#kataang I guess?

[yourhighness6]

I Just Listened to the First Episode of Braving the Elements and I Know I'm Late to the Party but I Have Very Incoherent, Babbling Thoughts About It

(now that I heard Janet and Dante talking I needed to draw young Zuko and Korra. I think they'd be friends. Like, they'd get into fights [with Sokka, too] about who's muscles are more impressive and dumb jock stuff like that. Their respective girlfriends would be so tired.)

Anyway, I think the UGGs ad was a great way to start this out. Really set the tone. I'm also vibing to the theme music cuz I literally haven't listened to it since I rewatched the finale a couple of weeks ago.

[I had no idea Dante Basco was in a dance group as a child I'm laughing for no reason now. I shouldn't judge though I was a drama kid too lol]

I feel like they're doing the whole "the LIGHTS, the CAMERA, the CINEMATOGRAPHY" thing while they're talking about the opening scene. you know what, i'm fine with it.

Basically them:

"Kataang."

"...And I digress,"

The animal crossing segment is cute Appa finally getting the appreciation he deserves

"thINgS HapPEn SoMEtiMeS" has the same energy as Zuko telling Suki "oh, sorry about that" when she reminded him he burned down her village

"I love GranGran" do you Zuko? DO you??

(jk they get along after the war when he apologizes properly)

Aww they brought up Greta Thomburg. I forgot how old this podcast is, but that was a really great message about how the young are the ones saving us and stuff. As a Zoomer [do people still say that?] I can say confidently most of us have no idea what we're doing but we're opinionated and we're here and we're ready to fight for the environment and social justice and shit

HE SWORE

HE SWORE TWICE

HE SWORE THREE TIMES IN LESS THAN TWO MINUTES

Idk about ya'll but I don't think Nick should be letting Mr. Basco represent them I mean that was like three whole "damn"s that is some inappropriate behavior right there

"they're people of privilege" This hit me so hard for no reason. Like it's really obvious, especially in Book 2, that despite all of the abuse Zuko went through he was still in that whole royalty mindset where he basically expects things to be handed to him for most of his arc.

I mean, yeah, that speaks for itself, and there are other instances too. I think Zuko's arc largely corrects a lot of his entitlement, which is a great thing to see throughout the series, but IROH. For some insane reason, maybe because he's very wise and seems content with the little things in life and is basically trying to oppose books 1 and 2 Zuko in every way possible, I never really thought of him as privileged but now it's so obvious that he is. IDK I think that was an interesting thing to point out. It almost makes me value Iroh more because he obviously had to go through a similar journey to Zuko's unlearning all of the arrogance that came with his position and came out of it on the other side as a kind, wise individual who cares deeply for other people and puts the fate of the world before his own. Still interesting to think about on my next rewatch of B1 though, I'll have to start looking out for those behaviors in Iroh.

ANYWAY

Dante Basco, trying so hard to be impartial: "Kataang!"

Janet Varney, one with Zutara nation, apparently: "Meh"

OMG THEY TALKED ABOUT THE SPYGLASS!! I know that scene with Zuko standing on the boat was supposed to be all suspenseful and scary and everything

But I just laugh

I can imagine Aang being like "Aww Zuzu thanks for noticing"

OMG I love Katara finally getting some recognition!! Like there's this meme about the world being saved by "nagging" or whatever and it kind of annoys me. Like, she's calling Sokka out on all of his sexist behavior and that's "nagging"??

Let's be honest it's because she gets kind of "emotional".

Whatever. She deserves to be emotional. Let's be honest the Avatar world was saved by Katara deciding she was done putting up with her brother being a misogynistic ass. [END RANT]

Okay, honestly, I liked it. It was funny, it was cute, I can see it being good, I'll keep listening to it... But, I felt like we were only getting surface level thoughts? There were a few moments where I was like "GODDAMMIT JUST SAY WHAT YOU THINK" which is kind of annoying on a podcast that's supposed to be reviewing the episodes. Like, really? That heavy pause after Dante mentioned Kataang? Janet hesitating to say what she thought when it came up again? C'mon guys, I know you don't want to start anything but the ship wars are not stopping no matter what any of us do at this point because there will always be people on both sides of the war that are toxic and like to start drama. They're not saying everything they want to about the ships and that's a fact. We know it. They know it. Bryke knows it. Also, Dante having not read the series bible was funny but it's only going to be a good joke for so long. Know your shit if you're doing a podcast on it.

I might just be complaining because I need to complain, it's only the first episode, after all, so I want to be clear that I really did like it. 10/10 would recommend, I just hope they maybe get more into the fandom stuff as we go along instead of just looking at the episode. Dig a little deeper, discuss controversial stuff, have a little fun with it, READ THE SERIES BIBLE.

(btw I might make more Korra and young Zuko fanart. It was fun, and now I have ideas for them meeting in some weird spirit world thing)

[jujuberii]

no matter the ship, i love the trope where toph can sense who has a crush on the other bc of their heartbeats. They'll be stuttering through a convo and she'll just be there like I Know What You Are.

[ecoterrorist-katara]

”Aang is the one who reminds Katara to be a kid” PUT SOME RESPECT ON TOPH’S NAME!!! Toph brings out Katara’s inner child, not the sunshine rainbow flower crown inner child, but her internal gremlin. Her pettiness and violence and self-centered mischief. Aang is a ride-or-die friend sometimes, but when they’re together, Katara’s priorities are always 1) the state of the world and 2) Aang himself. Like she can be playful but she’s never really distracted from her sense of responsibility.

With Toph, Katara prioritizes much more childlike things, like having the last word in an argument, and whether her friends think she’s cool, and laughing in a day spa, and petty revenge. Only Toph can drag Katara down to her level of immaturity and I think that’s beautiful

[yuttikkele]

I just feel like Katara and Zuko would have the PETTIEST beef regarding Aang. They are friends, and they don’t harbor any actual problems with each other, but the rivalry and butting heads persists. They both think the other is trying to take Aang away from them. Like:

Katara: Zuko what are you doing here?

Zuko: I just came by to see my BEST FRIEND Aang. We’re having boys night tonight.

Katara: Oh, my BOYFRIEND and I are actually going out on a date tonight!

Zuko: That’s strange. I don’t remember him MENTIONING you!

Katara: Hahaha! That’s probably because—

Aang: Hey, I’m glad you guys could make it! Are you both ready to go?

Katara and Zuko: What.

[johnskleats]

is anyone going to tell the kat@angers that it's not feminist activism to argue Katara's arc in LOK is fine on the grounds that "some women want to be homemakers and that's okay!!"

Like you're not helping real women that way. In fact, most antis for the cannon ship ARE women. Many are homemakers themselves.

Katara is not a real woman. She is a fictional woman written by men.

Can the sensibilities and wishes of a girl change by the time she is a adult? Yes!

But as this is a textual character who, as per the text, rejects the societal structure of her fictional world (which mirrors our own) that women are and can only ever be docile homemakers (i.e. I don't want to heal, I want to fight; I will never turn my back on people who need me; let's start a prison riot; let's engage in vigilante ecoterrorism; let's pitch an absolute fit because the boys are not pulling their fair weight in the homemaking; let's confront my mother's killer at the absolute rejection and condemnation of the male figures whom I am to respect; etc) it is perfectly reasonable to argue that this end was not a natural course for her character.

Fictional characters are not real people. This means that they do not change their mind off screen. That is not an acceptable argument. That is called a "plot hole", which is a nonsensical change made at the convenience and contrivance of the writer(s), who in this case are men exhibited to not care for women or girls all that much. It is within THEIR character to write this way.

Regardless of who, if anyone, Katara ended up with, Katara tolerating disrespect, neglect, abuse of her children, giving up all of her former aspirations to live in the shadow of men, and dying as a mere footnote in history (and being alright with it!!) is not surprising given the absolute vitriol Bryke has shown toward female fans of their "creation". It was supposed to be a "boy" show. It was always supposed to be a "boy" show. The creators of Supernatural and Game of Thrones did the same thing. ATLA just did it first.

Arguing "not all women" is not activism in the face of what is really happening in this discourse. Sending death threats to real, actual women with feelings in defense of a fake pretend woman's fake pretend autonomy is performative activism, and worse, hypocritical.

Not all women agree with you. Not all women feel represented and find the outcome of Katara's story satisfactory. If y'all care about feminism and respecting women's choices so much, lay off the real life women you're so fond of harassing. Our views and opinions, while opposing your own, don't affect you.

[lieuxtenant]

if there’s a thing I think is funny is how kat//ngers love to deflect any pro zutara arguments by start to talk about the characters like they have a mind of their own, I’ve seem things like “katara was the one who put herself in a motherly position”, “you’re ignoring their feelings and pushing your views on them based on nothing” (refering to media analysis) or even “zutara maybe a good pairing but katara loved aang and love isn’t logical” babe, those are not real people 😭

what they fail to acknowledge is that katara is a brown girl in a 2005 cartoon created by two white men, her main role was to be aang’s crush, the older pretty girl-next-door, she’s love interest before she’s character, she’s aang’s before she’s her own, her needs and agency only matters if they doesn’t diverge from the ones of male main lead, that’s why every time I see someone trying to say zutara being canon would’ve made her into “zuko’s redemption arc prize” or any bs KA shippers like to say I laugh because zuko’s character never defined who katara was supposed to be, aang’s character does

[tiny-katara]

it is literally so insane to me that katara directly says "i don't want to heal, i want to fight" in the waterbending master and people decide to either ignore her saying that or completely discount it as her just wanting to fight bc of the war to justify the butchery of her character in legend of korra.

[turbent]

“This war between Zutara and kataang shippers has been going on for so long. Maybe all of you guys should calm down 🥺🥺🥺

Besides, zukka is the best ship and the solution to it all right?? 🥺🥺🥺”

Genuinely, please be quiet! And keep your BS out of the Zutara tag 😭

[mal3vol3nt]

zutaras hating aang so much is so ridiculous but also makes sense considering that what aang has with katara and zuko is what they wish their favs had together

like canonically aang helped zuko rebuild the fire nation by acting as a symbol of life and fun and love. he was the only one who knew of the kind of spark the fire nation had before it was fluffed out by sozin, and he made it his mission to bring it back step by step. zuko and aang became lifelong best friends and were each other’s rock. they understood each other in a way no one else could and had the basis of their enemies-to-friends arc engraved into the very structure of the show. their entire relationship is the show and zutaras want that so badly for themselves that they insert katara into aang’s role

and canonically aang and katara’s love is built up throughout the show. their love is symbolized in the legend of oma and shu, and tui and la. katara believed in the avatar before she met aang, but believed in aang before she knew he was the avatar. they were each other’s shields and motivations in surviving the war. they were two genocide survivors finding solace in one another but being horrified of losing the other. their kiss at the end was an acknowledgment of their budding feelings that the show had been hinting at and building up. but zutaras hate the canonical symbolism of katara x aang so they insert zuko into aang’s role

they hate aang so much because he is everything they want zuko and katara to be

[cobraonthecob]

in case someone's out there hate reading my blog, i don't need the show comics or post-canon comics to hate on kataa/ng. the show does it for me already 🤭

[billsbae]

[melu-lis]

idk why kataangers are so resolute in denying that katara wasn't parentified at an early age when it was a crucial part of her character and it's pretty clear from watching the show that katara was forced to take on a maternal role from an early age. i honestly believe that their insistence that katara wasn't parentified stems from not wanting kataang to be viewed as having "mother-son" dynamic (doesn't help that bryke compared kataang to having a crush on girl who's like your older sister or babysitter).

[awkwardarmadildo]

sorry to all the kataang shippers (edit: N O T D I R E C T E D A T K A T A A N G S H I P P E R S T H I S I S A G R I E V A N C E W I T H T H E W R I T E R S) out there but kataang genuinely skeeves me out like

hes 12. shes 14. thats so weird to me. thats so Gross to me. thats a sixth grader, a kid brand new to middle school or even still in elementary school depending on location/school district, and a freshman in highschool.

and dont even say uM aCtUaLly HeS oNe HuNdReD aNd TwElVe i do not give the faintest fuck. he has the experience, mentality, physicality, all that shit, of a twelve year old. hes twelve. thats weird, thats gross, i dint like it

no judgment to kataang shippers though (edit: some of) yall seem neato

(edit: i was 14 freshman year, i was 12 in sixth grade, im not pulling numbers and grades from my ass this is just my actual experience)

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Why I feel like Ka/taang is one-sided, despite textual evidence 

ATLA does try to convince us that Katara has romantic feelings for Aang. For example: she seems thoughtful when she realizes that Aang is a powerful bender; she’s offended that he didn’t want to kiss her in the Cave of Two Lovers; she gets jealous when Sokka says On Ji and Aang look good together.

So…what’s wrong with anti-Kataangers? Do we just lack media comprehension? 

To be clear, on their own, these gestures can indicate romantic interest. But at the same time, we have stuff like “Aang is a sweet little guy, like Momo.” We have her ambivalent facial expression after he kisses her before the eclipse, and her hedging during Ember Island Players, and her anger when he kisses her anyway. In the context of these conflicting cues, Katara’s possibly romantic reactions can absolutely be interpreted in a different way, because: 

Acknowledging a friend as a potential romantic interest is not the same as actually being romantically interested in them. (Imo this is something young women struggle with, due to a combination of romance-centrism and heteronormativity that make women feel like they should be in romantic relationships, and that boys and girls who share intimate and deep feelings for one another must be romantically into each other) 

Wanting someone to find you desirable is not the same as desiring that person. (Which is something a lot of women, especially young women, struggle with. Remember all the discourse around Cat Person back in 2017?) 

Being jealous when someone flirts with your friend is not the same as wanting to be with your friend. (Especially when you see your friends as family, or if you’re accustomed to a specific type of devotion from that friend. It is jealousy, and it is possessiveness, but it doesn’t always arise from romantic feelings) 

Growing up in a patriarchal society means that your desires are always filtered through what men want from you, sometimes in an abstract male gaze-y way, and sometimes in a very visceral and interpersonal way when a boy wants you specifically. And Katara’s reactions are just that — reactions. Reactions to what other people — including Aunt Wu, Sokka, Aang himself — have insinuated about her and Aang. She’s not really proactive in her interest in Aang: we don’t really see Aang, romantically, from Katara’s POV. Under the framework of “Katara is reacting to a romantic prospect she’s kind of uncertain about,” it is completely plausible — and indeed likely — that she would sometimes act in ways that indicate romantic interest, in addition to moments where she indicates the opposite. 

Ka/taang shippers often bring up other evidence, like Katara’s despair when Azula hits Aang with lightning, or how protective she is of him when Zuko joins the Gaang. The thing is, these pieces of evidence aren’t necessarily indicative of romantic love. The fact that Katara genuinely loves Aang makes the whole thing more complicated, not less, because — especially at that age, especially when Aang is twelve years old and grew up in a sex-segregated society of monks — it is really difficult to tell the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Their mutual devotion is layered and complex yet straightforward in its sincerity. What was not straightforward, until the last five minutes of the show, is whether this devotion on Katara’s end is romantic. The romantic arc for Katara and Aang is not really an arc, as Sneezy discusses in this classic ZK video. Katara actually becomes more conflicted over time and we never see an event that clarifies her feelings. She seems more interested in him in The Headband than on the Day of the Black Sun, and she has never been more hostile to his romantic overtures than in the penultimate episode. 

And in light of this, it’s pretty easy for fans to fill in the blanks with a different interpretation: maybe Katara’s weird expression after their kiss at the invasion means she didn’t enjoy it; maybe the kiss made her realize that she doesn’t actually feel that way about Aang; maybe against her will and her better judgement, she’s developing feelings for another person, a person who hurt her and whom she fervently tried to hate until he pulled off what is in my opinion the greatest grovel of all time in the form of a life-changing field trip. Maybe. Am I saying that Zutara has more romantic interactions than Ka/taang? Of course not. But ironically, the lack of romantic interactions means that it’s not inherently one-sided, the way Ka/taang became in the latter half of season 3.

I’m not arguing that Katara’s unequivocally not into Aang. Obviously the text declares that she is, because they get married and have kids. But I am saying that there’s a very good reason that so many people, especially women, see Katara’s interest in Aang as ambiguous. It’s not because we can’t pick up “subtle” hints of growing affection. It’s because we know not all affection is romantic, and it’s really easy for someone else’s insistent romantic intentions to muddle what you want.

P.S. I first started thinking about these topics (platonic vs romantic love, desiring someone vs wanting to be desired, etc) in the context of compulsory heterosexuality, a term describing how queer women contort themselves into relationships with men even if they’re not really into men. I saw a post a few days ago joking about why so many queer women seem to be into Zutara. I wonder if part of the reason is because as queer women, we are very sensitive to the ways in which we can talk ourselves into wanting things we don’t actually want, and Katara’s romantic interest in Aang can be easily seen that way. 

[dragonfoxandfound]

Let me preface this with I am a brown WOC who's people were colonized, come from a culture that deals with colorism and also am in a relationship with a lightskinned POC so you'll see why this mess rubs me the wrong way.

Unhinged Kataang Shipper: using Jetara as a stepping stone to Zutara is inherently racist because Jet is a brown boy and Zuko is a pasty ass easian dude.It's colorist and orientalist

Also Unhinged Kataang Shipper: Jet's not a misunderstood bad boy,he's a radicalist brown boy it's giving the same vibe as 'interracial ships only count if one of them is white,not different kinds of poc'(Z/Ks always turn Zuko white-adjacent)

I think I lost a few IQ points just trying to read this drivel.

So let me let this straight, Kataang shippers say Zuko is a colonizer despite never colonizing anything but Jet who planned to kill a village of innocent men, women and children is just a radicalized brown boy?

And then call Zuko white (erasing and an already underepresented minority in american media) because he's lightskinned POC? And that somehow means Katara and Zuko don't count as an interracial ship? And shipping them before Jetara is racist?

You guys do know who else is lightskinned, right? I guess Kataangers who like Kataang over Jetara are racist, colorist and orientalist.

That's probably as much news to them as it is to me.

Let's go a step furthere, by that logic Bryke and atla were also racist, colorist and orientalist by having Sokka use indigenous Yue as a stepping stone to end up with lightskinned Suki, right? I mean that is what happened in canon.

Do you guys even think before you post this shit?

[starboysbrainrot]

I’m not even that much of a zutara shipper, I just really like the concept and enjoy reading fics about them, but why is the atla fandom so obsessed with saying that zk are only self-inserting cishet whities when like the vast majority of the active zutara fandom are poc, and mostly queer woc ?

it’s as if hating on zks had become some kind of performative activism for people in the atla fandom.