#katara deserves so much better than the kataang fandom

[longing-for-rain]

You want to prove Zuko is the better man so bad but he only got 1 kid and Aang got 3 so who’s the ‘alpha’ now?

😬😬😬 Maybe I spoke too soon when I said Kataang shippers weren’t as outwardly misogynistic as they used to be

[katarasmomsnecklace]

I wanna talk about all my fav ATLA ships cuz being a multishipper can suck sometimes

I wanna look at ship tags and not see hate for another ship in them

SPREAD THE LOVE

KatAang: Classic friends to lovers. Couples who commit ecoterrorism together stay together

TAang: She was a punk He did ballet what more can I say. But like actually they're so fun to analyze with what we have in canon, they legit give soulmate vibes.

ZuTara: SHOT THROUGH THE HEART another fun one to analyze, opposites attract/enemies to lovers it's a good time

KaToph: They're defined by overcoming their "weaknesses" Katara fought for her right to be a master despite her gender and became one of the most powerful benders because of her will to fight. Toph literally invented a whole new bending style BECAUSE of her blindness. Love them

MaiLee: Bad bitches deserve bad bitches, we love a sunshine and sunshine protector. Their fighting styles compliment each other as do their personalities

MaiKo: 'I love Zuko more than I fear you" will never not be the hardest line in the show. *doesn't care she got pickles* "HOW FUCKING DARE YOU SHE SAID NO PICKLES"

Ty Luki: I just want Suki to show TyLee the ropes of being a kyoshi warrior. They have so much they can teach each other also if you like the Airbender! TyLee headcanon there's something poetic about her unlocking her powers with kyoshi's fans

YueTara: MOON AND OCEAN NEED I SAY MORE

ZUe (I actually don't know their ship name) we in rare pair hell but SUN AND MOON NEED I SAY MORE also applies to Yue x Azula you guys come up with the coolest scenarios that put either of the fire siblings in the north pole, this fandom is so creative

ZuKKi: Let Sokka pull lol but actually a King and His Guard and King and his Ambassador, it's like Sukka is great but make it better

Mai TyLee and Suki should be a bigger ship cuz I swear I'm the only one that sees it (help me name them)

Tell me about your favorite ATLA ships I freaking love these characters and I love when they love each other

[kataraslove]

I just stumbled across your acc and I gotta say, I agree with alotta ur takes

Ur sooo well spoken and I really enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions

Katara is one of my favorite characters and it makes me really happy to see someone appreciate her and her writing

Ngl a lot of atla fans r lowkey braindead so ur acc is pretty refreshing

Thanks for posting!! 🩷

thank you! 🩷 your words are too kind. i appreciate it.

i did mention this before, but this blog stemmed kind of entirely out of spite. i was sick and tired of fandom on here telling me that there was only one way to interpret and enjoy my favourite character, dictating who i could or could not ship her with and how much of a stan that made me. it’s not an experience just unique to the atla fandom, of course. it’s becoming something more apparent nowadays especially, the ways in which multiple readings and interpretations of a character is heavily discouraged by fandom in favour of just one.

it’s baffling how, for so many years, there was a strict binaric interpretation of katara’s character, with 0 being non-canon and 1 being completely in favour of all things canon. either you had to vehemently agree with everything that bryke wrote for katara’s within atla and post-canon, to the point where i have seen people defend the lack of statues of her as “oh, she probably didn’t want one anyway,” (NO!!) or you had to have deep-rooted anger and rejection for all things that were done to her story, in the guise of katara deserving better.

katara does deserve better narratively, but NOT in the ways that the tumblr fandom thinks she should have. not in the ways that she should be ambassador to the fire nation, or become firelady (a racist depiction in fanon and nothing but a decorative title in canon) and live out the rest of her life by zuko’s side, serving and prioritizing zuko’s nation.

“but wouldn’t it be empowering if katara sat on the throne of her oppressors and got to dictate - “ no. it’s not. stop advocating for that type of ending for women from oppressed and marganized groups. stop acting like that is the ideal future that katara wanted this whole time, that ruling as part of a foreign monarchy that decimated your people and your culture is the ultimate threshold for liberation.

i’ve seen people who claim to take a doylist perspective for critique of atla (read: kataang)’s writing completely lose all comprehension when it comes to critically assessing post-canon zutara. by that i mean, if we continue with the writing direction that we saw for all of the female atla characters in the sequel series, a zutara endgame would position katara in a worse outcome than she got narratively. but you tell anyone that and it’s an instant “zuko would have given her 10 statues!!”

but most importantly, nothing has radicalized me more over this year than seeing the “katara deserves better (in the form of zuko)” crowd, the same crowd who is currently dreading any form of fixing or retcons from avatar studios in upcoming content, defend the hell out of natla katara’s writing. the very same people who were praising katara’s arc to the stars, stating that it was nearly complete until the two grown men decided to pair her up with aang and ruined all at the end.

well, what about the group of zutara shippers in the natla writer’s room who handed her everything in the narrative, who removed her flaws, her anger, her compassion, who stripped her down to everything except hope, all in the name so that she wouldn’t appear unlikable to audiences. i mean, that tremendously backfired for them, because now the young actress who plays katara is getting hate spewed at her for failing to portray katara interestingly, when the problem has always been the shit writing.

anyway, i appreciate this message! glad i could be of service and it’s nice that you’re a zuko fan who ships kataang! lots of people who love zuko do.

��a lot of atla fans are braindead” LMAO you can say that again!!!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Me, reading some pro-Katara meta because I like the character.

The meta author: “The Legend of Korra” ruined Katara’s character! She was made Aang’s trophy wife, whose whole life is dedicated to taking care of him! She does not have a chance to fight! “The best healer” title is empty since she never succeeded in healing anyone, it is only used to show how strong the opponents are! She is not shown during the trial on Yakone or Jinora’s ceremony! She never got a statue! Bryke said that’s because she never did anything important aside from giving birth to and raising Aang’s kids! Only one of her kids cares about Southern Water Tribe culture, two other worship Air Nomads’ culture and think this one is more important! She’s such a great character, she deserves so much better!

Me, a fan of Katara: Okay, I kinda agree with the opinion on LoK, in this aspect it sucks. And if Bryke really said this thing, it sucks too. *starting learning to draw Katara to make a cool fanart with her sculpture and many other cool fanarts with her one day, because she deserves it and much more*

Me, not really a kataang shipper, reading some anti-kataang meta that I came across, because I am open to different opinions.

The meta author: We never see Katara’s POV on this relationship, only Aang’s! The kiss in “The Ember Island Players” was a horrible attack on Katara’s borders! Katara and Aang had a fight about killing Ozai and never resolved this conflict! And how can you ever ship two literal children, it’s immoral! Also, Aang is younger than Katara, he’s too immature for her! “The Legend of Korra” ruined Katara’s character! She was made Aang’s trophy wife, whose whole life is dedicated to taking care of him! She does not have a chance to fight! “The best healer” title is empty since …

Me: Well, the kiss in EIP really was not okay, and I would like to see some dialog about it before the finale. The talk solving the conflict would also be nice. I do think that this sweet embrace in the end is better than their final kiss, because yes, they are kids, I think it’s too early for them to kiss on the lips. But I know that the final kiss is important, cause this time it’s Katara making the first move, cause now Aang learned to respect her boundaries. Also, LoK sucks. With the rest I don’t agree, but people can have opinions that are different from mine…

Zutara fandom: Zutara is such a better alternative than kataang!

Me, also finding out that these meta authors – both pro-katara and anti-kataang - ship zutara: Okay, what can you offer instead?

Zutara fandom: Wouldn’t it be nice if Katara got her own chance to be a hero… by saving Zuko? Wouldn’t it be nice if Katara only ever cared for Zuko and looked after his every need? Wouldn’t it be nice if she married him and gave birth to one, two, three, four, five, six children? Also only ever helping the Fire Nation people? Wouldn’t it be nice if she cheated with Zuko on Aang? Wouldn’t it be nice if we draw zutara arts in canon setting, with Katara in Fire Nation clothes without anything blue at all/okay, some blue elements/okay, some epic or sexy blue dress that looks nothing like the Southern Water Tribe style shown in the “Avatar: the Last Airbender”, because with Zuko she will have absolutely no problems keeping her culture? Wouldn’t it be nice if she used bloodbending more often since despite everything we saw in the show there totally is something good about it?

Me: HOW ON EARTH THIS IS BETTER?! You know, I am growing more and more into kataang right now.

As usual, I won't comment on the Korra thing because it's been years since I last gave it a chance, and I can't remember much other than "I hate the knew characters and can barely recognize the old ones."

The very idea that we "Don't see Katara's side/interest in Aang/was never the one to make the first move before the finale" is already completely false and this fandom gotta stop repeating stuff Zutarians say without rewatching the show first.

She's immediately his best friend after meeting him, says she'll leave her tribe if he's banished (she obviously spoke without thinking and I doubt she would have done it, but still), and she says "The world can't aford to lose you to the Fire Nation, and neither can I" before he's taken away by Zuko. Her obvious affection for Aang right away is so obvious that Sokka immediately teases her by calling Aang her boyfriend.

She's jealous when he's paying more attention to his "fanclub" than to her in "Warriors of Kyoshi." She decided to kiss him on the cheek in "Bato Of The Water Tribe."

The kiss in "Cave Of Two Lovers" was her idea, she's offended when she thinks Aang is not interested, and blushing after they actually kiss. In "Bitter Work" she gets jealous when he calls Toph "Sifu", and glad when he does the same to her. She's visibly upset when Aang doesn't want to hug her in "The Serpent's pass" and is touched when he says she gives him hope. When he dies in "Crossroads of Destiny", Katara goes berserk - much like Oma did when Shu died, hence their musical theme as a couple being the same.

In "The Awakeing" She's clearly touched again when Aang realizes she didn't save his life at the last second, but actually brought him back from the dead, and is visibly grateful to her. She's jealous AGAIN in "The Headband" when she sees all the girls at the party being clearly charmed by him, and is then all cute, shy and flirty when they're dancing together. She's happy when he is proud of her for the whole "Painted Lady" thing. When he kisses her in the day of the eclipse, she's suprised but kisses back and blushes, and by the end of the episode is practically cuddling with him.

She only accepts Zuko into the group because Aang feels it would be the right thing to do, and she trusts him, and then THREATENS TO KILL ZUKO if he steps out of line and hurts her best friend again. And in Ember Island, when Aang full on asks her if it's true that she only sees him as little brother and would never even consider dating him, she says "I didn't say that, an actor said that"

A 14-year-old girl who had crushes on other boys (and ended up going nowhere) and is busy being a child soldier in the middle of a war being a little unsure if she likes her best friend or if she likes likes him is not the same as "She never demonstrated ANY interest in him." There moments of Kataang being one-sided (again, because Katara was into Haru and specially Jet for a little while), but it was always very clear that show was setting up a Kataang endgame - one Katara was clearly written to want.

Also I disagree with the "they're too young to kiss on the lips." I don't know if it's just a case of different cultures doing things differently, but at least in my experience here in Brazil, 12-14 years old is EXACTLY the age where most kids start actually acting on their crushes, dating, and kissing - I'm not even talking a quick, cutesy kiss, I'm talking "I witness the unpleasant sight of my classmates aggressively making out in/under the school's stairs more than enough times to realize I was not the only kid/pre-teen with hormones coming out my ears"

And about what Zutarians do to "fix" Katara, don't forget: she needs to lose any and all agency she had as character so she can be the damsel in distress Zuko will save.

[radfemsiren]

oooh i ship zutara too! i also ship katara with jet, and i ship zuko and jet together lol. i love it all three ways. my ot3 is jet/zuko/katara aka jetkotara. i hate how toxic the atla fandom is because you have zukka stans saying zutara is an evil colonizer/colonized ship, yet they ship zuko with katara's own damn brother, but i guess *~yaoi~* makes it ok. and the kataang stans are just a bunch of creeps and misogynists who will claim that katara was never a mother figure to aang (when she clearly was) and they ignore all the implicit sexism of kataang and say stuff about how aang 'deserves' katara the most.

what makes me laugh really hard is when kataang stans say that katara was like a sister to zuko because katara is a parallel to azula. oh ok, so you think katara is like a sister to zuko when nothing in the series indicates that, but you people totally deny that katara treated aang like a brother for most of the series and mothered him? zuko is also a parallel to BOTH jet and aang, doesn't that make him katara's ultimate love interest now? or does that suddenly not count to you dumbasses performing mental gymnastics. i actually don't mind zukka because it's fanon and not in the show, but kataang is horrendous and doesn't even make sense for the narrative. they had 60 episodes to develop that ship and it still sucks and feels forced. 😭

Omg literally, every single argument they make against objectively better ships they toss in the garbage the second there’s a chance for yaoi lmao… also Jet and Zuko? My emo loving 13 yr old self would’ve exploded if that ever happened lmaoo, I actually never heard of that ship but I love it. Like… why do Jet and Zuko have more chemistry than Aang and Katara? 🤭 They def hooked up in basing se after a tea shift, I’m calling it 👀

Bruh I hate Zuko and sokka ships so much, it’s like when so many fanartists always draw bubbline in their male form only… like just say you hate women. They had like zero interactions, the boiling rock was the only time they talked lol. Also, sokka can’t have everyone! He can’t get princess yue, suki, Tylee and toph having a lil crush … AND Zuko?? ENOUGH!!

[agirlnherfandoms]

Omg same though, i was all about zutara growing up! Recently, my bf saw atla for the first time, and I was watching it with him (its been years, it was so fun!)

I guess back then I was kinda using katara as a self insert?? Haha I just had the biggest crush on zuko 😭

But watching it again recently idk I found this new appreciation for kataang, and aang especially! I just think aangs so charming and cute? 🥴

Like the headband episode? I mean, come on! Gahhh that episode made a kataang stan (the near kiss, and the way they look at each other at the end of the dance 🥺). Also that last atla comic had such a cute art style, and the kataang stuff was adorable!

AND LET ME TELL YOU! WHEN👏🏼 I 👏🏼 FOUND 👏🏼 OUT 👏🏼 WE'RE 👏🏼GETTING 👏🏼 AN 👏🏼 ATLA 👏🏼 MOVIE 👏🏼 WITH 👏🏼 ADULT 👏🏼 KATAANG 👏🏼 / GAANG 👏🏼 🤯🤯 (and katara and aang as the lead characters, I CANT WAIT!)

Also one thing I hated about shipping zutara was all the aang slander that came with it by other zutara fans, I couldn't stand it 😭😭

Hi anon!! 😊

Yay love seeing people relate to the post I posted about becoming a Kataang shipper during my re-watch of ATLA 😘 (you can read it here if you haven’t already).

Firstly, yesss, watching ATLA is still fun after years. Ngl I think when I was younger (mostly because Netflix wasn’t really big), I watched Avatar but not thoroughly. It was more like, if the episode is on the TV, I’m going to watch it. I might have missed an episode or I’d have to wait till next week to see the next episode. This is compared to when I got older and I could do a full binge watch of the whole thing on Netflix (which I recommend 😉).

Secondly, haha I soooo relate to crushing on Zuko. Honestly, still do lol (literally have you seen what he looks like in the comics!?! I didn’t know his hair could get better than season 3 but 😍). And yeah, definitely understand using Katara as a self-insert for the Zuko love 😂. Love an enemies to lovers!!!

(The above two are from The Promise)

(…and these two are from The Search)

Aww yes, I don’t think I paid much attention to Aang when I was younger (other than him being the main character lol) because of how much I loved Zuko. But truly, every single character is so amazing that they all deserve the same amount of love and attention 🥹.

THAT DANCE!! I don’t know what’s in the air at the Fire Nation but Aang was too smooth. After watching that episode, my standards went up by 5000%. I feel like that might have been the episode on my rewatch that made me think a bit differently about Kataang. I think prior to that I was still fully on the Zxtara (going to x the ship name out again in case shippers don’t want to see this xx) train but then that episode happened and I thought this is fricking cuteeee (then of course proceeded to rewatch again).

I’m so happy they’re giving us more adult Gaang content!! So so excited for that movie 😍 and all the Kataang content to come.

Yeah, and on your final point, I do remember lots of Aang hate from some shippers (I do think there might still be some even now). Definitely not saying all Zxtara shippers hate Aang (and definitely don’t think that was what anon was implying)!!! I do think it was a small minority who were probably just trying to find an excuse to hate Aang but I have seen many Zxtara shippers who absolutely adore Aang which always makes me happy because he is a sweet sunshine who deserves all the love and appreciation ☺️.

(This above picture still forever makes me soft 🥹)

-

Disclaimer just in case you didn’t read the post anon’s replying too / you don’t want to read it lol: I still ship Zxtara and this isn’t Zxtara hate. I just found that rewatching ATLA has made me ship Kataang as well. Perfectly fine if you favour one ship over the other! I’ve just found love for both :)

-

Love hearing opinions because none of my friends or family want to talk about fandoms with me so please keep them coming 🥺.

[invnciblesummer]

Friendly reminder that you are not obligated to like or even feel strongly in any way about a certain character or ship in order to be considered a true fan of the piece of media that that character or ship belongs to. Even if that character is a main character, and even if the ship is canon.

[firelxdykatara]

no but what the fuck is this

(For context, apparently this is from Avatar, the Last Airbender: Legacy, which came out in October 2015. Given its contents, I’m no longer surprised that it had much less of an impact on the fandom [I’d only vaguely heard reference to it in the past and never seen images or excerpts from it] than Legacy of the Fire Nation, despite the latter having come out only two years ago.)

I’m just gonna go chunk by chunk here, because. Oh man I hate it. (A pre-emptive tl;dr: katara deserved better, why is her letter of memories to her son ENTIRELY ABOUT AANG FROM BEGINNING TO END)

Copious amounts of Aang and Kataang salt ahead. You’ve been warned.

Your father asked me to write you a letter to include in this book of memories. I hope that when you’re older and look back on this letter and the rest of this book, you will feel the pride of your heritage and gain a deeper understanding of who you are and how you came to be the man you will grow into.

Ok, so, right away I’m struck with a bone-deep sense of foreboding, and it’s entirely because I already know how LoK handled the subject of Tenzin’s heritage--by fully ignoring the fact that he’s half Water Tribe. If you didn’t go into the show knowing who his parents were, or who Aang’s wife was, you would never know that he had any heritage other than the Air Nomads to speak of by looking at or listening to him. None of his children are waterbenders (even though, by all rights, at least one of them should have been), and none of them look even the slightest like they’ve got any Water Tribe blood in them at all--probably because their father doesn’t, either. Tenzin’s mother could’ve been literally anyone else, and you’d never know it, because his entire appearance was based solely on Aang.

So the fact that Aang ‘asked [her] to write [Tenzin] a letter’ instead of, idk, Katara choosing on her own to write her son a letter for his book of memories does not bode well for the rest of this thing. Especially since, given his portrayal throughout the entirety of LoK, I have great reason to believe that the ‘pride of [his] heritage’ and ‘deeper understanding’ of himself that he’ll supposedly gain through this letter will be entirely centered on Aang and the Air Nomads, with little to no meaningful input from Katara about her own family, history, or contributions to any of these events.

Because why would knowing anything about his mother give him any greater insight into who he is as a person and where he comes from, right? /sarcasm

When I first met your father, he was a carefree boy, only occupied with having fun and playing games. Zooming down a snowy hill on the back of an otter penguin was of much greater concern to him than the weighty problems of a world torn about by war.

Then he discovered that he was the Avatar. And when he awoke in our time, he blamed himself for the war, fearing that his choice to run away from his responsibilities had caused the horrors that descended upon our world--events he believed he could have prevented if only he had accepted his destiny.

This is not doing much to assuage my fears going into this letter, lmfao.

First of all, I really have to question why this information is going into a letter like this, presumably to be read by Tenzin when he’s a grown man, given the opening paragraph. This is, so far, reading like the kind of letter you would write for your infant child if their other parent had been killed either before or shortly after their birth. This is the kind of thing you preserve for posterity when you know your child will never actually get to know their other parent themselves, and you want them to have something solid to cling to.

Tenzin was in his mid thirties when Aang passed away. Literally all of this information is stuff he probably learned himself by growing up at Aang’s knee--and, indeed, he certainly had more time to learn it than either of his elder siblings, considering they were left home with their mother while he was taken traveling all around the world to learn about ‘his heritage’ (read: the only heritage that apparently mattered to him). But I suppose there’s no one else Katara could talk about in a letter like this, no other family member who Tenzin would never have a chance to meet who was a formative influence on her life and taught her valuable lessons she might want to pass down to her children, including her youngest son... none at all...

(Heavy sarcasm, if you couldn’t tell, because Kya--the woman Tenzin’s older sister was named after--is RIGHT THERE, THANKS.)

Secondly, this is probably me nitpicking at this point and could probably be handwaved somehow if I were interested in giving anyone the benefit of the doubt here--but as I’m not, I’m gonna point out how the way this is worded makes it sound like Aang didn’t know he was the Avatar until after he came out of the ice, which is blatantly untrue. Finding out he was the Avatar is part of why he ran away in the first place, and while the letter seems to acknowledge that, it further makes it sound like the war was already happening when he ran away, but it wasn’t. The war started with Sozin’s attack on the Air Temples, which didn’t happen until after Aang ran away. It’s basically a mess of confusing wording and again, I realize it’s a nitpick, but I’m feeling nitpicky.

Furthermore, Aang’s guilt over running away is never actually given the kind of focus it really should have been. It’s touched on a few times--most notably in the episode where he met Guru Pathik, who really should have been revisited in Book 3, but that’s a rant for another day--but his chronic running away problem never actually goes away, and I think a huge part of the reason for that is the fact that he never fully grapples with how running away is his major flaw.

He keeps running away from his responsibilities and duties until pretty close to the very end of the show. His running away thing is still so pronounced that, when he’s lured away from his friends in a trance at the start of the series finale, all of them believe he ran away again. Including Katara, who has most staunchly believed in him as the Avatar, as the symbol of hope for the world, from the very beginning of the show. I genuinely wish that his guilt over running away potentially leading to the destruction of his people were actually solidly addressed in the narrative, because then maybe working through that guilt in book 3 could have been part of his narrative journey towards reclaiming the Avatar State (and even learning energy bending), rather than being launched into a conveniently-placed rock half-way through the final Big Bad fight.

(If you get to the very end of your show and all the hero needed to actually get his shit together and defeat the big bad was a halfway decent chiropractor, you may have fucked up the central story line somewhere. Just saying.)

One of the great joys of my life, and--I realized over the course of time--the thing that caused me to fall in love with your father, was watching him grow from the joyful, playful boy he was when I first met him to the amazing, thoughtful, powerful and wise man he became on his journey to accept his fate and embrace the power and responsibilities of being the Avatar.

I think what I loved the most about watching and being a part of your father’s journey was that even as he gained wisdom and took on more responsibilities, he never lost his youthful joy and his love of games and jokes. I’ve never known anyone else who could be so serious about the important things in his life while at the same time embracing silliness so completely.

Ok, first of all, that last sentence left Sokka looking into the camera like he was on The Office. And I think that’s kind of what this letter is encapsulating for me--the fact that, after they got together, Katara’s personality just became... 100% Aang. She was Aang’s Super Supportive Girlfriend, then his Super Supportive Wife, and the Super Supportive Mother of his children, and... literally nothing else.

Even in this letter for her son that’s supposed to be about his heritage, the only one who matters is Aang. Not Katara, or her beliefs, or anyone in her family who was important to her. Just. Aang.

Secondly... she must be talking about some kind of growth that happened after the comics, because quite frankly, none of that is true of Aang at any point in the series (and in the comics he regresses, rather than embracing growth and wisdom). And it’s entirely because of the myriad ways Aang’s character arc was bungled in Book 3. But he never achieves true wisdom or enlightenment, he never embraced his responsibilities or his duty as the Avatar (until the very end, and... gah, the less said about Aang in the comics, the better), and he remains selfish and self-centered until... the very end of the show, tbh. Even on the back of Lion Turtle, he retains his myopic worldview, arguing with the past Avatars who are trying to counsel him--from places of considerably more experience and wisdom, given their lives and perspectives--to deal with the threat Ozai posed decisively. (Which, to be clear, he didn’t. He left Ozai alive for Zuko to deal with, and one of the few things the comics introduced which made sense was the plot point where a group of disgruntled Fire Nation citizens wanted to put Ozai back in power.)

It really just feels like Katara is talking about a completely different person, to be honest, and I get the feeling that I’m supposed to recognize Aang here, but I just don’t. Because none of that work was done in the show proper.

AND FOR ANOTHER THING... sorry I’m just so sick of literally everything in Katara’s life revolving around Aang. Why couldn’t she tell Tenzin about the work she did to restore her people? To rebuild her home? To train the next generation of Southern Waterbenders (of whom she was likewise the last remaining bender, protecting a dying style of bending that it was vitally important for her to pass on)? (I mean, besides the fact that none of this got much pagetime in the comics, let alone LoK, and North&South had it’s own slew of problems lol) Is there nothing significant in her life that would have an impact on Tenzin’s future and legacy besides her relationship with Aang?????

Throughout his life, your father not only had to carry the weight of being the Avatar, and of being the Avatar during the greatest crisis our world has ever faced, but he also had to shoulder the burden of being the last Airbender--the final surviving member of a proud and beautiful people. He carried that weight with him every day of his life, again blaming himself for not being there to help save his people.

And then you came along and everything changed--and not just in the way things change for every parent when a child is born. When we discovered that  you too were an Airbender, and that the Airbenders would not die out with the passing of your father, we were filled with joy. A terrible burden was lifted from your father’s shoulders, which only added to our happiness in welcoming you to our family.

Here’s something else that really bothers me about how post-canon atla lore was handled--because the whole idea that Airbenders would have ‘died out’ if Tenzin hadn’t been a bender is totally bullshit. Neither of Katara’s parents were benders--and unless I’m mistaken, neither were Lao or Poppy Beifong. Which means that both Katara and Toph came from nonbending families, and developed bending according to their heritage.

So why the Hell did it fall on Tenzin’s shoulders alone--when he was a child yet, why the hell were Katara and Aang so eager to settle this ‘terrible burden’ on a single child’s shoulders--when he had two siblings who had just as much Air Nomad heritage as him? And, yes, Kya turned out to be gay, but a) she could still have learned and passed on the teachings of her father’s people, and b) there’s still Bumi, and no reason for him to be unable to pass on Airbending just because he was a nonbender. Any of his potential children could’ve been airbenders or waterbenders, and he should’ve been able to pass on his heritage to them just like Tenzin did to his own kids.

And none of this is getting into how much I hate the idea that Aang was truly ‘the last Airbender’--I will absolutely die on the hill of believing that they should have found a pocket of surviving Air Nomads who went into hiding and managed to survive (if the Sun Warriors managed, there’s no reason why parts of a nomadic people would not have survived--and don’t feed me the BS excuse the comics gave for why Sozin was able to kill the stragglers, because I refuse to believe that he’d catch every single Air Nomad that way, especially when we already know that other descendants managed to survive--see: Kyoshi’s descendants who all have at least distant Air Nomad heritage), or at the very least discovering that descendants of survivors (LIKE TY LEE TYVM) were still alive and, with the end of the war and the healing of the rift between the nations, Airbending started to return to the world. (And that way we’d have avoided the bullshit Harmonic Convergence plot point.)

-cough- I said not getting into it. So moving on.

The Airbenders’ traditions will live on through you, and nothing could make your father and me happier and more proud. I look forward to watching you grow into manhood as I did with your father. And, unlike your father, you will have him there to guide your training every step of the way.

And so, my son, I wish for you the carefree joys of youth, the knowledge that comes with learning and experience, and the strength to accept and relish the power and responsibility of being an Airbender.

Your father and I will be there for you every step of the way. Know that we both will always love you very much.

And there we go. The very end of the letter, and Katara hasn’t talked about herself, her family, her heritage, her legacy, or her people for so much as a single sentence.

I already mentioned how much bullshit it is that Tenzin is the only one who has the ‘burden’ of passing on Air Nomad heritage, teachings, and bending knowledge--but I also just have to laugh a little bit at, I look forward to watching you grow into manhood as I did with your father. Great job at toning down the maternal vibes with Kataang, guys! 😂😂😂 (Yes, it’s a nitpick, but again, I’m feeling petty, and it’s not my fault they wrote Katara directly comparing raising Tenzin to raising Aang lmao.)

I’m really not sure what else to say. I’m still kind of floored that Katara didn’t spend a single word of this letter actually talking about herself, her accomplishments, the heritage she was hoping to pass down from her people to her youngest child. It really just throws into even sharper relief how much Tenzin was his father’s son, and not at all his mother’s. His mom could’ve been literally anyone else on the planet, and nothing about this letter would have changed. Nothing about his character design or history would have changed. Katara had zero impact on his life, and extra-canonical materials like this make that even more obvious than the show itself did. And it makes me so fucking sad.

Katara deserved so much fucking better.

[seyaryminamoto]

As someone, who's favourite character is Zuko, let me just say that your analysis about the Southern Raiders is spot on. Something about that episode (especially the way Zuko acted) always felt a little... off to me. And I could never figure out what it was exactly and considering the fact that discussion about this episode centered around the Kataang vs Zutara, I thought I was the only one who felt that way. So, I guess thanks for putting my thoughts into words.

Oh, I really feel ya, anon. If you actually don't look at the episode from a shipping point of view, which seems to be the focus of most the fandom, a lot of unpleasant things really start sticking out. I'm personally neutral to the Kataang vs. Zutara debate, I see good points and drawbacks to both ships, and no one's going to convince me that this episode proved the superiority of either pairing, especially when the shipping interpretations have never been important to me when analyzing this episode. People can say Aang is right in the end, they can say Zuko understands Katara's plight better (which, considering Aang has lost even more people he loved than Zuko has, he certainly should have understood Katara's suffering quite well too), but focusing on whether Zuko or Aang are the angel or the devil on Katara's shoulders practically blinds everyone to the very glaring and mindboggling flaws in this episode's writing, imo.

In general, the concept of Zuko's life-changing field trips with the three Gaang members he'd wronged the most is fine and fun for most people, but from the first time I watched the show it felt like the production team knew they were pressed for time and needed some veeeery quick and effective solution for Zuko to gain acceptance in the Gaang ASAP despite all the bad blood there. I can imagine a lot of people love these episodes, but admittedly I wouldn't rank any of them among my favorites because, as interesting as some of their concepts could be, if executed right, my immersion certainly wasn't as strong as with the rest of the show due to the nagging feeling that this was all for the sake of redeeming Zuko in the eyes of each Gaang member... and not necessarily in the eyes of the audience.

They get away with it, of course, because by this point in time, the audience is 100% conditioned to love the Gaang and Zuko, and if you see them getting along, you should be rejoicing in their team-up... but if you put some emotional distance between yourself as a viewer and the events of these episodes, their writing leaves a lot to be desired, especially in the concept of giving Zuko a quick whitewashing in the eyes of Aang, Sokka and Katara, one after the other, so they can genuinely accept him as a teammate and friend. If we'd seen similar trips frequently or occasionally in the rest of the show, with two specific members of the team taking off on an adventure by themselves, it might not be so glaringly obvious (and even... artificial? I guess?) that they're trying to quick-redeem him for each of them here, but on top of it happening thrice, it's literally happening one after the other, too. There's no episodes in-between, it's just literally a four-parter arc of "let's help Zuko become friends with these three".

The plotlines to be dealt with in these episodes are basically catered to each Gaang member, tailor-made life-changing field trips based on whatever they'll value the most, all of it conveniently possible and doable in the span of time they have between Zuko's joining of their group and the show's finale. Aang needs to learn firebending, Sokka needs to save his dad, Katara is permanently grieving for her mother's death. And so, Zuko to the rescue! If he helps them with their personal character quests, he gets 50+ approval points! :'D Honestly, I'm absolutely not against the notion of Zuko befriending them, obviously not, but the methods through which they chose to make it happen simply might not be the finest...?

Zuko loses his ability to bend because he "lost his rage", but he's still angry pretty often, the show even spoofs its own writing by showing him losing his patience at Sokka... while at the same time trying to sell that Zuko "isn't angry" anymore? Zuko helps break out random prisoners from the Boiling Rock without taking a single moment to actually learn who they are, why they were locked up, and without pondering if they deserve to be helped or if perhaps they're genuinely dangerous? Zuko gives Katara every possible tool and information she needs to take revenge on Yon Rha, because, loosely quoting his own words, he "cares what she thinks of him"...?

How about if we'd seen Zuko trying to connect with Fire Nation people, to help his fellow Fire Nation citizens, especially the ones who were living in dreadful conditions, like the ones in the Jang Hui river village? How about if we'd seen Zuko saving lives rather than threatening to take them? How about if we'd seen Zuko actually reasoning with his anger, and either working his way out of it, or repurposing it consciously, or making legitimate, personal efforts to find a new source of strength for his firebending through self-reflection, above all else?

We didn't really need sudden one-on-one field trips to teach Aang, Katara and Sokka to trust Zuko: we needed Zuko to prove himself worthy of that trust, to show how much he has changed, to literally contrast his new behavior with the old, to actually see that the guy no longer jumps into violence-mode 24/7, that he's willing to listen to other people's opinions or wisdom, that he wants to learn better when he knows he's misguided or misunderstanding something or another. Would he have become BFFs with any of them in four episodes if this had happened? Well, it definitely would have happened with Aang, the other two would have been trickier, but they definitely would have been more willing to accept him if they actually got to SEE that the changes in Zuko weren't skin-deep. Katara can be as thick-headed and stubborn as she may want to be, but I have no doubts she wouldn't have been able to hate Zuko as much as she used to if she'd seen him helping people, much like she often wants their group to do. But instead, they don't get to see the actual changes and growth... they just get their biggest goals and wishes satisfied, and that's enough to decide Zuko's trustworthy, no matter whatever sketchy behavior he displays in later episodes.

I absolutely appreciate the worldbuilding context we gain for the raids on the Water Tribe through The Southern Raiders, but I don't think this was an organic way to tell the story of how Zuko became friends with the Gaang. If pressed, I'd even say that Zuko's overt desperation to be their friend is OOC, to a degree: if this guy actually knows how dangerous his father's plans are (and he's supposed to :'D), how isn't he focusing on that side of things, when he's always been such a go-getter? It's not like he grew out of this sort of ends-justify-the-means behavior, seeing as he's absolutely obsessed with stopping his father ASAP, by any means possible, in the finale, when there was no such urgency to be found ever since he joined the Gaang. How isn't he more worried about stopping Ozai than about becoming best friends with the Gaang? Immediately sharing everything he's learned about Ozai's intentions of destroying the whole world might not make them friends instantaneously, but it would certainly get someone like Sokka to take his information seriously and immediately begin strategizing how to counter Ozai's plans. Instead, Zuko spent all those weeks, over a month, even, teaching Aang firebending, going on field trips and hanging out with his new friends in Ember Island. Once you have all the cards on deck and you actually look at all of them at once, doesn't it feel like there were so many more ways to achieve what the show was going for, far more effective ways than through the "let's be friends with Zuko" arc?

Ultimately, there's very little display of growth, in my opinion, in this small arc, on Zuko's side, despite the most obvious and reasonable way to earn the trust of the Gaang would be by outright showing them how much he's grown. I won't deny I appreciate that the writers respected his personality and didn't just warp him into the perfect good softboi the way the fandom apparently interprets him, but even if Zuko was going to be cranky and speak one-liners like "I'm never happy", it wasn't impossible to write better situations for him to connect with the Gaang's members and gain their trust. Even if the writers were set on having these episodes happen exactly as they did, they absolutely could have been written in a much better way, to create an explicit and direct contrast between Zuko's early behavior and the new Zuko's behavior when it comes to things that matter (most the parallels I've seen the fandom drawing are things like "oh look he hated tea before but now he brews it for his friends! So much growth!"... would've been nice to see the growth when it came to a lot of other things, too, if the growth really was there? Am I rite...?).

I may just be influenced by other redemption arcs that focus mainly on characters having common goals and working together to achieve them, then becoming friends in the process... but I really don't see how Zuko's character benefited from these episodes. Yes, bridges were built... but they absolutely could have been built in a more organic way that didn't make people like myself (and a few others) question if Zuko had learned or grown at all, considering the way he behaves isn't all that distant from the Zuko we've seen and known throughout the rest of the show. And the fact that he really seems to have learned nothing in The Southern Raiders once you reach the show's finale... you're basically asked to take for granted Zuko did learn a lot of lessons because he says he did, to assume he's going to put them into practice sometime in the future despite he has chances to do it during the show itself but never does, simply because they drop the ball upon every opportunity to show how much he's changed.

I really don't blame his character at all, when it comes to these shortcomings... it's seriously, genuinely, a problem with the writing department. Take a look through the fandom and you'll see thousands of people who claim Zuko's character arc is the most touching, complex and beautiful writing they ever have seen... and why? Because we're in the face of tell-don't-show :'D most people's perception of Zuko's character are based not so much on HOW Zuko displays his growth, it's strongly based on him stating he made progress, even if there's too many instances where the growth simply seems to have fallen to the wayside or gone forgotten for the sake of a plotline or another. Zuko absolutely could have been written far better than this, he could absolutely have the redemption arc his fans are sure he does have, but for me... there's way too many gaps in logic, too many missed opportunities, to truly think his growth was as extraordinary as a lot of people are hung up on saying it was.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

001: atla favorite friendship? (also hi hope you’re having a good day:) )

atla

favorite character:

i mean. this is prolly pretty freaking obvious but uhhhh. sokka <3 my absolute Beloved <3

least favorite character:

zhao. he’s the biggest cis fish of them all :| but also the owl for being mean to sokka and also hahn for being mean to sokka AND yue don’t test me sirs

five favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

ooo okay,,, zukka, yueki, jetru, mailee, kataang, & jinzula,,, look ik that’s six but idc ajsbwknsks

character i find most attractive:

,,, sokka. okay no but other than the obvious,,, idk katara is beautiful and lovely and deserves more appreciation <3 but they’re all also like children so idk man sjdbksndnd

character i would marry:

i mean. again, they’re all children so i feel less comfortable answering this one lol

character i would be best friends with:

SOKKA okay but other than him. mai <3

a random thought:

suki is scared of most animals but especially polar bear dogs and atla equivalent of geese <3 also we need to talk more about the fact that zuko kicked a table in half we don’t talk about that enough

an unpopular opinion:

uhhhhhh we should stop babying zuko because there’s a difference between letting characters feel emotions / recover and changing their whole personality to coddle them and make them more important than literally everyone else <3 also anyone who says that katara needs to stop talking about her mom can catch these hands,,, you know who you are sir (no one on here lol—someone from a class last semester lol)

my canon otp:

zu—wait. um. kataang:) no i do truly love kataang lots <3 v cute !!!

my non-canon otp:

hehe zukka <3

most badass character:

suki. like,,, come on, y’all. she. my beloved. but also mai tbh… and prolly ty lee lol

most epic villain:

uhhhhh mai & ty lee??? idk ozai & zhao are cis fishes and so is hahn and i’m not calling jet a villain and i just. azula deserves so much better from the show and fandom so i kind of don’t want to say her out of spite akbsksnsn

pairing i am not a fan of:

oooooooooo ztara, obviously, any time zuko or sokka are shipped with toph or aang too. and obviously anything pedophillic. also jet.ko because i’ve seen too many abusive jet fics for me to actually like it:( like they’ve totally kissed but i got mad at fic writers and what they did to jet <3

character i feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

i mean aside from azula because. the comics:) jet deserved a lot better and i wish so many didn’t see him as this irredeemable villain. had this conversation a lot too:(

favourite friendship:

suki & aang !!! not to like. rec my own fic but like. if anyone wants to read a suki & aang friendship oneshot i wrote,,, here’s the link lol

character i most identify with:

S.O.K.K.A. it’s about the feeling like you have nothing to contribute and that everyone is so much better than you and that you hold everyone back and aren’t good for anything✌🏻

character i wish i could be:

i mean. sokka. but Other than sokka, because obvious, i’d say yue !!!

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

I find it really intriguing how the ATLA writers could have gone a “brotherly love” route with Zuko and Aang, but they never did. Even in LOK, the only thing that I remember Iroh saying about their relationship was that they canonically became the best of friends and that Zuko knew Aang better than anyone, even more than Katara and their children. I find the direction of their relationship a contrast to how often the bond between the male protagonist and the male antagonist that are spiritually linked in other media is reduced to “they were like brothers” and put aside for the respective heterosexual romances of the leads, even though the relationships between the leads often have homoerotic subtext and can be interpreted through a queer lens. I guess what I’m wondering is: would you classify Zuko and Aang’s relationship as brotherly? Do you support interpretations where their relationship is viewed as brotherly? And finally (I’m sorry for all of the questions): why do you think the ATLA writers - who seem to mostly be composed of cishet men - never took the “brotherly love” route and left the nature of their relationship ambiguous?

This ask has been in my inbox for a Hot Minute 💀 my apologies, my friend. And since I haven’t seen LOK, I won’t try to speak on the front. Before I continue, though, @likealittleheartbeat has an AMAZING analysis here about the interpretation of Aang and Zuko’s relationship through a queer-platonic lens that I found to be an incredible read and arguably could answer this ask on its own, lol!

I guess the general “issue” that must be addressed to answer these questions is simply how we define brotherly. That “we” can be divided into the viewers and the writers, only adding another layer of complexity. Because the reality is that we can’t jump into the creators minds and see exactly how they intended Zuko and Aang’s relationship to be interpreted. We can make deductions, e.g. the existence of Kataang and Maiko suggests Zuko and Aang were not intended to have a romantic relationship within canon (duh, lol). In fact, you could even add another division to the “we” - the writers, the viewers, and the characters themselves (i.e. interpretation through the cultural lenses that inspired the show).

All of this is to say that there is not going to be one agreed-upon definition of “brotherly,” lol! Since you seem to be asking for my personal opinions, I’ll go with my personal definition. If anyone has differing thoughts in response to these questions, please feel free to add them in a comment or rb! I think there’s a lot to explore here and my sole opinion is Not the be-all and end-all, lmao.

So, what is my personal definition of “brotherly”? I’m not going to try to make a formal definition, lol, but the gist of my interpretation is a platonic relationship akin to that of siblings. To me, there is a difference between having a “brotherly relationship” with someone versus a “friendship” (I almost used “friendly relationship” but that didn’t feel right jskdfhakdls). I think these two can overlap and/or be the same, but - for example - I have friends who I would say without hesitation that I am incredibly close with, but I also would not classify that friendship as “sisterly.” (Again, these are strictly my personal thoughts, and I encourage further discussion in comments/rbs!)

I’ll take your questions one at a time:

Would you classify Zuko and Aang’s relationship as brotherly?

Personally? Probably not. To me, there is a sense of superficiality associated with the term “brotherly” that in my eyes can be reductive to platonic relationships between men (can be, not always lol). I think with Zuko and Aang, the relationship just runs much deeper than “brotherly” can connote. For one, they are the primary narrative foils of the show! The only relationship that comes close to theirs in terms of narrative significance is Kataang (which is a very different dichotomy, btw, I’m not trying to compare them lol). We have numerous episodes dedicated to the parallels between Aang and Zuko, including but not limited to “The Storm” and “The Avatar and the Fire Lord.” I mean, this is an actual quote from the latter episode:

Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?

We see variants of this line and the notion of friendship itself associated throughout that episode explicitly with Roku and Sozin, Roku and Gyatso, and of course the Gaang at the end, but implicitly we also know it’s about Aang and Zuko, too. Aang says, “Everyone, even the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation, have to be treated like they’re worth giving a chance.” One common take with this line that I’ve seen is interpreting it as foreshadowing for Aang’s decision to spare Ozai - which obviously is a fair assessment - but we cannot also ignore how much it applies to Zuko joining the Gaang. Specifically, Zuko reconciling with Aang.

We all know Aang was the first person to extend friendship to Zuko back in “The Blue Spirit” and tbh, after he saw Appa licking Zuko, you can tell Aang was nearly willing to extend a second chance to Zuko then and there lol. Aang and Zuko’s friendship, them being drawn together, is a relationship that transcends lifetimes, transcends social norms/expectations, transcends a loss greater than anyone can imagine (for Aang) and offers a new opportunity arguably far more than deserved (for Zuko). I think ascribing a qualifier of “brotherly” to their relationship therefore limits this transcendence because of how much their dynamic encompasses.

Do you support interpretations where their relationship is viewed as brotherly?

Of course! One of the reasons I love A:TLA - especially my small corner of the fandom - is how many interpretations that every relationship presents, be it a small “difference” (such as calling Zuko and Aang’s relationship “brotherly”) or a more drastic one (exploring fanon possibilities with rarepairs, let’s go #AangRarepairWeek 😎). So even if this interpretation isn’t one I’m inclined to in the literal sense (i.e. it’s the “brotherly” qualifier I feel I dislike, because I do love platonic Zukaang as much as romantic Zukaang), I absolutely encourage others to make the most of their fandom experience and product/support content that they enjoy!

Why do you think the ATLA writers - who seem to mostly be composed of cishet men - never took the “brotherly love” route and left the nature of their relationship ambiguous?

I will say that we don’t really have any way of knowing the sexualities and gender identities of every single A:TLA writer, lol. I’m not saying they were all queer in some way, of course, but I just want to establish that we don’t and can’t know unless told. If that makes sense 😂

As I mentioned earlier, I have no way of getting inside the writers’ minds to determine their intentions when they were writing Zuko and Aang’s relationship, so all you’re gonna get here are my best guesses lmao! For one, there wasn’t really a need to outright label Zuko and Aang as having a “brotherly” relationship. The existence of Kataang and Maiko again speak for themselves. Most viewers - especially casual watchers - don’t need the show to state “these two only love each other in a brotherly way” to conclude that the relationship was platonic (or rather, was not romantic), especially considering that the show was made in the mid-2000s (i.e. sad but true, most people weren’t watching A:TLA with a queer lens 😔). So I wouldn’t say they left the relationship “ambiguous” so much as there wasn’t need to qualify it further than simply being platonic.

Of course, I do think there is an ambiguity that comes with Aang and Zuko’s relationship, which I love to exploit in my Zukaang fics 😌. Was that ambiguity intentional? Again, I’m inclined to say no. But I can’t speak with certainty and - as I discussed earlier - I truly think Aang and Zuko’s relationship would be limited by being called “brotherly” when their connection runs so deeply and is intertwined so heavily with the spiritual themes of the show. Thus, it’s possible the writers were purposefully emphasizing that spirituality by not labelling them as “brotherly”! But as I said, there’s really no way to be sure.

At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters how someone chooses to label Aang and Zuko’s relationship. I mean, I’m always a little horrified when a person completely overlooks their narrative significance as foils (because I personally can’t imagine dismissing either of their importance to the other), but hey, to each their own. Brotherly, queerplatonic, romantic, and hell, anything in-between - these interpretations are anyone’s for the taking. Have fun with it! 💛

(I hope this at least kind of resembles the answer you were looking for, anon 😂)

[southslates]

a rant about the saturation of zvkka fandom

as a tyzula shipper i get really surprised by how the most popular lgbt/wlw atla ship before the renaissance fell off when it started; to the point where tyzula fandom still exists but it’s much smaller and constantly made fun of for being abusive 

and i think this is in part because of purity culture, where there can’t be nuance in anything and therefore tyzula is abusive and we can’t ship it! but i also think that as @army-of-mai-lovers outlined in this amazing post ty lee and azula aren’t love interests for any of the boys in the show, especially sokka and zuko, so content for them doesn’t need to exist because they simply don’t need to be sidelined. most tyzula content that exists is tyzula centric; not maiko or sukka or kataang or zutara centric, but tyzula centric. it explores ty lee and azula as characters because their chemistry is seen

you can see that most of the popular wlw atla ships in the renaissance are at least partly characterized by their relationship w zvkka, and clearly i have a lot of problems with that fandom, least of them all being the times i’ve been called a homophobe for disliking it. and one really large issue i have with zvkka fandom in general is its saturation of atla content to the point that it’s sidelined into a different au, that so many shippers see zvkka in atla when it just . . . isn’t there. it wasn’t the most popular ship before the renaissance because for fourteen years there just wasn’t . . . anything there. and i don’t know why it’s gotten popular, likely the help of some big name blogs (including the one that came up with homophobic katara) and the fact that fandom has started to really tend towards mlm ships more and more, and honestly good for zvkkas, the ship is cute, but uh

essentially just that even though zvkka has been the largest atla ship with the renaissance, it is not the most popular atla ship and it likely never will be because of that lack of longevity. there’s a lot of issues with misogyny and migratory mlm ships in fandom and i really, really see it here. zvkka fandom =/ atla fandom, atla has always and should always be more than about ships. of course i stick to mainly zutara/tyzula corners of fandom, which are super far removed from zvkka fandom in general for obvious reasons, but it’s almost sad to be entrenched in twitter and general tumblr fandom where people who’ve joined with the renaissance characterize zvkka as such a large feature of atla when atla as a fandom has always been surprisingly great with its characterization of women (atla specifically, ignoring lok etc). i’d never thought that the subtle misogyny would increase in the year 2020? and obviously as a zutara shipper i know that our fandom has had its issues with mai before, i am the last person to deny that, but i think that we are growing past it and trying to be better

one thing that i really hate seeing here is the idea that zvkka shippers “solved the ship war” by making zvkka larger than the kataang/zutara ship war. and i ship both zutara and kataang and one reason i absolutely hate this take is because i am in love with the fact that for fifteen years, whatever side you were on, atla discourse was about katara, what the brown woman in the show deserved. you can’t solve a ship war by shoe-horning her into kataang because that’s easy for your ship, because you’re just throwing away her agency and the entire point of the ship war. i actually pity a lot of people who mainly ship kataang because kataang; a ship between an asian monk and brown woman, which is canonically good representation, which is canon, is being pushed aside and made a sideship for a completely fanon mlm ship

maybe there’s a fetishization aspect in there? like i hate to make broad claims but the amount of zvkka nsfw for one, and then all the incredibly racist tropes i’ve seen there; the infantilization and feminization of zuko and the way sokka is supposed to be a big strong man or something just reeks of racism, especially when written by white people. it just strikes me as mischaracterization and the input of certain characters into boxes, because people don’t want to ship sokka and zuko, they want to ship mlm insert one and two. and i hate this because their dynamic is super interesting, canonically! i’d love to see how sokka with a plan and on-his-feet zuko work together :)

i mean fetishization is kind of prominent in internalized misogyny presenting itself as wanting two men to have sex to exclude women from the narrative, and in the post i mentioned above the op’s point was that atla fandom’s misogyny presents as unique because they don’t hate women, they just treat them like they’re really one-dimensional, and at the end of the day everything must come back to the dynamic between two guys who were intended to be cishet (i headcanon zuko as bi but i’m not stupid, this show is from 2005, it is what it is)

anyway i don’t know where i’m going with this! but i absolutely love atla wlw and i wish that the female characters could be analyzed further in depth than they are, and i’m still at a total loss to why fandom-- made by women, for women, and often queer women-- is willing to maintain so much misogyny in the guise of upholding queer rep in fanon ships with gay men. 

[kataraslove]

atla and lok controversy memes: my take. no offense to any iroh fans, i just feel like he’s constantly praised for character traits that katara and aang are hated for. other takes include: aang deserves so much better from the fandom & the southern water tribe deserves so much better than what it got from the franchise. also! the ember island players has now become the bane of my existence ever since i read that stupid fucking meta from a self-proclaimed “katara stan” stating that her hypersexualized eip portrayal had Feminist Power (TM) in that very derogratory scene where eip katara is throwing herself at eip zuko. just thinking about it again creeps me out - I’ll definitely finish that meta this weekend.

as for LOK, asami has my whole heart. getting rid of the past lives was the worst decision known to man and a huge fuck you to this franchise that bryke are still suffering from the consequences of (as they should). zaheer is a Reddit incel who read a wiki page and discovered the term anarchy for the first time. he has completely bastardized everything that the air nomads stands for and i hate seeing people say that he’s a powerful airbender by any means. bolin is literally the most overrated character in the entire franchise and his relationship with opal is just terrible. justice for opal. this is also fuelled by the fact that i saw several people state that bopal is better written than kataang and korrasami.

rants aside, feel free to reblog this with your own version of the controversial meme!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I’m confused about how ZK shippers think Aang and Zuko are.

One Minute, they’ll go on and on about how “Aang doesn’t give Katara enough attention” only to go “Aang gives Katara too much attention”. One basically said “Aang isn’t nice enough” and less than 24 hours later, they said “Aang’s nice to everyone”.

In one post. “Zuko’s a bad boyfriend to Mai” and then “Ship Zutara because Zuko will be a good boyfriend”. “Aang was wrong to say Katara should forgive Yon Rha because He even supported his parent being killed.” Yet say “Zuko’s way better than Aang because He supported his parent being killed.”

You know how flat-earthers can come up every kind of justification as to why the Earth being flat would not make stuff day and night, seasons, and eclipses impossible, but then when you combine all of these justifications, they all contradict each other, clearly showing they''re not real scientific theories/possibilities, but just half-assed excuses these people made up to not admit they're clearly wrong?

It's the same with Zutarians. They want to deny Zuko cares about Mai, and that Katara cares about Aang, because any acknowledgement of how meaningful these relationships actually were exposes that "zutara was robbed of it's deserved endgame" is nonsense.

However, these people are not satisfied with just trying to make the fandom not ship these pairings - they want everyone to HATE Aang and Mai and see them as awful people. And their way of doing that is then claim they are selfish, abusive monsters that don't actually like Katara and Zuko - and for that to work, they need to temporarely acknowledge that yes, Katara and Zuko actively seek to be with Aang and Mai, so they can pretend their affection is taken for granted and mocked at all times.

All that matters is making Kataang and Maiko look bad. It doesn't have to make sense, and the arguments can contradict each other without one or being needing to be seen as false, logic be damned.

[stitch1830]

All of your AUs are so good I love Taang, Kantoph, Zutara and Lin having good parents💕i think every one of those aus would be better than cannon. I don't like Sokka as Suyin's father because I don't want him as a deadbeat dad, tlok already made enough beloved characters bad parents but I could see that it could be true. Kantoph being protective of their little girl after Tenzin hurt her is the best and if Aang is alive Pema is 18 or even younger and I hope even Kataang would be mad

Hi Anon, thank you for the ask! And thank you so much for your kind words! :D I love chatting with you guys and coming up with scenarios for these questions, it’s so much fun and you all make it amazing too! :)

All the ships you mentioned are fantastic beloveds of mine, and I’m glad you enjoy my ideas for them haha! Perhaps I’m biased, but I agree, those ships would’ve been great canon alternatives (or with Kantoph, just more elaboration haha!). Zutara is a very interesting ship to explore, and there are so many great works to choose from and talented contributors!! Taang my beloveds, they got me into fandom and writing so they hold a special place in my heart :’) and KANTOPH. My little rare pair beloveds they’re amazing I’m having so much fun building a Kantoph world, and I hope others can find some amusement in my ramblings haha. Lin deserves the entire world, and it starts with her loving parents Toph and Kanto because they are gems and fabulous parents.

The Sokka is Suyin’s father is a very interesting debate, and with that concept there really is a lot of room to explore what that relationship could be like for Sokka and the Beifong’s. But I agree with you, it’s not my favorite headcanon/thought, only because it makes it seem like Sokka was an absent father when he probably wouldn’t have been. I must say, these are very interesting stories to read, just kind of stinks that we only really see those kind of fics in the Tokka tags now haha.

And as far as Aang and Katara being mad at Tenzin for hurting Lin? I could see it! Kanto and Toph would come storming up to their home and chewing them out for Tenzin being an airhead, and while Aang and Katara have Tenzin’s back and defend him from the wrath of the Beifong’s, I can see them being pissed at Tenzin for a moment. In the end, they probably know that Lin and Tenzin probably wouldn’t have worked out (if they had such different beliefs in LOK still), and it was better for them to not be in a relationship, but the way in which he broke up with her then immediately got with Pena was disrespectful. And I feel like respect is something that Aang and Katara want their kids to have with all people and cultures, so the fact that he let them down when breaking up with his girlfriend who just so happens to be the daughter of their close friends, is not a highlight for them lol.

And yes protective Kantoph my beloveds you guys take care of your little badgermole Linny. Kanto would be a menace lmao NO ONE messes with his baby girl.

Anyway, thank you again for the ask, Anon! Feel free to stop by anytime and chat, especially about our fav ships ;) Hope you have a great day!

……

Send me asks about ATLA, or anything, really! :D

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Since when young Tenzin is underloved? His dad loved him the best and treated him as the special one and his mom adores him and maybe his siblings would give him shit when they were kids because they were jealous but he had Lin as a good friend and then he cheated on her with a 20yrs younger woman. The guy gets as much loved as he deserves

Hi, anon! So there’s a few things to unpack here, so I’ll try to be as concise as I can. This is pretty much what I think Tenzin’s childhood was really like and why he should be appreciated just as much as Bumi and Kya. Also with Kataang TLOK parenting thrown in. I’m pretty tired and don’t wanna edit an essay, so I apologize if it rambles.

Also, I’m not gonna touch the whole Tenzin cheating point. I’m fairly certain that that’s just objectively wrong. Everything else I’m more than happy to discuss, though:D

To be clear, when I say I feel like Tenzin is under-loved, I mean by the fandom (and by TLOK, but to a smaller degree). Under-appreciated might be a better word. Or under-explored? Idk. I just know that Tenzin’s childhood—just his—doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Outside of Tenzin having some angsty one-on-one’s with Aang (which I love, make no mistake!), I don’t see a lot fleshing out his childhood. Bumi and Kya get a lot of it, though (or the kids as a whole, but nothing that’s just Tenzin’s).

I don’t subscribe to the idea that Aang treated Tenzin as “the special one.” Bumi and Kya being jealous—in the way that seems to be the majority consensus—of Tenzin when they were kids is a bit hard for me to imagine, too. I try to stick to canon as much as I can, but, for some things, I have to draw the line. There has to be evidence, not just anecdote, otherwise I hc it into oblivion. I’m not saying their feelings in TLOK aren’t valid. They absolutely are, and Aang would never want those feelings to be invalidated. Children just retain things differently. A traumatic accident could have no effect on them but falling in the shower and bumping their head might. Developing brains are weird. 

I can see Kya and Bumi giving Tenzin some shit when they were kids (Tenzin does admit that Kya picked on him), but I highly doubt that was any more/less than normal sibling rivalry and Cain Instinct. Sure, Aang might have given Tenzin attention for being an airbender, but he gave Kya and Bumi attention for being a waterbender and a non-bender, too. To me, it’s like having siblings who play different sports. Just because dad went to every one of my sister’s soccer games doesn’t mean he didn’t attend every one of my basketball games. The hyperfixation on airbending in TLOK makes it sound like that was all Aang cared about, but even in ATLA we can see that that isn’t true. If it was, then he would have kicked out the mechanist from the Northern Air Temple. 

To say that Aang loved Tenzin the best is to imply that he loved his other children poorly, which isn’t true in the slightest. I can entertain the argument that he spent more one-on-one time with Tenzin, but that could be attributed to different children with different personalities having different wants and different needs for validation from their parents. And I will gladly defend it, even though I personally hc otherwise.

It’s hard to talk about Tenzin without also talking about Aang and Katara, so bear with me here:

Tenzin and Kya:

Tenzin was the last airbender besides Aang. Kya was the last waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe besides Katara. To assume Aang treated Tenzin as the “special one” because he’s an airbender would, if using the same logic, mean assuming Katara treated Kya as the “special one” for being a waterbender. 

I’ve never understood why The Southern Water Tribe being inherited by the Kataang kids isn’t as big of a deal as Air Nomad culture. Both of them were recovering cultures on the brink of extinction, so they both have a lot of pressure for the kids to live up to.

Plus, if Sokka had a right of passage for being a Water Tribe warrior, then who’s to say there wasn’t a right of passage for Kya, specifically, for being a waterbender? She would be the special one, there. And maybe Tenzin struggled with his two heritages because being an Air Nomad meant being vegetarian but being Water Tribe meant using dead fish to go penguinsledding?

Tenzin and Learning too soon:

Tenzin probably learned about his responsibility of carrying the legacy of the airbenders at a very, very young age. Aang and Katara probably tried their hardest to wait until he was older to tell him (a-la Gyatso wanting to wait until Aang was older for him to carry the burden of being the airbenders’—and the world’s—last hope, too), but it was unavoidable. It was a part of the world’s history, and the aftermath of the war wasn’t exactly something a kid could avoid. Plus, I’m sure Aang wanted to correct airbender history as it was taught in schools as soon as he got the opportunity after the war.

Tenzin just has the abstract “idea” of what his bending culture was like when it was alive and well. Aang has memories to draw upon from which to imagine the future that the airbenders needed to rebuild towards. Tenzin gets second-hand notes.

Tenzin also didn’t have a baseline by which to measure if he was a “good airbender.” He had only Aang to compare himself to. ONLY AANG. This is talked about in TLOK but only in regards to Aang being his dad, if I’m not mistaken. But Aang isn’t just Tenzin’s dad. Aang is his father, the Avatar, and the youngest airbender to get his master’s tattoos. That’s a LOT more to live up to than just being his kid. And it’s the only thing Tenzin has to compare himself to to measure whether or not he’s a good airbender. I’m shocked that his spiritual ineptitude isn’t more of a haunting issue for him, quite frankly.

Tenzin and Bullying:

Tenzin didn’t have any airbenders his age (anyone like him) growing up. Even Aang had a childhood with other airbenders. As a father, Aang was as playful as a kid, sure, but, to a child, it isn’t quite the same because they don’t share that special bond of growing together and having a shared upbringing. 

Katara can especially empathize with this. 

Airbending is the element of fun. It’s kindof hard to express/embrace that facet of the element if Tenzin is the only one his age who can wield it.

I can almost guarantee that Tenzin got voted out of playing with other kids at least a few times because he was the only airbender (and that would make teams unfair). He probably learned to play by himself. That would certainly make him serious. Toph would probably teach him how to entertain himself, too. And that might lead to Tenzin and Lin hanging out. Who knows?

I honestly think Tenzin was bullied quite a bit (and not by Kya and Bumi), and that the bullying attributed to his demeanor as he grew up. Him cowering from Kya or running from his siblings when they picked on him was an exasperation of what he was probably dealing with outside his home.

In the recent comic with Katara and the pirates, we see a Fire Nation soldier flaunt some pretty nasty ideas about the Air Nomads because of Sozin’s propaganda. I don’t think that 15 years (or however long Tenzin was born after the war) is going to reverse that. Tenzin was probably picked on for being an airbender in addition to being the Avatar’s kid. 

If the rise of fashion post-war was as fast-growing as industry, I can imagine kid-Tenzin being made fun of for being bald (even though it was part of his religion/culture) and for dressing in robes when the world, especially Republic City, was beginning to adopt different clothes. 

Tenzin is an incredibly tender soul around those he loves but also incredibly serious around his adversaries. He has a soft inside and an armored shell, and that thick skin is usually forged through unsavory interactions. And he definitely interacted with plenty of normal kids his age. Aang missed the chance after the ice, and Katara was the only one her age in her village besides (kindof) Sokka. There’s no way Aang and Katara would keep their kids cooped up and strictly homeschooled. At the very least, Toph would bust them out if they did.

Tenzin and Katara:

Now, I’m not saying that Tenzin blames Aang because he obviously doesn’t. But Aang has memories of what airbender life was like, and Tenzin has only dreams. Honestly, it’s like he’s caught in the situation Aang was in when he was a young Avatar. They both have to live up to something that was pretty much just a legend. How could Tenzin possibly be expected to compare himself to something like that and be peachy fine? Aang wasn’t. So maybe, just maybe, Aang and Katara decided to have Tenzin go on private trips with Aang so Tenzin could understand that part of himself that was so hard for him to get? Inner peace is pretty dang hard to think about with THAT much pressure. 

And yes, it was Aang and Katara who decided on the trips. I will not for a second believe that 1.) Aang would make that kind of decision without her input or 2.) that Katara would let one of her kids get private time with dad that would even potentially give the illusion of favoritism. 

Katara knew how important one-on-one time with a parent was to some kids. This is why she tells Sokka to go see Hakoda instead of her in Ba Sing Se. She saw not only how much Sokka wanted but how much he NEEDED to see their dad. Sokka and Tenzin were both caught in a “passing of the torch” scenario (tbh, the scene where Aang tells Tenzin that he’s proud of him in the Spirit World reminds me of when Hakoda tells Sokka that he’s proud of him during the invasion when he’s injured. In both instances, it kindof solidifies the official passing of the torch).

“You didn’t love her like I did”—Katara learned pretty quick in tsr about how incredibly toxic the assumption of loving or being loved more/less was. She would never under any circumstance agree to anything that would show favoritism to one of her children. Absolutely no way. Aang and Katara are a team, and to villainize one for favoritism is to villainize the other.

Tenzin and Yue:

Tenzin had a stressful upbringing. I would even make the argument that he and Yue had a similar time trying to conform to a responsibility that they were told/learned about at a too young age. Their mindsets are very similar—responsibility even at the sacrifice of their own wants and happiness and an overwhelming love for their father.

Tenzin: “I have a responsibility to Republic City.” Yue: “I have a duty to my Tribe.”

They were both determined to love and carry on the legacy of their father and their people, but they did it in their own way. They both struggled with their responsibilities from an extremely young age.

Finishing thoughts I guess:

*********************************************

I can imagine a young Tenzin crying and trying to hide from the world that was shoving its weight onto his shoulders, and who, when Aang finds him hiding in the bison stables or somewhere similar, cringes away from Aang for a split second before recognizing his father and holding on so tight that it hurt. Aang tried his damnedest to teach Tenzin airbending and the responsibility of being the last airbender when Aang was gone, but even he knew that he couldn’t keep the weight of the world off of Tenzin forever. Aang never got that chance when he was told he was the Avatar. He heard the monks say that he was “the airbenders’ last hope” because storm clouds were gathering. Young Tenzin probably felt just as hopeless. The one-on-one trips he took with Aang were specifically to the places Aang had visited in S1 when he was still recovering from realizing that he was the last airbender. Maybe Aang took Tenzin with him one-on-one, just the two of them, to drive home the message that Tenzin was not the last airbender like Aang had been?

“I-I’m just one kid…I can’t. I…I-I’m just—”

“Shhh, shhh, shhh…I know, buddy. I know. But you’re my kid, too. You’re my entire world.”

“Everyone says I’m—”

“Don’t worry about them. They’re not here.”

“B-But—”

“But? What but? Are you hiding someone in your sleeping bag, Breeze-Butt?”

“N…No…”

“And do you see anyone else here?”

“…No.”

“That’s right. So don’t worry about them. It’s just you and me right now, okay? Just breathe. There you go. Just like I taught you—You’re doing so well, bud. Shhh…You’re okay. You’re not just one kid. You’re Tenzin. And you’re my son. You and your brother and sissy are my entire world. I love you so, so much...Oh, see? There’s that million-yuan smile!”

“…Thanks, Daddy. Love you.”

“Love you more. Do you want to try going in the water again? Or we can stay up here if you like. Whatever you want.”

“I wanna try again. But…But maybe just a small fish? I don’t wanna fall off again…I-I can’t do the air-chute yet…and the water hurt.”

“I’ll round up the smallest koi there is. I’ll sit right behind you, too. How’s that sound? I won’t let you fall.”

“Okay!”

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Maybe this has been said before idk. These are just my thoughts on Kataang parents and Tenzin. I retcon the entire Kataang family as it’s presented in TLOK, but this is how I imagine it going down in canon. 

This isn’t an attack on any person or fandom btw! I just think Tenzin isn’t as appreciated as the airbean deserves😞 He’s been through so much😭

If there’s a secret stash of young Tenzin appreciation content somewhere, please share!  I might be looking in the wrong places for Tenzin love, and I would love nothing more than to be wrong, honestly. So, please, if there’s a secret stash, yeet me that link!!