#bc by that logic is EVERY enemies to lovers ship abusive then??

[aldebarangel]

it is laughable when people call shin soukoku abusive because atsushi and akutagawa are literally like two teenage boys who fight outside their school campus over personal grudges but eventually get along after putting their differences aside

[zukoshotleafjuice]

The funniest thing about june teasing katara and zuko about being a couple is that she just sees a pretty girl and an attractive guy, both looking almost the same age which immediately makes her go "you two must be a couple" and it just reminds me of zvtara shippers, you know what i mean? I'm convinced one of the reasons a lot of ppl ship them is bc of their looks. katara being the female protagonist and also a pretty, smart and powerful girl & zuko, despite not being the male protagonist, being the most attractive guy in the gaang. Boom, a "bomb ass ship". It is worth to recall that "people ship zutara bc they projected onto katara and had a crush on zuko". And if they say they don't ship them for that reason, then it's bc they read too much between the lines in every interaction they have. So, back to june, she didn't even care if they had chemistry or if they were friends or anything, she just straight up teased them about being a couple lmao. Because in all honesty zvtara can be an appealing ship in anyone's eyes but THAT'S IT, it doesn't go further than that. I can be testimony of that😅Before even watching the show i was like june, one day i saw a zk fanart and was like "wow aren't those zuko and katara from atla? They look so good, she's gorgeous and he's hot" i already knew kataang was endgame and that mai was zuko's love interest but seeing zuko and katara together was pleasing to my eyes. However once i watched the show for the first time (2 months ago i think) i realized there was really no romantic chemistry between them, nothing, literally nothing, i mean, i wasn't even waiting for the zvtara content in the show that made ppl ship them so much, i was actually very neutral about ships, i couldn't care less about them, but i still realized nothing was happenig between them and that it was obvious since book 1 ep 1 that kataang was endgame. Zuko and katara were two teenagers from opposite sides of a war that tried to kill each other multiple times and when zuko changed sides they developed a completely platonic relationship. As i said, people either ship them because it's an appealing and aesthetically pleasing ship (water/fire, enemies to lovers, opposites attract, the common red & blue ship) or they just love reading too much between the lines, OR BOTH, because they were so thirsty about it they ended up convincing themselves there was romantic tension between them, that they liked each other and that zvtara was scrapped when it was never planned in the first place. Not to mention the reasons why they claim zvtara should've been endgame are based only on symbolism and things they have in common that are just so ??? Random. e.g. (i saw these on a post on facebook and the comment section was hilarious, it was full of ppl being sarcastic about it & making fun of it) saying they should've been canon bc:

1. "They both lost their mothers at a young age" (?)

2. "katara was good but had rage in her heart and zuko was bad but had good in his heart so it was like yin and yang, and that was the main purpose/topic of the show" (?)

3. "they both had alter egos (painted lady and blue spirit)" (???) this one sounds like saying maiko was canon bc zuko worked in a tea shop and mai worked in a flower shop😂

4. "Zuko was the only one who supported katara in taking revenge on her mom's assassin" (?) if you ask me, that just proves zuko is not right for katara, he led her to do something she was gonna regret later (not trying to hate on zuko, i love him, and since i love him i acknowledge his flaws. I understand why he thought it was the best thing to do, he's an impulsive and resentful boy (he would've done the same if it was his mom) and he noticed how thirsty katara was for revenge, ofc he wanted to help her + he wanted her to accept him and thought it was the right thing to do in order to gain her trust, but it wasn't) unlike zuko, aang tried to make katara come to her senses and do the thing that was best for her: forgive and let go, and it was basically what she did at the end. She didn't do what zuko expected her to do. She did what aang expected her to do. She didn't forgive her mom's assassin, but she forgave zuko, and she didn't do THAT thing she (and aang) knew would regret later. Aang knew katara and what was the best thing for her to do.

5. and the most ridiculous one, "they both saved each other's lives in the final agni kai"(???????) and the funniest part is that it was followed by "WHAT MORE PROOFS DO YOU WANT???". Honestly wtf did ppl expect? Did they expect zuko to stand there and watch katara die? Did they expect katara to just stand there and watch zuko lay on the floor & die? And this has been said a million times and i am going to join and say it once again: zuko would've done that for ANYONE from the gaang, he would've done the same for toph, sokka, suki and aang. Because he learned to care about them. As for katara, she would've done that for anyone too wtf she healed aang once too and even brought him back to life. (I wouldn't be surprised if zk shippers used that as a parallel for romantic zvtara proof bc they're just like that💀)

There were more "reasons" but they're just so stupid and taken out of context like "they care for each other" & "katara was the one who encouraged him to talk to his uncle" like yeah that's what friends do. Basically all zvtara shippers do is REACH.

Also, i just can't see it happening. I like the enemies to lovers trope, maybe if the writers really intended to make it canon, i would have been down for the ship, it would've been interesting to see how it developed, but,, they didn't, and later i came to the realization that if it would've really happened, it would've been so... weird. Time to bring up the "colonized and colonizer ship" and how some ppl feel uncomfortable about it. Besides the fact that a relationship between zuko and katara wouldn't have worked (they're incompatible af, katara is a girl with a strong character and zuko is a guy with anger issues that takes everything personal, they'd be at each other's throats 99% of the time) it's just weird to think that katara would choose to marry a man from the fire nation, the nation that caused a big war that traumatized her, the nation that took her mother away from her. Imagine katara ruling along with zuko a nation she despised for years. Fire lady katara doesn't sit right with me, and i'm sure it doesn't sit right with a lot of ppl as well. I don't see katara doing that, and yes, i know she forgave zuko, but still, she would've never done that 🤦🏽‍♀️ i think it would've been so OOC tbh.

Another thing i laugh my ass off at is when they say "zuko should've chosen katara instead of mai" as if they were ever in a relationship for zuko to say "ok imma choose katara i wanna be with her". As if katara was EVER an option for him. They never showed interest in each other, what's not clicking?????? And zuko only had eyes for mai, not to mention that despite zuko and mai had a rough relationship, no girl would've dealed with zuko's bs better than mai. Can you imagine katara dealing with zuko blowing up over everything? Because i can't. Also people saying things like "zuko deserves someone who is always there for him and listens to him" (and ofc they're talking about katara) like, ok, you hate that katara is aang's "therapist" but you want her to be zuko's therapist. Logic? Where? And I do remember mai being a supportive gf and trying to cheer him up multiple times. Did they watch the same show as me?

Zvtarians try to play the victims about how they were "robbed" bc some voice actors shipped them and from what i've read people who worked for the show suggested to go for zk, but that's stupid, it doesn't count as "they planned it but scrapped it, we were robbed". The only word that counts are the creators' voice and they have stated they were always rooting for kataang, so no, you were not robbed.

People are just so in love with the idea of zuko and katara together they really convinced themselves it was likely to happen. Honestly zvtara it's a fine ship as fanon but ppl ruined it for me and what i hate the most is when they ship it and hate on aang and mai at the same time and make them look SO bad to invalidate kataang and maiko. Saying aang is abusive and mai is toxic is complete ✨bullshit✨ and lastly, it's ridiculous when they say the creators were cowards for not making it canon. They're cowards for not fulfilling your greatest childhood wish? Something they never planned? It is THEIR show. If you hate sm how things turned out then quit atla once and for all and go find another show that you know is gonna give you what you expect,,, it's tiring that they've been crying about it for 15 yrs , like, i joined the fandom recently but i can imagine how tired old atla fans must be of this.

OK so I have a lot of thoughts about this and firstly,,,anon I appreciate the dedication that it took for you to write  this, and I agree with many of your points. However, the attitude I have on this blog towards Avatar ships is far more neutral than what you’re saying.

Ultimately, romance is not and never was the focus of Avatar. Romantic development was always secondary or tertiary plot, and the entire show was far more focused on platonic relationship development. My attitude towards shippers on here - including Zutara shippers - is that people can ship what they want, as long as they’re respectful of each other and of the other characters that “interfere” with their ship. End of the day, shipping is irrelevant to the core of the show. 

People shipping something because they find it aesthetically appealing is honestly,,,fine. Personally, I think it’s reductionist, but I don’t care if you do because everyone has the right to enjoy media however they want to. 

That being said, we absolutely should call out racist or problematic tropes that we see, including ‘fire lady katara”. I also agree that it’s upsetting when people bash other characters in order to further their ship, as much of the bashing is also pretty racist and/or misogynistic. Calling that out, however, is separate from calling out every single person who happens to enjoy certain ships. 

“She didn't do what zuko expected her to do. She did what aang expected her to do. She didn't forgive her mom's assassin, but she forgave zuko, and she didn't do THAT thing she (and aang) knew would regret later. Aang knew katara and what was the best thing for her to do.”

I understand where you’re coming from, but I honestly disagree with this take. Both Aang and Zuko were approaching the situations from their own life experiences, but Katara didn’t do what either of the boys wanted. She chose her own path, by both sparing Yon Rha’s life but also refusing to forgive him. The episode is about Katara and her personal trauma and its focus should not be on her relationships with either Zuko or Aang. 

When I make posts such as this, it’s less about hating Z*tara and more about how this fandom focuses all its attention on romance and shipping, to the point where if you acknowledge a relationship’s importance it’s assumed you pair the two romantically. I don’t read Zuko and Katara’s relationship as romantic (for reasons that it would take too long to explain here), but their relationship development is extremely important, the two of them share tons of parallels and the final Agni Kai marks the culmination of both of their character arcs. Yes, Zuko would have taken the lightning for any of the characters, but it’s thematically important that it was Katara. None of this inherently means it’s romantic, but refusing to acknowledge the significance of the relationship between them is equally reductionist. 

This isn’t an attack on you, anon, and you’re 100% allowed to have negative feelings about a ship. But at the end of the day, it’s not worth getting this worked up over. If I were you I’d focus more on creating/consuming content for a ship you like than bashing ships you don’t!

[jcylenz]

4, 11, 16, 19 (if you want) 😚⛄🌈

ask meme for muns

4. Can you tell us about your 5 favorite muses?

In alphabetical order, bc I can’t make an actual top list ranking them, but I still need some kind of order.

Alice Fortescue - The one baby I played the longest and in most situations and groups. My actual baby. She is the mother hen of Hogwarts, has a knack to become a martyr for the causes she believes in, she fiercely loves her friends and family and suffers I think one of the most tragic fates in HP altogether.

Darcy Palmer - (tw death) Translator and interpreter who traveled the world and fell in love with a woman high up in a gang (unknowing of all of that) that resulted in her witnessing the murder of the woman she loved, almost dying herself and her own sister getting killed in the process as well. Now she has to make her way through life in witness protection under a completely new name and identity, separated from the rest of her family while having to deal with her demons in the dead of the night.

Glenda Chittock - My tiny baby who started out with her nose in between the pages and who felt more comfortable around books than around people. She barely did anything, barely experienced everything. And then an illness of her little brother opens her eyes and makes her realize that she has to go out and try things. Ans slowly she opens up, can communicate with people more. She has a never-ending knowledge that she always spurs out at people whenever she is nervous. She first works for the Daily Prophet as a journalist, and then eventually realizes that while her rambling doesn’t work in writing, she can’t get her points across, in a medium where she can talk, she can be captivating and interesting, hence why she starts doing her own radio show - which is the only canon fact we know about her.

Heidi Bergen - (tw abuse) Oh boy, where do I even start. This baby went through so much shit in her life to get to where she is. Happy first few years, then being separated from her dickhead father and older brother, her mother practically abandoned her little sister and her so she had to raise her sister. All of this turned into anger that she didn’t know how to handle, isolating her from everyone except for her own sister. She was angry at the world and the world was angry right back at her. She found a release in boxing, but the attitude and the need to push most people away remained - while also clinging to any romantical partner she had with tooth and nail, desperate to find somebody who wouldn’t leave her in the end. Resulted in her being in an abusive relationship that she could barely get out of and after she ran off to halfway across the country to make sure she is really far away from the dude. She’s a kickass criminal defense lawyer and in different versions of her she was either fighting with any kind of clients or specifically protecting crime syndicates.

Isabel de la Vega - My narcissist, self-centered merm whose backstory resembles the little mermaid’s story in many ways, but is so completely different from that fictional character. She arrives to Soapberry, a town where the supernaturals can openly walk around and be themselves, running from her past mistakes and failures and tries to make a new life for herself while also having a superiority in her, a constant need to be right, be the center of attention and not share anything personal about herself.

11. Can you tell us about your favorite ship?

Uhhhh, why are you doing this to me? How am I supposed to choose just ONE? I’m going to cheat and say top 5 here too because I’m horrible and can’t be helped. In alphabetical order, bc I can’t make an actual top list ranking them, but I still need some kind of order.

Alice Fortescue/Amos Diggory (@theeriinyes) - my first Alice ship that started out as a kind of “oh we won’t go there because it’s not canon” and ended up with us absolutely going there because we couldn’t help it. They grew up together, fell in love slowly. He was a playboy, she was the mother hen. He wanted nothing more than to keep his family safe, she wanted to fight in the war beyond reason or logic. They loved each other more than anything and it’s been years and years and I’m still not over them honestly. They had a baby in the mids of the war and after Alice suffered the fateful ending of hers, Amos visits her every day, hoping that she’d wake up one day and remember him and their family. And now lemme just go and weep.

Ariel/Eli - My first ever big otp in RPing. Ariel was my OUAT indie who was struggling with having her memories back, dealing with the real world and the fairy world being so different and wanting to leave Storybrooke to explore and have adventures while not being able to because of the border-amnesia thing, while Eli was a wandered who had a shadow inhabiting his body since he was a kid, they were one and a same at this point and the two of them accidentally met and fell in love and oh boy was it beautiful. I loved them so freaking much and even though I’ve lost touch with the player of Eli since then and it took me incredibly long to even find Ariel’s old blog, I still think about them sometimes and weep over how beautiful they were.

Darcy Palmer/Diego Chavez (@diegojaimechavez) - Honestly they came as a surprise I think to both of us because we originally planned to have a completely platonic relationship between these two, but then they both went and had feelings for one another and there was no stopping them. “Enemies” to friends to lovers where they were forced to work together considering Diego was charged with keeping Darcy safe, so even though they were constantly fighting with each other, they couldn’t just stay away due to their situation, and then slowly they started opening up to one another and realizing their own errors and finding the good and lovable in the other and now they are dummies in love who refuse to admit or say it out loud but still have such huge trust and respect for each other that nobody is breaking that.

Carlota Fuentes/Gianluca Romano (@pedrazamaria​) - I mean, any of our babies could be on here, I could have really just made a list of top 5 just out of our babies but I restrained myself lol. But these two. One is the daughter of the leader of a huge gang while the other is a drug dealer in said gang. They didn’t really notice each other until one night they hook up and then they fall in love without meaning to. One never really looked for love but found it with him, the other was never considered worthy of love until she came along and they were happy. And then shit went down, torture and hatered and misunderstanding and they are pulled apart and for years they barely even interact, only for a family tragedy to bring them close again. Him hurting her on accident, without intent, and then her hurting him back in ways she knows would cause most pain because she is trying to protect her heart. It’s a mess, it’s tragical, they probably should stay away from each other, but they love each other too much to not gravitate back to each other sooner or later.

Alice Fortescue/Evan Mulciber - Unfortunately I can’t tag anyone here either, and I know this looks weird and unnatural to anyone who knows just the tiniest bit about the Marauders Era, but I swear it worked and it was beautiful. Alice was the one who would give the benefit of the doubt to anyone, Evan was the misunderstood antihero, ruthless to most but fiercely protective over those whom he considered family. They dated and were arranged to be married. And then the Mary incident happened and Alice broke things off, but the arranged marriage stayed. They were platonic, but Alice still saw the good in him and he still considered her family. He was impulsive and she tried to think through things, he was blamed for so many things he didn’t actually commit and she saw through the lies and knew he wasn’t to blame. It was complicated and simple all at the same time. And as weird and strange as this pairing sounds, I loved them so, so, so incredibly much.

16. How long have you been roleplaying?

It’s really fucking insane to write it down, but it’s been close to 10 years now. I started RPing around the end of S1 of Vampire Diaries. It was on LiveJournal, I brought Anna back from the dead and played her in a Hungarian RP. After that, I transitioned to Tumblr and did an Ariel OUAT indie for a long while before I fell into the world of groups and the rest is history.

19. What do you miss about old roleplay? (Roleplay before 2017?)

The amount of time I had to dedicate to it. I actually started working in 2017, before that I was in uni and high school and I remember having so much more time on my hand. And with that I miss the speed that I could move plots along. These days a lot of the time I can only get through my replies and then I already have to go to sleep or have other things to do, while before I could just do back and forths almost daily and that was so great. (Then again, back then my replies were mostly like one paragraph long, now I prefer long-ass paras, so that might be a contributing factor in it too.)